> On Mar 1, 2014, at 6:29 PM, Jurriaan Bendien <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I think a lot of Left intellectuals get wildly excited when they see evidence > of what they call “mass activity”, you know, demonstrations, riots, people > rampaging around and so on, because it gives credence to what they imagine a > revolutionary upsurge to be. It’s been like that, ever since I became more > politically aware as a young student in the late 1970s.
Here's an good analysis of the Ukranian situation just prior to the downfall of the regime by the eminent Russian Marxist Boris Kargalitsky, who acknowledges: "The left on Independence Square in Kiev is invisible and inaudible. A few leftists, of course, were earlier beaten up and chased off. Bubtt at the moment, the left is so insignificant in terms of its presence and influence that no one even bothers any more to beat up its members. For the most part, the Ukrainian left exists solely within its own imagination. This, of course, does not mean that the left will never again materialise as a political force, but the first condition for this will be that it recognises the actual state of affairs." http://links.org.au/node/3734 Most of us would agree that Kargalitsky's observation is valid beyond the Ukraine. Outside of a few countries like Greece and Venezuela, the Left - or rather the tiny remnants of what was once a powerful international socialist movement - does today for the most part exist mostly within its own imagination.
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