negation-negator

[negation-negator]

In order to track and stay on top of my own study, and in response to a lot of lackluster “communist reading lists” I’ve seen floating around this site, which excessively promote cold war era and 21st century authors of varying reliability at the expense of the classics of Marxism, I’ve put together a relatively comprehensive list of essential texts on this blog, complete with links to digital archives where you can read them, and, where available, places where you can buy physical copies of the texts, for those who learn better from real books. Of course, this isn’t meant necessarily to denigrate any popular authors not included on the list, but I haven’t something like this list on tumblr for a very long time, so I think it’s necessary for someone to put one out. This list of course isn’t sacrosanct either, and I’d appreciate any advice or criticism on my choice of texts etc. 

#txt

[negation-negator]

Working-class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected — unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a Social-Democratic point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working masses cannot be genuine class-consciousness, unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical, political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical, and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist analysis and the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not Social-Democrats; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — or rather, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical, understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of the economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance.

In order to become a Social-Democrat, the worker must have a clear picture in his mind of the economic nature and the social and political features of the landlord and the priest, the high state official and the peasant, the student and the vagabond; he must know their strong and weak points; he must grasp the meaning of all the catchwords and sophisms by which each class and each stratum camouflages its selfish strivings and its real “inner workings”; he must understand what interests are reflected by certain institutions and certain laws and how they are reflected. But this “clear picture” cannot be obtained from any book. It can be obtained only from living examples and from exposures that follow close upon what is going on about us at a given moment; upon what is being discussed, in whispers perhaps, by each one in his own way; upon what finds expression in such and such events, in such and such statistics, in such and such court sentences, etc., etc. These comprehensive political exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training the masses in revolutionary activity. 

- V.I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done? (1902)

#what is to be done #lenin #quotes

[negation-negator]

To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted and complex than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to renounce in advance any change of tack, or any utilization of a conflict of interests (even if temporary) among one’s enemies, or any conciliation or compromise with possible allies (even if they are temporary, unstable, vacillating or conditional allies)—is that not ridiculous in the extreme? Is it not like making a difficult ascent of an unexplored and hitherto inaccessible mountain and refusing in advance ever to move in zigzags, ever to retrace one’s steps, or ever to abandon a course once selected, and to try others? And yet people so immature and inexperienced (if youth were the explanation, it would not be so bad; young people are ordained by God himself to talk such nonsense for a certain period) have met with support—whether direct or indirect, open or covert, whole or partial, it does not matter—from some members of the Communist Party of Holland.

After the first socialist revolution of the proletariat, and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in some country, the proletariat of that country remains for a long time weaker than the bourgeoisie, simply because of the latter’s extensive international links, and also because of the spontaneous and continuous restoration and regeneration of capitalism and the bourgeoisie by the small commodity producers of the country which has overthrown the bourgeoisie. The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skillful, and obligatory use of any, even the smallest, rift between the enemies, any conflict of interests among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general. Those who have not proved in practice, over a fairly considerable period of time and in fairly varied political situations, their ability to apply this truth in practice have not yet learned to help the revolutionary class in its struggle to emancipate all toiling humanity from the exploiters. And this applies equally to the period before and after the proletariat has won political power.

- V. I. Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder (1920)

#lwc #lenin #quotes

[negation-negator]

“Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little, and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical significance and its practical successes. We can judge from that how tactless Rabocheye Dyelo is when, with an air of triumph, it quotes Marx’s statement: “Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.” To repeat these words in a period of theoretical disorder is like wishing mourners at a funeral many happy returns of the day. Moreover, these words of Marx are taken from his letter on the Gotha Programme, in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation of principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical “concessions”. This was Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek-in his name to belittle the significance of theory. Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.”

- V.I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done? (1902)

#what is to be done #lenin #quotes

[negation-negator]

"Radical feminists have treated historical development and historical facts lightly and imposed their own understanding of man-woman contradiction as the original contradiction and the principal contradiction which has determined the course of actual history. From this central point the radical feminist analysis abandons history altogether, ignores the political-economic structure and concentrates only on the social and cultural aspects of advanced capitalist society and projects the situation there as the universal human condition. This is another major weakness in their analysis and approach. Since they have taken the man-woman relationship (sex/gender relationship) as the central contradiction in society, all their analysis proceeds from it and men become the main enemies of women. Since they do not have any concrete strategy to overthrow this society, they shift their entire analysis to a critique of the super-structural aspects—the culture, language, concepts, ethics without concerning themselves with the fact of capitalism and the role of capitalism in sustaining this sex/gender relationship and hence the need to include the overthrow of capitalism in their strategy for women’s liberation.

...

Women’s liberation is not possible in this manner. The fault lies with their basic analysis itself. The cultural feminists have gone one step further by emphasizing the essential differences between males and females and claiming that female traits and values (not feminine) are desirable. This argument gives the biological basis of male-female differences more importance than social upbringing. This is in fact a counter-productive argument because conservative forces in society have always used such arguments (called biological determinism) to justify domination over a section of the people. The slaves were slaves because they had those traits and they needed to be ruled, they could not look after themselves. Women are women and men are men and they are basically different, so social roles for women and men are also different. This is the argument given by reactionary conservative forces which are opposed to women’s liberation. Hence the basic argument they are putting forward has dangerous implications and can and will rebound on the struggle of women for change."

~ Anuradha Ghandy, Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement

#quote #fem #anuradha ghandy

[negation-negator]

"The Russian Marxists have long had their theory of the nation. According to this theory, a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of the common possession of four principal characteristics, namely: a common language, a common territory, a common economic life, and a common psychological make-up manifested in common specific features of national culture. This theory, as we know, has received general recognition in our Party. It is evident from your letters that you consider this theory inadequate. You therefore propose that the four characteristics of a nation be supplemented by a fifth, namely, that a nation possesses its own, separate national state. You consider that there is not and cannot be a nation unless this fifth characteristic is present. I think that the scheme you propose, with its new, fifth characteristic of the concept 'nation,' is profoundly mistaken and cannot be justified either theoretically or in practice, politically. According to your scheme, only such nations are to be recognized as nations as have their own state, separate from others, whereas all oppressed nations which have no independent statehood would have to be deleted from the category of nations; moreover, the struggle of oppressed nations against national oppression and the struggle of colonial peoples against imperialism would have to be excluded from the concept 'national movement' and 'national-liberation movement.' More than that. According to your scheme we would have to assert: a) that the Irish became a nation only after the formation of the 'Irish Free State,' and that before that they did not constitute a nation; b) that the Norwegians were not a nation before Norway's secession from Sweden, and became a nation only after that secession; c) that the Ukrainians were not a nation when Ukraine formed part of tsarist Russia; that they became a nation only after they seceded from Soviet Russia under the Central Rada and Hetman Skoropadsky, but again ceased to be a nation after they united their Ukrainian Soviet Republic with the other Soviet Republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. A great many such examples could be cited. Obviously, a scheme which leads to such absurd conclusions cannot be regarded as a scientific scheme. In practice, politically, your scheme inevitably leads to the justification of national, imperialist oppression, whose exponents emphatically refuse to recognize as real nations oppressed and unequal nations which have no separate national state of their own, and consider that this circumstance gives them the right to oppress these nations. That is apart from the fact that your scheme provides a justification for the bourgeois nationalists in our Soviet Republics who argue that the Soviet nations ceased to be nations when they agreed to unite their national Soviet Republics into a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That is how matters stand with regard to 'supplementing' and 'amending' the Russian Marxist theory of the nation."

~ J. V. Stalin, The National Question and Leninism, 3/18/1929 (emphasis mine)

#nq #stalin #quote