[Marxism] More than 30 nations meet in Cuba to discuss Ebola fight at ALBA-initiated summit

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Representatives from more than 30 countries across the Americas met in
Havana on October 29 to discuss a regional plan of action to combat Ebola.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57665


-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Scotland: Spirited socialist conference tackles post-referendum challenges

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols, Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s Augustine United Church is a pretty cold place when the wind is
howling, as it was when the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) held its annual
conference there on October 25.

But all feelings of chill disappeared when the 200-plus SSP members got
down to tackling the challenges of an inspiring new period in Scottish
politics.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57641

-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] A panel discussion on Cuban TV

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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The author was previously a BBC correspondent in Cuba.
ken h

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=107011
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: 5 Things About Slavery You Probably Didn't Learn In Social Studies: A Short Guide To 'The Half Has Never Been Told'

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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My personal appreciation to both Manuel and Jeff.

To clarify, I said nothing about the U.S. Constitution, which William Lloyd
Garrison rather aptly described as a covenant with death and an agreement
with hell.  Rather, I was discussing the Mexican constitution of 1824 which
eliminated slavery.

In 1834, Santa Anna led a coup that overturned the government based on this
document. This is the fellow who told one U.S. official, "a hundred years
to come my people will not be fit for liberty."  His coup was unpopular
over much of the country, and sparked the resistance in Texas (and
elsewhere).

Did the Anglos jump in and take advantage?  Yes.

Did they redirect these legitimate concerns in ways that would suit them?
Of course.

Were the people there better off for this having happened?  Certainly not.

Solidarity!
Mark L.
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[Marxism] Burkina Faso president resigns amid uprising, Sankara's spirit inspires new generation

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore finally stepped down on October 31,
ending his 27-year rule and handing over to joint chief of staff General
Honore Traore.

Campaore first came to power in a coup that overthrow the revolutionary
government headed by Thomas Sankara, which was leading a profound
transformation of the west African nation.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57634

-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Fwd: Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2014/10/31/suicide-deaths-us-military-war-study/18261185/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Braddock America; The Hadza: Last of the First | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Two very fine documentaries that opened today in New York serve as 
counterpoint to Joan Robinson’s observation in “Economic Philosophy” 
that “The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared 
to the misery of not being exploited at all.”


“Braddock America”, which will be showing at the Anthology Film Archive, 
is an obvious confirmation of Robinson insofar as it demonstrates the 
terrible human costs of a Pennsylvania town losing 90 percent of its 
jobs as the steel mills closed down. By contrast, “The Hadza: Last of 
the First”, which opens at the Quad, suggests that the worse thing for a 
gathering-and-hunting tribe of a thousand souls that has lived outside 
the capitalist economy for millennia in Tanzania would be wage labor. 
Furthermore, the primitive communism of the Hadza points to alternatives 
to the current wage slavery that offers nothing but a Hobson’s choice to 
humanity: “take it or leave it”.


full: 
http://louisproyect.org/2014/10/31/braddock-america-the-hadza-last-of-the-first/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Shooting the Arab Spring » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On December 17, 2010 Tunisian street vendor Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed 
Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest police brutality and corruption. 
His martyrdom touched off the Arab Spring that affected just about every 
nation in the Middle East and North Africa, including Libya. This week I 
saw two films that should be of great interest to anybody with more than 
a passing interest in the ongoing struggle for human rights and social 
justice in the region, which means just about every CounterPunch reader. 
Both are sober accounts of the human costs of the struggle and a step 
back from the heady enthusiasm that was associated with the Arab Spring, 
a term that now requires some interrogation given the distressing 
conjuncture. Whether or not the term Arab Winter is more justified is 
open to argument. In any case, to help understand the ongoing process, 
“Point and Shoot”, a documentary about Matt VanDyke, an American who 
took up arms against Qaddafi, and “Die Welt”, a narrative film about 
Tunisia, are good places to start. Leaving aside their value as social 
commentary, these are two films of the highest achievement artistically 
and on the inside track for my nomination as best documentary and 
foreign film of 2014.


full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/31/shooting-the-arab-spring/
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Re: [Marxism] Question on China

[Jim via Marxism]

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[reply inline / bottom-posted]

on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:44:12 -0700, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote:
> 
> [...]
>
> The article that interests me is under the title Author of book on Chinese 
Organ Harvesting To
> Talk Here.
> http://www.amazon.com/Ethan-Gutmann/e/B001K7S48M
> While I believe there is repression of Falun Gong, this story struck me as 
rather far-fetched.
> Who can enlighten me on this?  If i am well enough informed, I would like to 
send a letter to the
> editor in response to this article.

This is based on the David Kilgour and David Matas report of these lawyers' 
fieldwork published in 2007. Its main contentions were based on Chinese 
government documents and have not been refuted AFAIK. Not content with 
harvesting organs from executed prisoners - without permission, of course - the 
ghoulish tyrants who run China have authorised even more revolting organ 
harvesting. This involves keeping Falun Gong members incarcerated until their 
organs are needed for transplant purposes, then taking said organs forthwith, 
fatally, and definitely without permission. Oh, yes, and it's all done for 
profit, nothing else. Just another manifestation of the foulness that is the 
Capitalist Party of China regime.

The report appears here: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/

-- 
Jim (j...@redunity.org) on 31/10/2014
NUJ 024828
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: 5 Things About Slavery You Probably Didn't Learn In Social Studies: A Short Guide To 'The Half Has Never Been Told'

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(Forwarded from Manuel Barrera.)

Jeff: " We could have a more productive discussion if people don't make 
such charges, and especially if differing takes on historical questions 
are not automatically taken to reflect different world views or 
political positions on current issues. I know we all are tempted to do 
that during a heated argument. But to make such a valid charge, you 
would need to show how that person's conclusion flowed from the evil 
ideology or from flawed historical records, for instance. Let's try to 
keep the discussion more civil."


Two points:
First, I think we should avoid calling for "civility" in our discussions 
given what that connotation has recently meant within the democratic 
struggle around academic freedom surrounding U of Ill. firing of Steven 
Salaita. If someone is demonstrating some ignorance based on seen or 
unseen notions of "White supremacy", such individuals should be called 
on it. Example abound, and just because it is revolutionaries of color 
who may be the most attuned to such constructions--of history or 
discourse--does not require "us" to be "civil". Indeed, everyone should 
just pay attention. After all, are revolutionaries and Marxists the one 
group of people who must be able to learn from our mistakes and mistaken 
notions?


Having said that, Second, I disagree completely with the idea that one's 
assessment that the Texas war for "independence" (otherwise known as the 
war promulgated by reactionary bourgeois interests in the early U.S., 
especially those interests based on bringing one additional slavery 
supporting state into the nascent Union) was not about slavery but about 
other things is somehow "defending white supremacy".


In the case of the white colonists of Texas--these were known as 
"TexiANs"--and the fruits of Spanish colonialism--known as "TexiCANs" or 
"Tejanos"--both forces had very different reasons why they wished to 
fight and overthrow Mexican rule. That a tacit "coalition" 
existed--along with the historical might of the bourgeois-democratic 
revolution--and resulted in the defeat of Mexican rule over Texas does 
not confer some utter "progressivism". History, and the Truth, are 
concrete. The results are what we have. The "Mexicanos/Tejanos" did not 
benefit from the war for "independence" except perhaps in the minds of 
some Marxists that somehow bourgeois revolution is "historically" 
progressive. History and how society progresses is NEVER a foregone 
conclusion--yesterday or today--it simply is "what it is" and people 
live with or overcome the consequences.


Who could reasonably argue that Mexicanos/Tejanos/Now Chicanos actually 
benefitted from the Texas war for "independence"; actually or 
"historically"? I am reminded of the slaughter by the Texas Rangers--the 
historical continuators of those "Texians"--on the Rio Grande border in 
response to the struggle to regain stolen land by Mexicano/Chicano 
peasants/ranchers influenced by the Mexican Revolution of 1910 dubbed as 
the first "war against terrorism" (cf. Johnson, 2005, 
http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300109702).



In any case, Mark's commentary seemed a little unclear as to whether the 
"constitution" he was referring related to Mexico's constitution and, 
therefore, the Mexicans fighting to keep Texas within its purview was 
more progressive because of the clear intents of White "rebels" to grab 
Texas for the Union or if he meant that the U.S. Constitution was 
inherently more progressive and thereby the racist White "rebels" were 
working "historically" in progressive interests. This latter view--if 
indeed it is Mark's view--seems wholly ridiculous since we know exactly 
what the White "rebels" actually accompished. The former interpretation 
(again, I am still unsure which he meant), while plausibly progressive 
"historically" speaking simply did not really apply to the 
Mexicano/Tejano population were viciously oppressed by Mexico. Hence, 
the key sector of the population--"latifundistas", campesinos 
Tejanos/Mexicanos (most at the time considered themselves 
Mexicans)--were NEVER going to come out alright by this inter 
"pre-imperialist" "bourgeois-demoocratic revolutionary" war for 
"Independence".


In my view, Clay is not only wrong about his estimation of Mark's 
"defense of white supremacy", but further reflects a wholly 
ill-considered understanding of this pretend "war for independence" 
seemingly gleaned from a visit to the Alamo! I am not sure of Mark's 
points completely, but I would categorically disagree that a Marxist 
historian known for his work in his hometown in supporting and working 
for civil rights, Bl

Re: [Marxism] "Defending white supremacy"

[Manuel Barrera via Marxism]

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Jeff: " We could have a more productive discussion if people don't make such 
charges, and especially if differing takes on historical questions are not 
automatically taken to reflect different world views or political positions on 
current issues. I know we all are tempted to do that during a heated argument. 
But to make such a valid charge, you would need to show how that person's 
conclusion flowed from the evil ideology or from flawed historical records, for 
instance. Let's try to keep the discussion more
 civil."

Two points:First, I think we should avoid calling for "civility" in our 
discussions given what that connotation has recently meant within the 
democratic struggle around academic freedom surrounding U of Ill. firing of 
Steven Salaita. If someone is demonstrating some ignorance based on seen or 
unseen notions of "White supremacy", such individuals should be called on it. 
Example abound, and just because it is revolutionaries of color who may be the 
most attuned to such constructions--of history or discourse--does not require 
"us" to be "civil". Indeed, everyone should just pay attention. After all, are 
revolutionaries and Marxists the one group of people who must be able to learn 
from our mistakes and mistaken notions?
Having said that, Second, I disagree completely with the idea that one's 
assessment that the Texas war for "independence" (otherwise known as the war 
promulgated by reactionary bourgeois interests in the early U.S., especially 
those interests based on bringing one additional slavery supporting state into 
the nascent Union) was not about slavery but about other things is somehow 
"defending white supremacy".  

In the case of the white colonists of Texas--these were known as "TexiANs"--and 
the fruits of Spanish colonialism--known as "TexiCANs" or "Tejanos"--both 
forces had very different reasons why they wished to fight and overthrow 
Mexican rule. That a tacit "coalition" existed--along with the historical might 
of the bourgeois-democratic revolution--and resulted in the defeat of Mexican 
rule over Texas does not confer some utter "progressivism". History, and the 
Truth, are concrete. The results are what we have. The "Mexicanos/Tejanos" did 
not benefit from the war for "independence" except perhaps in the minds of some 
Marxists that somehow bourgeois revolution is "historically" progressive. 
History and how society progresses is NEVER a foregone conclusion--yesterday or 
today--it simply is "what it is" and people live with or overcome the 
consequences. 

Who could reasonably argue that Mexicanos/Tejanos/Now Chicanos actually 
benefitted from the Texas war for "independence"; actually or "historically"? I 
am reminded of the slaughter by the Texas Rangers--the historical continuators 
of those "Texians"--on the Rio Grande border in response to the struggle to 
regain stolen land by Mexicano/Chicano peasants/ranchers influenced by the 
Mexican Revolution of 1910 dubbed as the first "war against terrorism" (cf. 
Johnson, 2005, http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300109702). 


In any case, Mark's commentary seemed a little unclear as to whether the 
"constitution" he was referring related to Mexico's constitution and, 
therefore, the Mexicans fighting to keep Texas within its purview was more 
progressive because of the clear intents of White "rebels" to grab Texas for 
the Union or if he meant that the U.S. Constitution was inherently more 
progressive and thereby the racist White "rebels" were working "historically" 
in progressive interests. This latter view--if indeed it is Mark's view--seems 
wholly ridiculous since we know exactly what the White "rebels" actually 
accompished. The former interpretation (again, I am still unsure which he 
meant), while plausibly progressive "historically" speaking simply did not 
really apply to the Mexicano/Tejano population were viciously oppressed by 
Mexico. Hence, the key sector of the population--"latifundistas", campesinos 
Tejanos/Mexicanos (most at the time considered themselves Mexicans)--were NEVER 
going to come out al
 right by this inter "pre-imperialist" "bourgeois-demoocratic revolutionary" 
war for "Independence". 

In my view, Clay is not only wrong about his estimation of Mark's "defense of 
white supremacy", but further reflects a wholly ill-considered understanding of 
this pretend "war for independence" seemingly gleaned from a visit to the 
Alamo! I am not sure of Mark's points completely, but I would categorically 
disagree that a Marxist historian known for his work in his hometown in 
supporting and working for civil rights, Black rights in general, and activism 
on su

[Marxism] Question on China

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Recently I picked up a copy of The Word, a somewhat leftist publication in 
Courtenay, BC.  For instance, right next to the article on China is an article 
by a hospital union activist who is a supporter of the Communist Party of 
Canada (Marxist-Leninst).
http://islandword.com/

The article that interests me is under the title Author of book on Chinese 
Organ Harvesting To Talk Here.
http://www.amazon.com/Ethan-Gutmann/e/B001K7S48M
While I believe there is repression of Falun Gong, this story struck me as 
rather far-fetched.  Who can enlighten me on this?  If i am well enough 
informed, I would like to send a letter to the editor in response to this 
article.

ken h
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: 5 Things About Slavery You Probably Didn't Learn In Social Studies: A Short Guide To 'The Half Has Never Been Told'

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Yes, Clay, you are falsely accusing me on two grounds.  First, you are
linking my position with that of the defenders of the Alamo.  There's no
justification for this other than gas.
'
Second, you are conflating views on "slavery" with "white supremacy," as
though there were not people opposing slavery who were not white
supremacists.

But I learned a long time when to stop writing for someone who's not
reading it anyway.

ML
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[Marxism] "Defending white supremacy"

[Jeff via Marxism]

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I found the posts on this history topic, which I had no previous exposure
to, rather interesting. But I wish it could be discussed without raising
the tone of the debate in terms such as:

On Fri, October 31, 2014 17:38, Clay Claiborne via Marxism wrote:
>
> To make it even more clear. I said that those fighting at the Alamo were
> fighting for white supremacy. You said they weren't. If I am right, you
> are defending white supremacy.

Well of course the latter conclusion doesn't follow, as I'm sure Clay
would agree after thinking about it. While differing analyses of history
certainly can reflect the ideologies of the respective analysts, one can
never just assert such a relationship. And even if Clay could prove that
Mark's views are exactly those of white sepremacists, that doesn't even
prove those historical assessments wrong (very often those further on the
right have a clearer view than liberals). Even if Mark is wrong and has
the exact views of white supremacists (or whatever) I am quite sure that
he does NOT defend white supremacy as attested to by all of his other
views on various historical and political issues.

We could have a more productive discussion if people don't make such
charges, and especially if differing takes on historical questions are not
automatically taken to reflect different world views or political
positions on current issues. I know we all are tempted to do that during a
heated argument. But to make such a valid charge, you would need to show
how that person's conclusion flowed from the evil ideology or from flawed
historical records, for instance. Let's try to keep the discussion more
civil.

- Jeff








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Re: [Marxism] Stephen Kotkin on Stalin

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 10/31/14 12:30 PM, Charlie via Marxism wrote:


How dare the Soviet people industrialize without Trotsky! How dare the
Soviet people save the world from Nazism without Trotsky! The masses
make history, not one or two great men. That is the general
understanding on the left - except when they project their infantile
tantrums onto Soviet history. Then they join Pipes. At least they can
demonize one person.



Great Bob Avakian parody, Charlie. I had no idea you were such a card.
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[Marxism] Critique of Patrick Cockburn’s ‘Whose Side is Turkey on?’

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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Critique of Patrick Cockburn’s ‘Whose Side is Turkey on?’

http://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/critique-of-patrick-cockburns-whose-side-is-turkey-on/ 


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: 5 Things About Slavery You Probably Didn't Learn In Social Studies: A Short Guide To 'The Half Has Never Been Told'

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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Mark,

In a thread of this mailing list that was about slavery, I made a comment
which said that the fight at the Alamo was about preserving slavery. You
felt a need to respond and sought to contradict this, saying it was not
about slavery. You said:

[Slavery] was simply not part of the overt agenda of the Texas War for
> Independence.
> ...
> ,they were actually fighting for the arrangements that had eliminated
> slavery.
>

Since I believe that position is wrong, [I believe I have proven that
position is wrong], do you understand why I consider your post to be a
defense of white supremacy?

To make it even more clear. I said that those fighting at the Alamo were
fighting for white supremacy. You said they weren't. If I am right, you are
defending white supremacy. If you are right, I have falsely accused you and
the defenders of the Alamo of supporting white supremacy.

I stand by my position.

Clay Claiborne, Director
Vietnam: American Holocaust 
Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-1536

Read my blogs at the Linux Beach 

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Re: [Marxism] Stephen Kotkin on Stalin

[Charlie via Marxism]

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The professional anti-communist Pipes: "Yet according to public opinion 
polls, he remains one of Russia's most popular political figures: a 
survey conducted in 2006 revealed that nearly one half (47 percent) of 
Russians regarded him as a positive figure. What accounts for this 
paradox? It is that the great majority of Russians have little interest 
in politics."


How dare the Soviet people industrialize without Trotsky! How dare the 
Soviet people save the world from Nazism without Trotsky! The masses 
make history, not one or two great men. That is the general 
understanding on the left - except when they project their infantile 
tantrums onto Soviet history. Then they join Pipes. At least they can 
demonize one person.



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Re: [Marxism] Stephen Kotkin on Stalin

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 10/31/14 11:32 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:


It is difficult to explain Kotkin’s skepticism of Lenin’s late
anti-Stalin diatribes except perhaps by his unwillingness to concede
that, supportive as Lenin had been of Stalin until his fatal illness, by
the end of his life he had turned resolutely against him. Kotkin admits
that statements made by Lenin to his sister corroborate some of the
Testament’s contents. But he maintains that the document itself may not
have been written by Lenin and suggests that Krupskaya may have been
responsible for it, believing that “in her heart she knew Lenin’s wishes.”



Imagine that. Richard Pipes making the case for Lenin disavowing Stalin. 
This Kotkin must really be a piece of work. Have to send him some hate 
mail first chance I get.

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Re: [Marxism] Stephen Kotkin on Stalin

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 10/31/14 11:23 AM, Glenn Kissack via Marxism wrote:


Can someone post the Pipes article?

Glenn


The Cleverness of Joseph Stalin
Richard Pipes

Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928
by Stephen Kotkin
Penguin, 949 pp., $40.00

Joseph Stalin, for a quarter-century undisputed master of the Soviet 
Union and its postwar satellites, was one of the leading mass murderers 
of the murderous twentieth century. So much so that Hitler, Stalin’s 
competitor in this field, came greatly to admire him. In some of his 
“table talks,” held in the circle of intimate associates while German 
troops were ravaging the Soviet Union, Hitler called him a “genius” and 
a “tiger.”*


According to Alexander Yakovlev, a member of the Politburo and the 
closest adviser of Mikhail Gorbachev, who as chairman of a commission to 
study Stalinist repressions had access to all the relevant records, 
Stalin was responsible for the death of 15 million Soviet citizens. He 
tyrannized over the country as no one had done before. Yet according to 
public opinion polls, he remains one of Russia’s most popular political 
figures: a survey conducted in 2006 revealed that nearly one half (47 
percent) of Russians regarded him as a positive figure.


What accounts for this paradox? It is that the great majority of 
Russians have little interest in politics. They regard politicians as 
crooks and esteem them only to the extent that they protect them from 
their neighbors and foreigners. Their concerns are not national but 
local, which means that the majority of them do not participate in 
politics in the sense in which the ancient Greeks have taught us. Thus 
when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 after nearly three quarters of a 
century of unprecedented tyranny, there were neither protests nor 
jubilations; people simply went about their private business. The lives 
of the great majority of Russians are uncommonly personal, which makes 
them excellent friends and poor citizens.


There was nothing in Stalin’s background to have anticipated that he 
would wield such monstrous power. He came into the world in the Georgian 
province of the Russian Empire, the child of a cobbler and a 
washerwoman, both of whom had been born serfs. His actual year of birth 
was 1878 but in 1922 he decided to rejuvenate himself and proclaimed his 
birthdate to have been December 21, 1879. Henceforth, as long as he was 
alive, his birthday was celebrated on that day throughout the Soviet 
Union. His alleged fiftieth birthday in 1929 was a national holiday.


Harvard University’s library catalog lists over 1,200 books about 
Stalin. Among the best known of these are the biographies by the French 
ex-Communist Boris Souvarine (published in 1935) and Leon Trotsky 
(posthumously published in 1941). Of the more recent biographies, 
especially noteworthy is that by the Soviet general Dmitri Volkogonov, 
based on archival sources and originally published in 1988.


Stephen Kotkin, a history professor at Princeton, has issued what he 
intends to be the first of three biographical volumes. It covers 
Stalin’s life until 1928, by which time, with Lenin dead and Trotsky 
exiled, he became the Soviet Union’s undisputed leader. The book is 
based on an immense number of sources: its bibliography covers nearly 
fifty pages and lists some three thousand titles. The endnotes encompass 
122 pages. The dimensions of the projected biography are explained by 
the author’s conception of his book as much more than the life of a 
single man: as he says in the introduction, “in some ways the book 
builds toward a history of the world from Stalin’s office.”


Following Trotsky’s dismissal of him as “the outstanding mediocrity in 
our party,” it has been the practice of non-Bolshevik biographers to 
treat the young Stalin as a nonentity. Kotkin rightly rejects this view, 
stressing Stalin’s bookishness, his loyalty, his ability to “get things 
done.” He cites a former schoolmate recalling that Stalin “was a very 
capable boy, always coming first in his class; he was [also] first in 
all games and recreation.” “What Trotsky and others missed or refused to 
acknowledge,” Kotkin writes,


was that Stalin had a deft political touch: he recalled names and 
episodes of peoples’ biographies, impressing them with his familiarity, 
concern, and attentiveness, no matter where they stood in the hierarchy….
This in contrast to Lenin’s other close associates, who were mainly 
bookish intellectuals. On becoming personally acquainted with Stalin in 
1905, whom in a letter to Maxim Gorky he would call a “splendid 
Georgian,” Lenin quickly learned to appreciate Stalin’s abilities as

Re: [Marxism] Stephen Kotkin on Stalin

[Glenn Kissack via Marxism]

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> 
> This according to a review by Richard Pipes in the current New York Review of 
> Books. Kotkin, it seems, denies the entire rift between Lenin and Stalin in 
> 1922, dismissing Lenin's testament and other documents as a likely forgeries 
> (although even Stalin never made such a claim, and the testament was included 
> by Moscow in Lenin's Collected Works after 1961). 

Can someone post the Pipes article?

Glenn
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[Marxism] Analysis from Autonomous Workers Union of Ukraine

[Jeff via Marxism]

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I received this interesting piece with only the explanation that it "is by
DENIS from the Autonomous Workers Union of Ukraine. It is based on a talk
he gave at the Anarchist Book Fair in London on 18 October, " thus before
the recent election.
- Jeff


Ukrainian nationalism and fascism

Contrary to the widespread concerns, nationalist sentiment has not become
widespread in the society immediately after Maidan (although the
nationalists, unlike leftists, had everything at their disposal to push
their agenda at Maidan). But nationalism indeed became the dominating
ideology in Ukrainian society after the Russian aggression started [with
the annexation of Crimea in March] and escalated: it was a sad but
inevitable consequence.

In a more long-term retrospective, the agents most responsible for
popularising radical nationalism in Ukraine over the last four years have
been media and the intelligentsia generally. It is they who are
responsible for the electoral success of Svoboda in 2012, when it received
10.4% of the vote. (Also, the then ruling Party of Regions was obviously
trying to boost Svoboda as a harmless opposition). It is the media and the
intelligentsia who now continue active support of the Right Sector (RS)
and outright Nazis from the Social National Assembly (SNA), artificially
inflating their approval ratings.

The SNA has engulfed and digested all the active far right forces which
had been previously accumulated under the umbrella of RS, or is in the
process of doing so. They are gaining the political momentum which had
been lost by RS after it had to transform itself into a regular civil
political party in the spring. They are a great threat for the left and
for minorities, but they are unable to gain power. (Far right violence
against the left started growing in 2012 – not in 2014 as is commonly
believed – but right now there’s actually a certain pause.) We could
compare the current situation with Italy, or other countries that have a
tradition of an alliance between nazis and the police.

One of the military units fighting on the pro-Ukrainian side, the Azov
battalion, is indeed fully neo-nazi. Also, the far right are present to
some extent in other volunteer battalions, but they don’t play any
significant role there. Most of the volunteers are regular people, only
recently politicised and having rather abstract patriotic political views.
Also, the regular army units fighting in the east of Ukraine are far more
numerous than volunteers, who just have much better publicity.

The military conflict and the truce

In Kyiv the government exploits patriotic hysteria, and potentially could
use fascists for reaching its political goals in the future. But the
“people’s republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk have actual fascist movements
in power with fascist ideology – even though they use the image of Lenin
and red flags.

The unstable truce and “special status” of Donbass guaranteed by recent
agreements allows those fascist political entities to gain strength and
survive. Nevertheless, it is better than continuing the fighting without
any hope for a quick end. This was the best of all the bad possible
choices. It allows the far right on both sides political room, while the
left agenda is being pushed even further away.

Ukraine’s neo-liberal government

The neo-liberal slogans and threats we have seen from Ukrainian government
for the last six months don’t differ much from the traditional rhetoric of
any Ukrainian government for the last decade. The first few months of
Yanukovych’s rule, for example, were also full of such declarations, but
then neoliberals in the ruling camp lost to the more populist conservative
wing.

The austerity measures already taken by the current government would have
anyway inevitably been taken by Yanukovych after his victory at the
presidential elections in 2015: this was a universally acknowledged
forecast, long before the Maidan protests. So far we cannot say whether
the current government will be more neo-liberal than its predecessors in
practice. Of course they want to, but it’s not clear whether they will
have objective possibilities for this.

In November people will get utility bills with new, raised tariffs. They
will also suffer from the further deepening of economic crisis, and the
real incomes of the working class will fall further. But we shouldn’t
count on a “social Maidan” this winter. It is impossible – because of the
extremely high level of patriotic hysteria, on the one hand, and the
extremely low level of development of social movements and political
organisation of the working class, on the other hand. In the late spring
we saw encouraging eve

[Marxism] Thomas Friedman - The Vietnam War was about national liberation from colonialism

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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http://www.inthemindfield.com/2014/10/30/thomas-friedman-comes-in-from-the-cold-war-vietnam-was-about-liberation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InTheMindField+%28In+The+Mind+Field%3A+News+%26+Commentary+from+Veteran+Writer-Activists%29
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[Marxism] Fwd: How the Democrats Became The Party of Neoliberalism | Opinion | teleSUR

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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But it’s time to rethink this notion that Democrats lack principles. 
They have a clear agenda and are actually more ideological than 
Republicans. Democrats like Obama are willing to lose power to carry out 
the neoliberal agenda. Since the Clinton era, Democrats have been the 
most effective architects of policies that increase the wealth and power 
of those on the top of the economic pyramid. Now, neoliberalism is often 
thought of as synonymous with privatization, deregulation, and trade and 
capital liberalization, but the state will discard these policies for 
corporate handouts the instant elites get into a self-inflicted mess, as 
with the Wall Street crash.


full: 
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/How-the-Democrats-Became-The-Party-of-Neoliberalism-20141031-0002.html

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[Marxism] Fwd: Democracy is “Radical” in Northern Syria | Inter Press Service

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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AMUDA, Syria, Oct 28 2014 (IPS) - There was never anything particularly 
remarkable about this northern town of 25,000. However, today it has 
become the lab for one the most pioneering political experiments ever 
conducted in the entire Middle East region.


Located 700 kilometres northeast of Damascus, Amuda hosts the 
headquarters of the so-called “Democratic Self-Management of Jazeera 
Canton”. Along with Afrin and the besieged Kobani, Jazeera is one of the 
three enclaves under Kurdish rule, although such a statement is not 
entirely accurate.


At the entrance of the government building, vice-president Elizabeth 
Gawrie greets IPS with a shlomo, “peace” in her native Syriac language.


“We decided to move here in January this year for security reasons 
because [Bashar Hafez al] Assad is still present in Qamishli – the 
provincial capital, 25 km east of Amuda,” notes the former mathematics 
teacher before tea is served.


After the outbreak of civil war in Syria in March 2011, the Kurds in the 
north of the country opted for a neutrality that has forced them into 
clashes with both government and opposition forces.


This so-called “third way” attracted sectors among the other local 
communities such as Arabs and Syriacs, a collaboration that would 
eventually materialise into a Social Contract, a kind of ‘constitution’ 
that applies to the three enclaves in question – Jazeera, Afrin and Kobani


“Each canton has its own government with its own president, two 
vice-presidents and several ministries: Economy, Women, Trade, Human 
Rights … up to a total of 22,” explains Gawrie. Among the ministers in 
Jazeera, she adds, there are four Arabs, three Christians and a Chechen; 
Syria has hosted a significant Caucasian community since the late 19th 
century.


full: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/10/democracy-is-radical-in-northern-syria/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: 5 Things About Slavery You Probably Didn't Learn In Social Studies: A Short Guide To 'The Half Has Never Been Told'

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Texas

Republic
As the Texas Revolution began in 1835, some slaves sided with Mexico, 
which provided for freedom. In the fall of 1835, a group of almost 100 
slaves staged an uprising along the Brazos River after they heard rumors 
of approaching Mexican troops. Whites in the area defeated and severely 
punished them. Several slaves ran away to serve with Mexican forces. 
Texan forces executed one runaway slave taken prisoner and resold 
another into slavery.[27] Other slaves joined the Texan forces, with 
some killed while fighting Mexican soldiers. Three slaves were known to 
be at the Battle of the Alamo; a boy named John was killed, while 
William B. Travis's slave Joe and James Bowie's slave Sam survived to be 
freed by the Mexican Army.[28]


After the Republic of Texas was created in 1836, Anglo-American views on 
slavery and race began to predominate. They passed laws reducing the 
rights of free blacks as citizens.[29] The 1836 Constitution of the 
Republic of Texas required free blacks to petition the Texas Congress 
for permission to continue living in the country. The following year all 
those who had been living in Texas at the time of independence were 
allowed to remain. On the other hand, the legislature created political 
segregation; it classified free residents with at least 1/8 African 
heritage (the equivalent to one great-grandparent) as a separate 
category, and abrogated their citizens' rights, prohibiting them from 
voting, owning property, testifying against whites in court, or 
intermarrying with whites.[30] As planters increased cotton production, 
they rapidly increased the purchase and transport of slaves. By 1840 
there were 11,323 slaves in Texas.[24]


Statehood
Slave population in Texas
YearPopulation
1825443
18365,000
184011,323
185058,161
1860182,566
1865250,000

In 1845 the United States annexed Texas as a state. The state 
legislature passed legislation further restricting the rights of free 
blacks. For example, it subjected them to punishments, such as working 
on road gangs if convicted of crimes, similar to those of slaves rather 
than free men.[31]


By 1850, the slave population in Texas had increased to 58,161; in 1860 
there were 182,566 slaves, 30 percent of the total population. In 1860 
almost 25 percent of all white families in Texas owned at least one 
slave. Texas ranked 10th in total slave population and 9th in percentage 
of slave population (30 percent of all residents).[24]


Forty percent of Texas slaves lived on plantations along the Gulf Coast 
and in the East Texas river valleys, where they cultivated cotton, corn, 
and some sugar.[24] Fifty percent of the slaves worked either alone or 
in groups of fewer than 20 on small farms ranging from the Nueces River 
to the Red River, and from the Louisiana border to the edge of the 
western settlements of San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and Fort Worth.[32] 
Some slaves lived among the cattlemen along the southern Gulf Coast and 
helped herd sheep and cattle. Rarely, a slave also broke horses, but 
generally only white men were used for that dangerous task. If they 
died, the boss did not suffer a monetary loss.[33] Slaves were not held 
between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. A large supply of cheap 
Mexican labor in the area made the purchase and care of a slave too 
expensive.[33]


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[Marxism] BDS declares victory as SodaSream pulls out of West Bank

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/boycotters-declare-victory-sodastream-retreats-west-bank?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=2ec43fcbb5-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-2ec43fcbb5-290662377
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[Marxism] The Media and the Paranoid State

[Ron Jacobs via Marxism]

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http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-media-and-paranoid-state.html
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: 5 Things About Slavery You Probably Didn't Learn In Social Studies: A Short Guide To 'The Half Has Never Been Told'

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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On slavery in Mexico, Wikipedia says this:

> Slaves were nearly non-existent in the late colonial census of 1792.[9]
>  While
> banned shortly after the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence, the
> practice did not definitively end until 1829.[8]
> 

To restate what I quoted earlier:

> The "Republic of Texas" was a natural outgrowth of the Austin colony which
> brought slavery onto Mexican soil in 1821. In 1825, twenty five per cent of
> the people in Austin’s colony were slaves and by 1836 there were 5,000
> slaves.

Your claim that the defenders of the Alamo:

> they were actually fighting for the arrangements that
> had eliminated slavery.
>
Is just so much white supremacist propaganda - and on a Marxist list -
which is why I feel compelled to take time out of my busy schedule [working
9 hrs/day in an industrial plant with 4k other workers] to combat it.

The constitution they fought for, the constitution of the "Texas Republic"
legalized slavery in a way neither the US or Mexican constitutions never
did. Again read what I quoted from it above. Your most recent claim that
the re-introduction of slavery onto Mexican soil was just the outcome but
not the cause is again some more white supremacists BS, as is your claim
that the Hispanic population was the driving force behind the Texas revolt.

Clay Claiborne, Director
Vietnam: American Holocaust 
Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-1536

Read my blogs at the Linux Beach 


On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Mark Lause via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Tejanos refers to the Hispanic population.
> _
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[Marxism] Stephen Kotkin on Stalin

[James Creegan via Marxism]

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In his new biography of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin goes even farther down the road 
of bourgeois pro-Stalinism than Montefiore or anyone else.
This according to a review by Richard Pipes in the current New York Review of 
Books. Kotkin, it seems, denies the entire rift between Lenin and Stalin in 
1922, dismissing Lenin's testament and other documents as a likely forgeries 
(although even Stalin never made such a claim, and the testament was included 
by Moscow in Lenin's Collected Works after 1961). The agenda here is 
transparent: to establish Stalin as Lenin's true heir, just as Stalin himself 
attempted to do. The only difference is that Stalin wished to pose as Lenin's 
heir to bolster his authority, whereas Kotkin and his ilk want to use the idea 
of unbroken succession to blacken the name of Lenin. This revisionism is too 
much for even an arch reactionary like Pipes, although he treats it as a minor 
flaw in an otherwise excellent biography.

Jim Creegan
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