Antifada's History is a Weapon 13: Actually Existing Socialism w/ Matt Christman
Added 2022-03-30 10:00:05 +0000 UTCFor almost four years we've been speculating about the end of a certain period of history and hoo boy is it here!
Matt and Sean return to talk about the roots of this current turbulence: What are the forces aligned for and against the 'rules-based international order'? How has the calculus of the various ruling classes changed in this zero-sum moment? Are there even good guys or bad guys to root for? And how has the seeming exit of the working class from history worked out for humanity? Not so good, it seems...
In the second half we delve into the muck and mire of the XXth century, the hopes and dreams of millions of communists, the shortcomings of AES, and the bitter denouement of 1991. Then we ask: How might the class enter history again? Under what conditions? And, when it does, how do we engage with the it and defeat the demonic algorithm of capital?
Music: Eddy Huntington - USSR Vaporwave
Comments
a really good book for this is the cohen biography on nikolai bukharin who, as we mentioned in the ep, put forward an alternative to total war on the peasantry. worth checking out
The Antifada
2022-04-15 13:41:12 +0000 UTCI would like to hear more on that point too. I thought the whole idea of the communist party that emerged was that it was supposed to reconcile the interests of revolting urban proletarians (the hammer) and the revolting revolutionaries in the countryside (the sickle). Peace, Land, Bread. I wish we talked more about the coalition aspect of what was attempted in the USSR. Although I am personally a bit thin on this myself. But every time someone says a PMC can do no good, I think of the hammer and sickle and what it meant at a time before it was an out of context twitter affect.
Michael
2022-04-06 02:07:31 +0000 UTCHello mate :) Yeah, even aside from supressing soviets, killing communists, making people work at gunpoint stuff, just the basic idea that their party alone represented and embodied the true will of the working class is not something we can write off as just romantic ‘go-getters’ trying to turn the wheel of history – it’s directly contrary to the whole ideology of proletarian democracy that had been evolving thus far, and this was widely recognised at the time. The whole point of soviet power is that a certain group might be right today but wrong tomorrow, so no matter how firm a grip on things they seem to have at a specific time, they need to be removable if that grip loosens. The idea that 'a right wing group' would seize power if they didn't doesn't make much sense either - which right wing group, with whose army? They would have made the same attempt they did during the civil war, not sure why they'd definitely win this time...
Tulley
2022-04-02 19:41:43 +0000 UTCGreat episode, really enjoyed it –basically agree with the broad thrust of what you guys are saying, so I’ll just pick up on one thing I think has implications for modern struggles/analysis… at one point Matt said that peasants ‘cannot do anything’, that ‘you cannot be a political agent if you’re a peasant’, you ‘cannot coordinate action beyond the literal visible horizon’. I honestly don’t see any historical or theoretical justification for this idea. Is he confusing early 20th C peasants with medieval ones? Russian peasants had been coordinating and self consciously improving their conditions for decades, they were informed about and inspired by the revolutionary movement in the cities, and considered themselves part of it. They did better out of the revolutionary upheavals around 1905 than any other group - the existence of the All-Russian Peasant Union and things like the Gurian Republic of 1902-1906 are just two clear examples of peasant agency (I could go on but don’t want to make this comment any longer than it already is!) Bolsheviks had decent class analysis when it came to the urban proletariat, but they couldn’t even accurately name the operative social classes in the countryside. If there was a social stratum that was incapable of political agency or organising beyond the horizon it would have to be their favourite spectre, the ‘kulak’ – to the extent that it was a meaningful category it all, they were never an organised or remotely powerful force in Russian politics. It’s not just Russia either, peasant led political parties were a thing all over Europe in the twentieth century, Austria, Yugoslavia, Hungary – hell the Peasant Union got elected as the government of Bulgaria in 1919. Were they politically pure and healthy expressions of class interests? Shit no, but hardly different to their proletarian counterparts in that regard.
Tulley
2022-04-02 19:16:53 +0000 UTCWonderful episode, definitely brought an enlightening discussion of a lot of thoughts that had been simmering unaddressed in my head for a long time. Thank you!
Nicky Steidel
2022-03-31 19:36:45 +0000 UTCCORRECT THE RECORD!!: ok so I agree with many, but not all, the things said about the revolutionary period in Russia. However, I’d say the ‘overdetermined’ aspects are exaggerated and used to overlook those elements which very much weren’t - which ties in with papering over decisions made/measures enacted prior to 1921, or *even before the civil war really got going*. The Bolsheviks, undeservedly, come out of this as primarily tragic victims of history. Sure, it’s not a totally straightforward story of ‘authoritarian Bolsheviks doing bad things because they’re bad’, but they made real unforced choices with serious long term consequences that speak to the theoretical and practical problems with Leninism. The dismissal of the capacities of the proletariat (‘all the good ones were murdered’ apparently!) and even the peasantry does a lot of heavy lifting here to excuse substituting and repressing self-organisation (which, as I said, began immediately, not simply after the civil war).
Matt Crossin
2022-03-30 21:09:47 +0000 UTCUncritical support for history as a weapon!!
Jason John
2022-03-30 19:03:48 +0000 UTCsorry about the echoes!
The Antifada
2022-03-30 15:37:16 +0000 UTCuh oh!
Matt Crossin
2022-03-30 10:05:11 +0000 UTC
