[Politiks]

...or, indeed, Joseph Stalin.

Things evolve, they don't make them like Hitler or Stalin anymore. You will get Maduro or Michelle Bachelet

[The Immortal Goon]

Even if conceding these circumstances (which I have no problem doing), that doesn't mean that Stalin shared their religious values or campaigned as if he were a religious figure

He wasn't shy about wearing the Orthodox Church's title of "divinely anointed leader of our armed and cultural forces, leading us to victory".

[Victoribus Spolia]

The Soviet dictator said, "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God... all this talk about God is sheer nonsense." - E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin

[Tainari88]

He wasn't shy about wearing the Orthodox Church's title of "divinely anointed leader of our armed and cultural forces, leading us to victory".

Everything has to take into consideration historical, cultural and political context when one is trying to understand why political leaders are the way they are or were the way they were.

I find it is a very common mistake for people who grow up with a certain cultural, historical, and political perspective, to assume that every other culture, or a nation's history, and other groups or others political philosophies, follow the same paradigms, or follow the same rules as their own native societies do. That is a huge mistake. That is why I think studying different cultures, and histories, and political philosophies clarifies a lot of decisions reached by a nation's leaders in the present, and in the past. If you don't do that? It is easy to reach false conclusions. American exceptionalism is a very good example.

For me? We are dealing with homo sapiens. One species. They vary a lot. But the circumstances that that species runs into time and time again in human history--and the way the conditions are dealt with TIG, tend to be very consistent. It is very interesting. When to think they are going to react the same as others? And when they are going to be different? You can almost predict how they will behave, act or think, if you study that particular group's cultural matrix, and history very thoroughly, and also study the leader's individual particular human habits, thoughts, and ideology in depth.

For example, I believe Stalin was definitely pro working class and pro peasant. His entire life history is about dealing with class and being oppressed as the child of serfs. Keke his mother was beaten and she was extremely influential in Stalin's life. She wanted him to become a bishop in the church. For Stalin to disrespect or not understand how a peasant Georgian (they did not speak Russian in his childhood he learned Russian later on) feels about God and Religion and the land? No, he understood his culture. He also understood how power worked and who abused who in the power battles in his home, his politics, his religious upbringing, and economically. It is all there. If you study it.

Stalin was raised in very hard circumstances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keke_Geladze

[The Immortal Goon]

I don’t think there’s any question that Stalin was an atheist. And I even suspect that most religious feeling at the time in the Soviet Union should, as Tainari suggests, be taken into context.

I suspect (but don’t know for sure) that to be religious in the USSR at the time was to be nationalist in the sense that the Fatherland has to be protected. The traditions of a thousand generations since Moscow became the Third Rome should not be allowed to be extinguished, more than a relationship with a god.

This is familiar to me, and it’s why people like Decky and myself can consider ourselves both Catholics and atheists at the same time.

This is to say, Stalin was not afraid to be seen as a religious figure within the context of the place and time.

[Tainari88]

I don’t think there’s any question that Stalin was an atheist. And I even suspect that most religious feeling at the time in the Soviet Union should, as Tainari suggests, be taken into context.

I suspect (but don’t know for sure) that to be religious in the USSR at the time was to be nationalist in the sense that the Fatherland has to be protected. The traditions of a thousand generations since Moscow became the Third Rome should not be allowed to be extinguished, more than a relationship with a god.

This is familiar to me, and it’s why people like Decky and myself can consider ourselves both Catholics and atheists at the same time.

This is to say, Stalin was not afraid to be seen as a religious figure within the context of the place and time.

Great analysis TIG. Castro also was raised in Roman Catholic religious schools. He respected his cultural matrix and was also not dogmatic in many concepts. If you read Frei Betto's interview with Castro on the topic of "Castro and Religion" it is all about exactly what you talk about.

[B0ycey]

I doubt Stalin has any respect for religion as he had everyone associated with it killed. I suspect to him religion was linked to divine privilege and that was linked to Tsars.

He was more a pragmatist. He just wanted things done his way, regardless of cost. If he could use religion to further the cause I suspect he would have - and did to counteract the Nazis as it happened. Being Lenin waved in on an anti-religion concept, Stalin did what he knew best. Kill all who disagreed to further that cause.

Nonetheless, isn't atheism a religion of sorts? A religion of anti-religion perhaps. Being that the Russian orthodox church was part of the problem, I suspect perhaps even this notion could be associated with both Hitler and Trump (in the sense it was a religious movement - though anti!)

[Tainari88]

I doubt Stalin has any respect for religion as he had everyone associated with it killed. I suspect to him religion was linked to divine privilege and that was linked to Tsars.

He was more a pragmatist. He just wanted things done his way, regardless of cost. If he could use religion to further the cause I suspect he would have - and did to counteract the Nazis as it happened. Being Lenin waved in on an anti-religion concept, Stalin did what he knew best. Kill all who disagreed to further that cause.

Nonetheless, isn't atheism a religion of sorts? A religion of anti-religion perhaps. Being that the Russian orthodox church was part of the problem, I suspect perhaps even this notion could be associated with both Hitler and Trump (in the sense it was a religious movement - though anti!)

Politics and Religious authority have had a very long history together. In Europe, Asia, and every other continent. I think you have to realize religion is in the fabric of a culture. Religion is very much a cultural influence in many human societies. Politics are also a cultural influence but they play different roles.

I kind of like that last phrase or lines from that 1997 movie "Contact" based on Carl Sagan's book. Let me see if I could find it and post it? Be right back.

[B0ycey]

Politics and Religious authority have had a very long history together. In Europe, Asia, and every other continent. I think you have to realize religion is in the fabric of a culture. Religion is very much a cultural influence in many human societies. Politics are also a cultural influence but they play different roles.

Sure, hense why the Bolsheviks had them killed off. History is dictated by those in power. I suspect the Russian Orthodox church has a different opinion on the revolution than it did a hundred years ago. I wonder why?

[Tainari88]

Sure, hense why the Bolsheviks had them killed off. History is dictated by those in power. I suspect the Russian Orthodox church has a different opinion on the revolution than it did a hundred years ago. I wonder why?

Religion and Politics have been duking it out for 'believers' since time immemorial.

Religious institutions and Political Institutions have 'cross-pollinated' for a very long time. Church pastors for example calling their flock to vote either Republican or Democrat or Left or Right. Political institutions 'legit' making using their 'religious' appeals for votes.

In my opinion you should separate church and state's roles. Otherwise, you will have the secular and the religious together and that is a very toxic mixture in human history. Political figures worshiped as divine gods.

Didn't Henry VIII of England have to create the Church of England because he married Katherine of Aragon from Spain and she was a Roman Catholic and when he wanted a divorce and the Pope said NO.....to the King? Time for a religion change. Or church change.

For me that is the reality of power mixing with religion. You got politicians claiming to be sun gods. Egypt. Montezuma claiming to be representing the interests of the divine. Mexico. The list is endless. In the end? If you realize a politician is a human and flawed and just a person in charge of administering a secular sector of government? All is good. If they start worshiping someone like a God? And infallible and they are or he or she is GOD on Earth? Time to get worried.

[Potemkin]

Didn't Henry VIII of England have to create the Church of England because he married Katherine of Aragon from Spain and she was a Roman Catholic and when he wanted a divorce and the Pope said NO.....to the King? Time for a religion change. Or church change.

Indeed. I've even heard one commentator call the Church of England "the Church of the Obese Polygamist". It's funny because it's true. Lol!

[Tainari88]

Indeed. I've even heard one commentator call the Church of England "the Church of the Obese Polygamist". It's funny because it's true. Lol!

It is obviously a power play issue there. Mary Queen of Scots was a Roman Catholic queen and she did not approve of some usurping of the True Christian Original Church by some fat disgruntled King who disgraced her mother. A more Roman Catholic nation than Spain is would be hard to find Potemkin. Those Church of England protestants were going to burn in hell in a lake of fire for their switching faiths. Interestingly I read somewhere that Elizabeth I did not want to kill off Mary Queen of Scots. They were half sisters. But power struggles between the nobility in their quests for power grabs are filled with beheaded people and blood running in the streets.

[LeftNationalist]

Rural people, of which I am proud to be, are religious, patriotic, ethno-cultural chauvenists that are also patriarchal, self-reliant, simple, unsophisticated, anti-intellectual, and tend to judge people not merely based on whether they do work, but on the kind of work they do (white collar folks are almost by definition effeminate).

I agree with this.

I was born in a big city (Dallas) and grew up urban/suburban, living there my entire life until a few years ago, where at age 28-29 I moved to the mid-west (Southern Ohio). I do find rural America to be backward and reactionary. But I love these people and respect their simpler and honest way of life. It's much easier for me to sympathize with them now. I see them as being mistreated, neglected, and patronized, and completely void of any representation whatsoever. I do not set myself up as a judge over them. They don't agree with me...I've had a lot of arguments. But once I start talking economics you would be amazed at how open many of them are to my views.

I don't judge them for their reactionism - and believe that in my ways they are pushed further to it - a result of their material conditions and societal alienation. In any case it's not my prerogative to brow beat them, forcing my vast wisdom and ivy league enlightenment upon them. Along with getting to enjoy a much better lifestyle, such is the great privilege of liberals.

[Rugoz]

In any case it's not my prerogative to brow beat them, forcing my vast wisdom and ivy league enlightenment upon them.

Really? Because that's what communists have always done historically. Are you a Luxemburgist?

[Victoribus Spolia]

I agree with this.

I was born in a big city (Dallas) and grew up urban/suburban, living there my entire life until a few years ago, where at age 28-29 I moved to the mid-west (Southern Ohio). I do find rural America to be backward and reactionary. But I love these people and respect their simpler and honest way of life. It's much easier for me to sympathize with them now. I see them as being mistreated, neglected, and patronized, and completely void of any representation whatsoever. I do not set myself up as a judge over them. They don't agree with me...I've had a lot of arguments. But once I start talking economics you would be amazed at how open many of them are to my views.

I don't judge them for their reactionism - and believe that in my ways they are pushed further to it - a result of their material conditions and societal alienation. In any case it's not my prerogative to brow beat them, forcing my vast wisdom and ivy league enlightenment upon them. Along with getting to enjoy a much better lifestyle, such is the great privilege of liberals.

Well, like I said, I appreciate the sentiments and the respect you show my people ( I am from Western Pennsylvania). I am a Traditionalist and have spent my academic life developing an intellectual framework of defense for the values of my people that they themselves cannot articulate or express, often times going further in the pursuit of consistency and dialectical strength than they would be willing to go in their worldview mediocrity; however, I can travel around the world and spend time in faculty lounges and in multicultural cosmopolitan environments and I still return like a star-struck lover to that simple and honest lifestyle with Deer hunting, warm double-wide mobile homes where dad is splitting wood outside and mom is cooking up the old polish family recipes inside, packed churches for the candle-light Christmas eve liturgy, Steelers football, long work days, and plenty of children and cold beer all year round.

I may never consider you my ally, but you seem like a sincere friend of my kin.

For that I say:

Godspeed and Merry Christmas.

[fuser]

I am reading "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Marx and can I say that these populist leaders like Trump or even Modi comes off more like Napoleon III than Stalin or Hitler.

[Potemkin]

I am reading "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Marx and can I say that these populist leaders like Trump or even Modi comes off more like Napoleon III than Stalin or Hitler.

Indeed. The fact is that we are still living in the world created by 19th century Europe. The main political ideologies that exist now - liberalism, socialism, fascism - were all founded in the 19th century, in response to the rise of industrial capitalism. The entire history of the 20th century was merely the playing out of some of the unresolved internal contradictions of 19th century society. Yet the root cause of those internal contradictions - industrial capitalism itself - was never addressed. This means that, as time passes, those same internal contradictions will flourish again, and are flourishing again. And so we come full circle once more, and Napoleon III marches into our representative assemblies with an eagle perched on his shoulder and takes charge again. And if that was farce back in the mid-19th century, then what will it be today...? Lol.

[Political Interest]

In my opinion right wing Marxism appears once a revolution has become stabilised. In the Soviet Union I think right wing Marxism developed after Stalin. Brezhnev represented the achetype of right wing Marxism in that he was not an ideological obsessive like Lenin, Trotsky or even Stalin in some respects. At that time there was no terror against normal civilians and the state worked to improve the economy. There was enough cynicism about the ideology to ensure the USSR of that time was spared the lunacy of China's Cultural Revolution or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I think they were much more pragmatic after Lenin. Stalin was unfortunately a necessary evil to construct the country and defend it in a very insecure time. But in a more stable global situation there was no need for revolutionary insansity.

The far left in America is known to have been influenced by Maoism, notably through the New Left. It's a very dangerous type of leftism that interestingly enough for Marxism, does not focus on material conditions as the basis for analysis. Their interest is not in building a conservative, established socialist America where everyone will be able to live well but instead they want revolutionary purity. They are just as dangerous as the Alt-Right. But then nearly every Marxist I have ever encountered was not interested in stability. It was never about building a stable society but the anger at whoever was identified as the oppressor, whether this was the white man, the bourgeoisie or whoever else. What type of person wants a permanent revolution? No one from among the genuine working people.

[LeftNationalist]

Really? Because that's what communists have always done historically. Are you a Luxemburgist?

I don't consider myself anything.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that all communists (or even all Marxists) have historically taken an anti-populist, anti-rural stance on these issues. In fact, I've seen a lot of communists that come very close to agreeing (if not outright agreeing) with me. This is particularly true outside the United States.

I believe the attitudes of which you speak are far more prevalent among communists in the anglo-world (and by extension the first world). I'm sure there are exceptions of course. And I have no clue as to why this is the case. But it is interesting.

[skinster]

PI there is no "New Left" or "alt Left", stop with that nonsense.