Happy Red October

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 15:47

I'd just like to wish all Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists and Trotskyists a very happy Red October. Today marks the 89th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, so if that's your thing, go hog wild.

Despite being in the SSP I never really bought into the Marxism thing which sort of discounted me from being a fan of any of the commies, but hey - what's a few million corpses here and there when you're trying to construct utopia. (sorry - scientific socialism. My bad)

All plants - to workers, all land - to peasants, all water - to sailors!

Skeely · Post by **Skeely** » 07 Nov 2006, 16:47

Dadaist wrote:I'm really hoping that Tommy's new party ditch the independence bit - it never floated my boat.

Dadaist wrote:Despite being in the SSP I never really bought into the Marxism thing

Did you join by mistake?

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 16:53

Skeely wrote:
Dadaist wrote:I'm really hoping that Tommy's new party ditch the independence bit - it never floated my boat.

Dadaist wrote:Despite being in the SSP I never really bought into the Marxism thing
Did you join by mistake?

Tell me about it. I was on the fringes. If it wasn't independence this, independence that, it was Marxism this, Marxism that. Funny thing was watching the internationalists spat with the nationalists - it was worse than PPAG versus PFANS.

I had hoped that when Tommy started "Solidarity" he'd ditch nationalism, but not to be.

Incidentally, Stalin's only major theoretical work was "Marxism and the national question" but Trotsky hints at most of being written by Lenin.

Yeah, I should have found my local branch of anarchists I guess - but I doubt if they would all meet in the same room at once.

ali · Post by **ali** » 07 Nov 2006, 17:05

Happy Red October...................in November.

mmmmmm

wish I had paid more attention in History at school.

Re Tommy and independence - Tommy was never a nationalist - ever -what he is though, is a political opportunist.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 17:10

It's something to do with the calendar the Russians were using at the time - the Julian calendar.

What makes you say he wasn't a nationalist? I know full well he's an opportunist, but do you think his desire for independence was just a front - or was he saying something different from the people you regard as "proper" nationalists?

He signed up to the independence convention as far as I remember.

gilo · Post by **gilo** » 07 Nov 2006, 18:24

Ok there is no "with hindsight". You're in Russia 1917 whose team are you in?

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 18:52

gilo wrote:Ok there is no "with hindsight". You're in Russia 1917 whose team are you in?

Emma Goldman's. You?

gilo · Post by **gilo** » 07 Nov 2006, 22:15

Rosa Luxemburg. Though my question was more thinking about being Joe Average in Russia and looking at the Russian political parties and organisations in the middle of 1917. Who's membership card would you be carrying?

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 23:18

I take your point about hindsight, in that in 1917 the Bolsheviks hadn't had a chance to suppress or oppress anyone.

I'd still rather not have signed up to Lenin's program but if it was the red team or no team (or the white team) then, sure thing, the red team.

I'd much prefer, though, a peasant or anarchist grouping that fought alongside the Bolsheviks - although I'm mindful of your point about hindsight.

I just don't know if, with only foresight and in those circumstances, I would have stuck to my guns and gone as far as Makhno, or just done a Victor Serge and pitched in with the Bolsheviks. Genuinely don't know - very tough question.

Is that good enough or do you really want a signature on a dotted line?

As Joe Average though, easy - whoever the revolutionaries were where I lived. Red or black.

gilo · Post by **gilo** » 07 Nov 2006, 23:20

Sorry Dada I'm going t have to brush up on my history of Russian anarchists. Was Emma Goldman in the thick of the action in 1917?

gilo · Post by **gilo** » 07 Nov 2006, 23:24

Dadaist wrote:Is that good enough or do you really want a signature on a dotted line?

As Joe Average though, easy - whoever the revolutionaries were where I lived. Red or black.

Good answer, and your right and that's the point, you got with what's around you at that particular moment in time.

Imagine having a pint with Lenin and Trotsky, intense or what! Imagine further if Stalin joined in boring!

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 23:45

gilo wrote:Sorry Dada I'm going t have to brush up on my history of Russian anarchists. Was Emma Goldman in the thick of the action in 1917?

No - she only witnessed the aftermath I think, after getting kicked out of the US in 1919.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Nov 2006, 23:51

gilo wrote:
Dadaist wrote:Is that good enough or do you really want a signature on a dotted line?

As Joe Average though, easy - whoever the revolutionaries were where I lived. Red or black.
Good answer, and your right and that's the point, you got with what's around you at that particular moment in time.

Imagine having a pint with Lenin and Trotsky, intense or what! Imagine further if Stalin joined in boring!

Intense in the extreme, and stratospherically beyond me intellectually and politically. Stalin didn't get to where he did without charm - neither did Hitler - and although the haughtiness of Lenin & Trotsky is preferable to someone who would, if you shared a pint with him, probably condemn you to death in the future - seeing as we're not allowing ourselves hindsight I wonder if one would enjoy the Stalinist pint more if you wanted conversation, as opposed to being theorised at.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 08 Nov 2006, 08:28

Historian Norman Davies writes "how we didn't win the war...but the Russians did"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... _1,00.html

Britain and America still insist they defeated the Nazis, in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were minor partners, says Norman Davies

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 08 Nov 2006, 10:15

Dadaist wrote:I should have found my local branch of anarchists I guess - but I doubt if they would all meet in the same room at once.

In my day the Anarchists used to meet every Tuesday night in the Meadow Bar, and a very well behaved bunch they were too.

Porty · Post by **Porty** » 08 Nov 2006, 10:49

Dadaist wrote:
Britain and America still insist they defeated the Nazis, in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were minor partners, says Norman Davies

I wouldn't go as far as that but I have longheld the opinion that the Russians traded the life out of the Nazis. They just kep throwing more and more people at them til they broke.

gilo · Post by **gilo** » 08 Nov 2006, 19:57

Dadaist wrote:
gilo wrote:
Dadaist wrote:Is that good enough or do you really want a signature on a dotted line?

As Joe Average though, easy - whoever the revolutionaries were where I lived. Red or black.
Good answer, and your right and that's the point, you got with what's around you at that particular moment in time.

Imagine having a pint with Lenin and Trotsky, intense or what! Imagine further if Stalin joined in boring!
Intense in the extreme, and stratospherically beyond me intellectually and politically. Stalin didn't get to where he did without charm - neither did Hitler - and although the haughtiness of Lenin & Trotsky is preferable to someone who would, if you shared a pint with him, probably condemn you to death in the future - seeing as we're not allowing ourselves hindsight I wonder if one would enjoy the Stalinist pint more if you wanted conversation, as opposed to being theorised at.

I think you're probably right. I like to think thatas stalin walked in to the pub, pulled up a chair and opened his mouth, T & L would give each other a knowing look and a roll of the eyes.

I, however, am anyone's if they show me a bit of attention and would be putty in his hand. I'd say "Stalin, you had me at hello".

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 08 Nov 2006, 21:08

Porty wrote:
Dadaist wrote:
Britain and America still insist they defeated the Nazis, in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were minor partners, says Norman Davies
I wouldn't go as far as that but I have longheld the opinion that the Russians traded the life out of the Nazis. They just kep throwing more and more people at them til they broke.

That they did. The total Soviet dead (military and civilian) after what they call the Great Patriotic War is 30,000,000. Numbers can't do justice to the scale of human suffering in that country. The killing didn't stop then - many ethnic peoples were killed, not to mention German POWs, as Stalin re-asserted his grip on formerly occupied territories. People who had survived Hitler's camps found themselves in the Gulag.

A board I was on asked its members who they thought the best generals were from Nazi and Sovet sides - my entry to the competition was that Hitler was the best Soviet general and Stalin the best Nazi general.

Military history books can get a bit stuffy - and even though a definitive work on the conflict comes from a guy in Edinburgh called John Erickson, a personal favourite of mine which covers the human and military sides of a part of that conflict is Harrison Salisbury's "The 900 Days - The Siege Of Leningrad".

Cleopas · Post by **Cleopas** » 12 Nov 2006, 01:32

Trotsky was a close personal freind of my great grandfather on my mother's side. But they had a very bad falling out and my great grandfather decided to locate to North Africa. It was shortly after that, that Trotsky had the problem with chipping ice for his vodka!

According to my mother, her grandfather always maintained the pick was never big enough to do justice to old Leon's head! She says he used to rave on that Trotsky never got the half of what he deserved.

I've often wondered how far my great grandad was implicated in that little plot.

Talk Porty ~ Portobello

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