I recently saw a a comment thread where someone asked for works on the history of the Soviet Union and someone unironically suggested 1984, and it made me think that we might need to address some of the more common forms of Western propaganda.
Orwell as you know, was a socialist and wasn't intending to write anti-socialist screed, but that's what his work has become, at least within the American education system. Americans have no great love for his works or their original intent, and I can guarantee you that while every young American will be assigned 1984 and Animal Farm at some point, Homage to Catalonia isn't assigned in any American classroom. It's used purely as propaganda by the American state.
The implicit message of 1984, as pushed by the American state, is "this is what all our enemies are like". You frequently get some pretty wild claims made about the enemies of the United States without a shred of evidence and people eat it up without question and it frequently makes me wonder why this is. I think a lot of it could be attributed to the cultural influence of 1984. Someone hears this blatant propaganda and just accepts it because it fits it with their 1984 conceptualization of what these foreign enemies must be like.
The other big work by Orwell is Animal Farm, originally a (pretty bad) allegory for the Russian Revolution, but used as propaganda that posits that any attempt at (socialist/communist) revolution will ultimately fail and turn into a totalitarian gulag run by a Stalin surrogate. I've seen the exact same claim that any attempt to organize a worker-controlled society will be taken over by this Stalin figure, and I think this perpetual concept has its roots in this book, as even the most hardcore Trotskyist doesn't claim that Stalin was some kind of supervillain that co-opted the revolution all by himself.
This concept has roots in reality and history. If you remove the upper classes, new replace them becouse of the power vacuum. The equal communist society is just a meme aimed towards the old elite to gain power for the new Stalin was no different than the Tzar in red paint.
And the same happened in all socialist countries.Kings and the clergy was swept away, replaced by dictators and politkomissars. It's funny how you guys feel special compared to the old order.
Landon Gray
Despite his contributions to Catalonia, Orwell ended up an anticommunist rat later.
Kevin Evans
The purpose of former revolutions was never to abolish class society altogether.
The tribes and rebels that ultimately ended the Roman Empire weren't trying to get rid of classes, they were just trying to end Rome, or at least loot it, and were successful in doing so. Feudalism arose more or less organically from the post-Roman world. The liberal revolutions that that ended feudalism weren't trying to destroy class (at least the Marxist understanding of it), but to destroy the power of the nobility and the church to a lesser degree, and succeeded in doing so. This historical president that attempts at creating a classless society always fail and revert to class societies doesn't exist. In fact, successful attempt at doing so (if small in scale and frequently crushed from without) seem to imply the opposite.
Owen Perry
I know, but what he became later on doesn't really have any bearing on what the intent of his books were when he wrote them.
Michael Howard
He was dying of TB by that point which is linked to paranoia and mental degradation. Kind of like how Nietzsche was dying of syphilis when he wrote Will To Power and that's why it seems so unhinged compared to his other stuff.
Lucas Murphy
Well, anti-authoritarian socialism yes, but not an "anticommunist rat". He never turned against DEMOCRATIC socialism, at least to my knowledge. He hated authoritarian socialism/communism (I know they're not equivalent per se) with good reason I feel, from my reading of Homage to Catalonia.
Hunter Jenkins
I wasn't.
Hunter Long
Examples and how were they crushed?
Carter Morris
Revolutionary Catalonia was first betrayed by the Stalinists in the Republican government and then crushed by the Francoists.
The Paris Commune was crushed by the French Army
Salvador Allende's administration was sabotaged by both economic warfare on the parts of the United States and his own domestic bourgeoisie, and then crushed by CIA-backed military coup.
The New Jewel Movement was crushed by an American invasion.
Sankara's Burkina Faso was crushed by the French in cohorts with tribal leaders.
So on and so forth.
Jaxon Williams
That's surprising. Where do you live?
Liam Ross
Wyoming.
Cooper Torres
So in fact, they weren't successful and were either crushed by inside force or outside force, or sometimes both.
How is this an argument for these movements?
Nicholas Anderson
That's interesting. Where I live everyone reads both those books in High School. It's required reading.
Eli Edwards
In my classes we never read another typical staple I've heard of, The Giver, if that means anything.
Aiden Richardson
All of those were examples of them being crushed by outside forces. The closest to "inside forces" would be the tribal leaders in Burkina Faso, though Sankara was hardly a friend of tribal leaders.
Though, this is a bad case of moving goalposts. Your original claim is that all worker movements would degenerate into Stalinist dictatorships because of a inherent flaw in the movement. Trying to claim that they were failures because they were crushed from without is changing the subject in an obvious way.
And there's some examples of ones that haven't been crushed. The Zapatistas have existed for decades and haven't degenerated or been destroyed from an outside force.
Isaac Green
Jeez. What do you read in Wyoming?
Carson Jones
I was asking for successful examples, these aren't successful examples considering how easily they were crushed by outside forces & inside forces.
The USSR can be considered successful because they repelled enemy invasion and survived for years. The worker movements you mention do not even survive long enough for any kind of state to emerge. The revolution that do succeed turn into dictatorship. Because they haven't formed anything, they are basically a guerilla force right now, a pest, not a society.
Wyatt Diaz
The Zapatista's control several towns in Chiapas, where they serve as the municipal administration.
These arguments are so predictable. Even in the small scale, it's still a proof of concept.
And I didn't mention Rojava, which has maintained a worker-directed economy in a warzone and managed to be one of the most effective fighting forces against ISIS.
Julian Myers
Bitch please.
Henry Barnes
So they are still in the government, or are they not? Unfortunately, you have one proof of concept vs many historical examples of how the revolution went. Do explain, do workers own the means of production? That would be the Assad's force, and Rojava relies on US airstrikes and US special forces, funnily enough.
Anthony Russell
No, they operate independently from the Mexican government. This is one of many. Many capitalist revolutions failed as well. The English Civil War created a horrible dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell and feudalism was restored after his death. The French Revolution ended with Napoleon declaring himself emperor and, after the defeat of Napoleon the first time, the restoration of the French monarchy. The Spring of Nations basically failed across the board. Liberal capitalism still won out in the end. The important part is the trajectory is history, not if this or that particular revolution succeeds. Yes. Assad is stagnating. The most gains he's made has been against the FSA, and those have been fairly small in terms of actual territory compared to the gains Rojava has made against ISIS.
Nolan Wood
Nietzsche having syphilis was a lie made up by some guy called Eichmann in the 1960's responsible for writing propaganda to discredit the Nazis in post-ww2 Germany Revisionists point out Nietzsche suffered only some of the symptoms of syphilis on and off for the final 11 years of his life Strange many symptoms were absent and that he apparently survived the final stages of an extremely debilitating and rapidly progressing disease for 11 years before the invention of penicillin When examined from a medical perspective doctors have pointed out his symptoms were far more in line with the symptoms of a brain tumor a disease not diagnosable in Nietzsche's era The syphilis lie was made up to introduce more hypocrisy into the ideology that the Nazis heavily espoused Sad really, Nietzsche was probably one of the lovable human beings to have ever existed
Carson Robinson
So where are their leaders? Most capitalist revolutions merged with their feudalist counterpart, and to this date, some feudalist elements still remain, because surprise, feudalism remains compatible with capitalism. How exactly do they own the MoP? Assad holds more territories and has more troops in general, while Rojava got the backing of the sole superpower of the world.
Gavin Peterson
English civil war did not devolve into feudalism after the Restoration, England hadn't been a proper feudal state since Magna Carts Parliament still had considerable power until William of Orange invaded and took the throne This power would be retaken and even expanded upon once the crown passed to George of Hanover and he relinquished a large amount of state control to Parliament and created the first office of Prime Minister to take care of duties he himself had difficulty attending to due to a language barrier and on and off dysentery
Tyler Ramirez
They don't have any formal leaders. No. Feudalism as a mode of production is gone. Some asshat in Europe calling himself a lord isn't feudalism. European feudalism has been dead for a century now, or would you like to show me where there are serfs tied to the land who've swore fealty to one of these lords who work on their lands three days of the week, on the lords lands three days of the week and take Sunday for rest and this is the basis of the economy.
Worker cooperatives.
Assad would likely be in a bad way if he didn't have the backing of Russia either. Playing on global politics is something all the factions are doing.
Brayden Ramirez
So where are the informal leaders? Feudalism is a mode of production? Mid-western farm hands? Workers cooperates are definitely not sign of workers holding the MoP, since it means the MoP is still controlled by the managers. Doesn't change the point. Rojava would fail without US's intervention.
Connor Richardson
To my knowledge, the Manga Carta didn't abolish or even weaken the feudal mode of production. At best, it just weakened the power of the king in favor of the lords. The feudal mode of production didn't really start to be replaced by the capitalist mode of production until the English Civil War. Sure, the king was never quite absolute and Parliament at times held considerable power, but that wasn't a reflection the mode of production.
Feudalism was a mode of production. Capitalism is a mode of production. It isn't if lords or elected bodies hold more power at any given time.
Isaiah Turner
First time I ever heard that feudalism is a mode of production, I thought it's a political system.
Levi Peterson
In the villages they control presumably. Yes. No, those would be agrarian proletariat in a capitalist relation. They work for an employer in exchange for a wage, they aren't under fealty to a lord.
Not all cooperatives even have manages and in the ones that do, the managers are an elected position.
Assad would have failed, or still be on his heels fighting the FSA and ISIS, without Russia.
Benjamin Cook
Political systems are structured on the mode of production.
Eli Jenkins
So who are they exactly? Except the peasants also work for the lords for a wage, this wage translates into literal money or food or goods. I somehow don't trust this, have anyone been in any of their cooperatives/factories? And? Assad has been allied with Russia for years. But Rojava being propped by the US…
Wyatt Fisher
So was the mode of production of a roman dictator different than an English king?
Jonathan King
Yes.
Roman dictators presided over classical slave systems rather than feudalism.
Caleb Cooper
But slaves also exist in feudalism, and peasants also exist in Rome.
Slaves also exist in capitalist too.
Joseph Davis
Serfdom didn't last long after Magna Carts that would be how I measure it Ever since Magna Carts England began a slow century long process where power would shift from a top down model where the monarch would hold less and less power until finally reduced to the status of ceremonial figurehead while real power shifted yo landed lords, then burgher's and burgesses, then finally to industrialists and oligarchs until it became a system where anyone could run for election and gain a seat in Parliament The course of which only started going backwards about 90 years ago Feudalism died in England during the Angevin period when serfdom ended and the peasants instead became 'renters' instead of serfs But England is ever the anomaly of Europe you can't apply any different model or system and expect it to stick English civil war was the only revolutionary period in England for the past thousand years, not like the rest of Europe/world that yo-yos between stagnation and chaos every century like clockwork
Xavier Parker
No one really knows. That's sort of the point, though. No one's really supposed to "lead" the Zapatistas. A famous figure among them was Subcomandante Marcos, though.
That's not how it worked at all. Peasants weren't given a wage. They worked their own land for a certain period of time, usually three days, the lord's land for a certain period of time, usually three days, and then had Sunday for rest. They kept the crops on their land, the crops on the lord's land belonged to the lord. This wasn't wage labor.
Why? There's been plenty of successful cooperatives before, they're hardly the first to create them. But, yes, their cooperatives are legitimate.
Assad is being propped up by Russia, Rojava is being propped up by the US. Welcome to global politics.
Dominic Nguyen
Of course. And there were early capitalist employer-employee relations in both. The point is the dominant mode of production. Most production in classical slave societies was done by slaves. Most work done in feudalism was done by peasants. In capitalism, it's employees.
Dominic Moore
So a leaderless bunch caring for themselves in a backwater somewhere, and the government is too incompetent to do something about that, I guess that's where communism can prosper. Peasants do not own any land. They are allowed to live on the lord's land, and they are given some of their food as compensation, or they are literally given money or goods by the lord, that is wage labor. The successful cooperaties i.e. Mondragon, do not differ themselves too much from capitalist corporations. How exactly? And welcome to the fact that Rojava is propped by the US, the super capitalist faction, and rely on them to survive.
Ethan Edwards
And the mode of production remains unchanged, they depend on a laborous class, be it, slave, peasant or employer. Do you have sources to back this up?
Mason Peterson
Feudalism is serfs not peasants there's a distinction between the two While in most of Europe peasants and serfs were the same you could be a peasant and have the right to own land and leave said land a serf could not
William White
Like I said, proof of concept.
That's not typically how it worked. Peasants were usually recognized as having their own lands. Except for, you know, being democratically managed by their workers. I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary and every article and story I've heard from people who had visited there indicated that their economy was democratically managed and their workplaces were worker controlled.
All the factions are super capitalist factions except Rojava.
Caleb Long
Doesn't really need sources tbh 90% of labour in Persia was done by slaves All manual labour in Athens and Sparta was done by slaves Roman plebs frequently complained to the tribune about losing wages due to competing with slave labour And eventually I think 1 in every 4 people inhabiting the Roman empire in the 3rd century AD was either a slave or former slave
I have to teach you history too? Look up why Rome implemented the grain dole for starters.
I'm aware of this.
Evan Jenkins
Well to add on to that Sparta had a strange model that was more like serfdom Where agricultural slaves lived almost entirely independent from the Spartan state and could live however they like as long as they filled their grain quota and obeyed every order a Spartan gave them while in their presence
Jason Ortiz
Not good enough, they are frankly irrelevant, and the fact is that they are irrelevant is what keeps them surviving. No, they weren't: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant If a peasant actually owns land, he would be a land owner or a farmer. For Mondragon case, you mean the CEOs. Which people exactly? So what's to say Rojava isn't super capitalist too?
Luis Kelly
So no source? So you use theory book to explain history? …you realize the feudal lords have the same thing, and so do the capitalists, they realize not every lands are fertile.
Ayden Cox
Did you even read your own linked wikipedia article?
Mondragon doesn't have CEOs to my knowledge. The closest they have is a council president. And these are elected positions.
I'm telling you to learn the theory you're badgering me about on your own instead of derailing my thread.
This is the last time I'm going to respond to you. This thread wasn't meant to teach some shitposter basic history or socialist theory.
Jaxson Thomas
Different guy lad Classical states relied heavily on slave labour to function Grain shipments feeding the Roman state is a whole other kettle of fish to me Though pretty sure the Roman grain dole was instituted as a means just to ensure the enormous population of Rome was in some way adequately fed Most if the grain came from the Nile in Egypt and eventually after the Romans had succeeded in partially revegetating areas of North Africa it also cane from Cyrene and Carthage which the Muslims would reduce back into a dust bowl 3 centuries later Pretty sure they were in the process of trying to turn Gaul back into the agricultural powerhouse it was pre-caesars invasion before the Tetrarchy wars and the Gothic invasions scorched earth the place again
Grayson Smith
But I just quote to you? Peasants do not own land. Get better knowledge, they have CEO. I'm not interested in theory, but history. Humor me with basic theory, because things aren't as Marx said they are.
Christian Adams
What the romans did is what later feudal lords, and capitalist did, it's called min-maxing on fertile lands in order to get the most out of it.
I don't think it has in particularly anything to do with who do it, be it slaves, peasants or employees.
Elijah Jones
No. Read some shit or go fuck yourself.
Stop responding to this guy.
Jeremiah Evans
Just don't point to some socialist theory and disguise it as a real history.
Camden Foster
I want to point out that Marx and Engels were more concerned with trends over time and that most of what you've posted is largely irrelevant. Because this isn't a socialist theory or conceptualization of history AMA.
If you want to be autistic about history, you'll want to look at Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and Origin of the Family.
Oliver Perry
That's not history either…
Lucas Cox
It deals with it, so that's what you're looking for.
So read it or get the fuck out and head on back to wherever you crawled out from.
Austin Ramirez
I highly doubt this is written in the same way Herodoctus history chronicles or Nihon Shoki is written.
Eli Williams
I don't really give a shit, famalam.
Isaiah Jones
Are you mentally handicapped?
Robert Collins
That was the impression I got.
Robert Barnes
I hadn't heard of this theory before.
Christopher Harris
Is there any way to know if Nietzsche had a brain tumor?
Austin Lewis
No but it's much more likely than syphilis. Just Wikipediaing syphilis shows that he lacked many of the most common symptoms. And the most likely candidate neurosyphilis doesn't seem to match it either. Here's one that says a common hereditary stroke disorder fits the bill. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18575181
Angel Rodriguez
Interesting.
Juan Hill
The implicit message of 1984 was "the future is to the proles (proletariat)". How is that western propaganda, tankie? It's what made me seriously think about socialism back when I read it.
Mason Richardson
I know im going to link Unruhe and he's kind of a meme, and I do disagree with the part how Orwell was always a socialist, towards the end he definitely snitched on some commies.
Because most people won't think beyond there being an evil regime called English Socialism. Nor will the teacher help them to look beyond that.
Levi Garcia
I wasn't talking about the book's actual message.
I was talking about it's message as pushed by the Western/American propaganda apparatus. What they clearly want you to think is that this is book about what their enemies are like in general, and what socialism is like specifically.
Carter Cook
America is probably the most 1984-esque nation, from what I know.
Alexander Williams
You've really never read a book, have you? Try it out, it's comfy.
Someone just unironically told me this on /liberty/
Ryder Turner
Thank you for proving why you need to be gassed
Josiah Anderson
Yeah and its in controlled by Zionist Jews, like totalitarian Soviet Union was controlled by Marxist Jews. Are you starting to see a common denominator here yet?
Ayden Adams
...
Michael Bennett
Thanks for proving why you need the gulag.
Noah Smith
Never change, Holla Forums
Noah Martinez
>in thread pointing out that the United States (and Western powers) use 1984 as propaganda to get people to conflate the dystopian country of Oceana with their enemies (especially socialist countries and especially the former Soviet Union)
