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On Thursday, I debated against the cult Slovenian philosopher Slavoj iek at the Cambridge Union. The motion? This House believes that Marx was right. It is extraordinary, on one level, that such a debate can still be held. No one would dream of discussing whether Torquemada or Mullah Omar or Anders Behring Breivik was right. In the grisly tally of murder, Marxism stands unchallenged. The abominable Atlantic slave trade claimed ten million lives. The Nazis, their evils protracted by the lights of perverted science, killed 17 million. Communism has so far slaughtered 100 million. Marx may not have killed anyone with his own hands. Neither, as far as we know, did Hitler, but no one tries to claim that this exculpates him from the horrors unleashed by his doctrines. Only communists get a special pass here. Every barbarity they inflict is explained away as not real socialism.

To see how absurd that is, imagine arguing that Hitlers crimes were not real fascism. Fascism, like every other doctrine, is judged by its actual record. Only communism is treated as textbook theory, too pure and numinous to be sullied by real- world examples. Yet history has furnished us with some laboratory-standard experiments: China versus Taiwan, East Germany versus West Germany, North Korea versus South Korea. While free-marketeers are generally prepared to accept that, say, South Korea, marred by occasional corruption and abuses, is an imperfect capitalist state, Western communists resolutely refuse to allow similar inferences to be drawn about North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela or anywhere else. Such, at any rate, were my arguments in the debate. But I was uneasily aware as I made them that they were unlikely to hit home. Marxism is more like a religious sect than a political creed. The more palpably absurd its tenets become, the more the faithful flaunt their piety by embracing them. Marx insisted that his doctrines were scientific truths rather than political opinions. Yet every prediction he made turned out to be wrong. The market system did not destroy the bourgeoisie it enlarged it. It did not concentrate wealth in the hands of a tiny oligarchy it increased it across the board. It did not exhaust resources it kept finding more. Most obviously, it did not collapse under the weight of its contradictions.

Yet, in every generation, a new crop of devotees arises to explain that this time it will be different, this time the prophecy will be fulfilled. Marxists resemble nothing so much as doomsday cultists, constantly shifting the date of their Armageddon as it keeps failing to materialise. Then again, religions evolve, adapt, spawn heresies that sometimes displace them. During the debate, iek told me that he had become something of a hate figure among younger Leftist radicals because he diverged from the woke line on some gender and identity issues.

Woke began as an offshoot of left- wing ideology, transferring the role of the proletariat from the traditional working class to various minorities and ethnicities. But it soon evolved its own dogmas and sacraments, its own purity rites. Like Marxists, wokies are millenarians, working for a magical tomorrow that owes nothing either to past practice or to human frailties.

Like Marxists, they see themselves as an elect, and are constantly on the lookout for deviations from orthodoxy. One of the things they have started to notice is that the old cadger himself had, by their lights, some sacrilegious views. Even if we discount Marxs abhorrent anti-Semitism (which wokies too rarely count as proper racism), we are left with his dismissal of backward races, which he believed would hold humanity back, and his pleasure that lazy Mexicans had been conquered by an expanding America: In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will be placed under the tutelage of the United States.

Could it be that the woke are breaking from the old faith? Might they even cancel its original prophet? iek told the Cambridge Union that he radically oposes radically opposes the politically correct obsession with identity and gender politics. In this sense, I am an orthodox Marxist. One thing is already depressingly clear. If identity politics takes over from traditional Marxism, it will be every bit as repressive and intolerant as its predecessor. It has left us in no doubt on that score.

Excerpt from:
Communism is evolving. But the new version isn't any less toxic than the old - Telegraph.co.uk

Canadian singer-songwriter Grimes (Claire Elise Boucher).

Just like her partner Elon Musk, Grimes seems to want to save humanity from itself, via grand, poorly thought-out ideas that involve little more than sitting back, and letting the billionaires take care care of it.

Dont waste time thinking about all that staggering wealth inequality, climate change, or whatever - artificial intelligence is going to swoop down and save us, somehow.

In a TikTok posted to her account on Wednesday with the caption A.I. is the fastest path to communism, the pop star offered her insight into the state of the world, and the limitless luxury of the future.

So typically, most of the communists I know are not big fans of A.I, Grimes began. But, if you think about it, A.I. is actually the fastest path to communism. She went on to explain, So, if implemented correctly, A.I. could actually theoretically solve for abundance. Like, we could totally get to a situation where nobody has to work; everybody is provided for with a comparable state of being, comfortable living. A.I. could automate all the farming, weed out systematic corruption, thereby bringing us as close as possible to genuine equality.

She concluded her proposal by adding, So basically, everything that everybody loves about communism, but without the collective farm. Cause, lets be real, enforced farming is really not a vibe.

The most accurate statement was surely the final sentence - enforced farming is indeed, not a vibe. Idyllic farming sims like Stardew Valley aside, the average urban dweller is hilariously unequipped for the simple life. One cant deny that the cant someone else do it? philosophy is extremely appealing, at least, when applied to machines.

But Grimes might have been better off opening a book (or at least skimming Wikipedia) before filming that TikTok clip - she seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what communism is. Hence, Twitter leftists leaped at the opportunity to explain what Grimes misinterpreted.

Other Twitter users poked fun at Grimes confident, casual ignorance, along with the irony of her being in a relationship with one of the richest men on the planet.

Communists, of course, do not envision a world devoid of work, but a world in which workers are entitled to reap the benefits from their labour. The intent is defined by the phrase, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Before being associated with hyper-capitalist Elon Musk, Grimes appeared to be a proud anti-capitalist (and edgelord), even quoting Joseph Stalin in her senior yearbook photo.

Grimes appears to be, like so many artists that inhabit the world of the uber-wealthy, cosplaying as a revolutionary, vaguely posturing towards leftist ideas, while demonstrating a complete misunderstanding (and seemingly, a lack of interest) towards them.

And to be fair, why would she? Grimes, along with Elon Musk, doesnt need to worry about who controls her hypothetical, godlike AI; the two are forever cushioned by the invisible safety net of immense wealth and privilege.

Maybe that future Mars settlement could use someone a bit more ... down-to-earth.

Go here to read the rest:
On TikTok, Grimes Pitches Fully Automated Luxury Communism - Forbes

By Richard Baum, Ph.D., University of California, Los AngelesChinasGuomindangforcibly conscripted millions of young men for the war effort. (Image: Everett Collection/Shutterstock)A Near Miss

By the time the Chinese communists completed the Long March early in 1936, their ranks had been decimated by the pursuing nationalist armies and by the rigors of their 6,000 mile trek. They were exhausted, and vulnerable.

It was against this backdrop that in December 1936, the Young Marshal, Zhang Xueliang, was ordered by the nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, to attack the communist stronghold in Yanan. Had he obeyed, there is little doubt that the Chinese Communist Party would have been wiped out in short order.

But Zhang Xueliang rebelled, and the communists were spared a final, fatal Nationalist assault. In the negotiated truce that followed, the communists were abletorevivethemselves, regroup, and gradually regain their lost momentum.

This is a transcript from the video series The Fall and Rise of China. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

When war with Japan broke out six months later, the massive Japanese assault that followed proved disastrous for the nationalists. It was directed largely at their strongholds. Most of the fatalities occurred during the nationalists unsuccessful defence of Shanghai, which fell to the invading Japanese in the autumn of 1937.

After occupying Shanghai and several key cities on the North China Plain, the Japanese next trained their sights on the nationalists capital of Nanjing. Though the Japanese assault began as a conventional military operation, it, however, quickly degenerated into uncontrolled havoc. By the end of January 1938, widespread looting, robbery, and arson had left much of the Guomindang capital in ruins.

After Nanjing, the Japanese army conducted an all-out offensive throughout the urban centers of the Yangzi River delta. By October 1938, the nationalists were forced to retreat into the deep rural interior of Sichuan Province. They made their headquarters in the commercial hub city of Chongqing. Nonetheless, Guomindangs military supply routes continued to came under heavy Japanese aerial bombardment.

The communists were able to avoid the brunt of Japanese attacks, which were directed mainly against Nationalist-held cities, rail lines, and commercial centers in east and northeast

With war material, consumer goods, and foodstuffs all in extremely short supply in Chongqing, inflationary pressures began to mount on the nationalists. These pressures were compounded by ill-advised government policies that responded to growing commodity shortages by increasing the supply of money, thereby fueling an inflationary spiral.

To compound to the problem the Guomindang forcibly conscripted millions of young men for the war effort. With their meagre pay, they were unable to support themselves and their families. They, thus, not only deserted but preyed on civilians in the countryside, stealing from those more helpless and vulnerable than themselves.

As corruption rose to dangerous levels, the Nationalists image suffered and popular morale steadily eroded.

To mobilize peasant support, the Red Army, (now named the Peoples Liberation Army or PLA), paid great attention to the political indoctrination of its recruits, so that they would not exploit local farmers. In this respect, their wartime behavior compared quite favorably with that of their increasingly predatory nationalist counterparts.

In addition, Yanan served as a magnet for patriotic Chinese from all parts of the country. Between 1937 and 1942, tens of thousands of people made their way to the communist base area to join the anti-Japanese resistance.

In the effort to counteract growing communist influence in the villages of north China, Japanese commanders pursued a scorched-earth policy of kill all, burn all, destroy all. Entire villages, suspected of harboring Communist agents, were burned to the ground, their inhabitants slaughtered. As a result, a deep and abiding rage against Japan took root among the peasants of north China. This rage ironically further propelled the Chinese communists in the rural psyche.

Learn more about the birth of Chinese communism.

Never trusting each other, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek each sought to take advantage of the others vulnerabilities and weaknesses. The tensions between them reached the boiling point in July of 1941, when 9,000 communist troops from the PLAs New Fourth Army were ambushed by 80,000 nationalist soldiers in the mountains of south-central China. More than 3,000 Communists were killed, while additional thousands were sent to Guomindang prison camps.

Although from a purely military viewpoint the massacre was an unmitigated disaster for the communists, they were able to turn it to their advantage. By focusing their propaganda on Chiang Kai-sheks cold-blooded perfidy and his lack of sincerity in resisting Japan, they were able to generate considerable political capital and sympathy from the New Fourth Army Incident.

Learn more about the socialist transformation of 1953-1957.

When the US ended its neutral stand in the Sino-Japanese war, it got an opportunity to observe both the nationalists as well as the Communist Party.

General Stilwell observed that Chiang Kai-shek was far more interested in preserving his forces for the final showdown with communism than he was in engaging Japanese troops on the battlefield. The Dixie Mission on the other hand, too, felt the leadership of the Guomindang was corrupt, inept, ineffectual, and alarmingly isolated from the common people. By contrast, they found the communists to be well-led, highly disciplined, and uncorrupt.

In one rather prescient memo, a State Department observer named John Stewart Service predicted quite accurately that if present trends continued, with the Guomindang becoming increasingly undemocratic, unpopular, and economically irresponsible, the future of China would belong not to the nationalists but to the communists.

This glaring difference in the very moral fiber of the two parties would never have become obvious if not for the Sino-Japanese conflict. With the stunning reversal of its fortune, the Communist Party successfully used it as a stepping stone to emerge strong, unified and as the leaders of China.

Chiang Kai-shek asked Zhang Xueliang to attack the communist stronghold in Yanan. He rebelled and refused to follow the orders.

The PLA paid great attention to the political indoctrination of its recruits, so that they would not exploit local farmers.

He predicted that with the Guomindang becoming increasingly undemocratic, the future of China would belong to the communists.

Continue reading here:
Reversal of Fortune: The Rise of the Chinese Communists - The Great Courses Daily News

The language of Communist manifesto is brazenly clear and exciting. Marx and Engels have outrightly predicted the inevitable decay of Capitalism and subsequent reign of Communism. However, the book is classified into four sections with section three having further more sub-sections. The first section is about history of bourgeoisie and proletariat, briefly taking notes on how merchant class of industrial epoch crushed the feudal dispensation and Aristocratic classes of Middle Ages sprouting from the ruins of both. Further in the same section, reader comes to know history has been unfolding all due to strife between rival classes and that for solely economic reasons. As Marx avers: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. There is no reason to disagree with this reasonable argument that history is of class struggle. In ancient age of Romans, it was between patricians and plebeians, in Middle Ages it was between serf and feudal lord, and in industrial age it was, and thus far is, between bourgeoisie and proletariat.

Interestingly, Marx and Engels sardonically and in vehement terms rebuked bourgeoisie class vis--vis family values. The argument was that bourgeoisie class has reduced family values to mere economic relationships of profit. Even, as said in Manifesto, marriages are confirmed on account of how that will help greasing the profiteering course in future. The woman was, as Marx and Engels mention, considered an instrument of production to produce childrens fostering Capitalism. This truly runs afoul of natural trajectory of human values that mark them off all other living organisms.

But, all in all, one cannot accuse and incriminate bourgeoisie class alone while vindicating the working class irrational devotion for a communist world. It really is not easy to establish a communist country. Needless to say, the squalid and miserable conditions of working class people are full of resentment against those who are perpetually snatching away their shares; but uprooting the entire system while installing another system which will again propel this vicious circle is not convincing.

Furthermore, the healthy spectrum of bourgeoisie-led-capitalism, as Marx concedes, is that by the nature of its beefing up more and more new instruments of production, Bourgeoisie draws all, even the most unruly nations into civilization. The chicanery is cheap prices of commodities, Marx calls this the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls. The system creates a sort of doppelgnger which will further the bourgeoisie designs and shrink wage-labour. But however, it is arguable that does Capitalism really civilises unruly people in true sense of the word? Or merely turns them into a new form of vulturous people who only understand two words: buy or sell. This again is not convincing. In effect, the nature, and writings of Marx on communism, are sort of not crystal clear and are opaque with spaces of interpretation abounding.

The second section is about proletarians and communist; their convergences and possible divergences, if any. On which level does communism tout to be the representative of proletarians? And how communists present their credentials to nullify the nationalistic tinges of proletarians and think more broadly taking on board proletarians of all different countries? Marx and Engels argue that communism do not establish a separate party opposed to working class parties, rather it creates a level playing field for all working people. The unmistakeable difference is that communism finds and brings to the fore the common interests of proletarian belonging to different countries. In struggle against bourgeoisie, communists, unlike proletarians, represent and fight for common interests of all. Nonetheless, aim of both is same: Formation of proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeoisie supremacy conquest of political power by supremacy. Besides, Marx and Engle clearly write that every country have different state apparatuses and they hold their own way of fighting their exploiter. However, they are under no obligation to follow what European workers do, but their aim disrupting bourgeoisie must converge since that is what communism is based upon.

Fears and perils vis--vis communism of most people, particularly profiteering class, are abolition of property in general. However, Marx and Engels intend otherwise in Communist Manifesto snapping: You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenth of population. There is no mention of abolishing property in general in Manifesto, however, what is mentioned is the distinguishing feature of communism: not abolition of property generally but abolition of bourgeoisie property. Qualms about radical destroying of ideals, class distinctions, rapacious appropriation of collective labour are only qualms of bourgeoisie who fear losing Capital heaped and accrued on hard-won work of common worker. Better to disrupt the applecart of a bourgeoisie than buy into the bogus idea of progress and rationalism. In this sense, in succinct terms, if and only communism is defined in a single but seminal sentence, that would be: abolition of private property, as Marx and Engels write. The last two sections are about different branches of socialism and types of bourgeoisies. How petty- bourgeoisie buttress the ideals of appropriation and how conservative socialism endeavours to tone down the revolutionary aspect of socialism and reduce it to a mere cowering child satisfied with a toy. All these are explained very simply and logically. There are some secret agents always behind defaming socialism with irrational designs which are busted in this section.

The book is anyhow a very revealing and educating read. That said, Communist Manifesto struck a nerve in 1848 all across Europe, particularly in France, igniting the fire of revolution which took aback the ruling class of Europe. Anyone who is interested in Marxism and oppressed-oppressor dialectics is suggested to pick this book.

The article has been written and contributed by Shahab Akram who is a student, based in Turbat. He Tweets at @shahabakram6 and can be reached at shahabakram0852@gmail.com

Read the original here:
A spectre is haunting Europe the spectre of communism - Daily Times

The first victim of the Soviet Unions international socialist crusade was Catholic Poland. By the spring of 1920 Poland was under attack from the Soviet Red Army.

At the national Marian shrine of Czestochowa candles were lit and desperate prayers intoned beside the icon of the Black Madonna. The intercession of Our Lady of Czestochowa was never more needed.

On May 20, 1920, the newly created Red Army crashed through the Polish frontier with one intention: to destroy all before it.

Bolshevik leaders meeting in Moscow for the Second Congress of the Communist International had already begun to prepare plans for a Communist-inspired world revolution starting with the nations of Central and Western Europe. Lenin had ordered that Warsaw be taken without delay.

Now the Red Army raced toward Warsaw, advancing to the banks of the Vistula River that flows through Poland from the Baltic to the southernmost part of the land. For the Poles, all looked lost especially as their pleas for help to the Western powers went unheeded. Prime Minister Lloyd George told the British Parliament that Poland had to accept her fate.

Now only a miracle could save Poland.

On Aug. 5, sensing the urgency of the situation, Pope Benedict XV exhorted all to pray for Gods mercy for Poland ... to join all the faithful in imploring the Most High God that through the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary may save the Polish Nation from her final defeat and may turn away this new plague from Europe.

With no military aid offered from abroad, Polands leader, General Pisudski, realized that this might be his nations last stand. After spending a night in prayer, Pisudski began to assemble soldiers as many as could be spared for a major assault on the Soviet left flank. The plan appeared foolhardy, an imprudent last-ditch attempt at survival.

On Aug. 10, the British government sent a telegram to the Polish government urging it to surrender to the Soviets to avoid annihilation. Instead, Pisudski began to handpick his favorite military divisions to join those assembling near Lublin for the proposed counterattack scheduled to begin on Aug. 17.

Opposing him stood a 100,000-strong Red Army, soldiers filled with revolutionary fervor ready to destroy Warsaw and all those whom they found there.

On Aug. 12, Pisudski prepared to leave Warsaw to join his strike force aiming to counterattack the Soviets. As he departed, Pisudski turned to his wife Aleksandra saying, It is in the hands of God.

On Aug. 13, 1920, the Soviets attacked Warsaw. Encountering little resistance, they captured the outer suburbs in the southeast and northwest of the city. Everywhere, it appeared Polish forces were in flight. The Soviet artillery unleashed a devastating bombardment upon all those now left in central Warsaw.

Warsaw began to take on a surreal appearance. The city was swollen with terrified refugees, with people camped out in public parks next to hastily-prepared and wholly-inadequate defenses. A special train carrying almost the entire foreign diplomatic corps left the capital bound for Poznan. One of the few foreigners who remained was Polands then-papal nuncio, Cardinal Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI. Ratti organized a perpetual prayer for deliverance and, with monstrance held high, he led a Eucharistic procession through Warsaws streets as the Soviet shells rained down.

Polish generals, seeing that Warsaw could not hold out until relief from Pisudski's flanking maneuver arrived, urgently telegraphed him: Attack!Pisudski was shocked to hear the rapid deterioration of conditions in the Polish capital but agreed to launch his assault.

On the morning of Aug. 15, the Feast of the Assumption, wave upon wave of Soviet soldiers continued to attack Warsaw. Yet that morning, from within the city, Polish forces managed somehow to stem their advance. And then, against all odds, they began to retake ground that the Red Army had won. The Soviets started to wonder how the Polish army, which they had seen defeated for many weeks, had begun to fight back with fresh heart against a superior foe. A Soviet counterattack ensued, but it was futile. The Red Army was unable to vanquish the defending Poles. In fact, as the day of Aug. 15 progressed, Polish soldiers seemed to become bolder in counterattack.

Strange rumors began to circulate in Warsaw. Some claimed that in the sky above the Polish lines had appeared the Black Madonna of Czestochowa.

While the Poles fought with a new resolve, the Soviets, curiously, lost theirs. One Russian rifleman was later to comment that by the afternoon of Aug. 15, The moment had come when not only individual units but the whole mass of the army suddenly lost faith in the possibility of success against the enemy. It was as though a cord that we had been stretching since the [invasion] had suddenly snapped.

To relieve Warsaw and to break the Soviet advance, the counterattack had begun with Pisudski at its head. Expecting to discover a significant Soviet force at any moment, the charging Poles were surprised to find their path mysteriously clear. As they advanced further, they found themselves all but unopposed. Pisudski worried that the Soviets were setting a trap that they were planning to encircle his men with a superior force once they had advanced sufficiently and escape was impossible. Yet for almost two days, Polish forces raced onward, brushing aside what few Bolshevik units they encountered. Pisudski could not believe his eyes.

On the night of Aug. 17, Polish forces finally made contact with significant concentrations of Soviet troops. But the Soviets were taken unawares by the sudden appearance of this major Polish force. The outcome for the Red Army was catastrophic: many were killed, including large numbers of high-ranking officers. On the banks of the Vistula the Polish strike effectively eliminated the massed Soviet troops, as well as disrupting their communication lines, thus preventing incoming Soviet reserves from reaching Warsaw.

In the days that followed, the seemingly invincible Red Army slouched back eastward whence it had come. On hearing of what had happened on the banks of the Vistula, Lenin declared that the army had suffered an enormous defeat and promptly put on hold his plans for a bloody world revolution.

Meanwhile, Poles returned to the shrine of Czestochowa. Again, candles were lit, once more to cast a faint glow upon the enigmatic face of the Black Madonna.

* * * * * * *

Many years later, Pope John Paul II wrote:

You know that I was born in 1920, in May, when the Bolsheviks marched toward Warsaw. And thats why since my birth I have carried the great debt toward those who died fighting against the aggressor and who won, giving their lives for their country

Then ... communism appeared as very strong and dangerous. It seemed that the communists would conquer Poland and would march to Western Europe, that they would conquer the world.

But it did not happen.

The Miracle on the Vistula the victory of Marshal Pisudski in the battle against the Red Army stopped the Soviets.

Go here to see the original:
Miracle of Vistula: When Our Lady Saved the World From Communism - National Catholic Register