Hi all. It’s been a while. I’ve been very busy recently so hadn’t gotten the time to update this blog.
In any case, this is going over the series of books I managed to complete last year. I’ve read 25 in all, and they probably average around 200 pages or so. I won’t actually review all of them in detail, but I will comment on the ones that have been more grabbing to me.
The Labour Party’s Political Thought: Third Edition – Geoffrey Foote
Socialism Betrayed – Roger Keeran, Michael Kenny
New Labour Policy, Industrial Relations and the Trade Unions – Steve Coulter
The Lost World of British Communism – Raphael Samuel
Defeat From The Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock’s Labour Party – Richard Hefferman & Mike Marcusee
A People’s History of Iraq – Ilario Salucci
Four Futures – Peter Frase
The End of Parliamentary Socialism – Leo Panitch & Colin Leys
State and Revolution – Vladimir Lenin
Neoliberalism – Damien Cahill & Martijn Konings
Discourse on Colonialism – Aime Cesaire
The Right of Nations to Self-Determination – Vladimir Lenin
Blackshirts & Reds – Michael Parenti
The Human Rights Manifesto – Julie Wark
Smashing the Iron Rice Pot: Workers and Unions in China’s Market Socialism – Leung Wing-yue
Dialectical Method of Marx and Engels – Geo Jomaria
Washington Bullets – Vijay Prashad
Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession – Andrew Cockburn, Patrick Cockburn
China, the USA and Capitalism’s Last Crusade – William Briggs
BrexLit: The Problem of Englishness in Pre- and Post-Brexit Referendum Literature – Dulcie Everitt
Introducing Hegel: A Graphic Guide – Lloyd Spencer
Lost Futures: The Disappearing Architecture of Post-War Britain – Owen Hopkins
Conversations With Allende – Regis Debray
Naturally, Cesaire is most relevant to us who are conscious of current affairs as the frontierism and colonial violence of Europe continues to plague Western Asia. Israel serves as the final frontier of Western colonialism: the final outpost of Western civilisation against ‘savage oriental hordes’ in ‘the Arabs’. The violence we see today is a testament to the violent logic of settler colonialism in the modern age, as well as exposes the cynical calculus of the ‘democratic’ West.
This is a brief list of leftist media that I came across in 2023, alongside with specific videos that I thought were interesting:
ChemicalMind (link): An American Marxist-Leninist YouTuber going over socialism as praticed in the United States, book reviews, and addressing misconceptions about socialism & communism.
F.D. Signifier (link): Basically a black dad and one of the “older millenials” who happens to have two degrees, one of them being a master’s in sociology. Discusses cultural concerns in the United States, especially as it pertains to African-American popular culture. Featured on MorePerfectUnion, The Deprogram, Hasan Piker, and more recently Positive Leftist News channels, as well as Black Power Media and even Anthony Fantano.
Ornament and Crime (link): American anarchist going over the cultural issues and the historical trajectory of the Jewish identity. Broadly focuses on indigeneity, folk culture, archaeology and various other topics.
The Deprogram (link): What happens when you get an American, an Iraqi and a Serb together? You get the world’s first reverse “humanitarian intervention”plot of Grand Theft Auto IV second most unlikeliest podcast after Superman and Lex Luthor. Probably helps that all of the co-hosts are communists.
The Homeless Romantic (link): Podcast hosted by Chris Jeffries. Range of interviews from John Bellamy Foster to John Waters.
Bes D. Marx (link): Albanian communist (and One Piece fan) living in Germany. Produces very well researched videos on European (socialist) history.
Fredda (link): Danish history graduate*. Used to do streaming videos of his gaming interests (and still does), until he got motivated to push back against right-wing claims of leftist conspiracies.
uncivilized (link): Edutainment media enterprise founded by Salem Barahmeh. Primarily focuses on topics related to Palestine, but at times broadens the focus to colonized peoples.
Not sure if I have a specific set of videos that I liked, But here’s some that I enjoyed watching:
In the autumn of 2023, a video of one Oliver Anthony performing a folk song he wrote titled, “Rich Men North of Richmond” – which he castigated the greed of capitalists…while also chastising the poor for taking ‘handouts’ in welfare checks. This had struck many viewers to believe that Anthony is a right-winger/libertarian but he refused appearances on Fox News or indeed, any of the right-wing media ecosphere in spite of them featuring his music on their programs, and put out a video denouncing them for trying to exploit him and his music for their own ends. This video by Radical Reviewer puts into context the social background of Anthony and the unique set of social relations, including labour relations that someone like him would exist in – and why he might carry anti-poor prejudices, before actually reviewing the song itself, and comparing it to radical songs/resistance music. Please check it out.
So this is an interview conducted by 1Dime with @theory_underground on Nick Land, the so-called “dark enlightenment”, and what his deal is. Even after that explanation, I very much don’t think that Land is ‘the most interesting man in the world’. Just another dweeb who got caught up with the miasma from the End of History, and needed to get put into a locker. Or hung on a coat-hanger. These guys also really like Zizek for some reason. One thing that I’ll give it credit for, is inspiring me to read up on Schopenhauer. Give it a watch if you’re at least a bit interested in “Theory”.
I really like hearing FD speak on anything. But watch this documentary review of BS High really distills the essence of what he’s about. Give it a watch.
To be honest, it was a mostly shit year for me personally. Most of the projects that I wanted to get done for this year were not nearly complete by the end of it. Most of the lack of engagement with the blog is primarily due to this. All in all, there were technically eleven post I made this year, including the eventual hundredth post on September. Anyway, can’t beat myself up for not doing enough. Here’s an overview of the events that occured this year:
Lula inaugurated as he begins his third presidential term in Brazil on New Year’s Day; an anti-Lula protest organised by supporters of the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro, and other right-wing elements takes place the following week – culminating into a riot/coup attempt by invading the Brazilian Congress; scores of protestors were arrested, and jailed for their participation; The events of “8/1”, draw comparison to “January 6th” – complete with the presence of a white shaman
Laughable hysteria around a Chinese “spy” balloon* hovering over North American airspace eventually making it to the United States. The balloon is eventually shot down by the United States Air Force; Biden has to do a ridiculous speech about it
Former POTUS Donald Trump is indicted on four counts (two state, two federal) between March 2023 to August 2023; Trump has cases to answer for regarding illegal payments, falsifying business records, attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and overturning Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia
Chinese property crisis leaves the Evergrande Group – the second largest property developer in China – in debt to various banks, retail suppliers, and foreign investors – the crisis affects foreign investment in China
War breaks out in Sudan between rival military factions; creates massive humanitarian crisis
King Charles III coronation takes place on 6th May 2023
Elon Musk formally steps down as CEO of Twitter; Musk manages to oversee rebranding of Twitter to X; Social media website continues slow decline
Cornel West announces candidacy for President of the United States – switches parties at least three times
Series of coups across the Sahel region of Africa see Niger and Gabon join Burkina Faso and Mali in the rise of military governance; Standoff between Sahel military governments and ECOWAS over possible intervention ends with the latter backing down once Western countries (particularly France) conclude that it would be too much effort
Ex-convict, billionaire restaurant owner, and Wagner Group PMC head Yevgeny Prigozhin leads a mutiny against the Russian military, and leads a column from Southwest Russia to Moscow, apparently to resist the scheduled incorporation of Wagner Group into the Ministry of Defence – which would diminish Prigozhin’s influence. With the intervention of Belaroussian President Alexander Lukashenko, a deal was cut with Prigozhin, leading to the withdrawal of the Wagner Group; Vladimir Putin would later denounce Prigozhin’s actions as “betrayal”, which is apparently a death sentence in Russia
Women’s World Cup 2023 concludes with Spain as the champions; Spanish coach sexually harrassing one of the Spanish football players (Jenni Hormoso) as she receives her award on live television triggers a public row, and leads to the coach’s resignation; Football wasn’t “coming home” with the England’s women’s football team, but they came third, and goalkeeper Mary Earps wins the Golden Glove trophy; Hinata Miyazawa of Japan is the Golden Boot winner with five goals
Novara Media co-founder Aaron Bastani assaulted in public
Presidential candidate in Ecuador is assassinated
Nadine Dorries resigns as MP
London declared an Ultra Low Emission Zone by Mayor Sadiq Khan, triggering irritation of motorists, with a petit-bourgeois movement shortly coming out of it – critics of Just Stop Oil’s ‘whining’ act even whinier over the desire to drive their cars without receiving a charge for it
A plane with Wagner Group PMC founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin along with six other members of the mercenary leadership crashed as it flew from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, killing all of the passengers; Wagner Group spokesperson claims that the plane was actually shot down on orders of the Kremlin
In response to the Abraham Accords – drafted for the Arab states to normalise relations with Israel, Hamas launch an assault on Israel on October 7 – in which over 1,000 were killed. Israel in response launches a bombardment campaign in Gaza, ostensibly to root out Hamas, but in actuality to finalise the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian territory/initiate the completion of the settler-colonial project; Israel-Hamas war has the United States and the United Kingdom offering support to Israel in its campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide
Suella Braverman resigns as Home Secretary; James Cleverly succeeds her
Argentina elects Javier Milei – a libertarian cosplayer who advocates austerity measures to reduce inflation, the closing of the health, education, women’s and culture ministries, and “blowing up” the central bank
President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro reignites Venezuelan claim of the Esequibo region held in what is now Guyana; Region turns out to be a repository of oil and gas. A referendum was held in Venezuela on 2 December 2023 to make the Esequibo a state; Speculation on regional conflict turns out to be somewhat exaggerated, though context of Guyana’s invitation of American forces and even the closeness of the referendum to election season in Venezuela is scarely mentioned
COP28 takes place in the United Arab Emirates; very little is agreed or is committed on
The states of Colorado and Maine have blocked Donald Trump from the electoral register due to his actions in the US Capitol riot of 2021. The decision to block Trump could potentially undermine his chances of seizing the nomination for the Republican Party’s presidential candidate; Remains an open question to see if these ruling will be upheld in the Supreme Court
Culturally speaking, Hip-hop celebrated its 50th anniversary – there was a lot of over-the-top (and pro-capitalist) narratives around the genre changing the world, though thankfully, there was someone around to burst the bubble that cultural production alone is the key to liberation. Doctor Who also had its 60th anniversary in three parts. I don’t have a working TV, so I can’t watch that live. Have a better appreciation for Conway Hall though. Already mentioned the Women’s World Cup this year, which was enjoyable. I left Twitt-sorry X, so I don’t have an idea of all the fun going on there with the bots and shit. Russell Brand is accused of multiple instances of sexual assault – including grooming of underage girls, bullying and other forms of emotional abuse – naturally, the seriousness of the allegations becomes culture war fodder. Pretty much stopped watching Novara Media for all intents and purposes around the time the interview with John Gray was uploaded – ironically I still ended up buying John Gray’s latest book.
Five favourite books that I finished:
My favourite one has to be: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More by Andrei Yarchuk
Followed by:
Socialism Betrayed by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny
Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire
The Lost World of British Communism by Raphael Samuel
Brexlit by Dulcie Everitt
This really was a toughie. I read 25 books this year. And did it while holding down an intensive job. The secret? Public transport is your friend. So hard disagree with the anti-ULEZ people on my end. Even like the coaches (though there was a day I really didn’t). Read when you wake up, read before you sleep.
Favourite post of 2023:
Easily neoliberalism. This is second. Didn’t update the blog very much, to be honest.
Favourite film of 2023:
Barbie. You heard me.**
Favourite television program of 2023:
Wu-Tang: An American Saga. Glad I watched the whole series this year. It was fitting for their 30th anniversary. And the 50th of hip-hop.
Favourite animated series of 2023:
Don’t fucking know. Barely watched anything, but Monkey D. Luffy going Gear Five was pretty cool.
People we lost:
Tina Turner
Paul O’Grady
Tom Nairn
Sinead O’Connor
Bobby Charlton
Terry Funk
Terry Venables
Shane MacGowan
Samer Abu Daqqah
The 45 King
David Jude Jolicoeur aka Trugoy the Dove
Mystic Meg
Magoo
Lance Riddick
Andre Braugher
Ahmad Jamal
“Superstar” Billy Graham
Glenda Jackson
Phyllis Coates
Lisa Loring
Matthew Perry
Meco
Michael Roberts
Jordan Neeley
Isabel Crook
Daniel Ellsberg
Isaam Abdallah
Refaat Alareer
Alexander Buzgalin
Gboyega Odubanjo
Doris Sikosana
Benjamin Zephaniah
John Pilger
People we were happy to see go:
Henry Kissinger
Yevgeny Prigozhin
Dmitri Utkin
Silvio Berlusconi
Martin Amis
Juanita Castro
Rolf Harris
Diane Feinstein
Ann Clwyd
People we were ‘meh’ about seeing go:
Mohammed al-Fayed
Rosalyn Carter
Vasily Zakharov
Jerry Springer
Joe the Plumber
Nigel Lawson
Alaistair Darling
Jacques Delors
Anyway, happy new year and hope to see you then. Unless I get a real job. Then maybe I won’t.
Notes:
*- China claims that it is actually a weather research balloon that went off course. I don’t think anyone really gives a shit apart from how it’s another instance of The Simpsons predicting the future.
**- Watched as part of ‘Barbenheimer’, which I intend to write about at some point. Barbie was better than Oppenheimer in my opinion.
Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, or simply Blackshirts & Reds, is a 1997 book written by the American political scientist Michael Parenti. The book is notable among the political Left for laying the case at a time in which it was not popular to argue – this time being the 1990s i.e. after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that socialism is not only not discredited, but that the works produced in its name validates the continued struggle for its final victory. Parenti argues that the greatest weapon ever rose against communism – was fascism, that it was the continuation of global capitalism in crisis, and that it was used as a bulwark against the advance of communism. Parenti also takes his aim towards anti-communist narratives – including those produced on the Left.
This book has something of a reputation among those on the far-left, especially those who were drawn to communism (that is to say, Marxism-Leninism*) in contemporary times mostly due to its clear prose and rather forceful argumentation against the prevailing (even triumphant) notion that the collapse of communism was good, and for making the case on how it had actually improved the lives to those who lived under it. Indeed, it is often part of the foundational reading lists of socialist and communist groups – some even going as far as to say that Blackshirts & Reds “changed their life”. Such reactions are mostly found in the Anglosphere, or people originating from there, especially among those from the United States, and given the incredibly aggressive anti-communist political culture of the US, it’s not hard to see why people who’ve come to see the various contradictions in American society and reject (aspects of) its national narrative really like this book. However, this reaction also obscures what Parenti actually says about communism in the book in which we will get into. I also intend to make a somewhat controversial statement (well, controversial to Parenti fans) regarding the ‘reading’ of Blackshirts & Reds.
So, what does Parenti say?
The following is a (relatively) brief summary of the contents of Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts & Reds compiled in bullet points to help readers of this post curious about the book to get an idea of what it says, and allow them the relative space to decide whether they should read it or not. It is also an illustration of which parts I’m interested in highlighting, so keep that in mind if you’ve not read it.
Parenti expresses bemusement that in the working-class Italian-American neighbourhood that he grew up in the Bronx, the visage of Benito Mussolini still graces T-shirts in novelty stores. When Parenti questions the clerk about it, the latter shrugs and says that some people like them, and maybe a Mussolini-type leader is what is needed in America. Parenti concludes from this exchanges that fascism still exists in forms more than curiousity. Contemporary anti-fascists would agree all too well.**
Once the working class, specifically militant organised labour started making gains in Europe – specifically in Italy and Germany, the industrialists and financiers of both started funding the “national socialists”, and especially took a shine to the leadership in Mussolini and Hitler respectively. The class composition of the fascists were from the petty-bourgois and the lumpenproletriat, and they got very good at strike-breaking and smashing unions by the 1920s. In Germany, the Communist Party sought an alliance with the Social Democrats against the threat of Nazis, but they were refused, just as various right-wing parties formed around the Nazis to win enough support to make Adolf Hitler the chancellor of Germany in 1933. Parenti observes that this is a common tale in countries past and present on the short-sightedness and duplicity of social democrats***, in that they would “sooner ally themselves with the reactionary Right than make common cause with Reds” (pg. 5). **** Parenti also challenges the notion that fascism was a deformed version of socialism, citing Hitler’s statements about “saving industrialists and bankers from Bolshevism”, and the fact that he assembled a massive personal fortune – even charging a small fee for postage stamps with his face on it (pg. 9).
The bourgeois press, or as Parenti calls it, “major publications” such as Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Saturday Evening Post, New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and others were very enthusiastic about the rise of Mussolini and Hitler, praising them for saving their countries from collapse and from extremism. The Blackshirts of Italy received particular praise for protecting a “new democracy”. Industrialists like Henry Ford were not only fans but travelled to Rome and Berlin, received medals, and cut deals with their regimes (pg. 10). The critiques offered by various leftists and progressives of fascism did not receive much exposure in the media.
Parenti insists that to focus on the “irrational” features of fascism is to miss the point of what it functioned as. He sees features such as the cult of personality, retreat into mysticism – particularly nationalist mysticism, and reliance on a monistic slogans e.g. Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer (one people, one rule, one leader), as a deliberate attempt to bind citizens into a nationalist politic eschewing emphasis on class divisions, and in fact reinforcing them, preserving them as a natural order. He contrasts this with the Left which expresses popular demands with an acute awareness of social injustice and class struggle (p. 12). Parenti also sees a parallel in fascist presentations of natural hierachies of class, race and gender; with the then contemporary “race scientists” who argue for the inferiority of black people via arguments against multiculturalism, using their presentation of IQ tests, demographics of academic achievements e.g. The Bell Curve, and crime statistics.
Parenti chastises those writers who see communism and fascism as totalitarian twins, accusing them of not understanding that fascism had consciously apprpriated the language and even some of the organising from the Left, while doing nothing to resolve class contradictions once their drive to control was fully realised in the conquest of the state. The Nazis used antisemitic and racist propaganda to misdirect grievances rising within German society to convenient scapegoats, and bolstering ideology of the absolutist state which has the Germans interests at heart; this propaganda was carefully disseminated to demographics based on their class position to create the same result: To see ‘the Jew’ as an alien element to society. Parenti also claims that the view of Nazism as parallel to communism was not even the view of European leaders and elites, they in fact saw Nazism as useful as a bulwark against communism.
Attention is called to the aftermath of World War II, and fascism’s defeat; Parenti charges the Western powers with a lax attitude to eradicating fascism, save for the prosecution of its leadership. Parenti states that under the aegis of the US occupation authorities, many of the Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators were reestablished within the now ‘democratic’ societies acting as police, lawyers and judges, federal agents, and businessmen; while the partisans fighting fascism were persecuted because they were communists and syndicalists. Western complicity in the rehabilitation of Nazis, even if only in reputation, has a continued relevance to this day in light of recent events.
The American people were subject to relentless propaganda distorting the agenda of communists and that of their own leaders. American people were repeatedly lied to about the reasons for suppressing revolutions across the world, citing the supposedly duplicitous and power-hungry nature of communists, and their responsibility to guide smaller and weaker nations into democracy. Parenti argues that the “global counterrevolutionary war” had led to the mass extermination of various peoples across the world who only sought a different way of living than previously and that the “corporate class”, particularly that of the US, found that unacceptable.
Parenti defends the concept of ‘revolutionary violence’, though argues that it is falsely cast, as violence is disproportionately deployed by reactionaries seeking to prevent reform, regardless of whether the social movements are peaceful or not. To this end, revolutionary governments in which Parenti cites Cuba, Libya, Vietnam and North Korea as examples should be lauded for not only representing an actualisation of popular struggle, but also surviving the Cold War.*****
The US during the Cold War, and after were less concerned with resolving inequality and a spirit of altruism than ensuing its continuation, and then cynically claiming that it is spreading/preserving democracy. Parenti cites George Kennan quoting him as saying the US could not afford “the luxury of altruism and world benefaction” in a world where the majority of its people faced abject poverty and exploitation, and that discussions around “vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization…” should cease: “The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better” (p. 32).****** Parenti goes on to deride political scientists such Samuel P. Huntington (he of the “clash of civilizations” fame) and the Reagan-era US Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick for outright defending authoritarian governments in Latin America, Asia, and Africa (which the latter called “benign”), just so long as they weren’t Red. The common equation to all of this is what these governments served: either capital interests, or that of the proletariat. It is in this context that we see Parenti critical of China and its flirtation with global capitalism, along with with the gross attention the country is receiving from these Beltway jerkoffs*******.
Parenti has a whole chapter devoted to what most would call a “with friends like these…” moment, as he takes aim at a tendency on the Left which propogated anti-communism, and unintentionally or willingly encouraged bourgeois dominance. He diagnoses them as the type to call themselves “anti-totalitarians” with a willingness to fight dogmatism “of both the Right and the Left” – but are in actuality just other kinds of Red-baiters. George Orwell, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky and Ronald Radosh are to Parenti, symptomatic of this problem. Regarding the former, Parenti appears to view Orwell as a proto-Cold War liberal and the blueprint for “left anti-communism” rather than the prophet of creeping absolutism that he’s commonly presented as. The targeting of Bookchin and Chomsky has a personal element to it as well, as Parenti had public and professional disputes with both.
The centralization of power and authoritarian features typically displayed in socialist states, especially during the Cold War – absolutely has to be contextualized in a scenario where non-stop attempts to subvert, disrupt and destroy the revolutionary governments had taken place throughout the 20th century. These environments are not brought into place by a Lenin, a Stalin, a Mao, or a Castro – but by the conditions the revolution takes place in, which then determines the society.******** Parenti even posits that had any of them not being confronted with struggles for survival for the entirety of their existence, these socialist states would have easily transformed into “worker-consumer societies” (and to an extent, many of them did).
There were serious issues with socialism as it existed, and that we should not try to sugarcoat that. All of them had rigid command systems – while central planning was useful in ‘siege socialism’ to help them (and ‘them’ usually means either a crumbling semi-feudal empire or a periphery of of an imperialist territory) rapidly industrialise to defend it against enemies like Nazi Germany, they did not have the required flexibility to produce a wide enough********* range of consumer goods and services. Additionally, there was no computerised system large enough to address such a large and highly intricate economy by responding to the aggregate demands of the populace (pg. 59). Innovations in scientific and technological development was stifled by top-down planning – in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, it was the failure to address this, that led to their infamous ‘stagnation period’. A managerialism persisted which meant that there was a lack of incentive to pursue or allow innovations that could make a manager’s job obsolete; that there was little material incentive to take those risks worsened the problem. They were inefficiencies developing at the point of production, in part because when firms paid for raw materials, fuel, etc., they did not do so at real-value-prices; lack of replacement parts for industrial production and consumer goods; improvement in production only led to the raising of production quotas bringing things back to the trap of incentivised labour (pg. 61). A self-justifying bureaucracy became a fact of life – and not even an efficient or even clever one: in contrast to common reports of ‘totalitarian control overlooking every aspect of life’, incompetence, laxness, and corruption (of the huckster variety) were common features – and this deeply affected work discipline. Go figure: the problems over there – were very similar to the problems here!
The experience of communism frustrated the common people living it, especially during the period where there was no expectation that the goods and services they wanted would even arrive at all, much less on time. The basic social welfare which was the envy of much of the world, and the guaranteed jobs were all taken for granted – and with the more professionalised strata of people under communism, they became increasingly envious of life in the West, which offered better pay, a wider range of consumer goods – including better clothes, and more exciting lifestyles. This had and has affected interest in Marxism and appreciation of the revolution (in a negative sense) which under their own admission – often provided liveable, even near-“first-world” standard conditions. This created a deeply distorted lens of the West as a cornucopian utopia – with the cognitive dissonance around the existence of deep poverty in these societies brushed aside with the rationalising narratives of “working hard to get rich”. As Parenti put it, “people cannot live on the social wage alone”.
Many of the dissident intellectuals and activists from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc like Andrei Sakharov and Lech Walesa are either delusional rubes with a case of “Western envy”, or cynical turncoats afflicted with the same condition. Parenti notes that the “freedom fighter” Sakharov was not only a propagandist for capitalism, but cheered on America during the Vietnam War, and for all his talk about freedom and state tyranny, had fuck all to say about Pinochet’s Chile and other right-wing authoritarian regimes – least of all, South Vietnam.
Anti-communism, especially in academia has led to unserious, much less an inconsistent presentation of Joseph Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union – one that is cultivated to make him a Genghis Khan-like figure, and to lay the case for the “twin totalitarianism” model. Thus, the number of deaths under his regime is inflated over time to a preposterous degree, resembling ‘atrocity porn’. Parenti points out that if Stalin was really as dedicated to killing people as much as is often claimed by Cold War academics, the Soviet population would have decreased significantly, and the gulag would be its single largest enterprise. Parenti also bring up an anecdote when Churchill asked him many died under him, Stalin put up both his hands, thus giving the number of 10 million by Stalin’s own account, according to Churchill, who conveniently didn’t ask Stalin for clarification*********. Parenti however makes clear in this work that he regards the Soviet Union under Stalin as a “dictatorship”, and that Stalin committed many crimes against the Soviet people.
Decommunization for Eastern Europe brought anything but freedom and democracy; Boris Yeltsin, hailed as a hero in the West was emblematic of the autocratic rule for the sake of market expansion into Russia. Yeltsin was the blueprint for presidents in former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe, who now sought to rule by decree, and bypass parliamentary consensus. Parenti muses on the irony that introduction to the free market which was said by reformers “to be the foundation of political democracy, could not be introduced by democratic means”. Support of Yeltsin even during the bombing of the Russian Parliament building in 1993, and the presidential election of 1996 came from the United States, which in the case of the latter – even gave Yeltsin’s campaign team a $10bn aid package to support him, literally buying off democracy. With Yeltsin’s control of media, and iron grip over Russia’s political branches, Yelstin was reelected. Parenti also posits that the repressive and authoritarian features in the process of decommunization and so-called “democratization” began during the tenure of Mikhail Gorbachev, citing suppression of workplace organising, control of the flow of information towards pro-capitalist media, and even suppression of debate in the political organs of the Soviet Union.
With capitalist restoration, not only was their widespread political repression of the Left and trade unions through banning their activities and seizing their property, the nationalism that emerged in many parts of the former Soviet Union led to persecution of ethnic minorities. There was also a “bonfire sale” of state property that the “new capitalists” made a tidy profit out of, stocks in public firms were sold to the global market – from there emerged a class in post-Soviet society which we only call ‘the oligarchy’. The working class, however suffered immensely as the welfare system was ripped to shreds: hospitals were privatised, or were closed down. Cooperative farms were broken up. With the privatisation of agriculture, former ‘breadbaskets’ of Eastern Europe themselves experienced bread stortages. Infant mortality rose dramatically, while the life expectancy reduced sharply during the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The multinationals came in buying up land and property, while pumping out pop culture that mimicked the West – Parenti describes this process as effectively colonisation. Crime and corruption was widespread as “beggars, pimps, dope pushers…” came with “unemployment, homelessness, air and water pollution, prostitution, spousal abuse, child abuse, and just about every other social ill”. Suicide rate increased to nearly 50% in Russia and Hungary. Russia itself turned into a ‘mafia state’ where ‘gangsterism’ rules the country. Eastern Europe is open to all kinds of evangelism. ‘Red nostalgia’ sets in, as capitalism no longer receives its romanticised image after a few years experiencing its sharp edges, leading to a common refrain: “We never knew what we had”.
Parenti spends the final chapter defending Marxism as a science, and for its continued relevance in explaning social, economic, and political phenomena throughout the world. He insists that it is able to do so because Marxism deals with the imperatives of class power and political economy; treating them as the motor forces of society and history. Parenti points out that people have been declaring ‘the end of Marxism’ even during Lenin’s time, which the latter commented on in just two years before the Russian Revolution. He says that many of Marx’s predictions and theories have proven not only to be right, but still very relevant; pointing out that the ‘tendency for the rate of profit to fall’, while not appreciated in Marx’s time, at the very least in modern times – it is widely accepted that boom-and-bust business cycles are a common and necessary feature of capitalism; that wealth in a society, and indeed around the world, has a tendency to centralise and concentrate through its accumulation – and the capitalist class that own it, rather than encourage or create wealth to spread towards the lower classes via jobs, instead seeks to find means to extract more wealth – not out of a lack of ethics, but necessity; and that labour is the source of all value remains true. He concedes that Marx was wrong about the proletarian revolution starting in Europe, but that was in part because he was a man situated in 19th century Europe when political development of the working masses was unprecedented for its time, and this was what his investigations led him to to make those conclusions. Moreover, “trickle-down” economics is horseshit, and for all the praise capitalism gets from conservatives around the preservation of culture, traditions, family values, and so on – they don’t appear to recognize that it is capitalism that is dissolving these social bonds and their meaning in the first place.
Defines Marxism as a holistic science which studies the nature and functionality of capitalism; As capitalism is not just an economic system, but an entire social order, this demands investigations into how capitalism shapes politics, law, culture – even communities, families, medicine and science itself. Marxism has to be systemic, and therefore has to advance a universalism. Parenti believes that social phenomena like racism isn’t a mere social ill that requires interpersonal correction, but an expression of systemic power mediated through institutional apparatuses. For Parenti, racism is another form of class warfare – not as blunt as other weapons, but certainly a subtle tool in confounding class consciousness.
Parenti takes his ire towards “Anything-but-class” (ABC) theorists. By that, he means postmodernists and poststructuralists. He charges that for all their blase and dismissive attitude towards class analysis and Marxism in particular, their radicalism is impotent and is really just a form of liberalism anyway. He mocks Ronald Aronson for his naive politics, and notes his involvement in the Sokal affair…in the notes. He also charges that the ‘separation’ of Marx’s political development to ‘early Marx’ and ‘late Marx’ that was prevalent in cultural studies at this time, is bollocks. He’s also none too happy about what academia has done to Gramsci, identifying him as a Marxist-Leninist, and not the ‘neutered’ radical to mine for explorations on ‘discourse’.
The most pressing global situation of our time is the ecological crisis – with the substantial damage to the ozone layer, rise in pollution, disappearing freshwater supplies, mass species extinction, destruction of the ocean’s protoplankton and a rise in skin cancer among people, the ecological crisis is an existential one – and the continued existence of capitalism is the culprit, with the driving motor is the transformation of everything, even nature itself, into commodities. The ruling class is well aware of the problem, yet it attacks the environmentalists who seek to combat it – first with the press, and in less developed countries, like Nigeria, with bullets e,g, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Capitalists will be as ruthless to the Greens as they are to Reds. Ergo, the “green movement” would be better served with a commitment to class politics, as the struggle against the eco-apocalypse is another front of the global class struggle (p. 160). And that’s the end of the book.
The Hammer and Sickle at the End of History: Blackshirts & Reds as post-Communist Literature
See also: ‘actually-existing socialism’
“The only countervailing force that might eventually turn things in a better direction is an informed and mobilized citizenry. Whatever their shortcomings, the people are our best hope. Indeed, we are they. Whether or not the ruling circles still wear blackshirts, and whether or not their opponents are Reds, la lutta continua, the struggle continues, today, tomorrow, and through all history.”
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts & Reds – pg. 160, the last paragraph of the book
Despite its reputation as a “tankie book”, Blackshirts & Reds as we’ve seen thus far takes a rather critical stance on the countries under communism, and especially the ones that survived the end of the Cold War. He was none too pleased with China and even Vietnam in their forays into the global world market and the accompanying introduction of privatisation of state assets; Judging by the tone of the book, Parenti likely expected them to go through the same capitalist restoration that the other countries endured. The only ones that seemed to have escaped his sharp pen are probably Cuba, North Korea, and Laos – the latter owing to its relative obscurity.
Nevertheless, the fans who claim to have become communist in part due to the book were exposed to the musings of a man who even at the crumbling of a seven-decade experiment in socialism continued to defend the legacy of that project, all that was built as part of it, unfailingly denounced the United States for its part in smashing it, as well as the naive and deluded leaders who allowed it to get smashed out of some imagined promise of a new alliance – not once cracking so much as a smirk (or even a tear for that matter) over its dissolution, unlike Chomsky who declared its breakdown “a positive for humanity”, or the various academics who outright abandoned socialism for all sorts of various ‘micro-politics’ over ‘grand projects’, came to make up another ‘grand project’ while claiming that that’s not what they’re doing, or become outright turncoats and get involved in some think-tank and advise capitalist-imperialist leaders. Parenti for these people is example is an example of a principled scholar-activist who at a period of a revolutionary ebb, continued to insist on the continued importance of the class struggle, and expressed this in passionate and readable prose without exposing his readers to dense Marxist terminology, even as he describes the processes of capitalism, or rather “corporate power”.
However, the presence of these critiques to communism to large sections of its contemporary advocates who “uphold” states like China, Cuba, Vietnam and other existing Marxist-Leninist nations, these critiques can be slightly disquieting to those who’ve examined fairly closely what was written in it. I’ve seen (anecdote alert!) fans of Parenti and this book in particular, rationalize this by saying that this was an “early” Parenti who had ‘social-democratic’ tendencies, and he became more ‘tankie’ over time – a claim which doesn’t hold much water when you consider that by the time Blackshirts & Reds was published, Parenti had been writing books for nearly three decades, he critiques social democracy in the book (as noted in the bullet points), and Blackshirts & Reds is largely a compilation of essays and lectures synthesized into slim pages.
While Parenti describes himself as a Marxist, and indeed – takes aim at the various competing left-wing modes of thought flourishing in the 1980s and 1990s in academia, as some of its own fans have likely noticed, it is entirely possible that Blackshirts & Reds can be read as ‘post-communist‘. The reason for this doesn’t lie in his critiques of socialist states as they exist, or even with historical leaders in those states, but the context of the period the book is written in, and his stated solution for overcoming it. The year Blackshirts & Reds was published is 1997, which as much as it was a reaction to the mood after the end of the Cold War, it is also a work soaked with the three decades worth of extensive debates on how Marxism is to be approached, conducted and practiced – a “crisis of Marxism”, were beside the ideological and geopolitical tensions between the Soviet model and the Chinese – were arguments over who was the revolutionary subject, whether or not Marxism should be more ‘open’, whether there needs to be a return to Marx (and often with the implication that Engels should be ignored), and did Althusserianism “break” Marxism?
For Parenti, these debates were solipsistic, and did not engage with the very real struggles presented by liberation movements over the course of the Cold War – and the relentless opposition that they were faced with. By that some token, Parenti does not engage with the internal tensions in world communism in his text at all. With several of his works and lectures coming into prominence at what was a clear revolutionary ebb in communism, when existing socialist states had consolidated and appeared to approach the world through national interests, and the climate of disillusionment of the results of various national liberation struggles, Parenti had taken a ‘realist’ approach to their actions. From what point on, he made it a point to discuss colonialism as well as the situation faced by socialist societies at the time.
Parenti’s diagnoses of these societies was pessimistic – especially that of the Soviet Union, however even if Parenti believed that the game was up, he still believed that it along with other countries built or reforged with the red flag flying was more than a failed dream, that it transformed lives for the better, allowed people who would have remained in a state of serfdom had conditions remained what they were in the beginning of the century to not only have more control in their lives**********, but by their own hands recreated their countries into something that they had actual participation in. They were societies built by the masses, and for the masses, and that much deserved to be acknowledged. That the efforts of millions of working-class people to build a society free from poverty, ignorance and conflict collapsing on itself deserved so much more than the mocking eulogies produced in the media, among politicians, and through academia – from a civilisation whose splendor is still effectively maintained by the exploitation of half a billion souls in the planet. And worse, the segments of the Left committed incredible perfidy by joining in the chorus celebrating communism’s demise.
However, Parenti is not – or was not neccessarily saying that communism is not dead, and continued to speak of it as if was a noble, but ultimately flawed project – at the very least in its 20th century manifestations. His final chapter, and especially the last paragraph seems to suggest that what is needed is the ‘spirit of communism’ in order to tackle the pressing global problems of the era. Parenti understandably did not know what was on the horizon in terms of what could emerge out of the social movements that the Left produced at the time, but what he was concerned with was that the collapse of communism, or at least the shock of the fall of the Soviet Union, would not lead to anything good – the possibilities being the resurrection of fascism, even if only in a diminished and fragmented form, or much worse – the unfettered exploitation of the rest of the world. What is not often appreciated is that Parenti himself was born of the New Left – and so is inclined to be supportive, if tentatively, of the new social movements, especially the ‘red-green alliance’ and the anti-globalisation movement. With all that said, if we accept the conclusions made by Parenti in this book, then we also have to consider that while he has a clear and obvious disdain for post-Marxists for their rejection of class as a social relation of continued epistemological significance – Parenti, much like the Western Marxists and the postmodernists had approached a crossroad where solutions lied ahead of the practice of 20th-century communism, which they had all concluded had lost steam.
From this angle, we can see how Blackshirts & Reds can have a post-communist reading. Is what is said by Parenti here really all that different from Jacques Derrida’s declaration that the “spectre of Marx” will continue to haunt the victors of the Cold War so long as exploitation, and violence remains their tools to secure their control of the world? I suppose in some senses, it definitely is – but not by very much. At the very least, Parenti distinguishes himself by embracing that communism was and is a working-class movement, and whatever its mistakes, it shows not just what the working class can build, but if truly unfettered by a constant siege against them by the lieutenants of capital, that they could build something even greater than anything that ever came before in history.
Conclusion
Blackshirts & Reds is much more focused on offering polemics than a work of history, but that does not mean that it is not a very well-researched book; for a work of 160 pages, it is meticulously cited, and almost no line goes without one. As for the contents of the book, can I say that it ‘changed my life’? Well as someone who’s only first read it this year, what I can say is that living in an area where the Communist Party of Britain (glorified Labourites that they are) still has a hub where they meet not that far from where I live, and having started to dive into various Marxist books, I can honestly say no. Then again, Corbynism notwithstanding, I’ve not been bombarded with the continuous background radiation of anti-communism that the United States produces***********, nor am I from a post-communist region whose been fed an unpalatable diet of nationalist tripe to the point that the penetration of foreign capital as public services are ripped away is rarely given another thought. I also can’t help but note that Parenti does describe suppressed radical left groups in America, but only discusses ‘successful revolutions’ in some detail. The book doesn’t appear to be that interested in going over even an American context for radical groups in the struggle against capitalism – and it seems to be because they failed, or aren’t very going anywhere (maybe ended up as a ‘political cult’ in all but name, following the whims of a vain, petty-bourgeois leader). This is kind of a problem since new people coming in to those politics are not only not engaging with their domestic history, they are also not given any tools to challenge the existing social order at home, and instead – turn towards post-revolutionary societies to cheer on, falling under the assumption that they’re the key to the new world, when they’re just as trapped in the era of late capitalist modernity as everywhere else, with positional moves proving very difficult.
So, I’m not really that beholden to Michael Parenti, or this book. Having said that, I do genuinely think that it is remarkable that such a book with the content it has, much less the argumentation within it was written before the 1990s were finished, and that so much of still feels fresh. I think that in light of the climate crisis*************, rise of the far-right globally, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the crises produced by globalisation, this work has an endured relevance to these times. It primarily served as a necessary (over)correction to anti-communist notions prevalent in the post-Cold War era and holds a dire warning that the blackest of reaction is never far away from the retreat of socialism.
Notes:
*- As one might expect especially if they’re students of history, there are competing tendencies of Marxism-Leninism, so what might be okay for one is opposed by the other. Those MLs who happen to be ‘anti-revisionist’ are not likely to take to Parenti due to the ‘positive’ (if critical) description of socialist countries that they deemed ‘revisionist’, or even ‘social-imperialist’. The dry focus on theoretical engagement not displayed by Parenti here, is also the another reason for their hostility, though others have been known to enjoy it for its accessibility, even if they’ve developed beyond it.
**- Hope that clerk was still around to see whether Donald Trump was to his liking. He certainly didn’t have the theoretical ‘insights’ of Mussolini, but he certainly had the pomposity and reactionary fervour down pat.
***- This in part, explains why the revolutionary left is hostile to the reformist left i.e. social democrats.
****- A more contemporary adage is that “liberals would sooner ally with fascists than communists”.
*****- The Libya Parenti refers to here is Libya under Muammar Gaddafi. That Libya hasn’t existed since 2011, and is now effectively replaced by warlordism. In other words, Gaddafi’s Libya may have survived the Cold War, but it certainly didn’t survive the post-Cold War.
******- This sentence should perhaps clarify what the interests of the United States had actually represented in the Cold War, shorn off of the obfuscatory slogans, which even George Kennan himself criticized.
*******- I’ve mentioned this in the notes to this, but since the eve of the end of the Cold War, a number of think tanks and the Cold War intellectuals that were involved in them had taken interest in the kind of modernisation that China had taken. Having drank the Friedman Kool-Aid, they were under the belief that China’s forays with marketisation will lead to not only the overthrow of communism, but the introduction of liberal democracy. The US state Department decided not to wait until this process happens ‘naturally’ and used the National Endownment for Democracy (NED) to support so-called ‘pro-democracy’ activists in China, alongside Chinese dissidents. The fruits of the NED’s activities reached its crescendo in the 1989 Tianamen Square protests, where the popular discontent for various issues that had emerged as a consequence of Chinese marketisation (worker’s rights, living costs, etc.) were highjacked by a student clique demanding ‘democracy’. In any case, the events of Tiananmen Square had shown quite clearly that this fantasy of a Chinese-style colour revolution was not going to happen, or at least succeed. Which is why it is just as well that there were other sections of the think tank-domiciled intelligentsia who were happy enough that China had embraced capitalism, yet felt that its transformation into a Western-style liberal democracy was always farcical, however, these people often resorted to essentialist and racist arguments presuming to know how the Chinese thoughtwhich amounted to saying that democracy was too alien a concept for them (Samuel P. Huntington), and were insted impressed with the ‘neoconservatism’ expressed in the Chinese political system.
********- Historical materialism? In my Michael Parenti book? It’s more likely than you think.
*********- Even if one agrees with the principle of setting up a ‘consumer society’ within the framework of a socialist system, as Parenti appears to, the error of Nikita Khrushchev was to bring that consumer society in competition with that of the United States, especially as early as he did. The United States not only benifitted from its neocolonial relations with its de facto dependencies, it also was virtually untouched (in the mainland) from World War II, and its currency – the dollar was literally the international reserve currency. This allowed it to make a virtually endless supply of consumer goods, in comparison to the Soviet Union. As stated in the following paragraph, this had not only set the seeds for various problems which successive leaders were unable to meet – most notable of which, migration from the Soviet Union to the West, particularly the US in pursuit of the romanticised ‘consumer utopia’ it was presented as, ever searching the “American Dream”.
**********- Churchill’s own legacy has come under scrutiny relatively recently with the Black Lives Matter Movement and works such as Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes, and Churchill’s Secret War. Of particular focus is his role in the Bengal famine of 1943-44, in which 3 million deaths occurred as a result of the requisitioning of the wheat grown in the Indian subcontinent with 70,000 tonnes between April to July of 1943 exported from India to the Allied forces in Europe to assist in the war effort, and purposefully ignoring the Indian viceroy Archibald Wavell’s requests for food aid towards Bengal, contempuously accusing the Indians of “breeding like rabbits”, and even complaining that Gandhi hadn’t died yet. If Churchill was going to accuse Stalin of being a cold-blooded killer with no regard for human life, he should’ve attended to the plank in his own eye. Even today, for all of this talk of Soviet censorship and historical revisionism, the hagiography of Winston Churchill, one of the greatest servants and exponents of British imperialism in history ensures that he is remembered as a war hero, an ‘apostle of freedom and democracy’, and not a bloodthirsty, barely-sane warmonger, white supremacist, and utterly unrepentant colonialist “whose views were not all of that different from Hitler’s”.
***********- Yes, communism gave people more agency than under tsardom, colonialism, and fascism. Deal with it.
*************- Many radical left-wing organisations, including socialist and communist parties had also arose in the United States, although perhaps comparatively late to that of the European parties, and under different conditions. Nevertheless, the histories of groups like the Socialist Party of the United States, the Socialist Workers Party (US), the African Black Brotherhood, the International Workers of the World (Wobblies), and the Communist Party of the United States of America are largely erased from popular narratives of American history or portrayed (certainly and obviously) in the latter as subject to Kremlin influence (this is technically true, but not in the way as is usually presented). If there is a somewhat charitable representation of this radical history, its likely to be of CPUSA’s role in building the New Deal of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration – that is to say, it is subsumed into the historical trajectory of American liberalism, instead of contextualising it in even internationalist progressive movements (through in the CPUSA’s case, it’s partially their own fault, with this “communism is as American as apple pie” stuff). The point is, even those harsh conditions produced contradictions from which emerged a radical politics whose histories prior to the Second World War is largely erased. The explosion of the New Left, which came with Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, and so on – is not too easy to ignore, but their presentation in popular media (as expected) seldom deals with the complexity of their political practice.
*************- Wrote this piece during COP28. Make of that what you will.
See also:
Michael Parenti
‘Yellow Parenti’
“Read Parenti!”
‘Actually existing socialism’
history of communism
The new communism
end of history (what Parenti is giving the middle finger to)
Hello again. We’re in pretty tumultous times, and we may, in fact – be witnessing one of, or a combination of things: genocide on our very phones, or another regional conflagration. The final third of 2023 had Israel attempt to get its regional neighbours to accept the ‘old normal’, which they de facto already had after five decades of conflict, with a new set of accords which ensured that on paper as well as in reality, the Arab nations recognise the legitimacy of Israel. During that time, other than the daily killings of Palestinians, Israel had kept roughly 5,000 people from the occupied territories without trial with no guarantee of their release. It was in this context that the militant organisation Hamas launched their assault on Israel – which is said to have killed over 1,000 people, and took dozens of hostages*. There’s been a war of information regarding the nature of the assault, and the extent to which Hamas deliberately fargeted civilians (that is to say, Hamas did strike at areas populated by civilians, but prioritised striking military bases and the personnel within them). Almost immediately afterwards, a consensus was reached among the Israeli leadership that Gaza needed to pay for Hamas’ defiance – and using its powerful arsenal: lies, control of the energy, water and the borders of Gaza, and the barrage of missiles which combined, provided greater destruction than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Gaza is nearly completely rubble. 11,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign – nearly half are children. 1.4 million Palestinians are displaced. To conduct their operations, Israel is even willing to kill the very hostages they demanded Hamas to release.
Given their demand for the citizens of Southern Gaza to leave their homes in 24 hours on the 13th October 2013 for Egypt as they prepared for a ground invasion, it should be clear enough to anyone that Israel at the very least, is engaging in ethnic cleasing. And they’re not just content with Gaza – reports of settler assaults, and even airstrikes on the West Bank have come about in the past week. Make no mistake – Israel is engaging in genocide as we speak. So I felt that it’s important to make this declaration: If you are not for the Palestinian resistance, you are for their elimination. It’s as simple as that. There is no other moment than right now where the slogan “to exist is to resist” expressed the reality of life as a Palestinian. If you come out with this, “Israel has a right to defend itself”, or “Will you condemn Hamas” shite – get the fuck off my blog. I’m not here for that horsehit.
If you consider yourself on the left, a progressive, for human rights or any of that and you read this blog – now’s the time to put that into action. Almost certainly, you’re a reader whose government is supporting Israel in their genocidal campaign. Use your voice to say no. Join any nearby marches to end the massacre in Palestine in your city. Stand up and be counted.
Nearby events (specifically to Croydon, UK):
Croydon4Palestine demo, 18th November 2023 in North End, Croydon.
National March for Palestine, 25th November 2023 in Central London.
As for this blog, I can’t make any promises but this is a brief list of things I plan to write about in the near future:
2023 Israel-Palestine “war”
Hamas
Why I refuse to condemn Hamas (and you should as well)
Is Hamas the same as ISIS?
Obama, Palestine and Israel
“Israel has a right to defend itself”
Two-state solution
“From the river to the sea…”
In other news, to be perfectly honest, I’ve been extremely busy – if not with marches, then certainly with assignments from my studies. I’ve been reading a lot of books that I can’t wait to write about them. Anyway, see you soon.
Initially, it was widely reported that Hamas had killed 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped over 200 of their citizens, however the Israeli Ministry of Defense have since revised the number to 1,200 Israelis killed – the number of citizens taken hostage remains about the same. It is worth nothing that what is charitably called “the fog of war” makes it difficult to glean accurate information over any event and especially the initial event of the conflict. Especially considering the possibility that the IDF have taken a “kill everything that moves” approach, which undoubtably risks the lives of civilians – Israeli or Palestinian, and even that of their own soldiers.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (1951-) is a French politician. Politically active for 50 years, his sharply anti-neoliberal and anti-austerity positions have placed him firmly on the political Left, often with further descriptions of his politics as “far-left” or “left-populist”, the latter of which Melenchon embraces. Known for his fiery personality, and razor-sharp tongue, Melenchon’s prominence in contemporary French politics comes from the discontent produdced by austerity in France – itself a consequence of the 2008 financial crisis, and loss of political legitimacy of the Socialist Party (PS) with frustrations towards it as a ruling party overseeing austerity, as well as the perception reality of their degeneration from its founding social-democratic politics left a space for a more forthright left-wing electoral platform.
Born in Morocco when it was still a French colony to a postmaster of Spanish descent and primary school teacher of Italian descent, Melenchon grew in Morocco until his family moved to France in 1962. He was educated at a state school and received his degree in philosophy from the University of Franche-Comte, and would later work as a teacher for some time before entering politics. He was a member of the Trotskyist Internationalist Communist Organisation in the early 1970s, before eventually joining the Socialist Party in 1976, quickly acquiring a position as secratary for the local branch in Montiagu and running a party newspaper – with its platform advocating an alliance between the Socialist Party and the Communist Party of France (PCF). He would eventually become the private secretary of Claude Germon – the mayor of Massy in Essonne – a municipality in northern France. Mélenchon became a prominent advocate of “Mitterandism” – concentrated around the radical left politics of Francois Mitterand, in opposition to the “second left” represented by Michel Rocard, and the left-nationalism of Jean-Pierre Chevenement. Mélenchon became senator in 1986 – at 35 years old, he was the youngest person to be elected in the Senate at the time. However, Melenchon remained an otherwise marginal figure – at least until 2008, when he broke from the Socialist Party, which by then had succumbed to the “Third Way” heyday which captured centre-left party across Western Europe. He co-founded the Left Party – a mass party coalition of other parties and organisations from the socialist, ecological and republican movements – with Marc Dolez in 2009. The party in collaboration with the Communist Party of France, set up an ‘anti-liberal front’ and campained for a Social Europe, and in opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. In the following general election in 2012, Mélenchon represented the Left Party and came fourth – behind Francoise Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Marine Le Pen – receiving 11.1% of the vote. Melenchon ran for President again in 2017 after launching another platform called La France Insoumise (“Unbowed France”), and only received 19% of the vote, coming fourth – and being excluded from reaching the second round of voting. Later that year, he becmae a member of the National Assembly, representing the constituency of Bouches du-Rhone. He was the subject of notoriety for his vociferous opposition to worker flexibilisation, and for receiving a suspended prison sentence for an altercation with police as they served a warrant to La France Insoumise headquarters in Paris. In 2022, he ran again for President – coming third with 22%, behind Emmunuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, who narrowly edged out second.
With the formation of the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES) on May 1st 2022 (May Day 2022) – a red-green political alliance formed for the 2022 legislative election, Mélenchon assumed leadership of the alliance, and prevented Macron’s liberal political coalition Ensemble from acheiving a majority, but only receiving 22% of the vote.
While he is no longer a Trotskyist, Melenchon nonetheless still describes himself as a historical materialist – albeit his “left-populism” is heavily inspired by post-Marxist theorist Chantal Mouffe and of the ‘republican socialist’ Jean Jaures. The narrative that fuels this populism is the demand for a new national narrative for France – a “left-nationalism” or even a “progressive patriotism” if you will, though the cynic in me calls it “social-chauvinism”. This leads to Mélenchon taking standard positions on the Left, such as opposition to neoliberalism and its institutional avatars – such as the EU and the IMF, a demand for the withdrawal of France from NATO, a radically redistributive income, and for the security of worker’s rights. The nationalist aspects of his positions come in regarding his praise for the French spirit of republicanism – to the point of demanding the creation of a ‘Sixth Republic’, his embrace of France’s ‘creolisation’ (multiculturalism). This nationalism is also rather problematic in several aspects – notably his refusal to acknowledge continuing French imperialism, accusations of alleged baiting of Islamophobia (though it should be noted that he has a better track record of defending the rights of Muslims as citizens than most of the major politicians in France today – including and especially, Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour – the latter calling him an “Islamo-leftist”, though given the institutional racism that Muslims often experience in France, it isn’t saying much), and his instistence on acknowledging the role of ‘Republican’ France in World War II and not that of Vichy France – which not only collaborated with Nazi Germany, but also took part in the Holocaust, criticizing Emmanuel Macron for apologizing for France’s role during the Vichy period in the Holocaust*. On this occasion, he should have kept his mouth shut.
Such is his disdain for neoliberalism, especially then-recent austerity measures imposed on Greece, his campaign team created a video game called “Fiscal Kombat”, where his character gets to shake down then IMF director Christine Lagarde for the people’s money.
The current relevance of Mélenchon serves as a case study on the various strategies employed by democratic socialists in a post-GFC world. Melenchon went with an unabashed and self-described ‘left-populism’ held together by a nationalist narrative. The prominence of globalisation and its assertion of a supposed ‘trans-nationalist’ modernity has led to a view, especially in the European left, that a reassertion of national sovereignty is an effective means of combatting it via its institutions. However, what Ellen Menikins Wood reminds us is that globalisation cannot exist without the participation of the advanced capitalist nations – especially if they stand to benefit from it. Socialists of any stripe** should be conscious of this before embracing any politician who struggles to admit his country’s complicity in this process.
Notes:
*- All of the now ‘democratic’ countries who allied with the Nazis in Europe have all but refused to properly acknowledge their roles and apologize for their atrocities during World War II. Even the process of purging elements of fascism and bringing to justice prominent war criminal has been less than satisfactory and all the more so when the capitalist powers decided that having unrepentant fascists would be great in the struggle against communism. Germany itself has not only done so, but had set up various memorials dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime, alongside giving reparations to the Allied forces (most notably the Soviet Union, and even then – all of that was from East Germany) as well as the victims of Holocaust. However, the extent of Germany’s commitment to atoning for its acts is much more complicated than it initially seems, and is the source of controversy that affected everything from its political composition in the aftermath of World War II, the very political formation(s) of Germany and territorial claims, as well as the composition of institutional structures – much of which was complicated by the Cold War. In spite of the show of justice meted out to the Nazi leadership via the Numenberg trials, many former prominent Nazis found themselves well-placed in administrative positions in civil-political structures of both West and East Germany – albeit the former was much more lax, even conscious of their integration, and the latter were far more thoroughgoing in having them purged (the reasons for both should be obvious by now). Nevertheless, the furore around “denazification” and the degree it was pursued within West Germany (whether it was too punitive or whether it was too lax) as well as whether a clean break was truly made had reverberated throughout its history even after reunification – the reaction of the West German New Left in the 1960s as well as recent scandals regarding revelations around underground Neo-Nazi networks, and the signifant presence of former Nazis in the intelligence services.
**- Of note are the democratic socialists, who sometimes have a tendency to overlook the more problematic aspects of a popular leader’s politics, or in recent terms explore the contradictions formed within so-called ‘left-populism’ as viable route to socialism, even if it apparently falls short of its more universalist precepts.
This is the hundreth post of Because It Doesn’t Affect You. I myself have largely forgotten the mission statement of what this blog was supposed to do, and I can’t even say what it now represents. I should think that by now everyone who bothers to read this should get an idea of what my areas of interest are, and if there are somehow some long-term readers, you’ll probably have noticed that some subjects have pretty much dropped off, and not entirely intentionally. It took five years to where a lot of other WordPress users reach in one, mostly because of my penchant for long-form essays, and the fact that I don’t get paid to write. Nah, I actually have to do fairly intensive physical and emotional labour – a situation that to one extent of another was true even near the beginning.
With all that said, here are a set of responses to questions that you might be having:
What is your name?: Not relevant. The people who know know, and those who don’t don’t.
Okay, where do you work?: Also not relevant.
Where do you live?: I’ve already mentioned that I live in Croydon, in the United Kingdom. I feel less of an affinity to it the more I get older, mostly because of how shut out I feel from it.
As a general commentary, in late modernity, I don’t think that the communitarian ideal expressed in “Third Way” politics is achievable to any significant scale (I’m talking as encompassing the entire town or city), and can probably only manifest in small municipalities. I think that New Labour figured that out, and decided to go ahead with the pro-business stuff. I say this because for all this talk about pride in your area, London Borough of Culture and all that “Croydon Stands Tall” shit recently, Croydon is more of a place you move to, move through, and move from. Community is there – as it is everywhere, but I don’t really feel apart of it. I think that even Croydon Council understand a bit of what I’m saying. Their property development escapades would suggest that they do, and there trying to look for a solution to it. I feel a bit sorry for zoomers though. Their sense of alienation is going to be profoundly felt – even accounting for a post-pandemic world.
Ar you going to continue with this?: Probably, yeah. Largely out of obligation. There’s a bit unfinished, and I literally have another post to publish right after this one. I just didn’t want that one to be the hundredth one.
Will the blog change direction?: I’m basically even debating to continue with it altogether but I do wish that I wasn’t as restrictive with it as I was.
Any other regrets?: Mostly around not writing more, especially when so much time was spent towards something that turned out to be a farce.
Anything that you’d like to work on?: I definitely think I would post more music stuff now. Even if it’s just a video. Beyond that there’s a few topics that come to mind what I’d like to do.
Novara Media – British left-wing media publication notable for its contributors claiming to be communists, although they seemed to have settled on a social-democratic position. Guilty pleasure (at best) watching them (On second thought, I’m not in a hurry to write about them)
Fully Automated Luxury Communism – Book by Aaron Bastani, one of Novara Media’s co-founders. Didn’t like reading it.
Simone Weil – French philosopher who became rather influential years after her death to the New Left. Notable for her anarchism, and conversion from an irreligious outlook to sometime of a modern Christian mystic, and strong sense of empathy and justice.
Writing on China – the civil war, the revolution, and its modern development.
BreadTube – a significant part of the online Left, and a large community on YouTube. Not in a hurry to write on the phenomenon, mostly because it would be so time-intensive.
MF DOOM – Rapper known for wearing a Doctor Doom mask (really, a prop mask from the 2000 film Gladiator) known for his multi-syllabic rhymes, vast pop-culture references, and frequent use of Five-Percenter terminology. Very enigmatic figure, died in 2020 – with the cause of death still unrevealed.
Technofeudalism – Concept by Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, in which he insists that capitalism has changed significantly enough from the neoliberal mode that it deserves recognition as such. Seasoned socialists believe he is really just plugging a book. Both assertions will be explored.
Anything that you wanted to write but now don’t?: There’s a post on Keir Starmer that’s still in my drafts that I have little interest in finishing, partly because events have overtaken me, but also because I don’t care that much about the internal squabbles in Labour now. Finishing it would seem really redundant. I think that I promised to do a better explainer on critical race theory, but I’m not inclined to do it now. The article itself had a weird response because some conservative drone primed about CRT from right-wing sources started messing up my comments section with his stupidity. There’s also a draft on HG Wells meeting with Stalin from four years back – I’ve since changed by positions substantially since then, and even if I hadn’t, the meeting itself wasn’t all that deep – Wells was just touring the USSR and was asked to briefly meet him. And unlike what openDemocracy might think, Stalin showed himself to be a more principled socialist than Wells in the discussion. The former at least recognised the importance of the Chartists to democracy as well as a working-class movement – something that the liberal Wells could not appreciate, and glibly dismissed. I’m happy to say this to anyone, and in person.
Post that I’m most proud of: So far, it’s the neoliberalism one. I really feel like I worked hard on it, and it’s the only long-form one that I don’t have impostor syndrome on. It’s probably gonna get a sequel of sorts.
The “peaceful road to socialism“, is a term used to describe almost exclusively the government of Salvador Allende in Chile, which lasted between November 1970 to September 1973. Allende’s government undertook a wide set of initiatives intended to redistribute wealth across the country, and make Chile more economically self-sufficient. But these set of policies earned the ire of sections of the Chilean middle-class and especially the Chilean right, as well as drawing the attention of the United States – who immediately set about working to destroy it. The “peaceful road to socialism” is often used pejoratively by those critical of the stance that socialism can be achieved through parliamentary means, and the eventual collapse of Allende’s government in three underscores that, but it is also used by those sympathetic to the legacy of Allende’s struggle for social and economic justice. A more neutral term is “the Chilean road to socialism”.
On 5 September 1970, Salvador Allende, who represented the Socialist Party and Unidad Popular (Popular Unity), a coalition party of various groupings running the gamut from centre-left to far-left, won the 1970 presidential election. Allende became the very first Marxist brought to power through liberal democracy – undermining the notion that if socialism were brought via ballot box, it would lose. However, the US – which tells the world that it doesn’t deal with the democracies of other countries, had serious concerns.
The Allende government did not simply have importance in the context of Chilean political history – particularly the history of working-class struggles and the legacy of the “Socialist Republic of Chile” of 1932 which lasted a mere 100 days, or simply the context of Latin American governments adopting dirigisme policies – The “peaceful road to socialism” is also to be understood in the context of the latter half of the Cold War that it existed in. There is of course, the descent into (or in some cases, the installation of) military dictatorships that would arise between the 1970s and 1980s, and of importance were a set of high instability for both the capitalist and socialist worlds. In the latter case, the Sino-Soviet split had not only led to severe tensions in Soviet-China relations (to the point of border skirmishes, and the threat of open conflict), it had forced socialist states to side with one power over the other, and risk the antagonism of the opposing nation. Even so-called “non-aligned” countries had to gamble whether on what power they wished to maintain relations with. In the case of Chile, it chose to favour the Soviet Union, with the possibility of positive relations with Cuba also influencing this stance (altough the latter as well as Chile would make steps to normalizing relations with China). Even so, even the Western Communist Parties – which held a pro-Soviet stance, would eventually break from this as a result of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, adopting what was called “Eurocommunism” – rejecting Marxist-Leninist vanguardism for seeking legitimacy through a parliamentary framework. Meanwhile, capitalism was also not without its crises: in response to the global economic slump, and the failure both of Keynesian-inspired methods to reverse inflation and of the currency devaluation of a numbers of Western nations (West Germany & UK), President Richard Nixon suspended the convertability of the US dollar into gold – which would later turn out to be permanent: The “Nixon shock” had smashed the ‘gold standard’, leaving the dollar – the international reserve currency, a ‘floating currency’: it had nothing backing it at all to stabilise prices.
The UP coalition were well aware of these global problems, and Allende referred to his politics as representative of a “third way” between capitalism and communism – now both in crisis. Socialists, revolutionary and reformist – watched with great interest on how this program would play out. The UP adopted a ‘developmentalist’ set of policies intended for economic redistribution, social welfare, and control of its own resources. One course of action, signifying the seriousness of its nationalisation projects as well its anti-imperialist defiance, was Allende’s decision to nationalise the copper mines without any compensation to the foreign companies in control of it, particularly ITT & PepsiCo.
The developments in Chile received the massive support of Chile’s working class and indigenous populations. However, capital – both domestic and foreign, were not pleased, and the Chilean right – who held substantial power in the Constituent Assembly and penetrated the armed forces. There were murmurs between them that Chile had succumbed to communism, and this demanded a nationalist struggle. The US was also happy to help: the advice Nixon gave to the State Department was to “make the economy [of Chile] scream”. Everything from strikes (from landowners, capitalists, and notably the wives of various military personnel), ‘lawfare’, assassinations, and coup attempts were set up and enacted to cause disruption and chaos.
In the perspective of revolutionary socialists who criticised Allende for class-collaborationism, these scenarios were the inevitable response to social democracy in Latin America, and the building of socialism required a firmer approach than parliamentarianism. However, the Chilean road to socialism was not merely a path of nationalised indutries, and considerable thought and planning was dedicated towards the transition from capitalism to socialism with the use of newly emergent systems planning.
In 1971, economists within the Allende government sought the assistance of the British cybernetician Stafford Beer to apply his theories to Chile’s economic development. Beer would meet with Allende in November 1971 to explain the cybernetic models that was to be applied to economic management. Allende understood very well what Beer was proposing, and called for the system to encourage worker participation, to be decentralised, and anti-bureaucratic. The project would acquire the name, “Synco” among the Spanish-speaking peoples of Chile, but in English it was called “Project Cybersyn”. Cybersyn was supposed to network all of the firms in nationalised scetor of the economy, link them to a central computer in Santiago, and provide a measure of the status of production, and give real-time responses to economic crises. It had only been used once to respond to a truck driver strike ostensibly motivated by the massive shortage of goods in 1973, but organised by various private industrialists to prevent the distribution of these goods; leading to the mobilisation of 200 truck drivers to distribute goods into the cities. Cybersyn was, even in its prototype stages, declared a success. However, the 1973 coup ushering in Pinochet regime would put an end to the project – its full potential never realised.
When tensions emerged between one of the parties which formed UP – the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) with the Allende government over the pace of socialist transition, Allende himself was forced to respond to the attempts to restrict his executive power from the right, by enacting policies by plebiscite. Unfortunately, whatever the pace Allende moved, his enemies moved faster. The Chilean congress had passed a motion accusing Allende of violating the Chilean constitution and of various abuses of power, which allowed for the Chilean armed forces to take action. It was the signal to the coup in motion, and the beginning of the end of the Allende presidency.
The end and aftermath of the journey to socialism
By 1973, two coup attempts had been made on Allende. By September 11 of the same year, the third time was marked by its success. Tanks entered the capital, and figher planes flew over the presidential palace, shelling it. The putschists in the Chilean military demanded that Allende surrender, while the members of the Socialist Party plotted their escape asked that Allende join them so that they could launch a counter-coup in a future time. Allende refused both options. In what would be Allende’s final speech to the Chilean people, broadcasted by radio, he declared that the putschists in the Chilean armed forces had betrayed the oath that they were sworn to protect, that he would defend the constitution to his dying breath and that as dark as the days events were, brighter days will return to Chile. Allende was dead by 2pm. The Chilean military arrested everyone, including their own who showed loyalty to Allende and refused to side with the coup. People who were associated with the political left, or suspected of left-wing sympathies were rounded up, beaten, tortured and killed. The “peaceful road to socialism” was over. What Chile went towards was the road to fascism and the bloody path to neoliberalism. The Chilean coup was a prelude to a period of political repression which saw the deaths and disappearances of 3,000 people over 17 years in Chile, and a wider campaign of ani-communism called Operation Condor, installing right-wing or military dictatorships across Latin America, leading to the deaths of 60,000 people – half of which from Argentina. Chile would return to liberal democracy in 1990.
Legacy
The collapse of the “peaceful road to socialism” had brought international discussions among the Left globally on its successes and failures. For the revolutionary left, it represented an ultimately naive (if promising) and tragic attempt to acheive a society beyond capitalism without class struggle, and treating the state apparatus as a neutral tool, rather than a weapon of class suppression. Even among the New Left intellectuals, notably Ralph Miliband, commented on the moderacy displayed by the Allende government in its programs (while also commenting on the somewhat celebatory responses found in the press of his country, even from so-called “democratic socialists”) and reemphasized the neccessity of class struggle.
For democratic socialists, particularly those committed to the expansion of democracy via a constitutionalist framework (and certainly ones more internationalist than the chauvinistic types Miliband referred to), there is an emphasis not on Allende’s failures, but on his steadfast courage and principled commitment to his politics, in all of its complexity. Of particular inspiration is the pursuit of the “peaceful road” up until its final moments – of particular symbolism is the manner of Allende’s death by gunshot. The rifle from Fidel Castro was offered to Allende to signify Cuba’s solidarity with the Chilean path, which Allende declared would be peaceful. Given the choice to seize power, or even to defend himself, the risk of other people being harmed, or his principles violated was not one he was willing to take, and so Allende’s rifle took the life of one person in his entire struggle: himself.
In both opposing perspectives, Salvador Allende occupies the role of a martyr of socialism – all the more significant in the afttermath of the Cold War, and in the Chilean left – he occupies a position close towards beatification, if not outright apeotheotic.
The 2021 election of the leftist Gabriel Boric, has little resemblance to the context in which Allende was brought to office. Organisations such as the Progressive International, and the movement of the “Pink tide” within Latin America, are circumstances created in the shadow of a post-Cold War climate which the Left is only started to step out of. But the legacy, iconography and continued relevance of the tragedy that beset the Chilean people, with the fall of Allende’s government, continues to drive Chilean politics. Even now, even if his laws have been overturned, the deep privatisation of Chilean economy installed by Pinochet is something that Chile has not yet overcome – and it remains an open question as to whether it eventually can even through the parliamentary means. A ‘peaceful road’ so to speak.
We Are Many is a 2014 film directed by Amir Amirani. It is a documentary chronicalling the activities of the anti-war movement in the UK and US in particular, along with several other nations, as it mobilised with the aim of preventing the so-called “coalition of the willing”, led principally by the US, and followed by the UK, from launching a war in Iraq. As we know, this movement failed in their principal aims. The film’s title is an allusion to the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem “The Masque of Anarchy”, which features the verse: “Rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number – shake your chains to the earth like dew/Which sleep had fallen on you, ye are many – they are few”. We Are Many interviews several subjects involved in the anti-war movement of that period, including Ken Loach, Noam Chomsky, CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin, Donald Glover, and Tony Benn – in what would be his final appearance on film.
We Are Many emphasizes that the opposition to the war in Iraq, due to the valiant efforts of organisations such as Stop The War Campaign, CODEPINK, Veterans For Peace, and several others – became a worldwide statement from the global masses. It posits that by bringing voices from activists, active politicians, educators, voices within the military community, and the scientific community – who together joined in a global protest on 15th February 2003 involving 30 million people across 72 countries, that the peace movement had become “a new global superpower”, and while it had not been successful in preventing the Iraq War, it had inspired the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter. When I watched this film, I was annoyed by its conclusions. While I could emphasize with the director finding inspiration in the movement for the anti-government protests in Egypt, I couldn’t ignore that the film highlights the limitations of that movement and every movement said to be inspired by it.
The decision was made to make resistance into a war into a giant march. It’s true that it mobilised a lot of people that wouldn’t be expected to attend a protest, much less an anti-war one (eg. political conservatives, war veterans, etc.). But it only served to highlight that the organisations that worked to bring it together relied on a framework that presupposed liberal democratic assumptions i.e. if the respective governments of those planning the war saw how many people were opposed to the war, they would reconsider the course of action that they took. We saw that public perception was a risk that they found acceptable and went with the war anyway. Bush and Blair were brought back to power the following term. No seat holder representing a political district who voted for the war lost the seat specifically due to the war, which turns the “global superpower” declaration of the peace movement into a farce. The organisations themselves who set it up were convinced that the benificiaries of the war were the arms industries of the respective nations and the oil multinationals. Instead of direct action, which implied a much smaller yet more dedicated groups willing to risk personal safety or freedom, they went for a mass movement drawing a cross-section of people to invoke the “democratic will of people” – unfiltered, unrefined, and full of contradictions. CODEPINK would later rely on the direct action approach to disrupting events attended by Cabinet members of the Bush administration. Andrew Murray himself suggests that had they managed to generate massive strikes, then the war would not have gone ahead. In a lot of respects, it only highlights the significant decline in the strength of organised labour in the advanced capitalist nations since the neoliberal turn.
The film’s assertion that the conditions for a similar mass protest was what stopped the British Parliament from another Middle Eastern war in Syria is suspect when you consider that Both the British and Americans supplied arms to the anti-Assad forces, and the usages of airstrikes by the Trump administration as well as the May government in the UK in Syria. The film unfortunately unintentionally highlights the profound impotence of the anti-war movement – especially in comparison to its relative strength a generation before. I tried explaining this my position on this immediately after viewing it to others, and was met with – at best, an ambiguous reaction. The clips that they used however, were incredibly moving, if nothing else.
We Are Many is a portrait of the passions which fuelled protest in the 2000s, specifically that around the Global North, which led to demonstrations and opposition to the Iraq War. Both the optimism around the strength ofopposition to the war in Iraq, expressed though mass protest, and the severe disappointment as its limitations became apparent.
Because It Doesn't Affect You 