ALB
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That entry that Lenin wrote in 1914 for a Swiss Encyclopaedia that Lih refers to is quite good and does back up his view that up until 1917 Lenin was a more or less orthodox leftwing Social Democrat and one who did understand what Marx was on about. It can be found here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/index.htm
After 1917 of course he went off in a different direction, repudiating political democracy and defending a one-party dictatorship and so ceasing to be a Social Democrat.
Ironically, just like some other pre-war Social Democrats, in the end he found himself the prime minister in a government that could not bring about socialism and so had to accept capitalism and its economic laws, in his case to actually encourage the development of capitalism. Which is what the Bolshevik government did when had to adopt a New Economic Policy in 1921 which he himself described as “state capitalism” in the sense of the development of capitalism under the control of a “proletarian state” (ie a Leftwing government).
Everybody can now see that, under its present government led by Benjamin NuttyYahoo, Israel is a rogue state on the rampage even from the point of view of the capitalist world order. Established as a state to protect the members of a particular ethnic minority in and supposedly from the region, it now seeks to defend its existence through waging a ruthless war against its enemies — those displaced as a result of its establishment and extension and their supporters — regardless of how many ordinary members of the other inhabitants of the region it kills. Their lives don’t because they are not members of the same ethnic group.
Let this be a warning of where nationalism and its mindset leads — “my” nation uber alles. It is the opposite of everything socialists stand for: one world, one people.
There are three council by-elections in Ealing in West London on 10 October. Galloway’s party is contesting all three. Here is an interview with one of their candidates. Nothing about socialism (which of course is a good) or even about the workers, just a concern about child poverty and local businesses.
“This is connected with my other primary task which is to tackle child poverty — we have 40% child poverty in many areas of South Acton. This is a complete outrage in a modern, developed country, and a problem that the Council needs to address. Other than that, It’s the independent traders & small businesses that I want to empower and help prosper.”
This sort of thing seems to be typical of candidates of the so-called “Workers Party” — as of LibDem and even Tory candidates too.
Just realised that that dates from October 2022 and anyway he said could rather than will. I don’t know if he is still saying that today in the current situation.
In any event, this is the worst Labour government that there has ever been. And from day one.
Here is how the floated change is analysed by a Russian pro-government outlet:
It seems to be a case of Russia upping in ante to try to deter the other side from taking some action.
Note the bit at the end about a US,British or French satellite being shot down rather than a direct attack on their territory.
Incidentally I can’t see Biden allowing Britain to go it alone, but I can imagine Sir Kyiv Starmer being so reckless and warmongering as to what to do so. After all, just as Reeves has declared Labour is the “party of business” so Starmer has declared that it is “the party of NATO”.
Depends what you mean by “being targeted”. Russia will have had nuclear weapons trained on European sites for two generations. But if you mean that these sites would be hit in the event of Ukraine using long-range missiles supplied by NATO to attack Russia then that would be the product of your incorrigible doomsaying.
A more rational interpretation of what Putin is saying would be that he is pointing out how weak militarily Europe is compared to Russia and that those in charge of European governments should take this into consideration in their decision-making.
Actually, Hudson’s opening contribution, about the general nature of the US government’s debt and why the US will not go bankrupt (and so why this is a non-issue even for capitalists), is not bad.
The rest is not up to much, with Wolff’s knockabout stuff and reformist talk from the both of them about taxing the rich to save the pensions system.
Interesting that TUSC (and SPEW) are involved. Maybe it will lead to their disappearance from the political scene. Apparently it’s former Labour MP Dave Nellist who has been involved.
Here’s TUSC’s account of what’s been going on:
https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/TUSC-Briefing-on-the-Collective.pdf
I think they used to be a Maoist “Marxist-Leninist” party. This is still on their site:
Programme of the proletarian socialist revolution
The proletariat in this neo-colony, where the capitalist production system dominates and a bourgeoisie subservient to imperialists is in power, faces the challenge to prepare for socialist revolutionary tasks and achieve them. In order to achieve them the Sri Lankan proletariat presents this programme. More…But when you press “more” you get this message;
“ Not found, error 404
The page you are looking for no longer exists”.She’s said it again. Here’s what Reeves writes in today’s Times:
“We ran as a pro-business party and we are governing as a pro-business party.”
Yes indeed.
In case you are wondering what the jam we are promised tomorrow if we tighten our belts today, it’s:
“a Britain where families have more money in their pockets, so they don’t have to worry about the weekly shop”
“an NHS that is once again there for you when you need it.”
Oh yeah.
No it doesn’t. It could just a way of inculcating loyalty to the state from its subjects.
I don’t think for one moment that the rulers of Russia expect still less want a total war with NATO any more than the rulers of the US want one with them.
They are both practising the doctrine of “if you want peace, prepare for war” by building their military might. They know that a total war between them would mean “mutually assured destruction”. In fact this is the message they want to give. It’s a mad solution dictated by a mad system but it seems to have worked for the last 80 years.
So voters in Sri Lanka have elected a “Marxist-leaning president”. That will be the reflection at the ballot box of the popular unrest there that led to the overthrow of a previous government.
But what is a “Marxist-leaning” person?
One thing is certain. No matter how far he leans towards Marxism he won’t be able to fix the capitalist economy in Sri Lanka so as make it work for the benefit of workers there (as Marx could have told him).
Well, we’ve got a new government here that is pledged to facilitate things getting worse. A pledge we can be sure they will honour.
Here’s a translation of what an anonymous French intellectual wrote in 1979 under the heading “Abolish Money or Abolish the Commodity?”
“Money is currently the essential concrete representation of the exchange value of the commodity, of its real substance. Abolishing money is to abolish only one concrete representation of exchange value. This exchange value can well take on other faces, other forms of concrete representation. So to abolish money is not at all to abolish the commodity. Obviously abolishing the commodity will abolish its substance, exchange value, and its concrete representation, money.”
What the French intellectual forgot to spell out was that the commodity (as an item of wealth produced to be sold) only comes into existence where there is private property and private production as exchange of products can only take place between separate owners. So to abolish the commodity can only be done by replacing private ownership by common ownership.
What we socialists advocate is the common ownership of productive resources; this will end production for sale and so the commodity, and so exchange value, and so money.
Here’s how the official Russian state news agency reported what Volodin said:
https://tass.com/politics/1845365/amp
Note the difference between:
“What the European Parliament is calling for opens the way to a nuclear world war,”
And Reuters translation:
“What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons,”
I don’t know what the Russian word he used was but “opens the way to” and “leads to” are not the same. The second implies that a nuclear war will result; the first that it makes one more possible.
Both of them are saying that, in the event of a long-range NATO missile being launched against Russia, Russia would retaliate against Ukraine using a “powerful weapon”.
It looks as if NATO may have backed down and is saving face by not making any official announcement. But if it hasn’t backed down and a long-range NATO missile is used against Russia, then we can expect Russia to deploy its “powerful weapon” against Ukraine (but not a nuclear strike on Britain or America).
