I have no idea what the video is trying to say. It starts with Fanon:
Wretched of the Earth is a capitulation to Black Nationalism, Third Worldism. He's acknowledging the further degeneration of the global situation. Fanon was the eminent dialectical critic, or the negative dialectical critic, of the Third World Revolution.
Anti-Imperialism, the affirmation of decolonization, was one-sided. It became a way for the Western Left to avoid the task of rebooting mass working class movement for socialism in the core of capitalism.
That question was posed circa. 1956, that's what we mean by the New Left. The task of creating a New Left was glimpsed, and it was bound up with race. The single biggest trigger of the global New Left was not Khrushchev's 20th Party Congress Speech, it's Civil Rights in the United States.
By the end of the 1970s, it's clear that there's no New Left, the New Left failed to create the New Left, and it's uncritical affirmation of decolonization results in the complete degeneration of decolonization. What does the anti-colonial movement look like? It looks like the Iranian Revolution. It's openly right-wing.
What Stalinism means, it's not like an authoritarian movement, or Russian domination or whatever, what it means is liquidation of historical consciousness. And the way that you do that is by calling defeat, victory. You can't learn anything from a defeat if you call it victory. The most relevant form of that is the Stalinists claming that they defeating Fascism in 1945 as part of the upward and onward global development of communism. That's a lie. That is calling a defeat, victory. That is a liquidation of historical consciousness of what had happened since the crisis of the Revolution of 1917.
I really don't understand what he's trying to say.
Okay, so having seen Spencer Leonard, who by profession is a historian of India, speak a few times I think this is his general idea (don't take this as me necessarily agreeing with it):
The left has been trapped in focusing on national liberation movements since the aftermath of Russian Revolution. Basically, after the failure of the global socialist revolution that they were hoping to bring about, the answer that Lenin et al. arrived at to the question of "Where do we go from here?" was supporting national liberation movements, which were on the upswing at the time.
Since then, this doctrine has becone dogma to the point of undermining the ability of doing organizing at centers of capitalism without critical reflection on what strategy for the left would actually be effective at reaching the goal of the proletariat carrying out world socialist revolution. Instead of organizing the proletariat in the US, the American left has resorted to supporting decolonization in ineffective ways, even if it's taking a reactionary form without it actually bringing proletarian revolution any closer and the seeming victories are undermined at best. The 50 Year Counterrevolution after the Civil Rights Era is one example of an undermined victory that This Is Revolution talks about quite a bit. Another example might be Vietnam, where some argue the US didn't lose given the global position, economic structure, etc. of Vietnam today (iirc Chomsky is one of the people that takes this position).
With respect to what Stalinism is, I've also heard this definition also from Chris Cutrone (another polemicist in the Platypus Affiliated Society and its former president). Basically, they identify the core of Stalinism as portraying defeats in the revolution as victories. For example, saying "It's great that we have this strong NKVD!" when this is actually a defeat since needing such a powerful secret police undermines the democratic character of proletarian revolution. (Now, this is certainly a more coherent definition of Stalinism than we normally see, although personally I'd say they need to make sure to bring up this definition whenever they use the term Stalinism with a more general audience because not doing so leads to confusion.)
Essentially, Socialism In One Country was a lie and Trotsky was correct.
Classic trot shit, it all makes sense. NATO did far more to ensure the victory of fascism in Europe than Stalin ever could have
Replied to wrong comment of OPs, meant to reply to the one talking about the comments on the video
Don't know, don't really care to listen to historically illiterate ideologically confused liberals try to give any sort of lecture on literally anything on the Soviet Union that isn't backed up with easily available primary source materials.
Also I'm on a train and keep entering and exiting dead zones so I couldn't watch it even if I wanted to torture myself by watching this out of bordom
Don’t know, don’t really care to listen
Why'd you bother writing this comment then?
As far as quickly resorting to calling him a "historically illiterate ideologically confused liberal" you're just showing that you're jumping to a conclusion quickly. Leonard is a historian of India and is currently writing a book on the history of Indian Marxism.
try to give any sort of lecture on literally anything on the Soviet Union that isn’t backed up with easily available primary source materials
He's a guest on a podcast having a discussion. Not exactly an easy setting for inserting footnotes. If you want to look at his sources you could probably find his argument more elaborated in writings he's published.
I wouldn't say that I agree with him per se, but this is a situation where I think a more thoughtful refutation is warranted.
BTW, Spencer A. Leonard is in the comments of the video, calling Stalin "a hero of the right", that "Stalinism led to the victory of fascism in Europe" and that Stalinism "ensured the subordination of the working class to nationalism".
So I got off the train and actually subjected myself to this dogshit Leonard calls a "lecture".
I fully stick to my assertion he is an historically illiterate ideologically confused liberal, and would advise him that as a professor on Indian history he should stick to his own lane of expertise and wield his academic title as a bludgeon to declare himself an authoritative speaker on a subject outside of his field of study in a similar manner that charlatans like Jordan Peterson parade themselves as.
His assertion that the "new left" has it roots in the American Civil rights movement is American chauvinism that ignores the titanic impacts of Khrushchev's lies, the Sino-Soviet split, and Mao's ultra-left pivot had on the international communist movement. To try and assert that The New Left was a completely independently formed and separate movement that has no historical ties to the Socialist and Communist movement is a clear demonstration of Leonard's historical illiteracy.
On the point where he smears the legacy of the Soviet Union during the Stalin Era, I would have thought he was going to perform an ultra-Left pivot and assert that "stalinism sold you defeat and called it victory" by doing the usual hairbrained dipshit claim that Stalin subverted the world revolution by declaring that he was going to build Socialism in One country and call it communism.
But to my surprise Leonard comes completely out of left field by asserting, and the podcast people did him a disservice by not letting him expand on his shit take and cutting him off as he asserts that Stalin failed to kill Fascism and by claiming otherwise Stalin liquidated the historical consciousness of, whom he doesn't say but let's assume, the Soviet peoples on everything that occurred between the October Revolution to Victory Day. Which is an extremely bold claim.
In the time between the last paragraph to this one, I spent more time reading through the transcript of the full interview, researching who Leonard is and what media group he's with, and oh boy I had a field day. He never expands of why he said anything on Stalinism or how it sold defeat as victory, and he calls for the overthrowing of the PRC as one of the key pieces for victory of world socialism.
The only fucking losers that use "victory of world socialism" and "Stalinism" in the same sentence while avoiding any mention of communism at all are fucking ultra-Left Trotskyites, which led me to look more into him and confirming that he's associated with Trotskyite paperboy clubs on the ultra-Left and with the Rights Breadtube's most annoying and pedantic ivory tower "marxists" of the ZeroBooks infamy Lain and Burgess. I take back calling him a historically illiterate ideologically confused liberal because that's an insult to liberals who don't know any better, he's just another annoying fucking Trot who's eternally mad his boy didn't get a chance to lead the Soviet Union into ruin and got justice at the end of a :pika-pickaxe:
Examining this was a complete waste of my time and energy.
Second paragraph: focusing on national liberation movements abroad led to leftist in the imperial core not organizing the working class.
Commentary: I think there's something to this. Arguing about overseas conflicts or voicing solidarity with them when we have no power domestically is a way of seeming radical without actually engaging in politics.
Third paragraph: main claim here is the "new left" was centered in race, not a rejection of "Stalinism" (originating from Kruschev).
Commentary: this might be true for the western or US left, I don't know enough history to comment.
Fourth paragraph: supporting any national liberation movement leads to supporting right wing movements.
Commentary: I think the author is stating this is a move away from a principled position (like the domestic move away from class struggle).
Final paragraph: I think the point here is the "victory" of WWII was pyrrhic.
Commentary: I think the paragraph is gesturing that the USSR was on the winning side but at tremendous cost. Not just in resources but the end of the comintern, the beginning of the cold war (despite Stalin's hopes of detente w/ the US), and the definitive end of the radical experimentation of the earlier years of the USSR (this is the so called bureaucratization that Mao launched th cultural revolution to prevent in China).
Ultimately, the paragraph is at least right in the sense that the USSR was arguably subject to revisionism immediately following Stalin's death. So despite everything Stalin did to shore up the party-state's power, he failed. And obviously the USSR eventually coup'd itself. This is not a victory despite whatever other accomplishments we might point to.
Overall point: the left has been on its back foot for most of the last century. Capital has been winning whether we look at the western left or the Soviets.
I didn’t understand the connection between Fanon, New Left, Decolonisation, and Stalinism.
I like the This Is Revolution podcast, I'm sure they make good points here
Jason Myles, Djene Bajalan, and the guest (Spencer A. Leonard) are in the comments of the video, calling Stalin "a hero of the right", comparing him to Hitler, saying that "Stalinism led to the victory of fascism in Europe" and that Stalinism "ensured the subordination of the working class to nationalism".
If they have objections to Stalin, then they should come out and make a proper video about him, highlighting all his perceived flaws and what they would've done in his place.
Those first two claims seem questionable. But it seems like they're responding with the same snark as the original comments
Look, I get what they are saying, but the failures of Stalin are almost entirely preceded by the failures of the German Communist Revolution in the 20's. Every step that Stalin took was a part of that re-evaluation of things that were expected to happen in the true proletarian center of Europe and the rapid scale industrialization that was required when that did not occur. It was not that Stalin was defeated by nationalism or let nationalism win. Nationalism had pretty much already won before Stalin ever came to prominence, and at most what he was able to do was prevent the very worst of German facism and preserve Russian communism, if only for a couple generations.
You can blame Stalin for many things. He made many mistakes, especially his later party purges and choices of high command post WWII. But laying the entire blame of the failure of the left at the feet of Stalin is not Marxist, where we recognize that men make history but they do not make it under the circumstances of their choosing.
