• PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Marxism is when you only think about what Marx wrote in his lifetime. I for instance am very concerned about Prussia and it's reactionary regime.

    • LeninWeave [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I for instance am very concerned about Prussia and it’s reactionary regime.

      Yeah, me too. :germany-cool:

    • RNAi [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      I for instance am very concerned about Prussia and it’s reactionary regime.

      I mean, same

    • sagarmatha [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      i'll have you know this is anti hegelian and you have to return your dialectics badge immediately to the manager of philosophy

    • CthulhusIntern [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      When Marx was talking about the king of Prussia, he really meant King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

  • Kumikommunism [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Marx never said "abolish capitalism"

    Ah yes, the "I'm not touching you" of political theory

  • btbt [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I think we should implement a genzedong style lib cringe weekend for redditor posts outside the dunk tank, I cant handle the psychic damage from posts like this on a regular basis

  • buh [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It's true that he never said "abolish gender" but we should do it anyways

  • Norm_Chumpsky [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Yeah, dumbshits, Marx never said "religion is the opium of the people" he said:

    The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

    Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

    The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

        • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
          ·
          3 years ago

          I don't really see much criticism of atheism in the passage provided, nor in the source document, but indeed, militant atheism, especially as suggested by the new atheists is just as troublesome as religion can be.

          Can't win, you get fucked coming and going.

          • volkvulture [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            he says he rejects the label & wants to treat with the essence & the social context of philosophy itself

            In this "Contribution to the Critique of the Philosophy of Right" Marx is saying in 1843:

            "Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics"

            "The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings! "

            Criticizing religion isn't ultimately the target of humanity's ire, but a way to bring us toward criticizing the institutions & conventions that do hold humanity back in a visceral way

            In 1844, Marx writes about the critique of religion as contributing to the formulation of socialism, but that “Atheism, as a negation of God, has no longer any meaning, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation”

            This is important because it’s still about the material bearing that any of these philosophical renderings has on social life, and on the individual

            “Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions”

            Dogmatic atheism for Marx in this sense is to attack humanity’s means to abstractly or at the most socially alleviate its own suffering

            Further, Marx writes: “everyone should be able to relieve religious and bodily nature without the police sticking their noses in"

            In Capital Marx writes this: “This antagonistic stage cannot be avoided, any more than it is possible for man to avoid the stage in which his spiritual energies are given a religious definition as powers independent of himself. What we are confronted by here is the alienation [Entfremdung] of man from his own labour”

            So while Marx was under the influence of the Enlightenment & specifically of Feuerbach’s critique of theology (Feuerbach himself also rejected puerile “atheism” as such), Marx is approaching these things from a historical standpoint to reveal the very human essence at the heart of such striving

    • chair [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world

      Refuse to believe he wasn't just randomly mashing the typewriter for this sentence

  • Galli [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Marx wrote in german and did not write any of these english phrases :expert-shapiro: owned with facts and logic

  • emizeko [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    crossposter is mod of the sub and a "patriotic socialism" post is stickied

    someone here on hexbear has explained the difference between global south national liberation movements against colonialism and imperial core patriotism but I don't even have the energy to look for it

    • Tapirs10 [undecided,she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I mean it's as simple as national movements in oppressed countries oppose oppression. Nationalism in oppressive countries supports oppression

      • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah, there are useful parallels in the difference between white pride movements vs other ethnic pride movements, "straight pride" vs gay/ trans pride, etc.

        Pride/ nationalist movements of dominant groups basically just exist to revel in and reinforce that domination, pride & nationalist groups of marginalized groups tend to focus on keeping people from feeling horrible about themselves for belonging to marginalized groups, and to try to make them less socially and politically marginalized in general.

        • volkvulture [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          American patriots can be "other ethnic groups" and have gay/trans pride at the same time

          National chauvinism can exist in big & small nations

    • GoroAkechi [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      When your country has been occupied and your people have been oppressed by foreign powers for decades, it’s okay to be patriotic. When your country does the occupation and oppression, it’s not okay to be patriotic. Simple as can be

    • sagarmatha [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      imperial core patriotism doesn't recognize any nation but itself, it is a foreover monster, a cancer that gobbles all it can until it is either consumed or consuming, this is why ussr good, even if it wasn't a national liberation it didn't use patriotism to elevate one above all in a nazi paradox (the paradox being that if the enemy is weak there is no need to rise above it, if it is strong there is no reason to elevate above it), it instead helped friendly nations grow and strengthen and nations become friendly, also why so many communists fell in 1990 though unfortunately

        • sagarmatha [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          our preferred troll, read the comment again, it was not imperialist patriotism, I explained why, I am not going into philosophy and how the ussr deterritorialized patriotism

          • volkvulture [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            American chauvinism & xenophobia are not the same things as patriotic socialism & proletarian internationalism in America, which by themselves are not mutually exclusive

            USSR never deterritorialized patriotism, it was always tied to the reality of the land & the people of the constituent republics & fraternal relations among socialist nations

            • sagarmatha [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              again you didn't read the first comment, as it was exactly my point, the patriotism in the ussr was as much tied to the outside friendly nations as it was to the republics, which were already a deterritorialization compared to bourgeois patriotism, and always subservient to the greater well being of the soviets

        • comi [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          It was desperate measure of 30s though, to find common ground amidst class war in ussr before invasion. It should have been temporary deviation (to use, not to instill). Alas, patriotism got its wormhooks, and mutated over ussr decay period into nationalism. One shouldn’t mistake that for patriotism being desirable.

          • volkvulture [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            No, proletarian patriotism in USSR was a constant throughout... as it was in East Germany after WWII

            Chauvinism isn't desirable, but pride in one's country & people is

            • comi [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Genuinely where before 30s? Movies about great man to instill pride in past where done then, church was slowly let go.

              It isn’t desirable, it’s sometimes necessary evil to forge bonds between classes, but they are rotten from within. As soon as you have more solidarity with petit bourgeois fuck than with worker, cause one is from the same nation and the latter isn’t, you’ve got a problem.

              National xenophobic issues in ussr give fairly illustrative example, with slow displacement into Russian chauvinism.

              • volkvulture [none/use name]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Soviet patriotism & the "Soviet person" was simultaneously proletarian internationalist & proud of their heritage & national identity

                Yes, love of one's country & people is "socialism" at its very heart. There is no "forging bonds between classes" as such, it's about promoting socially necessary relations between & among Soviet nations. Indigenization was part of this process, but so was the "New Soviet man", these process worked in tandem

                Great-Russian chauvinism always existed in those areas, and only a "patriotic socialism" could address it

                • comi [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  But new soviet man wasn’t rooted in nation crucially, while patriotism was. Just look into output of movies before war, with nevsky and grozny pics. It’s fairly obvious what they are doing and why: they are telling kulaks and assorted declassed elements - look, at least we are russians, we can kill any invasion.

                  Country is garbage heap invented whole cloth after feudalism has finished dividing finite land. What is one’s country if you are born in Lorraine?

                  People is one thing, you can like your place of growing up (as in location and people), people like remembering childhood. but being proud of kings who fucked over all your ancestry requires truly mesmerizing leap to be considered desirable.

                  Class solidarity could address it, with indifference to place of birth. But alas, the germany got fucked

                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    Stalin referred to the Russian nation as the "elder brother" among the constituent republics. The New Soviet man was integral to forming the Soviet patriotism in both its many constituent national contexts & in the overall production of Soviet national identity

                    Marx was born in Trier which is in the "Sar-Lor-Lux" region, and is inherently a mishmash of Francophone & Germanic influences. But Marx was German

                    Patriotic socialism has nothing to do with being proud of kings

                    East Germany was patriotic in the Cold War period

                    • comi [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      Yes, and I’m again telling you the reason why stalin did it: it was class glue to hold on till the war, or the vlasov affair prolly would have been much worse.

                      You don’t need patriotism, ffs, worker solidarity isn’t patriotism, and worker pride (so to say) isn’t patriotism.

                      The Soviet Union took shortcut and it backfired 50 years later when shortcut engineers were purged, and nomenklatura decided that all was fine, we should continue. considering the boomer state in eastern europe - it backfired everywhere

                      • volkvulture [none/use name]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        The purge was ongoing, and Soviet patriotism existed before the 1930s and after the war as well

                        Patriotism is exactly what USSR promoted, in a proletarian internationalist context

                        It wasn't the socialist patriotism that backfired, it was the anti-Stalinist turn

                        • comi [he/him]
                          ·
                          3 years ago

                          Again, where?

                          Because it’s very neat shortcut allowing to involve national and petit bourgeoisie in liberation struggle. But it’s that - shortcut to first stage of revolution.

                          Yes, and that turn includes leaving patriotism fester and morph beneath the surface.

                          • volkvulture [none/use name]
                            ·
                            edit-2
                            3 years ago

                            The first stage of revolution was in 1917-1924

                            Patriotic socialism was promoted through East Slav & Central Asian & Caucasus and Far East Areas

                            It wasn't socialist patriotism that began to fester, it was the idiocy of Great-Russians trying to fight against the Nazi-stoked chauvinism in the least effective ways throughout those areas

                            In each instance, it was the Soviet socialist patriotism at odds with this genocidal ethnocentrism in places like Crimea & Chechen areas & elsewhere

                            • comi [he/him]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              3 years ago

                              Yea, but it wasn’t patriotic, not at first. Patriotism is invention of nation states, lol, when did it appear you think? It has obvious trappings and goals, and I cannot conceive why it’s desirable state of affairs for socialist.

                              Obviously, when it was understood that germany isn’t coming to the fold (and ussr was doomed from then tbh), they’ve pivoted through stalin into in-one-country formula. But it is that - pivot and deviation dictated by the nature of struggle, class antagonism and foreign enemies. It isn’t in itself good or desirable, it’s something that was imposed upon fledging Soviet Union. And again, if you trace art and culture of ussr, which was fairly bound to party you can see it reorienting in 35-39 very rapidly into embracing not revolutionary struggles, but past great man of russia.

                              • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                ·
                                3 years ago

                                No, it was socialist patriotism, which is an invention of socialist countries. It appeared before USSR, but only found practical application for the first time in USSR, as AES first took root there. Socialists are patriots in every AES context

                                East Germany did come into the fold, and it was patriotic throughout out the Cold War period. "Socialism in one country" didn't mean in ONLY one country, just one country at a time, which is the natural progression. Love of one's community & family & friends and fellow workers cannot have any other term to describe it outside of socialist patriotism.

                                • comi [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  3 years ago

                                  Yes, that’s fucking exactly why they were all forced/succumbed to it

                                  East Germany came too late, as the hope was intercontinental block and help with development of productive forces in different places, instead of exploitation of peasants to rapidly industrialize in backward country.

                                  Of course it can, it’s called love thy neighbor, lel. If you are redefining patriotism in your head to mean worker solidarity then congratulations, but that’s not patriotism.

                                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                    ·
                                    edit-2
                                    3 years ago

                                    Socialist patriotism isn't something I defined, it exists/existed in all AES countries, including ones who were formerly imperialistic or had slavery & indigenous removal like Cuba & East Germany and others

                                    • comi [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      3 years ago

                                      Then we agree to disagree that such a thing exists :shrug-outta-hecks:

                                      • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                        ·
                                        edit-2
                                        3 years ago

                                        You just aren't looking at what exists, you're choosing abstraction and simple negation instead

                                        " Cuban history schoolbooks spoke of the “martyrs” who had died for “Patriotismo Socialista.” Mao Zedong also adopted a version of his own.116 In whatever remains of a worldwide far-left Marxist movement, the concept of socialist patriotism is still a current term. It can be found on left- wing websites, and in the press releases of the North Korean news agency.1"

                                        "All Central and Eastern European countries developed their own version of socialist patriotism: in the DDR it was called sozialistischer patriotismus, in Romania patrio- tismului revolutionar socialist, in Poland patriotyzmu socjalistznego, in Hungary szocialista hazafisa ́g. Each party constructed its own variety, usually drawing exten- sively on existing national traditions, including those on the political right."

                                        • comi [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          edit-2
                                          3 years ago

                                          Yes, and it was garbage idea everywhere. If you don’t transcend patriotism into international solidarity, sooner or later it will give brainworms to noticeable part of population. It’s very cool when socialist think that their countrymen not having TVs is bigger outrage then Africa not having electric lighting in lot of places

                                          • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                            ·
                                            3 years ago

                                            There is no "transcendence" without negation of negation

                                            You can't just undialectically "abolish" what exists in this simplistic way

                                            What exists must be driven to extreme & the higher form emerges from the "womb" of the old

                                            African countries have patriotic socialism too

                                            • comi [he/him]
                                              ·
                                              3 years ago

                                              Of course there is, the negation of nation should abolish patriotism. Once again, where was patriotism before nation states among disposed masses?

                                              Patriotism is already highest form of brain worms, where people might choose solidarity with the oppressor, cause they speak same language, it cannot become even more rabid.

                                              • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                                ·
                                                edit-2
                                                3 years ago

                                                No, simplistic "negation" is anti-Marxian and has nothing to do with scientific socialism

                                                Socialist patriotism is the key to the solution of this problem with building beyond backwardness & chauvinism

                                                Telling people they can't have love for their communities & families & countries is not socialism lmfao

                                                • comi [he/him]
                                                  ·
                                                  3 years ago

                                                  “Simplistic” negation? Since when negation is simplistic? Both are complete processes in themselves.

                                                  Maybe my antipatriotism is negation and class solidarity is negation of negation? Curious thing, that biggest boom of anti patriotism during ww1 resulted in russian revolution and very near in that in germany or later italy. Maybe antipatriotism is necessary in imperial core then?

                                                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                                    ·
                                                    edit-2
                                                    3 years ago

                                                    Marxian dialectics involves "negation of negation"... simplistic negation is just one-dimensional rebellion, not revolution

                                                    The USSR revolution was an actual outpouring of socialist patriotism, and "revolutionary defeatism" was employed in the larger context of building beyond the Tsarist backwardness... that process couldn't have been completed or even attempted without a love for one's country. As Lenin says, building on Disraeli's Sybil that Lenin loved dearly:

                                                    " There are two nations in every modern nation—we say to all nationalist-socialists. There are two national cultures in every national culture. There is the Great-Russian culture of the Purishkeviches, Guchkovs and Struves—hut there is also the Great-Russian culture typified in the names of Chernyshevsky and Plekhanov. There are the same two cultures in the Ukraine as there are in Germany, in France, in England, among the Jews, and so forth. If the majority of the Ukrainian workers are under the influence of Great-Russian culture, we also know definitely that the ideas of Great-Russian democracy and Social-Democracy operate parallel with the Great-Russian clerical and bourgeois culture. In fighting the latter kind of “culture”, the Ukrainian Marxist will always bring the former into focus, and say to his workers: “We must snatch at, make use of, and develop to the utmost every opportunity for intercourse with the Great-Russian class-conscious workers, with their literature and with their range of ideas; the fundamental interests of both the Ukrainian and the Great-Russian working-class movements demand it.”

                                                    If a Ukrainian Marxist allows himself to he swayed by his quite legitimate and natural hatred of the Great-Russian oppressors to such a degree that he transfers even a particle of this hatred, even if it be only estrangement, to the proletarian culture and proletarian cause of the Great-Russian workers, then such a Marxist will get bogged down in bourgeois nationalism. Similarly, the Great-Russian Marxist will be bogged down, not only in bourgeois, but also in Black-Hundred nationalism, if he loses sight, even for a moment, of the demand for complete equality for the Ukrainians, or of their right to forum an independent state. "

                                                    Rebellion is anti-dialectical without this recognition of primary contradictions. Rebellion and revolution in this context are at times even antagonistic

                                                    • comi [he/him]
                                                      ·
                                                      3 years ago

                                                      Negation, despite being opposed to primary, is anything but simplistic. Idealism negated from materialism, have gone completely esoteric evolving into hegel, if you forgot.

                                                      So, exactly class solidarity with disregard to the countries? Huh :lenin-confused:

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It's time for reading some Marx!

    On the Abolition of the State and Commodity exchange forms

    The "Withering of the State" quote doesn't really need a source, but Engles provides some clarification

    Marx and I, ever since 1845, have held the view that one of the final results of the future proletarian revolution will be the gradual dissolution and ultimate disappearance of that political organisation called the State; an organisation the main object of which has been to secure, by armed force, the economical subjection of the working majority to the wealthy minority. At the same time we have always held that in order to arrive at this and the other, far more important ends of the social revolution of the future, the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the state and with this aid stamp out the resistance of the capitalist class and re-organise society. This is already stated in the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO of 1847, end of Chapter II.

    On Gender

    We consider the tendency of modern industry to make children and juvenile persons of both sexes co-operate in the great work of social production, as a progressive, sound and legitimate tendency, although under capital it is distorted into an abomination

    On the destruction of Capitalist Society

    See "Complete works of Karl Marx, 1846-Death"

    On Abolition of the Family

    Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.

    On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.

    The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.

    Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

    Religion is the opium of the masses

    "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

    Yeah he's more sympathetic than the quote seems but he then goes on to attack religion so...not sure what they're going for here.

    Engles of course goes much harder on all of these. Read your Engles, it'll kill the Stupidpol in you.

    • MarxistHedonism [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      So what you’re saying is that Engles is another Marxoid saying stuff that Marx never said?

    • Speaker [e/em/eir]
      ·
      3 years ago

      We consider the tendency of modern industry to make children and juvenile persons of both sexes co-operate in the great work of social production, as a progressive, sound and legitimate tendency, although under capital it is distorted into an abomination

      This seems to be more about child labor than gender. In particular, it reads a lot like it's saying that child labor is great when it's communist.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The context of the quote was I believe in a passage about the gendered separation of labour...But yeah, it doesn't sound that way. Had a better quote but when I sourced it it was actually Engles writing to Marx.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I remember reading a right wing history text that was a broad history of the 18th and 19th centuries and it at one point wrote "'religion is the opiate of the masses' a prominent 19th century philosopher sneered "

    And then a chapter later it was detailing a bit about Marx and the rise of Marxian theory and Marxist political activism.

    lmao who's scared of saying the name huh

  • Glass [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    lol p sure most of these are things lenin said, but expecting them to read a second thing would just be too much

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Marx said all of them, Engles said them double. Lenin was in support but not nearly as firey as Engles about it.

  • DirtbagVegan [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I mean they’re basically misrepresenting Marx with all of these points, but uhhh, one of those really stands out.