Zizek says that "politics proper is thus something specifically 'European'" and that left needs to appropriate the "the true Eu- ropean legacy from ancient Greece onwards" (A Leftist Plea for Eurocentrism). Albert Camus says something similar in "The Rebel" that rebellion is essentially a modern western phenomenon. Even Marx and Engels "had supported Bismarck's war against France, and Engels had applauded the expansion of the 'bourgeois' United States into the continental southwest at the expense of the "lazy Mexicans.' Similarly, Engels justified Germany's annexation of Schleswig from Denmark as 'the right of civilisation against barbarism, progress against quiescence'"(Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship) You might just dismiss this as historic prejudice, spooks etc but I do not see any scenario in which a revolutionary movement does not in anyway appeal to the identity of proles living in the area. The fact that nationalism is an "imagined community" or that it is a fluid historic construct makes no difference. People respond to social myths not appeals to egoism or self-interests. Lenin himself said that class consciousness normally does no go beyond trade union consciousness.
Does leftpol deny that nationalism or at the very least friend-enemy distinctions will always exist and that people do not want to live in some open borders society? If you're still skeptical consider how diversity tends to lower social trust and how all the communist projects of the 20th century were in some way nationalist.
The book excerpt is from Olga A. Narkiewicz's "Marxism And The Reality Of Power 1919-1980" It's out of print.
Xavier Bennett
fuck off nationalist, I reject your spooks
Zachary Roberts
Communism can manage without Marx.
Blake Torres
How is that true? Even anarchist de facto have to establish dictatorships of the proletariat since expropriation necessitates force and revolution is inherently an authoritarian imposition of will.
Thomas Campbell
Oh boy this is gonna be a ride. Zizek is an edgy socdem at best. …fiction? Really buckoo? Have been criticized by certain Marxists and daddy mike as well. libcom.org/library/a-critique-of-the-german-social-democratic-program-bakunin Then stop being a socdem. Lenin was wrong and was trying to argue for a party of bourgeois intellectuals handing down socialism to the proletariat. If I didn't I'd be flying a rose and be in the dsa instead of rocking the strike flag and organizing my workplace and appartment building.
Communism will happen as the result of the proletariat's struggle against the bourgeoisie, not by the proletariat reading marx(ists) en masse. This idea of the movement of history comes from uncle karl's historical materialism, arguably Marx himself can be found to saying "Communism can manage without Marx". More specifically, Marx's own ideas aren't the end all be all of communism, else we'd all be still using the memefesto as a blue print and cheering when jewish niggers go broke. wew, Fredrich "slaves have it better than proles" Engles trying to dodge the arguments against hierarchy with talk of steam engines and violence being authoritarian was shit in the 19th century and is shit today. Calling violence inherently authoritarian is asinine ideology that ignores the context violence occurs, claiming a proletarian revolution and a bourgeois counter-revolution are both authoritarian because they both involve violence against class enemies is the height of absurdity akin to the modern centrists declaring everyone who isn't a pussy liberal to be real fascists. Such ideology can only be compared to that dril tweet about no difference between good and bad things.
The Rebel is Camus' political treatise Bakunin was a slavic nationalist Kropotkin discusses socialism in one country in the bread book and yet i dont see anarchist labeling him a socdem. And how have these revolts faired without leadership? Spontaneous movements like 68' in France, Occupy Wall Street. etc tend to fail. You don't have to worship everything marx wrote to realize that most successful revolutions couple intellectuals with the working class. You cant note that both revolution and counter-revolution involve violence and still be in favor of revolutionary terror like Trotsky said. It's in no way to being ambivalent to the class nature of the violence. Are we supposed to pretend that organize violence doesn't presuppose a state?
Also Bakunin famously denounced "the people's stick" i.e. it being okay for the state to use terror because it calls itself the people's/worker's state. Not something i agree with but it's ironic you cite "daddy mike" and criticize me on violence
Cameron Martinez
Damn it sure is easy to justify your particular brand of state violence when you're so myopic that you consider alternatives to also be state violence with no fundamental differences.