Can someone more versed in theory explain this quote from Homage to Catalonia (Appendix 1; when he explains the party lines)?
Is Orwell being an eternal Anglo and conflating Stalinism with "Communism"? He also keeps using the term "Right wing socialism" too and that the USSR was counter revolutionary because it was "propping up bourgeoisie capitalists because that was in its interests". Is he a propagandist hack?
Nah, he's just salty regarding what happened to POUM. Unfair, but understandable.
Is he just criticizing Leninism and not knowing that anarcho-communism is a thing that exists?
Orwell only went to fight in Spain because he wanted to kill some Catholics. Look up what his views on Catholicism were. He was a classic Anglo bigot.
I wouldn't call myself "well-versed in theory" but I think I can break it down.
I wouldn't say so. While a one-party democratic dictatorship is far from what Marx wanted, it is not an exaggeration to state that Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is focused on "centralism and efficiency". Marx saw an anarchist revolution in his lifetime and came to the conclusion that some kind of temporary state needed to be established in order to make the revolution permanent. While I don't think he ever emphasized centralism specifically I think efficiency was definitely his goal as you can tell by his views of "utopian socialism". Orwell even admits:
GOT YA, MICKEY O'REILY
HIBERNIAN INTERNET DEFENCE FORCE LEAVE
take your meds, back your sources up or return to going down on other men
just fucking google it you shitstain
Not OP but I definitely remember passages where he talks about how the Soviets would deliberately discourage revolutionary activity by western communists because they were worried it would paralyze potential allies in the eventual war with Germany. Basically Soviet backed communists were expected to act as anti-German patriots in countries like France and Britain, rather than attempting to destabilize and topple their capitalist governments.
huh… so this is the power of marxism
This was written before other types of anarchists where well known. Anarchist just meant anarcho-communist/syndicalist and communist meant Leninist.
I mean it was basically the doctrine of the United Front, which isn’t exactly a bad idea. It’s just a question of pragmatism vs ideological purity, which is at the heart of all real world political struggles.
Its not Anti-Communism its basically just Anti-Stalinist much like the policy of the POUM itself
Orwell does mix up terms a bit and use some weird terms to be fair
But he does a good job of pointing out the inherently Counter-revolutionary nature of the Spanish goverment and the pro-stalin communist parties
In what fucking pub did grow up you stupid mick bastard?
Realpolitik is the cost of having praxis.
...
I laughed way too hard to this
'Realpolitik is the cost of having praxis.'
t. Lev "Sailor Slasher" Bronstein
Orwell went to Spain as a journalist, not to fight. Your argument makes no sense.
Don't forget that orwell died before Stalin did. Lenins terrors and Stalin's purges were the only notable characteristics he had a chance to observe in the ussr. Also note that he was basically a Trotskyist.
Also note he never swallowed the Marx pill.
Meant for
Sort of, you could make the pragmatic argument that revolution is always the way to destabilize the enemies. After all the point of socialist revolution wasn't to create one socialist state, but to spark the world revolution. Losing sight of that and becoming conservative is part of what robbed SU of the historical initiative.
But he did fight do
But not because he hates the pope.
It goes back to Marx vs. Bakunin. "Marxists" have always been cowards and opportunists, nothing surprising here.
This is your brain on Maoism, folks.