Mediaboss Marketing

Recent heated debate in South Korea about how its colonial-era independence movement should be remembered has exposed the deep faultlines that run through the countrys politics, between the conservative and liberal-progressive camps.

At the end of August, the Korean Military Academy announced its intention to relocate the statue of independence activist General Hong Beom-do from its front lawn, along with that of four other independence activists. In addition, South Koreas defence minister, Lee Jong-sup, openly considered renaming a navy submarine that had also been named after General Hong.

Hong Beom-do is remembered for leading the Korean Liberation Army to victory over Imperial Japan in the 1920 battle of Fengwudong. But the academy and the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration take issue with the fact that Hong later sought refuge in the Soviet Union and became a member of the Communist Party.

This furore over Hongs statue more broadly has come against a background of an intensification of red-baiting rhetoric by the Yoon administration. In his August 15 Liberation Day speech, Yoon argued that: The forces of communist totalitarianism have always disguised themselves as democracy activists, human rights advocates or progressive activists while engaging in despicable and unethical tactics and false propaganda. We must never succumb to the forces of communist totalitarianism.

The implication of such statements has been that any opposition to the Yoon governments policies are a result of the forces of communist totalitarianism.

Yoons actions are a recurrent feature of South Koreas increasingly polarised political culture. Incumbent administrations go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from their predecessors.

It is no coincidence that the bust of Hong and the other independence fighters had originally been placed there in 2018 by the preceding liberal-progressive Moon Jae-in government.

A more immediate factor is recent realignments in South Koreas foreign policy. Seoul is moving toward closer cooperation with the United States and Japan. For decades, tensions between Japan and South Korea have impeded Washingtons goal of bringing the two countries together in a trilateral alliance to tackle challenges from China and North Korea.

Anti-Japanese sentiment remains strong in South Korea. This is sustained by Japans perceived failure to address historical wrongdoings during the colonial and wartime eras. As a result, many Koreans remain wary of closer security cooperation. The Yoon government, however, has unilaterally abandoned longstanding Korean demands for Japan to show greater remorse, and for victims compensation.

Yet this pursuit of trilateral security cooperation at all costs has created a legitimacy crisis for the government, which is seen by many to be increasingly out of step with much of the public. Rather than seeking to convince the public through persuasive argument, the Yoon government has increasingly resorted to red baiting.

On September 1, Yoon gave a speech at the Korean National Diplomatic Academy in which he implied that any criticism of his administrations pro-US and pro-Japan leanings were again a result of communist totalitarian or anti-state forces.

In several respects Yoons approach reflects longer-term fissures within Korean politics since it transitioned to democracy in 1987. Since then, South Korean conservatives (and in particular the so-called chinilpa, or pro-Japanese faction whose wealth and power date back to collaboration with the Japanese) have suffered from a chronic deficit of legitimacy.

During the post-liberation era, they compensated for this with an ideology of virulent anti-communism. As a result, the main split in Korean society came to be defined as between communist and anti-communist rather than between nationalist and collaborator. Anything that was judged to go against the authoritarian conservatism of the era was defined as benefiting the North.

The firm grip held by the authoritarian regime in post-liberation South Korea meant that there was little need to develop any genuinely conservative ideology. But the democratic transition made it increasingly difficult for conservatives to adhere to the logic of communism versus anti-communism.

Liberal governments, backed by the rising power of new civic movements, were able to attack conservatives for their history of colonial collaboration and post-war authoritarianism. Conservatives were blamed for episodes seen as having caused national humiliation. These include the 1965 Japan-Korea Treaty and the Kwangju massacre of 1980 in which a pro-democracy movement in the southwest of the country was brutally suppressed by the Korean military.

One broad response to this challenge has been the emergence since the 2000s of an alternative so-called New Right history movement. This explicitly sought to establish a new moral grounding for South Korean conservativism. It aimed to address a perceived ideological vacuum through a strong belief in free market liberalism. This was combined with the promotion of a more positive view of the Japanese colonial occupation and the involvement of the US in Koreas modern development.

The New Right movement largely failed to make an impact in the academic study of history in Korea. But Yoon has appointed prominent New Right figures to key government positions. Their views have evidently had an impact on his thinking and rhetoric.

But his increasing reliance on red-baiting seems at odds with the aspirations of New Right ideologues to put conservatism on a firmer and more persuasive ideological basis. Instead it feels like a throwback to the cold war McCarthyism.

Yoons simple anti-communist rhetoric is unlikely to appeal to the majority of the South Korea public many of whom find themselves associated with the presidents notion of communist totalitarianism.

But while Yoons red-baiting may be politically ineffectual, it looks set to deepen the polarisation of politics in South Korea. This could threaten the principles of democracy in Korea by de-legitimising dissent.

Original post:
South Korean president's anti-communist taunts are opening up ... - The Conversation

(OSV News) -- As Argentines prepare to elect their new president Oct. 22, a group of clergy close to Pope Francis launched an unprecedented intervention in the highly charged political atmosphere in the South American country.

The Archdiocese of Buenos Aires group of curas villeros, Spanish for slum priests, celebrated a reparation Mass for the insults targeting Pope Francis by the presidential candidate who won the primaries in August, Javier Milei, who has been quoted as calling the pontiff an imbecile and said his support of the poor is evil.

Father Jos Maria Di Paola, known as Padre Pepe, said in his homily that it is unworthy of a candidate to say such things, including denigrating social justice, when social justice is part of the Gospel, part of the churchs social doctrine.

The priests who said the Mass explained the insults were heard more and more often, even boosting Mileis popularity and that was the reason the Mass was celebrated.

A large crowd turned out for the Mass in the villa 21-24 neighborhood in Buenos Aires Sept. 5, and faithful were seen holding pictures of Pope Francis in a sign of support. A big banner reading In solidarity with the Pope and the poor stretched above their heads.

Milei, an economist who describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist and was elected for Congress in 2021 with an anti-establishment rhetoric, has insulted the pontiff -- his countryman -- on numerous occasions during TV interviews and on social media posts over the past years.

Most of such attacks are apparently related to the popes endorsement of social justice, defined by Milei as an aberration. In 2022, when the pontiff defended the idea that people should pay taxes in order to protect the poors dignity, Milei tweeted that the pope is always standing on the evils side and accused him of having poverty as a model.

Those ideas have been customarily accompanied with insults. The long list includes calling the pontiff an imbecile who defends social justice, leftist son of a b* preaching communism, and the representative of the evil one.

Jair Bolsonaro, is a fierce supporter of the minimal state. His platform includes extreme measures, like adopting the U.S. dollar as the Argentine currency and closing the countrys Central Bank.

Although he professes the Catholic faith, Milei reportedly has a number of spiritualist beliefs and has been studying the Torah with a rabbi every week.

In his most recent interviews, he apparently preferred to avoid new controversies and declared that he respects Pope Francis as the churchs leader and as a head of state.

That new attitude was not enough to convince at least part of Argentinias Catholics, who account for 62,9% of the population, although according to the CIA World Factbook from July 2014, 92% of the country was nominally Catholic at the time. Analysts say that most people do not relate the elections and the pontiff, so those offenses may not have impacted the votes of many Catholics.

But some people, especially in the poor neighborhoods, have been outraged, said Father Lorenzo de Veddia, known as Padre Toto, a longtime cura villero in a slum in the Barracas district of Buenos Aires who was one of the priests celebrating the Sept. 5 Mass.

One can notice that many people have not liked so much aggressiveness, so many insults and so many lies, he told OSV News.

The Mass in support of Pope Francis -- and of the poorest in our country -- as the invitation said, was said at Padre Totos parish, one of the many which were accompanied with great interest by the then-Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The curas villeros movement was organized at the end of the 1960s to give special attention to the residents of the poor neighborhoods, which had a fast growth in the second half of the 20th century. The priests not only play a religious role among the poor, but also actively participate in the communities daily life, helping them to organize and fight for their rights to be respected.

During his tenure as a bishop and then as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the pope had a special connection with many members of that movement. Dozens of them took part in the reparation Mass.

It is an attack on Catholic law, on the churchs social doctrine. He is virtually saying that the churchs social doctrine is bulls*** exactly because it points to social justice, Father di Paola declared.

According to sociologist Marcos Carbonelli, a researcher of Argentinas National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and an expert on the nations religious dynamics, said that although the curas villeros are prestigious agents, their ability to influence the election is low.

Father di Paola, Padre Pepe, a close friend of Pope Francis, said in an interview to radio La Patriada Sept. 3, that Mileis attacks are not only against the pontiff, but against the church as a whole.

The world of the poor in Argentina is very fragmented nowadays, he stressed.

Milei received significant support in many villas in Buenos Aires, which have been historically connected to Peronism, a left-wing movement based on the ideas and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Pern (18951974).

With its devalued currency, Argentina has triple-digit inflation and 40% of the population lives in poverty -- which sparks anger toward traditional politics. The latest polls show that Milei remains ahead of challengers with at least 32% of support, while left-winger Sergio Massa is in second with 26% and right-winger Patricia Bullrich is behind with 20%.

Continued here:
Argentine priests celebrate reparation Mass after presidential ... - America: The Jesuit Review

In a break from his usual Hollywood blockbusters, Christopher Nolans latest release offers a dramatic and tense look at the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the bomb, exploring the politics of McCarthy-era America along the way.

Director Christopher Nolans latest epic, Oppenheimer, may appear an unusual subject for a summer blockbuster: a three-hour long biopic of Julius Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the American physicist who oversaw the development of the first atomic bomb.

This has certainly not dissuaded cinemagoers, however, with the film grossing over $80 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

A star-studded cast; online hype encouraging viewing as a double-feature, alongside tongue-in-cheek release Barbie; and Nolans well-earned reputation for making intense thrillers with impressive set-pieces: all of these ingredients, together, are a recipe for big profits.

And no doubt studio bosses will be grateful for this cash injection, given the strikes that are currently rocking Hollywood.

Based heavily on the biography American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolans film aims to cover the eponymous physicists complex life at a blistering pace, whilst maintaining excruciating dramatic tension throughout.

Murphys performance is particularly captivating especially as Oppenheimer comes to face not only personal and professional adversity, but also battles with his own conscience, as he realises the reality of the potential destruction that he has helped to unleash.

Nolans features often see spectacle triumph over substance. But Oppenheimer generally manages to avoid this. In fact, what is most surprising (besides former Nickelodeon child actor Josh Pecks cameo) is just how political the film is.

The storyline hinges around the investigation into Oppenheimers past associations with members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the revocation of his security clearance in 1954 which effectively ended his career during the peak of the McCarthyite witch-hunt that pervaded America.

The film uses this investigation as a means to explore how the physicists own moral values shifted before and after he became the father of the A-bomb. But in doing so, it also provides an insight into the shifting aims of US imperialism, as it became the worlds predominant superpower.

Given the well-known anti-communist hysteria of the post-war period, it may seem crazy to the modern viewer that Oppenheimer a man whose brother, wife, lover, and numerous friends and colleagues were all CPUSA members was ever allowed to head up the top-secret Manhattan Project.

The CPUSA grew rapidly throughout the 1930s and 40s, especially following the Great Depression and the ensuing industrial tumult. Consequently, it came to hold important positions within the US labour movement though unfortunately often playing a lamentable role.

At the same time, the party also gained a considerable reach amongst the US intelligentsia, such as the academics that surrounded Oppenheimer during his time at Berkeley, as the film portrays.

Oppenheimer himself, though never a card-carrying CPUSA member, was certainly a fellow traveller. He was a sympathiser of many working-class causes, such as that of Spanish republicanism, and the film also shows how he aided his university colleagues in their unionisation efforts.

The CPUSAs Stalinist Popular Frontism, however, no doubt also had some influence on him. The physicist therefore had few qualms about accepting the US governments invitation to join its top-secret programme to develop the bomb before the Nazis.

Put into historical context then, one can see how Oppenheimer ended up leading the Manhattan Project.

His belief that the bombs sole purpose, in the hands of US imperialism, would be to beat back the fascists and end the war was soon to unravel, however.

The strategists of US imperialism feared the USSR as a potential rival world power. The film shows how this was the real motivation behind the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki / Image public domain

American imperialists knew that there was a risk of potential leaks to the USSR, via communist-sympathising scientists such as Oppenheimer and his colleagues.

But they were willing to take this gamble, in order to build and demonstrate the nuclear bomb as quickly as possible not only before the Nazis could, but also to gain an upper hand over the Soviets.

Nolan does well to show how the battle lines of the Cold War were already being drawn before World War Two had even finished.

Stalin had dissolved the Communist International in 1943, and had vociferously disavowed the cause of international socialist revolution. Nevertheless, the strategists of US imperialism feared the USSR as a potential rival world power.

The film shows how this was the real motivation behind the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese imperialists were ready to surrender, but the US cynically used the country to showcase its deadly new weapon as a warning to the Soviet Union, and as a demonstration to the world that American imperialism was now top dog.

Within a matter of years, however, the Soviets also gained nuclear capability, due to leaks from the Manhattan Project. As a result, the Cold War picked up pace, especially following the Korean War.

The arms race was then on for developing the hydrogen bomb, a nuclear weapon of even greater power than the original atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer vocally opposed the US pursuit of the H-bomb. And the film shows his nave hope that as the father of the bomb, he was entitled to a say over his child.

The scientists vocal opposition became cause for concern for the authorities, and his loyalties began to be called into question.

At the same time, anti-communist hysteria was being whipped up everywhere, reaching its zenith with the Red Scare of the early 1950s.

The lives and livelihoods of thousands of CPUSA members and sympathisers were ruined, as they lost their jobs and effectively became exiles in their own country. Hundreds were also jailed.

It was in this context, spurred on by petty professional rivalries, that an investigation into Oppenheimers life and beliefs was launched, with a subsequent kangaroo court finding the eminent professor guilty of being a disloyal citizen.

Anti-communist hysteria reached its zenith with the Red Scare of the early 1950s / Image: public domain

His security clearance was revoked, bringing to an end his role as advisor on the Atomic Energy Commission. This resulted in a swift fall from grace, with Oppenheimer rapidly losing any influence that he had previously held in Washington.

The biopics ending (SPOILER ALERT) has Oppenheimer musing as to whether his creation has potentially set in motion events leading to inevitable nuclear armageddon, with Nolan depicting his horrifying vision.

With the ongoing war in Ukraine provoking such Cold-War-era fears, this is clearly intended as a reminder to audiences of just what a modern-day nuclear exchange would entail.

The Mutually Assured Destruction that would result if the worlds imperialist powers were to deploy their atomic arsenals, however, is enough to prevent the ruling classes everywhere from ever pressing the button. After all, there would be little profit to be made if the planet was transformed into a radioactive husk.

Alongside the enormous and growing strength of the working class, this MAD outcome is just one factor that rules out World War Three.

But this does not preclude wars altogether. Every year, across the world, tens of thousands die in battles over profits, markets, resources, and spheres of influence such as the civil wars in Sudan or Ethiopia today.

In fact, as capitalism plunges further into crisis, the coming period will see an intensification of proxy wars and regional conflicts between the imperialist powers, as in Ukraine, or Syria before it.

There is only one force on Earth that can put an end to this horror without end, as Lenin described it: the international working class.

To do this, the working class must first become conscious of its potential power and strength, and organise to overthrow capitalism the true destroyer of worlds.

Originally published at socialist.net

Read the original:
Oppenheimer: communism, McCarthyism, and the bomb | United ... - In Defence of Marxism

Local, state, and federal governments have intruded into every aspect of our lives. Local councilmen have made laws that ban chaining a dog, dictate the length of the grass, and require every change made on ones property to be inspected and permitted. Every private home is now under the control of the government.

State government schools issue mandates on what is to be taught in each grade. The state has established education and license standards that miss the art of being an excellent teacher. Their idea is to complete a series of college courses as a guarantee of becoming a really effective teacher. It is not bearing fruit.

As the American family weakens and dissolves into divorce, our schools have used government funding to provide services to students. These children can be provided psychological/ sociological services, free lunch, breakfast, and dinner, and in some schools, weekend supplies of food, take-home computers, and other school supplies. Many of our children are being parented by the state.

Hillary Clinton famously stated, It takes a village to raise a child. President Biden noted that all the kids are ours. This undermines the importance of parents raising their own children.

As the traditional family dissolves, the government is undermining its past support system by making divorce as easy as checking out of a supermarket. It has become apparent that marriage, as we know it, is no longer just between a man and a woman. Parents are belittled in government schools. Instead of teacher-parent meetings where parents have a major say in their childrens education, government schools are relying on outside experts.

The protectors of students would be a hybrid of government agencies and politically powerful coalitions of education-degreed experts, including governmental health experts who want to legitimize fringe sexual groups. They have little to no intimate knowledge of the childs behavior and inclinations.

A mother and father who biologically created the child and trained them to grow into a high-functioning youngster have no logical or moral legitimacy, according to the government. Instead, the national government representatives, particularly teachers who took elementary psychology courses during their BA or MA courses, seem to have more rights and should have more respect than the parents who raised the child.

This should not happen, and we believed it could not happen in the USA, but it is beginning to be proposed in the media and by the most powerful political elements of our society. Too many radical changes have happened in our society in a sudden and seemingly innocuous way. We were informed that children who want to be transformed into the opposite sex than they were born could start the process without their parents being notified or approving of their wishes. This was a direct shot across the bow of parental rights.

There was no strong negative reaction by citizens to this outrageous process of not notifying parents about the government education officials transitioning the child to the opposite sex. Our democratic socialist/communist government continues to push us toward communist policies in our nation that proudly called itself a republic. There has not been a strong reaction against these policies. These political heavy lugs have been dropped one after another with no negative recognition in the media. This is a viable method of desensitizing the population to communist policies, and it is working.

Are we approaching a tipping point where we are too far into communist practices to turn back to being free from governmental control over every aspect of our lives, including how to raise our children? Mao Tse Tung, a communist revolutionary in China, understood that once you gain the power to program young people, you have the power to train them into obedient communists. Our national government bureaucrats and top government leaders are using education indoctrination from elementary school through college to propagandize our children into diehard Marxists.

Stop ignoring all these assaults on our hard-fought freedoms. If we continue to ignore the removal of all of our freedoms and rights as free citizens, we will no longer be free. We need to stand together in masse to remove the progressive left-leaning socialists or outright communists from power, or we will wake up living in a communist nation.

If this happens, a free America will be history- never to be resurrected again.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglios articles at http://www.drmaglioblogspot.com.

Link:
When teachers have more say than parents, communism has arrived - Hernando Sun

The great revolutionary artist Vladimir Mayakovsky was born 130 years ago, on 19 July 1893. His life, and the mark he left on poetry, theatre, and design, have captured the interest of radicals and revolutionaries ever since.

Today, as growing numbers of workers and youth become radicalised by the deepening crisis of capitalism, we remember Mayakovsky and celebrate his lifelong struggle for revolution, which he strove to give a voice to through his art.

Mayakovsky was born in a small town in Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire, during a tumultuous period.

The revolutionary events of 1905 inspired a whole generation including the young Mayakovsky, who devoured the songs and literature of the time.

His father was from a noble background, though by no means wealthy. When he died in 1906, the family were left with almost nothing, and were forced to move to Moscow.

There, while studying at the 5th Classic Gymnasium, Mayakovsky aligned himself with the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), becoming an active revolutionary.

He took part in Marxist reading groups, propaganda, and other practical activity during the period of black reaction that followed the defeat of the 1905 revolution.

Oppressive Tsarist laws and secret police forced the party and its members underground. Mayakovsky was arrested several times for working at an illegal printing press, smuggling literature, and breaking political prisoners out of jail.

While in prison, Mayakovsky studied art and literature, and began writing poetry.

He was always dissatisfied with the greats, like Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky. He felt deeply that the hypocritical ideals and sentimental lyricism of bourgeois literature were utterly unfit for the new turbulent period, and called for them to be castoverboard from the ship of modernity.

This desire to break with the past reflected a genuine revolutionary spirit. But it also spoke to some of the limitations of Mayakovskys thought.

In his haste to chart a new course for Russias cultural life, he had a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In fact, on cultural matters, the working class had much to learn from Russias grand artistic lineage.

On release from prison, Mayakovsky drifted from the Bolsheviks. Enrolling at the Moscow Art School in 1911, he fell in with a group of rebellious bohemians who together would forge the Russian Futurist movement.

They shared with Italian Futurism a hatred of the past and a fascination with speed, technology, and the big city.

This appeared as a total anathema to the stultifying obelisk Tsarist Russia had become, and the wooden realist tradition that dominated its cultural output at the turn of the 20th century.

The Russian movement, however, developed somewhat independently from its Italian counterpart. The left Futurists around Mayakovsky, in particular, were hostile to the fascist sympathies held amongst their Italian counterparts, by the likes of Marinetti.

The Russian Futurists attacked bourgeois art and morality, expressing a mood not unlike that which prevails amongst many young people today, who are rightfully repulsed by thedegeneration and profiteering in artand wider society.

Futurism was always constrained by its origins. It reflected the youthful contempt of petty-bourgeois intellectuals disgusted with the old order and its stagnant cultural life, but ill-equipped to fight for a new one.

Nevertheless, as Trotsky later wrote: If the Futurist protest against a shallow realism had its historic justification, it was only because it made room for a new artistic recreating of life, for destruction and reconstruction on new pivots.

As the First World War broke in 1914, and class struggle in Russia began to grow again, Mayakovskys art became increasingly political.

When, in 1917, the Russian masses overthrew the hated Tsar, and fought to establish the first workers state in history, Mayakovsky put his considerable talents entirely at the service of the revolution.

He wrote great rallying poems such as Left March. He produced a play celebrating the October Revolution. And he painted Bolshevik posters.

The revolution provoked an enormous flourishing of art. The gilded doors of Russias immense cultural legacy were opened to the masses for the first time, and a generation of artists were inspired to capture the spirit of the new world through their craft.

Mayakovsky became a highly celebrated and popular artist, with his poetry enjoying particular acclaim.

He threw himself wholly into, as he saw it, the revolutionary task of reshaping Russias cultural life. This involved collaborations with many of the greatest artistic figures of the time: the constructivist painter Malevich; theatre director Meyerhold; graphic designer Rodchenko; legendary filmmaker Eisenstein; and even the young composerShostakovich.

Yet, despite holding the latters personal admiration, Lenin did not hold Mayakovsky in great esteem, whose work he dubbed hooligan communism. He held similar views on Futurism in general.

Partly, this was down to Lenins self-confessed conservatism on artistic matters. But he was also likely conscious of the political problems in Mayakovskys outlook.

Trotsky who was much more open to experimental art recognised Mayakovskys enormous talent, naming him the greatest poet of the [Futurist] school. But he also saw the artists weaknesses.

He criticised Mayakovskys unwillingness to engage with the stark realities of post-revolutionary Russia: the backwardness that would need to be overcome for there to be any question of raising Soviet societys cultural level to the heights envisioned by this petty-bourgeois idealist.

For Trotsky: Mayakovskys revolutionary individualism poured itself enthusiastically into the proletarian revolution, but did not blend with it. His subconscious feeling for the city, for nature, for the whole world, is not that of a worker, but of a bohemian.

Later, as the Stalinistbureaucracy grew powerful in the isolated workers state, Mayakovsky attacked the red tape and stupidity of the bureaucrats in poems like In Re: Conferences.

While still not a fan of the poetry, Lenin praised the political content of this work as absolutely right.

As Lenins health worsened, Mayakovsky rightly railed against those who sought to transform the Bolshevik leader from flesh-and-blood revolutionary into a harmless icon.

In a 1923 editorial for the Left Art Front (LEF) journal he helped found, Mayakovsky wrote:

We insist

Dont stereotype Lenin

Dont print his portrait on placards, stickybacks, plates, mugs and cigarette cases.

Dont bronze-over Lenin

Dont take from him the living gait and countenance.

After Lenins death, Mayakovskys increasingly critical line made him a target. His critique of the Stalinist clique in the satirical playThe Bathhouseprovoked a vicious campaign against him.

Vladimir Yermilov, a literary critic and Stalinist attack dog, implied thatThe Bathhouseexpressed sympathy for the ideas of Leon Trotskys Left Opposition.

This cultural epigone might have actually had a point. Mayakovsky was always an avowed internationalist, who saw the Russian Revolution as the starting gun for world communist revolution.

The association with Trotsky was intended as a Mark of Cain. It was followed by a smear campaign in the Soviet press, with Mayakovsky being drowned out at public readings by jeering audiences whipped into a frenzy by Stalinist calumny.

Just as Stalin murdered all the old Bolsheviks, in order to consolidate the privileges of the bureaucracy, so too in art he waged a brutal counter-revolution. This later included enforcing a new shallow (socialist) realism as the only accepted style in the Soviet Union.

Mayakovsky ultimately could not withstand the withering effect of Stalinist counter-revolution. In April 1930, at the age of 36, he took his own life in mysterious circumstances.

Mayakovskys revolutionary legacy was still feared by the bureaucracy. Their anxiety only intensified when his funeral became the third-largest event of public mourning in Soviet history, with 150,000 in attendance.

In a cynical about-face, in 1935, Stalin proclaimed Mayakovsky to be the best and most talented poet of our Soviet epoch!

The bureaucracy proceeded to strip Mayakovsky of his humanity, converting him just like Lenin into another harmless icon; a mere propagandist. His oppositional works were censored or altered, while statues and public squares unveiled in his honour.

This acted as nothing short of his second death, as fellow Futurist Boris Pasternak later wrote.

Today, the last remnants of the revolutionary Mayakovsky continue to be wiped out in defence of the status quo.

His political works are buried under academic gossip about his lovelife and personal struggles. Statues and streets dedicated to him are torn down and renamed. In Ukraine, for example, a Mayakovsky Street was recently renamed in honour of Boris Johnson.

Those of us who are not content with the status quo of the world today, andwho call ourselves communists, remember the real, complex, inspiring legacy of Mayakovsky: his courageous revolutionary struggle, and great artistic achievements.

In doing so, we heed the words of Trotsky. Art has a role to play in revolution, but cannot be achieved through art alone.

It is only through conscious organisation, education, and persistent struggle that this decrepit system can be overthrown, once and for all.

One can say of Mayakovsky that, from a young age, he recognised the need to get organised and fight for revolution. Communists today must follow this example.

See the article here:
130 years of Mayakovsky: Art, communism, and revolution - Socialist Appeal