Posted On: Friday - November 3rd 2023 9:20AM MST
In Topics: Commies The Russians History Socialism/Communism Dead/Ex- Presidents
Continued from Part 1, which was over 2 months ago. Time to get back to subjects that have fallen through the cracks.
Note: I realize that the title of this series does sound like something out of the juvenile anti-Social-Media blogger Andrew Anglin. However, sometimes Ad Hominem is a good literary technique. This is one of those times.
This fisking of the 89 1/2 year-ago stupidity of a Billboard Top-10 Communist, (Top 10 with a
This is probably out of order, but it'll have to be in another post, after this series, that I try to explain how the new Totalitarians we see, taking Political Prisoners, suppressing dissent, and running Cultural Revolution 2.0 are no different from the Communists of old. Their specific goals may be different, but they want to overturn traditional society and eviscerate the "Capitalist Roader" Middle Class.
OK, back to Leon Trotsky after that 2 month break. We gave a short biography of the man last time. We present here more material from Comrade Trotsky's exhortation to Great Depression 1.0 Americans of 1934 to "RISE UP!", If America Should Go Communist. First, here's the Introduction as written by the editors of Fourth International (Vol.12 No.2), 15 years later, in March-April 1951 (Boy if the publication name Fourth International doesn't scream "Communist wrecker!", I don't know what does!):
The campaign against Marxist ideas sponsored by the capitalist witchhunters today aims to implant the false impression that Communism is completely alien to American life and opposed to the welfare of the American people. In the Thirties, during the rapid spread of anti-capitalist feelings following the Great Depression, there was considerable popular interest in the prospects of a Communist America. On this account the editors of Liberty Magazine turned to Leon Trotsky for a bird’s-eye view of what the Communist future holds for the United States.Yeah, I'll bet it did. I wonder how Americans came around to all those Anti-Communist prejudices? Well, we only had one big sample at the time. Trotsky says that Russia didn't do it right.
Trotsky’s contribution, addressed to a broad public infected with anti-Communist prejudices and repelled by Stalinism, sought to show what far-reaching avenues of progress would be opened up by a victorious socialist revolution in the world’s most advanced country. This article, published in the March 23, 1935 Liberty Magazine, called forth much debate in the press at that time.
Should America go communist as a result of the difficulties and problems that your capitalist social order is unable to solve, it will discover that communism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance.And, they'd have been right. Interestingly, to an alt-Historian, Trotsky foresaw foreign impediments, as per this line - this was 1934, remember:
At present most Americans regard communism solely in the light of the experience of the Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the Soviet Union.
They argue that Great Britain and Japan would undertake military intervention against the American soviets.Really? I think I could have easily beaten this guy in a game of Risk, were it being produced by the Soviet economy. Anyway, back to Trotsky's explanation of Americans' fears of Communism:
They shudder lest Americans be regimented in their habits of dress and diet, be compelled to subsist on famine rations, be forced to read stereotyped official propaganda in the newspapers, be coerced to serve as rubber stamps for decisions arrived at without their active participation or be required to keep their thoughts to themselves and loudly praise their soviet leaders in public, through fear of imprisonment and exile.Ya think? We've got the modern Commies rising up now, and this is the stuff that is starting to happen. Yet, per Trotsky in 1934, Americans should have been all "What, me worry?"
They fear monetary inflation, bureaucratic tyranny and intolerable red tape in obtaining the necessities of life. They fear soulless standardization in the arts and sciences, as well as in the daily necessities of life. They fear that all political spontaneity and the presumed freedom of the press will be destroyed by the dictatorship of a monstrous bureaucracy. And they shudder at the thought of being forced into an uncomprehended glibness in Marxist dialectic and disciplined social philosophies. They fear, in a word, that Soviet America will become the counterpart of what they have been told Soviet Russia looks like.Yeah, again, what, them worry? What did they have to be worried about? That would have never happe.... no, it's gonna be different this time, but first, we gotta break the eggs... The evil policies that Trotsky told Americans of 1934 not to worry about ARE happening, today!
The illustrious author started aptly with "They fear monetary inflation..." Hey, we
Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II.I.e., Roosevelt was already something of a Communist, while Nicholas II of Russia wasn't, so the transition in 1934 would have been easier. Still, we'd have needed a revolution, Leon Trotsky says, but I'll get to that in the next post.
This is fun and easy, showing the stupidity of a Top-10 Communist. The more difficult part will be convincing Americans that the people overturning traditional White male America right now are then 2nd coming of the Leon Trotskies, well, more like the 5th or 10th. None of those have worked out very well, but you NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP, if you are a Communist wrecker.
* China's currency, the Renminbi (RMB), means "The People's Money", but we refer to real money here.
Comments:
The Alarmist
Saturday - November 4th 2023 7:28AM MST
PS
FDR was a commie, his administration was infested with commies, and a lot of Americans impoverished by GD1.0 were not unsympathetic to the country going full commie as people like NY Times Walter Duranty filled their skulls full of mush with notions that all was golden in Stanlin’s Fantasyland. The best friend of my Aunt even in the 60s was a red diaper baby who tried to fill our heads with the pros of communism, and while she was subtle, her mother remained steadfast Red through the GD, War, and the McCarthy era. Trotsky, had Stalin let him live, might have succeeded in flipping the US.
But the funny thing is that Trotsky was a British asset. That was one reason why Stalin had him brutally snuffed in Mexico City. And don’t for a minute think that being an actual commie was inconsistent with being a British asset.
FDR was a commie, his administration was infested with commies, and a lot of Americans impoverished by GD1.0 were not unsympathetic to the country going full commie as people like NY Times Walter Duranty filled their skulls full of mush with notions that all was golden in Stanlin’s Fantasyland. The best friend of my Aunt even in the 60s was a red diaper baby who tried to fill our heads with the pros of communism, and while she was subtle, her mother remained steadfast Red through the GD, War, and the McCarthy era. Trotsky, had Stalin let him live, might have succeeded in flipping the US.
But the funny thing is that Trotsky was a British asset. That was one reason why Stalin had him brutally snuffed in Mexico City. And don’t for a minute think that being an actual commie was inconsistent with being a British asset.
Moderator
Friday - November 3rd 2023 8:56PM MST
PS: They are after Whitey, but "they" also includes the Communists that call themselves anti-Facist. (Boy that rhymes with 100 year old history pretty well!) This is because all of them hate traditional American society and want to wipe out the White Middle Class. The White poor are just collateral damage.
Yes, they are unserious, or they don't do serious, real, worthwhile work in their work at the universities, "non-gov't orgs", government departments, in the media (as per hundreds of iSteve posts), etc., Mr. Blanc, and most would be whipped by any Joe Blow. I think their aim to destroy society is very serious in their minds.
I agree with you that they don't have a program like the old Commies that organized their meetings and publications like "The International"
Anyway, good points. Thanks for the comment.
Yes, they are unserious, or they don't do serious, real, worthwhile work in their work at the universities, "non-gov't orgs", government departments, in the media (as per hundreds of iSteve posts), etc., Mr. Blanc, and most would be whipped by any Joe Blow. I think their aim to destroy society is very serious in their minds.
I agree with you that they don't have a program like the old Commies that organized their meetings and publications like "The International"
Anyway, good points. Thanks for the comment.
MBlanc46
Friday - November 3rd 2023 3:41PM MST
PS There are certainly similarities between today’s Leftists and the Commies of the 1930s. But the 1930s Commies had a well-articulated theoretical underpinning*. Whilst there is a family resemblance amongst the Left’s worship of sexual deviants, their bowing down before People of Color, and their disdain for men and masculinity, they don’t have much of a coherent program. It’s mostly just anti-white and anti-Western spite. The 1930s Commies were, at least in theory, for something: the proletariat. The contemporary Left are simply against something: Whitey. In my younger days, I knew some old Commies from the 30s through the 50s. Whilst I believe that their theory was completely wrong-headed, they were mostly serious men (nor many women), and some of them were seriously bad-ass**. Today’s Leftists are majority women, and the men are mostly simps.
* Sure, history has disconfirmed it, but it was focused and coherent.
** Recall that Comrade Trotsky (Bronstein) was a commanding general in the civil war.
* Sure, history has disconfirmed it, but it was focused and coherent.
** Recall that Comrade Trotsky (Bronstein) was a commanding general in the civil war.
There might be a point here that I've never seen discussed: How much influence did Depression Era proponents of Communism have on the Beatniks and then the decade later hippy/protest generation on fht 1960's? Is there continuity via various individuals? Was there some other concerted efforts besides the Frankfurt School crowd, more American in nature?