Right Wing Socialism? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14612159
Late-Stage Capitalism takes more and more elements of Socialism unto itself to maintain power, at least the superficial forms or symbols of Socialism along with other oddball ideologies like Social Democracy, without any actual substance.... A bit like moving the deck chairs about on the Titanic I guess.

Indeed, rather as the feudal elite of the late Middle Ages absorbed many of the elements of capitalism into itself in order to survive, elements which eventually became so dominant that they were able to initiate the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, which laid the foundations of the modern world in which we now live. A similar process occurred during the transition from the slave-based economy of late antiquity to the feudal system of medieval Europe - the ruling elites had no choice but to gradually transform themselves in order to survive. As Lampedusa put it, "If we want things to stay the same, then things must change." This is probably how humanity will transition from capitalism to socialism - as the capitalist system begins to collapse due to increasingly severe structural crises (of which the 2008 financial crash was only a foretaste), it will become increasingly necessary to introduce socialist or at least quasi-socialist policies in order to sustain the moribund system for as long as possible. After all, what else was the banking bailout but an example of socialism for the rich?
#14612179
This absurd term is the result of mess between economical and political rightness. Those axis are orthogonal, they can be changed independently. The police state with fascist government, in other words, with ultra-right regime, can still lean to free market or planned economy. However, socialism per se is the left thing. And fascism must be called fascism. Nobody calls Libertarians as right-wing anarchists or left-wing capitalists. They are libertarians.
#14612289
Potemkin wrote:Indeed, rather as the feudal elite of the late Middle Ages absorbed many of the elements of capitalism into itself in order to survive, elements which eventually became so dominant that they were able to initiate the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, which laid the foundations of the modern world in which we now live. A similar process occurred during the transition from the slave-based economy of late antiquity to the feudal system of medieval Europe - the ruling elites had no choice but to gradually transform themselves in order to survive. As Lampedusa put it, "If we want things to stay the same, then things must change." This is probably how humanity will transition from capitalism to socialism - as the capitalist system begins to collapse due to increasingly severe structural crises (of which the 2008 financial crash was only a foretaste), it will become increasingly necessary to introduce socialist or at least quasi-socialist policies in order to sustain the moribund system for as long as possible. After all, what else was the banking bailout but an example of socialism for the rich?


Well said. I'm still on the fence regarding Fabian Socialism and calling for Revolution, but I suspect that the Revolution will have to be so violently transformative that the Revolutionary will have to be Divine and all-powerful to bring it about....
#14612640
annatar1914 wrote:Well said. I'm still on the fence regarding Fabian Socialism and calling for Revolution, but I suspect that the Revolution will have to be so violently transformative that the Revolutionary will have to be Divine and all-powerful to bring it about....


The Revolutionaries don't need to be either divine or all-powerful. Standard-issue cleverness, bravery, discipline and ruthlessness will work just fine.
#14612743
I suspect that the Revolution will have to be so violently transformative that the Revolutionary will have to be Divine and all-powerful to bring it about....

You seem to be conflating the concepts of authority and divinity, annatar. Hardly surprising, considering your ideological biases, but still.... In fact, a revolutionary transformation of society must, by its very nature, be authoritarian. The Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was thoroughly brutal and authoritarian, and constituted a 'revolution from above'. And, as Engels pointed out, even a 'revolution from below' (which is what a proletarian revolution must be) must be equally as brutal and equally as authoritarian.

Frederick Engels wrote:A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Engels: On Authority

None of this has any necessary connection with divinity, of course. Unless, of course, you see the guiding hand of the Divine Will in all social and historical transformations of human society. But of course, such a view of Revolution would merely be a baroque adornment on the revolutionary ideology of scientific socialism, which does not require such decorations. Authority does not require divinity in order to be functional; such an attitude may have been necessary in more primitive social and developmental conformations of human society, but from the 18th century onward humanity has entered a new era of scientific rationalism and the de-mystification of politics. This is a development which I embrace.
#14612824
Dear Potemkin, you replied to me in such a manner that, as is my want, I will address your concerns and commentary point by point;


You seem to be conflating the concepts of authority and divinity, annatar. Hardly surprising, considering your ideological biases, but still....


Well, Right is Might. But the reverse involves certain qualifications...

In fact, a revolutionary transformation of society must, by its very nature, be authoritarian.


It is the step from the idea of a progressive evolution of society, to seeing that force is required, that is the fence I presently am sitting on.

The Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was thoroughly brutal and authoritarian, and constituted a 'revolution from above'. And, as Engels pointed out, even a 'revolution from below' (which is what a proletarian revolution must be) must be equally as brutal and equally as authoritarian.


Revolution must be authoritarian is a tautology, even the freedom of the Serfs given in 1861 at the hand of the Czar was an Authoritarian development; it would never have come from the landowners.

None of this has any necessary connection with divinity, of course. Unless, of course, you see the guiding hand of the Divine Will in all social and historical transformations of human society.


As it happens, I do.

But of course, such a view of Revolution would merely be a baroque adornment on the revolutionary ideology of scientific socialism, which does not require such decorations.


I would rather say that strictly speaking, scientific socialism cannot have an opinion on this matter of itself, but is itself a kind of dialectical development from it's Christian roots. A tool of itself is agnostic, but the Hand that wields it implies purpose.... And somewhere down the line, ultimate purpose. Again, my thesis that Atheism is a remnant of bourgeosie thinking that stunts and deforms Socialist action.

Authority does not require divinity in order to be functional; such an attitude may have been necessary in more primitive social and developmental conformations of human society, but from the 18th century onward humanity has entered a new era of scientific rationalism and the de-mystification of politics. This is a development which I embrace.


My thinking is with Proudhon, however I claim this Being as the Selfsame Holy Triune God, in Himself a Perfect Society;

"O God of liberty! God of equality! Thou who didst place in my heart the sentiment of justice, before my reason could comprehend it, hear my ardent prayer! Thou hast dictated all that I have written; Thou hast shaped my thought; Thou hast directed my studies; Thou hast weaned my mind from curiosity and my heart from attachment, that I might publish Thy truth to the master and the slave. I have spoken with what force and talent Thou hast given me: it is Thine to finish the work. Thou knowest whether I seek my welfare or Thy glory, O God of liberty! Ah! perish my memory, and let humanity be free! Let me see from my obscurity the people at last instructed; let noble teachers enlighten them; let generous spirits guide them! Abridge, if possible, the time of our trial; stifle pride and avarice in equality; annihilate this love of glory which enslaves us; teach these poor children that in the bosom of liberty there are neither heroes nor great men! Inspire the powerful man, the rich man, him whose name my lips shall never pronounce in Thy presence, with a horror of his crimes; let him be the first to apply for admission to the redeemed society; let the promptness of his repentance be the ground of his forgiveness! Then, great and small, wise and foolish, rich and poor, will unite in an ineffable fraternity; and, singing in unison a new hymn, will rebuild Thy altar, O God of liberty and equality!"


I agree with the one point of the de-mystification of politics itself, to a degree, as an outworking of the destruction of the pagan deification of the State and it's attendant politics. 'Rationalism', however, is part of the previous and false 'Superstructure' of the Pre-Socialist era. And I'm not trying to bring 'Germanic Idealism' in through the back door, so to speak. I affirm without contradiction to the Orthodox Faith of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, that there is nothing Created in existence except Matter in motion. But Matter and it's nature, and Matter's Fate, is another subject.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14612826
I would rather say that strictly speaking, scientific socialism cannot have an opinion on this matter of itself, but is itself a kind of dialectical development from it's Christian roots. A tool of itself is agnostic, but the Hand that wields it implies purpose.... And somewhere down the line, ultimate purpose. Again, my thesis that Atheism is a remnant of bourgeosie thinking that stunts and deforms Socialist action.

I think this is the crux of our disagreement. As Simone Weil pointed out, Marx demonstrated the inner workings of capitalism so clearly, and portrayed it as being such a powerful, successful and overmastering force which obeyed such clear and rational laws of development, that one could be forgiven for wondering how on Earth it could ever cease to be. This is, in fact, the fundamental problem of agency - the ancient peoples believed that supernatural spirits or angels moved the planets, caused thunderstorms and that the wind was the spirit of God moving over the face of the deep. Yet there is no place for such agency, whether supernatural or natural, in scientific theories of the world. There is merely the atom and the void, to use Democritus' apt phrase. Matter moves according to strict laws, and not according to the whims of some subjectivity, whether divine or human. And Marx demonstrated the same for the field of political economy - the material basis of human life moves according to strict, rational, scientific laws. How, then, is the capitalist system, which unfolds according to those laws, to be moved by the human agency of the proletariat? How can the working people of humanity seize hold of the stars and move them? Don't they, too, obey those same laws? Aren't they, too, trapped in the same deterministic cage? And if we allow for the possibility of such human subjectivity and human agency being able to intervene in the development of human society and transform it in the twinkling of an eye, then how would it be possible to make any rational predictions about the future development of human society? What then becomes of 'scientific' socialism? This is a deep problem.
#14613193
Hello Potemkin, a worthy reply, worthy of serious reflection and serious response;

I think this is the crux of our disagreement. As Simone Weil pointed out, Marx demonstrated the inner workings of capitalism so clearly, and portrayed it as being such a powerful, successful and overmastering force which obeyed such clear and rational laws of development, that one could be forgiven for wondering how on Earth it could ever cease to be.


Absolutely correct under those same rational laws of development as we presently understand them, there is no real earthly hope... As such. But Hitler rightly called Bolshevism the 'child and natural consequence of Christianity', and so there lies the key. There is nothing natural about Communism or Christianity; seriously read as I have the works of our Antichristian and Anticommunist Fascist friends, they know Marxism and Marxists better than most 'Socialists' do. See what 'uncle Adolf' said on the matter; his opinion is not to be lightly dismissed;

http://spiritualwarfare666.webs.com/Hit ... ianity.htm


This is, in fact, the fundamental problem of agency - the ancient peoples believed that supernatural spirits or angels moved the planets, caused thunderstorms and that the wind was the spirit of God moving over the face of the deep. Yet there is no place for such agency, whether supernatural or natural, in scientific theories of the world.


I can clearly see 'Agency' in the unfolding of the dialectic in the world, the work of the Holy Spirit. Creation falls, which calls for a divine response, which leads to a higher resolution greater than the previous Creation prior to the fall. Capitalism is the natural consequence of this world, but this is not the last stage of revolutionary development, natural as in un-natural, a world ruled until recently by Satan.

There is merely the atom and the void, to use Democritus' apt phrase.


The Void is Nothing, and being Nothing, is merely a conceptual space within the Mind of Reason Himself. The problem of divisibility and extension did not go away, it still exists.

Matter moves according to strict laws, and not according to the whims of some subjectivity, whether divine or human.


Good thing that the Divine Will is not described at least by me as being 'subjective', but rather Absolute Reason.


And Marx demonstrated the same for the field of political economy - the material basis of human life moves according to strict, rational, scientific laws.


I agree.

How, then, is the capitalist system, which unfolds according to those laws, to be moved by the human agency of the proletariat?


The attempt was made. Recall the 'Legend', if you will, of the 'Tower of Babel'. It is not recorded that any human resistance was made against the building of the City and the Tower. And so we had during the period 1917-1991, a single human lifetime only, a real resistance against the order of the world. But it failed. It was bound to, because those attempting that resistance had a certain bourgeosie affectation, a 'blind spot' which made their failure inevitable and complete. Stalin was the only one who came closest to understanding this; how could he not?


How can the working people of humanity seize hold of the stars and move them?


They change their conception of them, within their internal mental cosmology, their topographical map of the universe.


Don't they, too, obey those same laws? Aren't they, too, trapped in the same deterministic cage?


It would seem so, as long as Reason is called upon but not truly believed in.


And if we allow for the possibility of such human subjectivity and human agency being able to intervene in the development of human society and transform it in the twinkling of an eye, then how would it be possible to make any rational predictions about the future development of human society? What then becomes of 'scientific' socialism? This is a deep problem.


Evolution versus Revolution indeed. I call for Revolution, real Revolution.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14613205
Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me, annatar, that you are essentially a Left Hegelian Christian.

I can clearly see 'Agency' in the unfolding of the dialectic in the world, the work of the Holy Spirit. Creation falls, which calls for a divine response, which leads to a higher resolution greater than the previous Creation prior to the fall.

This is essentially the Hegelian concept of the sublation of the preceding equilibrium into a higher equilibrium through a process of dialectical synthesis. However, you seem to see it as Hegel saw it: as a purely ideational synthesis, moving towards the self-realisation of the Absolute. Marx took this idea, but he 'inverted' it - to use his famous phrase, he found Hegel standing on his head and he turned him the right way up by basing the historical dialectic on the self-transformation of the material basis of human society rather than the self-transformation of the Spirit. It seems to me that, as a Christian, you wish to turn Marx himself upside down.

The Void is Nothing, and being Nothing, is merely a conceptual space within the Mind of Reason Himself. The problem of divisibility and extension did not go away, it still exists.

Indeed. The non-dialectical, one-sided materialism of Democritus was and is itself a mental construct, just as abstract and idealised as the mysterious movements of the Hegelian World-Spirit. Democritus failed to understand this, as do all simple-minded vulgar materialists.

Good thing that the Divine Will is not described at least by me as being 'subjective', but rather Absolute Reason.

I was using the word 'subjectivity' in its psychoanalytic rather than its vulgar sense - as merely referring to any self-aware, self-reflexive consciousness rather than necessarily a consciousness which sees only a partial, one-sided perspective of reality. According to orthodox Christian theology, God has 'subjectivity' - he is, after all, a personal God - yet God can perceive all perspectives simultaneously and is not 'subjective' in that sense.

The attempt was made. Recall the 'Legend', if you will, of the 'Tower of Babel'. It is not recorded that any human resistance was made against the building of the City and the Tower. And so we had during the period 1917-1991, a single human lifetime only, a real resistance against the order of the world. But it failed. It was bound to, because those attempting that resistance had a certain bourgeosie affectation, a 'blind spot' which made their failure inevitable and complete. Stalin was the only one who came closest to understanding this; how could he not?

Indeed. Stalin understood that the Soviet people needed faith. This is why he ordered Lenin's body to be mummified and displayed to the Soviet people, who would go on pilgrimages to behold it, against Lenin's own expressed wishes. Yet this was not enough.

How can the working people of humanity seize hold of the stars and move them?


They change their conception of them, within their internal mental cosmology, their topographical map of the universe.

More Hegelian Idealism.

Don't they, too, obey those same laws? Aren't they, too, trapped in the same deterministic cage?


It would seem so, as long as Reason is called upon but not truly believed in.

And I take it that by 'Reason' you mean the Divine 'nous', the Logos?

And if we allow for the possibility of such human subjectivity and human agency being able to intervene in the development of human society and transform it in the twinkling of an eye, then how would it be possible to make any rational predictions about the future development of human society? What then becomes of 'scientific' socialism? This is a deep problem.


Evolution versus Revolution indeed. I call for Revolution, real Revolution.

A Revolution is a moment of convolution, a break in the continuity of the historical process, when the past and the future meet in the present and transform it. During the French Revolution, the Roman Republic returned, and the future turned to behold its own birth. A Revolution is, in fact, a moment of Incarnation. This, to me, is the real meaning of the ending of Alexander Blok's poem The Twelve, when Christ appears on the streets of revolutionary Petrograd, at the head of the twelve thuggish, brutal Bolshevik soldiers - his true disciples....
#14613544
Dear Potemkin, Bravo!

Allow me to respond to your well-thought out replies in our conversation;

Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me, annatar, that you are essentially a Left Hegelian Christian.


Idea does not exist. The Uncreated alone might be thought by more vulgar minds to have the Platonic Archetypes as His Thoughts, but the Uncreated cannot be understood by analogy. Matter alone exists of the created things. I am an Materialist, but not in the crude mechanistic sense.



This is essentially the Hegelian concept of the sublation of the preceding equilibrium into a higher equilibrium through a process of dialectical synthesis. However, you seem to see it as Hegel saw it: as a purely ideational synthesis, moving towards the self-realisation of the Absolute. Marx took this idea, but he 'inverted' it - to use his famous phrase, he found Hegel standing on his head and he turned him the right way up by basing the historical dialectic on the self-transformation of the material basis of human society rather than the self-transformation of the Spirit. It seems to me that, as a Christian, you wish to turn Marx himself upside down.


As I imply above, there cannot be an ideational synthesis, because there is no created thought apart from matter and subject to it; all triadic movement is a material movement.

Indeed. The non-dialectical, one-sided materialism of Democritus was and is itself a mental construct, just as abstract and idealised as the mysterious movements of the Hegelian World-Spirit. Democritus failed to understand this, as do all simple-minded vulgar materialists.


Glad that you can see that, I had all confidence that you did, despite my ill-use of the english language.


And then there is His 'Impassibility'.... We in the created world have to live in and deal with the world as we know it; however Incarnational and Pneumatological life penetrates this world and makes 'Revolution' possible. Sins against Christ can be forgiven. Sins against the Holy Spirit cannot and will not be, in this world or the next.


Indeed. Stalin understood that the Soviet people needed faith. This is why he ordered Lenin's body to be mummified and displayed to the Soviet people, who would go on pilgrimages to behold it, against Lenin's own expressed wishes. Yet this was not enough.


They had ready made and sure Foundations to build on already, but Fate decided otherwise for Reasons of His own. The Soil out of which the Revolution grew out of was Orthodox Christian, and this is no accident.

And I take it that by 'Reason' you mean the Divine 'nous', the Logos?


Sure. Reason requires a Reasoner.

A Revolution is a moment of convolution, a break in the continuity of the historical process, when the past and the future meet in the present and transform it. During the French Revolution, the Roman Republic returned, and the future turned to behold its own birth. A Revolution is, in fact, a moment of Incarnation. This, to me, is the real meaning of the ending of Alexander Blok's poem The Twelve, when Christ appears on the streets of revolutionary Petrograd, at the head of the twelve thuggish, brutal Bolshevik soldiers - his true disciples....


There is some deep Truth there, Apocalyptic Truth, and I'll add that Revolution was long gestating in the Womb of the Earth, It's actual Labour beginning with the Conversion of Constantine and the end of Classical Paganism decreed by the Emperor Theodosius, and the closing of the Academy by Justinian.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14613561
They had ready made and sure Foundations to build on already, but Fate decided otherwise for Reasons of His own. The Soil out of which the Revolution grew out of was Orthodox Christian, and this is no accident.

Perhaps so; the work of Father Pavel Florensky certainly suggests so. Yet that soil had already been poisoned by Pobedonostsev, among others. As Blok put it, Russia was held under an evil spell by Pobedonostsev for decades. His control of the Russian Orthodox Church fatally compromised it in the eyes of the toiling masses, and in the eyes of the young, those whose task it would be to build the future. This meant that when the Revolution did happen, it was torn out of its spiritual roots at the very outset. Every nation has its own spiritual and cultural traditions, and you abolish or try to destroy those traditions at your peril; this was to have severe consequences for the Russian Revolution. Instead of nurturing the Revolution, as it should have, the Russian Orthodox Church tried to stifle it in its womb, and when it was born the Church tried to strangle it in its cradle. To live, the Revolution had to turn against the Church, because of what the arch-reactionary Pobedonostsev (among others) had made of it. Stalin tried to undo the worst of the damage once he came to power, of course, but it was already too late.
#14613847
Potemkin;


Perhaps so; the work of Father Pavel Florensky certainly suggests so.


I would agree with that.


Yet that soil had already been poisoned by Pobedonostsev, among others. As Blok put it, Russia was held under an evil spell by Pobedonostsev for decades. His control of the Russian Orthodox Church fatally compromised it in the eyes of the toiling masses, and in the eyes of the young, those whose task it would be to build the future.


If it is too much too early to trace this fatal development to the persecution of the 'Old Believers' in the 1600's (although I think it's a factor), I would say the final fatal moment was with the Russian persecution of the Russian monks of mt. Athos, in 1913 I think, who were of the 'Imiaslaviye' persuasion. Fr. Florensky was 'Imiaslaviye' as well.


This meant that when the Revolution did happen, it was torn out of its spiritual roots at the very outset. Every nation has its own spiritual and cultural traditions, and you abolish or try to destroy those traditions at your peril; this was to have severe consequences for the Russian Revolution. Instead of nurturing the Revolution, as it should have, the Russian Orthodox Church tried to stifle it in its womb, and when it was born the Church tried to strangle it in its cradle.


St. Tikhon was upbraided by the Whites for not being on the side of the Whites during the Russian Civil War, and General Alexei Brusilov, a devout Orthodox, was actively on the Bolshevik side trying to strengthen and train the Red Army, so perhaps the picture isn't quite as black and white even in those unfortunate early stages of the Soviet State.


To live, the Revolution had to turn against the Church, because of what the arch-reactionary Pobedonostsev (among others) had made of it. Stalin tried to undo the worst of the damage once he came to power, of course, but it was already too late.


Sometimes seeds sown a long time ago come to life again when the time is right for their fruition.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14613852
If it is too much too early to trace this fatal development to the persecution of the 'Old Believers' in the 1600's (although I think it's a factor), I would say the final fatal moment was with the Russian persecution of the Russian monks of mt. Athos, in 1913 I think, who were of the 'Imiaslaviye' persuasion. Fr. Florensky was 'Imiaslaviye' as well.

Indeed. I would agree with you about the persecution of the Old Believers as the beginning of the poisonous relationship between the Church and the State which developed in the late Tsarist period. Peter the Great in particular broke the Orthodox Church as the spiritual conscience of Russian society and remade it into a docile servant of the State (the Russian poet Max Voloshin called Peter "the first Bolshevik") - that role later had to be taken on by the Russian poets, since the Church had largely abandoned it.

St. Tikhon was upbraided by the Whites for not being on the side of the Whites during the Russian Civil War, and General Alexei Brusilov, a devout Orthodox, was actively on the Bolshevik side trying to strengthen and train the Red Army, so perhaps the picture isn't quite as black and white even in those unfortunate early stages of the Soviet State.

There were certainly elements within the 'old' Russia who recognised the spiritual and national mission of the Bolsheviks and who ultimately sided with it, no matter how much it initially horrified them - Alexander Blok was merely the most famous of these people, of whom there were many. Yet the mainstream of the Orthodox Church denounced the Bolsheviks as atheists and enemies of the established order, which indeed they were, and the Bolsheviks for their part mercilessly persecuted the Church, until Stalin stabilised relations between the Bolshevik regime and the Church in the 1930s.

Sometimes seeds sown a long time ago come to life again when the time is right for their fruition.

Indeed, and this was precisely my point when I spoke of a Revolution as being a "moment of convolution", the moment when the past and the future meet in the present and transform it. The Roman Republic had been dead for almost two millennia when the French Revolution broke out, yet that Revolution conjured it back out of the dead past, and it lived again in the present, revolutionary moment. As in the life of an individual, so in the life of civilisations - what has been repressed and apparently forgotten always returns, sometimes taking new forms, to undermine the established order and utterly transform the present and the future. Our lives, as we live them and experience them, are not linear, and neither is the historical process. This opens the possibility of radical change, the possibility of creative progress. What had seemed ossified, dead and lifeless can suddenly sprout new leaves and can bear new and miraculous fruit....
#14613858
Potemkin;

Indeed. I would agree with you about the persecution of the Old Believers as the beginning of the poisonous relationship between the Church and the State which developed in the late Tsarist period. Peter the Great in particular broke the Orthodox Church as the spiritual conscience of Russian society and remade it into a docile servant of the State (the Russian poet Max Voloshin called Peter "the first Bolshevik") - that role later had to be taken on by the Russian poets, since the Church had largely abandoned it.


I think Voloshin may have been wrong; Peter's acme of excellence in life was the Protestant Burghers of Holland, England, and the Germanies, and he wished to re-create Russia into a model Nation-State of the Mercantilist-Capitalist sort.


There were certainly elements within the 'old' Russia who recognised the spiritual and national mission of the Bolsheviks and who ultimately sided with it, no matter how much it initially horrified them - Alexander Blok was merely the most famous of these people, of whom there were many. Yet the mainstream of the Orthodox Church denounced the Bolsheviks as atheists and enemies of the established order, which indeed they were, and the Bolsheviks for their part mercilessly persecuted the Church, until Stalin stabilised relations between the Bolshevik regime and the Church in the 1930s.


Mind you that i'm not fond of Sergianism precisely because of it's the final form of Nikonianism and the Petrine 'Holy Synod' model, but nonetheless God writes straight lines with crooked instruments...

Indeed, and this was precisely my point when I spoke of a Revolution as being a "moment of convolution", the moment when the past and the future meet in the present and transform it.


Brilliant!


The Roman Republic had been dead for almost two millennia when the French Revolution broke out, yet that Revolution conjured it back out of the dead past, and it lived again in the present, revolutionary moment. As in the life of an individual, so in the life of civilisations - what has been repressed and apparently forgotten always returns, sometimes taking new forms, to undermine the established order and utterly transform the present and the future.


Was Napoleon though, as Leon Bloy suspected, the first real 'Bourgeosie'? The Pagan conception of the world promoted by Classicism, is it not the root of present Fascism? Look at Mussolini.... And Louis Napoleon.

Our lives, as we live them and experience them, are not linear, and neither is the historical process. This opens the possibility of radical change, the possibility of creative progress. What had seemed ossified, dead and lifeless can suddenly sprout new leaves and can bear new and miraculous fruit....


This is why the World Power had to send forth it's Condotierre, Adolf Hitler, to go out and kill Bolshevism and Orthodox Russia together. It didn't work exactly, although i'd say the Soviet Union after 1945 was like 'El Cid' propped up in his armor, til 1991.... But yet it still remains slumbering and hidden like the Russian legend of the city of Kitezh.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#14613949
I think Voloshin may have been wrong; Peter's acme of excellence in life was the Protestant Burghers of Holland, England, and the Germanies, and he wished to re-create Russia into a model Nation-State of the Mercantilist-Capitalist sort.

When Voloshin called Peter the Great "the first Bolshevik", he was referring to Peter's methods of governance and his vision of dragging Russia into the modern world by force, kicking and screaming if necessary. The Bolsheviks, like Peter, were Westernisers, yet, like Peter, they wanted to be like the West and yet simultaneously unlike the West. After all, the system which Peter created was a thoroughly despotic one, as it had to be, and had little in common with the relatively liberal democracies of Britain or the Netherlands. The middle classes were in charge in Britain and in Holland, yet Peter's new middle class of prosperous burghers (whom he had to import from Germany, btw) were to be obedient vassals of the Tsarist autocracy. The Bolshevik regime suffered from similar internal contradictions, as Voloshin was pointing out.

Mind you that i'm not fond of Sergianism precisely because of it's the final form of Nikonianism and the Petrine 'Holy Synod' model, but nonetheless God writes straight lines with crooked instruments...

Yet, as Kant remarked, out of the warped wood of human nature, nothing straight was ever made....

Was Napoleon though, as Leon Bloy suspected, the first real 'Bourgeosie'? The Pagan conception of the world promoted by Classicism, is it not the root of present Fascism? Look at Mussolini.... And Louis Napoleon.

Indeed, modern fascism took its inspiration and its iconography (the Fasces, for example) from classical Rome, yet it was a more radical and very modern reinterpretation of classical Rome; after all, the radical democrats of the French Revolution also took their inspiration from the classical world (from the Gracchi, from Caesarism, and so on). To this extent, the modern concept of the "bourgeois citizen" was modelled on the Roman citizen of the Republic. Yet, even in the time of the Roman Republic, that conception of citizenship was being challenged, from at least the time of the Gracchi onwards, just as the modern concept of bourgeois citizenship is being challenged, by the Communists among others. In other words, the past may return, yet which past returns matters greatly....

This is why the World Power had to send forth it's Condotierre, Adolf Hitler, to go out and kill Bolshevism and Orthodox Russia together. It didn't work exactly, although i'd say the Soviet Union after 1945 was like 'El Cid' propped up in his armor, til 1991....

I'm inclined to agree with that. Once the faith had departed, what remained was little more than a wax mummy.

But yet it still remains slumbering and hidden like the Russian legend of the city of Kitezh.

Indeed. And the bell of its cathedral can still be heard tolling, deep under the water....
#14614165
Dear Potemkin, you said regarding Voloshin's idea of Czar Peter being the first Bolshevik;

When Voloshin called Peter the Great "the first Bolshevik", he was referring to Peter's methods of governance and his vision of dragging Russia into the modern world by force, kicking and screaming if necessary. The Bolsheviks, like Peter, were Westernisers, yet, like Peter, they wanted to be like the West and yet simultaneously unlike the West. After all, the system which Peter created was a thoroughly despotic one, as it had to be, and had little in common with the relatively liberal democracies of Britain or the Netherlands. The middle classes were in charge in Britain and in Holland, yet Peter's new middle class of prosperous burghers (whom he had to import from Germany, btw) were to be obedient vassals of the Tsarist autocracy. The Bolshevik regime suffered from similar internal contradictions, as Voloshin was pointing out.


Well you're point is well taken and I must concede the point, after all the Old Believers regarded Peter as an Antichrist.

Yet, as Kant remarked, out of the warped wood of human nature, nothing straight was ever made....


Said the man who divided the intellectual mind in two.

Indeed, modern fascism took its inspiration and its iconography (the Fasces, for example) from classical Rome, yet it was a more radical and very modern reinterpretation of classical Rome; after all, the radical democrats of the French Revolution also took their inspiration from the classical world (from the Gracchi, from Caesarism, and so on). To this extent, the modern concept of the "bourgeois citizen" was modelled on the Roman citizen of the Republic. Yet, even in the time of the Roman Republic, that conception of citizenship was being challenged, from at least the time of the Gracchi onwards, just as the modern concept of bourgeois citizenship is being challenged, by the Communists among others. In other words, the past may return, yet which past returns matters greatly....


Yes, I think that the matter of 'which past?' is a question of paramount importance.

I'm inclined to agree with that. Once the faith had departed, what remained was little more than a wax mummy.


As I say, it can be built on it's true foundations, or it can become a heiroglyphic symbol for Antichrist. I'm inclined to say that Bolshevism though isn't the opposite of Christianity, or against it, but rather the retrogressive pagan traditions of men.

Indeed. And the bell of its cathedral can still be heard tolling, deep under the water....


So you see... Thank you.
#14615757
VerminLord wrote:As we all know, socialism is considered to be on the left while capitalism is on the right. Those somewhere in the center may advocate a mix of the two. I consider fascism to be in the center economically, since it has tendencies of both the right and the left.

Is there a right wing socialism? The reason for this question is that I have been studying ideologies such as fascism and integralism which want national syndicalism. National syndicalism (I am new to this concept, so forgive me if I am wrong) is a socialist ideology, but integralists turn it into a right wing version.

Also, there is National Socialism, and despite the name, I do not see anything socialist about it. On the political spectrum Hitler is somewhere on the right. I am aware that socialist reject national socialism, and understandably so. If I recall my history correctly, the Nazis had some form of capitalism. Would National Socialism simply be a right wing version of socialism or a combination of capitalism and socialism?

The Nazis were Socialists and the Communists were Socialists. Left, Right, either way, Socialism is always the fruit of evil and oppression and total government control.

Image
By Decky
#14615969
The Nazis put socialists into the death, camps, being a socialist was literally a capital crime in Nazi Germany. What is it with Americans and history?
#14639482
TerryOfromCA wrote: The Nazis were Socialists and the Communists were Socialists. Left, Right, either way, Socialism is always the fruit of evil and oppression and total government control.

The Nazis called themselves "socialists" just as the U.S. today calls itself a "democracy" that is "of the people, by the people, for the people". But we must examine what a nation does and not just accept what is said.

When the Nazis came to power, they rounded up socialist, communists, and union leaders and executed the leaders and jailed the rest.

The "Father" of fascism, Mussolini, said that "corporatism" was a more descriptive name for what he proposed than "fascism" is. And true socialism stands in opposition to corporatism.

So all evidence and all history shows that socialism is of the left, only. That other "stuff" is actually misnamed, confused, obscured fascism, which is only of the right.

And government control? ALL government controls. That is its job. And today, all around the world, we are seeing multinational corporations controlling government to do its bidding in paving the way for increasing extraction of more and more value from the people and readying itself to apply militarized police and even military to suppress any citizen objections to that extraction. That is what capitalism is becoming today at this stage of its evolution.
User avatar
By Davea8
#14649638
Truth To Power wrote:Right wing socialism is certainly possible, in fact some would argue it is inevitable as the political elite in a socialist regime use their power to administer "publicly" owned land and capital to their own advantage. Post-Maoist China, where the rich and Party cronies are almost identical sets, is an obvious example.


Oh come on. The major interest on the right is the advocacy of corporatism. They see corporate success as good for everyone in their trickle-down confusion. The left opposes that and advocates socialism to transfer economic and political power to the working class and the people. They are opposites. And Marx, Lenin, and Mao taught that capitalist will never give up but will keep fighting to use every trick and find any way to restore capitalism even after socialism is established. Mao called them "capitalist roaders" and such thinkers have warned against the emergence of state capitalism in such cases. https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannek ... orship.htm

There is no socialism on the right or of the right. That is a very fundamental contradiction.

...Or maybe because there are many witnesses sayin[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

If the tunnels were built by Hamas openly, then th[…]

Sounds like perfect organized crime material ex[…]

Commercial foreclosures increase 97% from last ye[…]