Socialist, Marxist and radical educational resources
Thu, 2008-06-19 10:17
#1
N.Beltov
Socialist, Marxist and radical educational resources
Thu, 2008-06-19 10:17
#2
N.Beltov
Well, for starters, there's the Online Coummunist University. It's not an official or structural part of the South African Communist Party but there is a connection. A cursory look at the reading lists are impressive: Paolo Freire, Amilcar Cabral, Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist "classics", etc. There looks to be everything for the aspiring radical activist to create their own curriculum on a solid foundation.
[url=http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/]Communist University[/url]
However, there is plenty more. Louis Proyect of the Unrepentant Marxist blog has an online marxism class [url=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxism_class/]over here at Yahoo groups. [/url]
And, I've recently discovered the blog of David Harvey. Harvey covers [url=http://davidharvey.org/]Reading Marx's Capital. [/url] A lot of people struggle with that work which is, nevertheless, critical in moving beyond Marx's humanistic and philosophical radicalism into his mature work.
Anyway, that's three sources. I didn't intend this thread to be limited to Marxist sources and subject matter, however, so others should feel free to add to this thread and not be limited to that trend.
Thu, 2008-06-19 14:57
#3
Marxists Internet Archive [url=http://www.marxists.org/]http://www.marxists.org/[/url]
Marxist.net [url=http://www.marxist.net/]marxist.net[/url]
socialistworld.net [url=http://www.socialistworld.net/]http://www.socialistworld.net/[/url]
What is Marxism? [url=http://www.marxism.org.uk/]http://www.marxism.org.uk/[/url]
Socialist Party FAQ [url=http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/FAQFrame.htm]http://www.socialistparty....
[ 19 June 2008: Message edited by: aka Mycroft ]
Thu, 2008-06-19 15:02
#4
A good site with many of the best writer.
[url=http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/index.html]Anarchist Library[/url]
Edited to add a link to a Canadian giant.
[url=http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll/Woodcock/index.html]George Woodcock[/url]
[ 19 June 2008: Message edited by: kropotkin1951 ]
[ 19 June 2008: Message edited by: kropotkin1951 ]
Mon, 2008-06-23 08:25
#5
The site of the International Institute for Social History (IISG in Dutch), in Amsterdam. I was actually on a tour of socialist history nerds during which we viewed the only extant page of the manuscript of the Manifesto: [url=http://www.iisg.nl]www.iisg.nl[/url]
Yeah, I know, normal people go to Amsterdam to smoke dope and gawk at sex workers. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
Tue, 2008-06-24 05:57
#6
Catchfire
For some great radicalist, 1968-style fun, head over to the [url=http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/all/]Situationist International Text Library[/url] at nothingness.org
Hits include Guy Debord's [url=http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/16]The Society of the Spectacle[/url], meant as the SI's book of theory.
quote:
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.
And its counterpart, the SI praxis, Raoul Vaneigem's [url=http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/35]The Revolution of Everyday Life.[/url]
quote:
People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths.
Hot stuff.
[ 24 June 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
Wed, 2008-07-16 08:10
#7
N.Beltov
David Harvey, who is the blogger currently about halfway through a free, online series of lectures on Marx's [i]Capital[/i], also has a 5 part YouTube contribution on [i]A Brief History of Neoliberalism.[/i] If Naomi Klein did not make use of Harvey's work in [i]The Shock Doctrine[/i], then her work certainly overlaps his efforts.
Anyway, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkWWMOzNNrQ]here [/url]is the link to the 5 part History of Neoliberalism.
And, as a bonus, here is a summary of Harvey's article on "Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction". It sounds a lot like Klein without the lightweight Keynesian remedies.
quote:
Neoliberalism has become a hegemonic discourse with pervasive effects on ways of thought and political-economic practices to the point where it is now part of the commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world. How did neoliberalism achieve such an exalted status, and what does it stand for? In this article, the author contends that [b]neoliberalism is above all a project to restore class dominance to sectors that saw their fortunes threatened by the ascent of social democratic endeavors in the aftermath of the Second World War.[/b]Although neoliberalism has had limited effectiveness as an engine for economic growth, it has succeeded in channeling wealth from subordinate classes to dominant ones and from poorer to richer countries. This process has entailed the dismantling of institutions and narratives that promoted more egalitarian distributive measures in the preceding era.
In a nutshell, Harvey characterizes neoliberalism as class warfare or class revenge by the bosses. In the face of such class warfare, those who preach abandoning class struggle, or claim that it is [i]passй[/i], are actually preaching capitulation or surrender in the face of this many decades of assault. That's what could be called [i]class treason[/i]. Yup.
[ 16 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Wed, 2008-07-16 10:16
#8
[url=http://galmuri.co.kr/link/marxism.htm]http://galmuri.co.kr/link/marxism....
This site seems to be a very long list taken from the old Jay's Marxist and Leftist Links site, which I can't seem to find any more.
Prepare to lose hours of your life combing through the many links there. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2008-07-16 13:57
#9
I thought the best title was the "Defend Lenin Mausoleum".
Wed, 2008-07-16 14:38
#10
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
[b]I thought the best title was the "Defend Lenin Mausoleum".[/b]
That does sound pretty funny! I'll look at it one day, might have something to do with Gorby.
Gorbachev recently [url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4068224.ece]ca... for the tomb to be removed and for Lenin to be buried in a grave with family members. Gorby must be running out of speaking engagements, and thought this dumb proposal would put him back on the speaker's circuit list. Why would the Russian government ever close down Lenin's tomb? It makes great money in tourist trade every year.
[ 16 July 2008: Message edited by: Robespierre ]
Mon, 2010-07-05 23:35
#11
N.Beltov
An excellent educational resource from David Harvey, the same fella who did an online series of lectures on Marx's Capital, on Econopocalypse in Marxist animation if you please! The whiteboard stuff is quite excellent, regardless of what you think about Marxist methodologies of analysis.
Econopocalypse: the Marxist animation whiteboard explanation.
That's 11 minutes you won't be sorry for spending watching a lecture.
Mon, 2010-07-05 23:39
#12
N.Beltov
For your inner Leninist, there's leninist.biz - a site with entire books, textbooks, etc., from the Soviet era reproduced.
Sat, 2010-07-17 13:03
#13
Beltov, I loved that animation.
Wed, 2010-08-04 12:55
#14
N.Beltov
Any prospective teacher, and not just Marxists, are going to have to become expert with these whiteboards. It is part of the future of the classroom. So it's a good animation for a couple of reasons.
Actually, my apologies. Whiteboarding does not use whiteboards. My mistake. The former refers to the use of shared software in which, for example, a diagram can be modified by a number of people at the same time. A whiteboard is the "new" chalkboard and, when combined with time-lapsed photography (RSAnimate), makes for a great educational tool. I'm going to start a whiteboard thread in this last sense shortly.
Fri, 2010-10-08 00:16
#15
N.Beltov
David Harvey: A Companion to Marx's Capital
(This is a 14 page .pdf file. )
Some quotes to follow. I should start off by mentioning that Harvey does his own slightly different version of "Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism". He refers to:
- classical political economy, mainly British
- ancient Greek philosophy expressed through the German critical philosophical tradition
- utopian socialism, primarily French
Now this is slightly different from what I've understood as the classical (Leninist) description. Here is David Harvey ...
Crudely put, this new scientific method is predicated on the interrogation of the primarily British tradition of
classical political economy, using the tools of the mainly German tradition of critical philosophy, all applied to illuminate the mainly French utopian impulse in order to answer the following questions: what is communism, and how should communists think?
That is definitely new. It reads like something Bertell Ollman might write.
One of the curious things about our educational system, I would note,
is that the better trained you are in a discipline, the less used to dialectical
method you're likely to be. In fact, young children are very dialectical;
they see everything in motion, in contradictions and transformations.
We have to put an immense eff ort into training kids out of being good
dialecticians. Marx wants to recover the intuitive power of the dialectical
method and put it to work in understanding how everything is in process,
everything is in motion. He doesn't simply talk about labor; he talks
about the labor process. Capital is not a thing, but rather a process that
exists only in motion.
And, one could add, that social class itself is such a "process" along the lines of what E.P. Thompson wrote in his famous preface to The Making of the English Working Class.
Every time I read David Harvey I'm impressed.
Fri, 2010-10-08 12:41
#16
For some great radicalist, 1968-style fun, head over to the [url=http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/all/]Situationist International Text Library[/url] at nothingness.orgHits include Guy Debord's [url=http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/16]The Society of the Spectacle[/url], meant as the SI's book of theory.
quote:
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.And its counterpart, the SI praxis, Raoul Vaneigem's [url=http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/35]The Revolution of Everyday Life.[/url]
quote:
People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths.Hot stuff.
[ 24 June 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
Years and years ago, while I was still a student, and penniless, I used the photocopier at the student newspaper to copy both books. I find Debord a little too dense to read comfortably. At least I didn't kill myself reading him. Vaneigem is much more accessible.
Ken Knabb's website has quite a few Situationist texts, as well as films, too.
Thu, 2010-12-16 14:15
#17
N.Beltov
Die Link in Germany is noticing a real spike in interest in reading Marx's Capital. One of the commentators noted that she thinks this will help their electoral prospects in next year's elections.
If this continues, then we may be seeing social democratic and NDP heads exploding. lol.
Sat, 2010-12-18 01:38
#18
Not really. I'd be glad for Germans. But this doesn't mean that Canadians will suddenly demand the same level of social democracy that existed in Germany for many years. Canadians are considered to be much more docile when it comes to politics. Here we have a phony majority machine to contend with as well as millions of disaffected voters as a result. Imagining that a party like Die Link would get anywhere in Canada is overly optimistic I would think. Here in Canada our FPTP system is designed to punish smaller parties before they gain any political momentum. The NDP, for example, has to work twice as hard as the two old line parties for every seat we win. A Canadians style Die Link party would be decades in the making.
Sat, 2010-12-18 14:36
#19
N.Beltov
Canadian history leads me to generalize differently. When the Canadian Communists - maybe the best example of a party to the left of the NDP here in Canada - were large enough to make a difference, they were illegal. They were illegal at their birth, they were illegal in the 1930's, and they were illegal during the height of the Cold War efforts to silence the entire left. Their leaders were imprisoned, deported, shot at while in jail (Tim Buck), and so on.
When they were not large enough to make a difference? No problem. They are a suitable subject for ridicule ... even by others on "the left" ... and much less repressive measures are taken.
The FPTP issue is significant but does not reflect Canadian political history of such parties. They are silenced in a different manner. And, of course, social democrats and the NDP and the NDPs predecessor (less so, true) were all part of this. I understand that you'd want to noisily pat the NDP on the back as you've habituated yourself to that as a kneejerk reaction to any and all critiques from the left of the NDP.
Sat, 2010-12-18 17:12
#20
Well most of us who vote NDP today had nothing to do with that part of Canadian political history. And we had nothing to do with rounding up lefties in Quebec during an FLQ crisis. Ordinary NDPers had little to do with the cold war propaganda and creating a sense of fear and paranoia among Canadians and Americans as that part of the political agenda went.
We simply vote for and advocate for the NDP in hopes that someday we might advance the case for electoral reform and make coalitions of the left more possible. Christ knows it will never happen if left to the Conservatives or Liberals or any coalition of those two old line parties. We think fighting for preservation of socialized medicine and a few social rights are worthwhile causes. And we think that the political right is strong enough and backed by enough of Bay Street that we don't need any more opposition. FPTP elections are a game for rich people to play in North America. The left has been divided for too long.
Sat, 2010-12-18 17:31
#21
N.Beltov
Well the best thing for Die Linke is to give the NDP "sister party" in Germany an electoral thrashing next year. Then you can entertain us all by your stories of how hard done by the German Social Democrats are. lol.
Sat, 2010-12-18 18:00
#22
Yes, it's always that the NDP are exactly like German social democrats, or like 'British Labour' under just Tony Blair and even though that party is not a social democratic party. But never do they suggest that Swedish social democrats, or Danish social dems, or Finnish soc-dems are inspirations for the NDP.
And then there is the myth surrounding the idea that socialism in one Canadian province while, at the same time, making no mention of the top-down neoliberal agenda in Ottawa since Mulroney and Chretien is even possible. Nary a word about those realities, because provincial NDPs should be able to rule the country from their corner of it at any given time no matter what. And it's pure fantasy. They would be largely disappointed with a short-lived provincial Marxist government given the political dynamics of an absurdly out-dated electoral system in Canada today. But we can be sure that they would blame the NDP for that, too. The extent of their leftist commentary is designed to overthrow the fourth political party in Ottawa as revenge for something that happened decades ago. And it's sad. We need a united front on the left not division and back-biting. It's the only way.
Sat, 2010-12-18 18:08
#23
N.Beltov
It's kind of amusing to read your attempts at re-gurgitating the meme the Liberals use to suck NDPers into voting for Liberal candidates. But then I realize that this is got bugger all to do with socialist, Marxist and radical educational resources, does it?
Sat, 2010-12-18 18:22
#24
I was expecting that one at some point. And it's true. I know people who voted Liberal in the past, and they told me it was because the NDP had no chance of stopping the conservatives. I tried telling them that a vote for the Lieberals is a vote for the Tories same old stories. They didn't listen then in the late 1980s and 1993 election. And now they just don't talk politics at all. They are jaded voters who see no point in voting. I don't actually know whether they vote now or not just that they don't appreciate me remininding them of how very similar those two old line parties really are. Why vote Liberal when you can vote Tory the same and vice versa same effect?
Anyway, youre right. This thread is not supposed to be about bashing social democratic parties on the left or me defending them - it's supposed to be about socialist education resources. 
Sat, 2010-12-18 20:46
#25
Sat, 2010-12-18 22:55
#26
N.Beltov
Nice, al-Q. I like the Crumb comic imagery.
Wed, 2011-01-05 08:07
#27
Existential liberalism is the spontaneous ethics suitable for social democracy considered as a political ideal.....It will not always be exactly easy going, but that is precisely where existential liberalism is efficient: it even provides the remedies to the discomforts that it generates. The cheque to Amnesty International, the fair trade coffee, the demo against the last war, seeing the last Michael Moore film, are so many non-acts disguised as salvational gestures. Carry on exactly as normal, that is to say go for a walk in the designated spaces and do your shopping, the same as always, but on top of that, additionally, ease your conscience; buy No Logo, boycott Shell, this should be enough to convince you that political action, in fact, does not require much, and that you too are capable of "engaging" yourself. There is nothing new in this trading of indulgences, just another false trail in the prevailing confusion......The increase in the number of environmentalist, humanitarian and "solidarity" associations opportunely channels the general discontentment and thus contributes to the perpetuation of the state of affairs, through personal valorization, recognition by public opinion, through the worship, in short, of social usefulness.....Above all no more enemies. At the very most, problems, abuses or catastrophes - dangers from which only the mechanisms of power can protect us.
When they see us withdraw from the painful rituals - the general assembly, the meeting, the negotiation, the protest, the demand - when they hear us speak about the sensible world rather than about work, papers, pensions, or freedom of movement, leftist militants give us a pitying look. "The poor guys", they seem to say, "they have resigned themselves to minority politics, they have retreated into their ghetto, and renounced any widening of the struggle. They will never be a movement." But we believe exactly the opposite: it is they who resign themselves to minority politics by speaking their language of false objectivity, whose weight consists only in repetition and rhetoric. Nobody is fooled by the veiled contempt with which they talk about the worries "of the people", and that allows them to switch from the unemployed person to the illegal immigrant, from the striker to the prostitute without ever putting themselves at stake - for this contempt forms part of the sensibly evident. Their will to "widen" is just a way to flee those who are already there, and with whom, above all, they would fear to live. And finally, it is they who are reluctant to admit the political meaning of the sentiments, who can only count on sentimentality for their pitiful proselytising. All in all, we would rather start from small and dense nuclei than from a vast and loose network. We have known these spineless arrangements long enough.
Sun, 2011-01-09 18:16
#28
N.Beltov
The Purple Thistle Institute - radical education in the summer of 2011 (East Vancouver).
WHAT IS IT? The PTI will be something like an alternative university, or maybe better: an alternative-to-university. The idea is to bring together a bunch of engaged, interested people to talk about theory, ideas and practise for radical social change. We'll have a great time, meet good people, get our praxis challenged and with luck refine and renew our ideas, politics and energies.Importantly, the conversations will very deliberately cut across radical orientations - anarchists, socialists, lefties, progressives, anti-colonialists, anti-authoritarians, ecologists of all stripes are welcome. The idea is to work, think and talk together - to articulate and comprehend differences sure - but to find common ground, get beyond factionalized pettiness and stimulate radical ecological and egalitarian social change. We want to get good people with good ideas together to talk and listen to each other.
WHEN IS BEING HELD? July 4th - 23rd, 2011
Sun, 2011-01-30 16:54
#29
N.Beltov
Marx's Capital vol 1 - a visual guide. The interactive, visual tour "through the complexities of this historically vital and still extremely relevant work. Detailed and accurate, this workshop is suitable for beginners but will also bring clarity for those already familiar with the material.
The workshop will be held at "Of swallows, their deeds, & the winter below", 283 College St. Toronto, on Sunday evenings from 7pm until 9pm starting January 30th for six weeks. The fee is $120."
vol's 2 and 3 to follow. The price may be a barrier for some.
Sun, 2011-02-06 06:12
#30
N.Beltov
Continuing Sources of Marxism: Looking for the Movement as a Whole
Richard Levins, who along with Richard Lewontin wrote "Biology Under the Influence", has an intereresting short little piece in a recent MR (Monthly Review) in which he outlines 4 new sources for the development of Marxism: Ecology, Feminism, National/Racial Struggles, and Pacifism. The influences are "both welcomed AND resisted" (emphasis mine). Short and to the point.
Mon, 2011-04-04 02:16
#31
N.Beltov
The Occupation Cookbook or the Model of the Occupation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb
The Occupation Cookbook is a "manual" that describes the organization of the student occupation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences that took place in the spring of 2009 and lasted for 35 days. It was written for two reasons: to record what happened, and to present the particular organization of this action in such a way that it may be of use to other activists and members of various collectives if they decide to undertake a similar action.
I think the authors are too modest; the preface and introduction are worth reading in their own right.
Thu, 2012-02-23 02:43
#32
M. Spector
[url=http://getpoliticalnow.com/]Get Political[/url]
Ours is a time of multiple crises generated by global capitalism. It is a time of global resistance, occupation, and insurgency. It is a time to connect with the ideas of Luxemburg, Trotsky, and Lenin – a critical-minded engagement with revolutionary resources, based on past revolutionary experience, as we consider future action for social change.New waves of young activists are compelled to become radical – going to the root of today’s problems, demanding a shift of power in society from the super-wealthy 1% to the increasingly hard-pressed 99%.
It will not be a simple thing to win the battle of democracy, to create a world in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. The problems we face have been more than two centuries in the making. Millions of people, generation after generation, have engaged in revolutionary struggles for basic human rights and dignity – liberty and justice for all, experiencing defeats and victories, learning and passing on an accumulation of lessons for those who would continue the struggle.
Luxemburg, Trotsky and Lenin were among the most perceptive and compelling revolutionaries of the 20th century. The body of analysis, strategy and tactics to which they contributed was inseparable from the mass struggles of their time. Critically engaging with their ideas can enrich the thinking and practical activity of those involved in today’s and tomorrow’s struggles for a better world.
A global activist collective – multiple individuals exploring texts on how to understand and change the world, proliferating study groups connecting revolutionary theory with the struggles of today and tomorrow – reaching out to the rest of the 99%, can have a powerful impact for social change. It is time, in the most revolutionary sense, to get political.
[b]Get Started:[/b] [url=http://getpoliticalnow.com/political-lives/]Slide Shows[/url]
--------------------
[url=http://getpoliticalnow.com/series/]The "Get Political" Book Series[/url]
The Get Political series is a response to the unconvincing and desperate rhetoric from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. As the crisis of neoliberalism develops, the established order becomes ever more helpless to improve things.These books are for people who want to learn about and construct real alternatives to unrestrained capitalism and the selfish individualism it encourages. The series invites a return to classic revolutionary thinkers and texts, which have inspired and continue to inspire radicals worldwide.
The selection is consciously eclectic, covering postcolonial theory, history and theatre as well as what would normally be termed ‘politics’. However, the works are unified by rejections of the status quo so convincing that they inspire not only agreement, but further reading and meaningful political action.
Wed, 2012-02-29 17:18
#33
M. Spector
Book review:
Lenin: Revolution, Democracy, Socialism by Paul Le Blanc
London: Pluto Press, 2008
[url=http://links.org.au/node/2762]Reviewed by Bryan D. Palmer[/url]
Lenin isn't much liked these days. Not that, in certain circles, he ever was. But the prejudice animating much anti-Leninism, with the revolutionary left in decline and disarray, is perhaps one reason why the current capitalist downturn is not being effectively challenged. "The crisis of humanity", Trotsky wrote in the 1930s, "with Lenin's legacy in tatters within the now no-longer revolutionary Soviet Union, is not inseparable from the crisis in the leadership of the international workers' movement. For all the antagonism to Lenin, his contribution to the living body of revolutionary thought is undeniably immense."With the implosion of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of Stalinist "actually existing socialism", there has been a tendency among many left activists and academics to collapse Leninism into Stalinism. Stress is placed on Lenin's ostensible brutality in suppressing opposition during the years of War Communism immediately following the consolidation of the 1917 Revolution. Such an interpretation, of course, has long been a staple of the anti-communist forces of the right and the social-democratic and anarchist left. The notion that terror was a fundamental feature of Bolshevism, whether led by Lenin and Trotsky or, later, by Stalin, is an old one. The indiscriminate lumping of Lenin and Stalin into an unappetising sameness, while always a part of the conventional wisdom of the mainstream, is nonetheless wrong-headed, both intellectually and politically....
Wed, 2012-02-29 20:39
#34
I think that 30 million more deaths by 1946 in the Soviet Union was the ultimate in terrorism by which all other acts of terror last century to this one are measured. If any countries had reason to declare a state of national security and for raising an iron curtain, it was the former Soviet Union.
Thu, 2012-03-01 01:35
#35
M. Spector
Are you referring to Stalin's reign of terror or are you talking about Soviet deaths in World War 2? I think you should make that clear.
Thu, 2012-03-01 08:30
#36
The Great Purge years produced anywhere from 600,000 to 1.2 million deaths depending on whether declassified Soviet documents or western numbers are used. This is nowhere near the 20 to 27 million figure for the former USSR occurring between the years 1939 and 1946, again, depending on whether Soviet or western estimates.
Roughly 13% of the the Soviet Union's population were dead and missing as a result of WW II. By comparison perestroika, or the Western world's eonomic plan to destroy the USSR, killed off another 10% of Russians in the 1990s and left the population declining by 700,000 a year. The switch to gangster capitalism produced nearly as many orphans in Russia as Soviet WW II casualites. It was an inside job or top-down revolution with Yeltsin fending off democracy for them.
Thu, 2012-03-01 10:28
#37
M. Spector
Thanks for clearing that up.
Thu, 2012-03-01 18:12
#38
I tend not to make apologies for the former USSR. It was what it was by the end, which was a corrupt empire lacking national investment in infrastructure, social development and technology. However, the general consensus among the CIA and most Sovietologists is that the USSR could have continued despite the dirty wars waged by the west and despite trade embargoes. Boris Yeltsin and company's counterrevolution eliminated the Soviets, their best hope for democratizing the former USSR. It's my opinion and that of many that dissolution of the USSR was a terrible tragedy of the last century.
Thu, 2012-03-01 18:42
#39
M. Spector
I agree with you, except for the use of the word "empire", which was never used until after Yeltsin's counterrevolution, and was then coined by the triumphalist imperialists. There are good reasons why it was never used, in that there are many characteristics of an "empire" that did not apply to the USSR. I eschew the term myself, but avoid arguments over terminology, where very little is at stake.
I also disagree on the alleged lack of "national investment in infrastructure, social development and technology". They did beat the USA into space, for example. And they did turn a feudal backwater into an industrial giant and made huge strides in providing universal medical and education systems.
Thu, 2012-03-01 19:39
#40
I agree with that assessment. But, afterall, they did "invade" Afghanistan to put down a popular people's rebellion against Soviet "aggression." We know now, though, that the CIA, ISI and Saudi royals were meddling in Afghanistan by about half a year before. The Sovs were invited into the country by the PDPA government to help them fend off what was essentially a foreign-armed insurrection led by theocratic feudalists, Afghan drug barons etc opposed to the PDPA's land redistributions, women's rights etc. Zbigniew Brzezinksi's maniacally racist comments about "a few stirred-up Muslims" were made while admitting to the west's clandestine interventions in Afghanistan well beforehand. After more than three decades' worth of U.S. and British meddling in Afghanistan, it is a failed nation state. Democracy prevention and destabilization is the imperialist's game all along. Straightjacketing whole countries by indebtitude to a western banking cabal is the new imperialism. We are told by Harvard professors that wars and military aggressions are declining in frequency since the last century and due to the peaceful new world order of neoliberal capitalism. Marauding capital is supposed to achieve today what standing armies did on behalf of the blue bloods and oligarchies over the course of centuries, although the Atlantic Alliance's luftwaffe is still needed to enforce the rules from time to time. NATO armies are a long way from the Atlantic region nowadays.
There has been a transition from cold war to a state of liquid terrorism, "civil wars", and destruction of economic and national sovereignty paving the way for marauding capital and NATO interventions. While citizens of various countries including the U.S. want more national security, their actual response is privatizations and subcontracting everything from security to public services. Some have said that neoliberalism is a prescription for a new dark ages. Imperialist ends today are achieved by funding proxy armies and mercenaries for hire as it was in 1980s Afghanistan, 1990s Bosnia, Libya and now Syria. The cold war never ended and Atlantic Alliance has continued surrounding Russia and China militarily. The new peace of Westphalia, or neoliberalism, is not democratic as was observed in Pinochet's Chile through counterrevolution in 1990s Russia and today's ongoing destruction and destabilizations of former Soviet republics. I agree with American Michael Hudson when he says he doesn't advocate for, for example, Belarus' economic setup, which is also corrupt. But Hudson says they are still far better off under the present arrangement than having neoliberalism foisted on them. Maintaining economic and monetary independence from the west is key according to rogue economists like Hudson. A better situation is then possible.