Communism (Revolutions)

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

The rising number of non-status migrants is one of the central political issues of our time. This essay argues that if we want to understand the political and philosophical importance of this phenomenon, the contributions of Alain Badiou, his militant group L'Organisation politique (OP), and the struggle of the sans-papiers movement in France are absolutely crucial. This is the case because, I will argue, Badiou, the OP, and the sans-papiers created a new kind of migrant justice struggle in the mid-1990s that in many ways remains at the practical and theoretical roots of much of non-status migrant organizing today. However, this essay also argues that Badiou's theoretical and political work with the sans-papiers also needs to be revised and updated in light of certain developments in more recent migrant justice struggles.

This article is a manifesto for anarchist geographies, which are understood as kaleidoscopic spatialities that allow for multiple, non-hierarchical, and protean connections between autonomous entities, wherein solidarities, bonds, and affinities are voluntarily assembled in opposition to and free from the presence of sovereign violence, predetermined norms, and assigned categories of belonging. In its rejection of such multivariate apparatuses of domination, this article is a proverbial call to nonviolent arms for those geographers and non-geographers alike who seek to put an end to the seemingly endless series of tragedies, misfortunes, and catastrophes that characterize the miasma and malevolence of the current neoliberal moment. But this is not simply a demand for the end of neoliberalism and its replacement with a more moderate and humane version of capitalism, nor does it merely insist upon a more egalitarian version of the state. It is instead the resurrection of a prosecution within geography that dates back to the discipline’s earliest days: anarchism!

This essay focuses on a paradoxical transformation that happened within Soviet ideological discourse at the very end of perestroika, around 1990-91. The Party's attempts to revitalize Soviet ideology by returning to the original word of Lenin unexpectedly produced the opposite result. The unquestionable external Truth from which Soviet ideological discourse drew its legitimacy-and that had always been identical with Lenin's wordsuddenly could no longer be known. This shift launched a rapid unraveling of the Soviet communist project. At the center of this unexpected transformation was the search for the true Lenin-a kind of Lenin that Soviet party theorists, bureaucrats, historians, and scientists hoped was still hidden in the midst of his unpublished texts and unknown facts of his biology, life, and death.

Instead of waiting for revolution this paper argues for  the power of the everyday, where our collective undoing of capitalism is an ongoing process of subversion. Such an evolutionary politics of insurrection, a protean “spirit of revolt”, is located as a politics of immanence entwined within our very being in the world. It is an ontology of rebellion, rather than an epistemology of deferral. Everyday conversations and mundane practices can embody this ethos of insurrection through the principles of continual reflexivity and revision. Since geography is ultimately a politics of process it bespeaks evolution rather than revolution, and so we need to consider what it might mean to drop the “r”. Although the ordinary story that such a philosophy of transformation implies is less alluring than the grandiose idea of revolution, it has greater potential to bring results, as it is more in tune with how social change actually happens.

Nelson Mandela's clandestine membership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) placed the African National Congress (ANC) and, later, its military wing, under SACP control, created civil war within the ANC on class lines between 1955-1959, and abolished direct one person one vote in the ANC (1957). These moves culminated in the split that created the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It is arguable that Mandela's work to protect his class interests delayed South African freedom by maybe twenty years.

What is the relationship between metaphysics and political revolution? Despite being two of the most widely discredited concepts in contemporary European philosophy, this chapter argues that we are witnessing the return of both in the work of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou. Their return, however, is no mere repetition of the previous forms of classical metaphysics and modern revolution- defined by totality and the state. Rather, it is a differen- tial return: a return that changes something fundamental about these concepts and breathes into them a desperately needed new life. Many contemporary Eu- ropean philosophers have announced the "end of metaphysics" and the "death of philosophy." They have buried the ideas of metaphysics and revolution many years ago, but continue to pursue the endless task of vilifYing them- Jest their specters return from the grave.

This chapter offers a bold critique of the notion that Baathist rule in Iraq was a product of a culture of authoritarianism in Iraq. It is important to acknowledge from the start that while this chapter does offer a more nuanced view of the Post-Colonial period, it is no way a defence of the tyranny of the Baath and the brutal megalomania of Saddam. Specifically, the first section examines the quashing of Iraq’s civil society and the tight restraints exerted over the nation’s media throughout the period. It also addresses the ways in which various Post-Colonial regimes, but especially the Baath, were adept at manipulating the discourses of democracy in order to mask their tyranny and coerce people into patriotism. Moving beyond this, however, the second section documents the various clandestine opposition groups that began to emerge across Iraq’s divergent ethno-religious and political divides who resisted Baathist oppression and agitated for democratic change. They produced their own media outlets which proved effective in voicing the various frustrations and grievances of Iraqis of all backgrounds and shades of opinion, giving way to a renewed public sphere. The Post-Colonial era, therefore, alternative history of Iraq from the mid-twentieth through to the early twenty-first century in which one finds a sophisticated political culture deeply concerned with the issue of democratic governance.

When relating to any event that has a major impact in world history, the main focus is situated on fact-related questions. While historians generally try to assert that objectivity is the main standard for judging historical events, a ubiquitous view rooted in the tradition of objectivity has not come to surface yet. It is, however, most important to analyse in a comparative framework the way in which historians representing certain schools/ideas have related to a certain major event. In other words, the focus of analysis should shift from the question of "how events happened?" to the question ""how does the current historiography relate to events?". It is by this framework that a certain phenomenon can be analysed without asserting biased views over the course of history.

Antonio Gramsci's notion of " passive revolution " has often been understood as a distinctive historical narrative, political concept, or theory of state formation. This article proposes to consider it instead as a " heuristic formula " within the " lexical architecture " of the Prison Notebooks. Based upon a diachronic and contextualist analysis of the usage of the formula, I argue that Gramsci's research on passive revolution emerged as a critical element within the development of his own distinctive conception of the " sublation " and " actualization " of the slogan of " the revolution in permanence. " Attending to this dialectical relationship allows the political and strategic dimensions of passive revolution to be highlighted, and suggests new paths of research for the debate about its analytic fertility and contemporary relevance.

In "My Life" Trotsky sought to vindicate himself in terms
imposed upon him by Stalin and by the whole ideological situation of Bolshevism in the 192os, that is, in terms of the Lenin cult. Stalin had denounced him as Lenin's inveterate enemy, and Trotsky was consequently anxious to prove his complete devotion to, and his agreement with, Lenin. His devotion to Lenin after 1917 was undoubtedly genuine; and the points of agreement between them were numerous and important.

Nevertheless, Trotsky blurred the sharp outlines and the importance of his controversies with Lenin between 1903 and 1917, and also of later differences. But another and much stranger consequence of the fact that Trotsky made his apologia in terms of the Lenin cult was that in some crucial points he belittled his own role in comparison with Lenin's, a feat extremely rare in autobiographical literature.

When Stalin's idol was being smashed and the Stalinist falsification of history was being officially and emphatically denounced, the shade of Stalin's chief antagonist inevitably aroused fresh and lively, though bewildered, interest. In Moscow, Peking, Warsaw, and East Berlin people wondered anew what had been the significance and the moral of Trotsky's struggle against Stalin. Young historians, to whom the archives, hitherto kept under loc0 and key, had suddenly been thrown open, avidly looked for an answer in the unfamiliar records of
Bolshevism. As Khrushchev had declared that Stalin had destroyed his inner party critics by means of false and monstrous accusations, the historians naturally expected an explicit rehabilitation of the victims of the Great Purges. Here and there the rehabilitation was already taken for granted. In Poland, for instance, the writings of Trotsky, and Bukharin, Rakovsky and Radek, were quoted, and even reprinted, as offering much needed illumination of the enigma of the Stalin era (and so were my own books and essays).

Since its creation in 1998, the “German-Russian Historical Commission” has conducted research on the Communist International. Thanks to the archival revolution, the Commission has succeeded in closing important gaps in earlier research on German–Russian relations and the history of German communism. This volume contains over 500 mostly unpublished documents, extensively annotated (about 5000 footnotes), and nearly 1000 abstracts of decisions made by the Soviet Politburo,  it will become a standard work long consulted by future researchers concerning the impact of German-Soviet relations, their relevance for the interwar period, the history of KPD and the history of Communism in general. Hitherto unresolved research questions could be resolved and partial aspects corrected.

3 2015 3 2018 GESELLSCHAFTSANALYSE UND LINKE PRAXIS ich werde sein Drucilla cornell | Gal Hertz | tove SoilanD | Jörn schütrumpf | uwe sonnenberg | walter baier | miriam pieschke | Judith dellheim | michael löwy | Janis ehling | Kate evanS | Jan reHmann | HolGer Politt u.a. _LUX_1702_TITEL_DRUCK ICH wERdE SEIN! ICH wAR, ICH BIN, Und darum wird aus dieser ›Niederlage‹ der künftige Sieg erblühen. ›Ordnung herrscht in Berlin!‹ Ihr stumpfen Schergen! Eure ›Ordnung‹ ist auf Sand gebaut. Die Revolution wird sich morgen schon ›rasselnd wieder in die Höh' richten‹ und zu eurem Schrecken mit Posaunenklang verkünden: « « SCHwERPUNKT: ICH wERdE SEIN SENSIBEL KÄMPFERISCH 18 26 34 42 48 54 56 Eine neue Zivilisation Warum die Freiheit der Einzelnen Bedingung für die Freiheit aller ist EdITORIAL Rosa Luxemburg ist eines der ikonischen Gesichter der sozialistischen Bewegung. Und eine der wenigen Frauen, vielleicht die einzige, deren zentrale Rolle darin unbestritten ist. Bis heute beeindruckt sie als brillante Autorin und klarsichtige Theoretikerin, als mitreißende Rednerin und engagierte Politikerin, als lyrische Chronistin und streitbare Genossin. Sie steht für eine Haltung, in der Entschiedenheit im politischen Kampf und »weitherzigste Menschlichkeit« ein Ganzes bilden. ■ Luxemburg ist nicht nur Namensgeberin der Stiftung, sondern auch Patin dieser Zeitschrift. Das von ihr gelebte Zueinander von Theorie und Praxis, von Analyse und Veränderung, von Strategie und eingreifendem Handeln steht für die Perspektive der LuXemburg und für die Entwicklung eines linken Projekts, als dessen Teil und Debattenorgan sich die Zeitschrift versteht. ■ 100 Jahre nach ihrer Ermordung gibt es kaum jemanden, der/die nicht weiß, wer Luxemburg war -viele kennen ihre geflügelten Zitate. Die Beschäftigung mit ihrem Werk ist jedoch auch in linken Zusammenhängen oftmals oberflächlich, selten gibt es Lesekurse, wird sie gründlich rezipiert. Manche ihrer Äußerungen, wie die zur »Freiheit der Andersdenkenden«, sind in den politischen Mainstream eingewandert, wurden enteignet, in eine antisozialistische Parole umgedeutet. In dieser Jubiläumsausgabe wollen wir Luxemburgs Denken und Tun für heute lebendig werden lassen. Was kann daraus für aktuelle Herausforderungen gewonnen werden, im Umgang mit rechter Bedrohung, einer tiefen Krise des Politischen und der enormen Schwäche der Linken? ■ Wie dachte Luxemburg das Verhältnis von Partei und Bewegung? Wie hielt sie es mit dem Internationalismus? War sie Feministin -oder wie können wir uns als linke Feminist*innen auf sie beziehen? Im politischen Klein-Klein wie in bedeutsamen Kämpfen reiben sich auch heute viele auf -mit welcher Haltung hat Luxemburg diese Herausforderungen gemeistert? Wie ging sie mit dem Widerspruch zwischen Reform und Revolution um? Und was können wir von ihr für die alles entscheidende Frage der Organisierung lernen? ■ In ihrer festen Überzeugung, dass diese Gesellschaft anders werden kann und muss, ist sie uns Vorbild -in ihrer Zuversicht, auch angesichts politischer Niederlagen an eine Zukunft radikaler Emanzipation zu glauben: Ich bin, ich war, ICH WERDE SEIN! UNVERFÄLSCHT MARXISTISCH 64 72 78 88 96 48 Bildstrecke:

Panel 30: Great Refusals: Refusing One Dimensionality Today

The Dialectics of Liberation in an Age of Neoliberal Capitalism

International Herbert Marcuse Society

Seventh Biennial Conference

26-28 October 2017

York University

https://marcuseconference.wordpress.com/

This paper dwells in a large space of encounter between theorizing poverty and the poverty of theorizing, through operating with ‘theory’ as means for [and end of] activating tropes as, and for, political interventions. In the first part, I explain how the paper weaves that space of encounter (the theoretical tools), why it weaves it on (and for) a vigorously located empirical background (The Romanian Carpathians), and what are the stakes of the whole enterprise. Then, the second part unpacks the cultural circuit of poverty, resource management, and industrialisation in the Romanian Carpathians along three relations (industrialization and poverty, justice and poverty, patriotism and poverty) creatively activated by the communist practices of governmentality, so as to make scarcity more bearable. The rather optimistic conclusion signals the need to consider the body an effective site of resistance to the practices of governmentality, and alternative directions of thinking scales and regions, and insists on the politics and potentialities of critical theorizing.

Key words: governmentality, materialist semiotics, environmental transformation, human and natural resources, poverty, development, justice, nationalism

Simandan D (2006) "Marginally Modern. Psychoanalysis and the deconstruction of inadequate communities" Arad, ‘Vasile Goldis’ University Press, 264 pp.

The book aims to present a critical history of the process of modernisation in the margins of Europe, more specifically in Romania and, to a lesser extent, in Norway. By modernisation I mean the assemblage of theories and practices produced by the European Enlightenment and concerned with how to develop rather primitive cultures into civilized cultures (industrialised, urbanised, educated). This broad definition includes neoliberalism and communism as particular ways in which modernisation can proceed. Throughout the book, I analyse modernity in its various guises: Ceausescu's communist regime, Norway's welfare capitalism, or the neoliberal transformations taking place in both Norway and Romania since the early 1990s. The feeling of inadequacy resulting from the marginal condition of both countries has been crucial in triggering their juxtaposition in my research project. One can be modern in a number of ways. What Romania and Norway have in common is that they are marginally modern. The signifier "marginally" produces many slippages of meaning, but they all tend to suggest a negative register. What I do try to show is that a psychoanalytical reading of the history of modernisation in the two countries is very fruitful for deconstructing current hegemonic discourses in both Norway and Romania. There are still many politicians and intellectuals in the two countries who recite the tropes of inadequacy, and their recitations serve the political purposes of neoliberalism and neo-imperialism. I have tried to show that there is nothing inherently wrong with being Romanian and/or Norwegian and that the very obsession that something is fundamentally wrong indicates a cultural neurosis of marginality that does not help the two countries in any way.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical genealogy and main uses of heritage in actually existing communist countries. This is performed by carrying out a critical review of Èleazar Aleksandrovič Baller’s Communism and Cultural Heritage, (1984, Progress, Moscow). The analysis of Baller’s work reveals that the logics of heritage in communist countries differed in various ways from capitalist countries, mainly because of the almost total state control over the heritage apparatus and the subordination of heritage policies to Marxist–Leninist ideology. Heritage was fundamental in dealing with the problem of change and continuity with the traditions, narratives and identities of previous society, and in the process of transforming citizens into ‘new men’ through the cultural revolution and the inculcation of ideology through museums and monuments.

After 1960, the year in which the 81 so-called Communist Parties (including Mao's) demonstrated their unanimity on the programme of Krushevite opportunism, a de facto break occurred between Peking and Moscow. We have analysed various documents in which China outlines its own national variant of Stalinism, but unlike the other "national socialisms" of Arab, Cuban or Yugoslav stamp, Chinese "socialism" insists on calling bourgeois Russia to account, on setting itself up as defender of Marxism and reconstructing under its aegis the ranks of the world proletariat. It is this claim, more than the inevitable antagonisms between the Russian and Chinese States, which requires our response, since neither the social practice nor the official political ideology of the Peking leaders is directed toward victory for the Communist programme.

Is there any place for morality and normative ethics in Marx's ideas? The attempt to answer this question has generated a long debate and a large number of studies. Most of them agree that Marx is ambiguous at this point because he oscillates between science and normativity. But the reasons for this contradictory attitude have not been clearly identified. A distinction between practical materialism and historical materialism, as two different theories that coexist in Marx's work, can be an effective way to address the problem. While the former is inherently ethical, the scientism of the latter can hardly be associated with morality. Young Marx's practical materialism becomes subordinated to mature Marx's historical materialism, but never disappears. And its ethical-political content is rescued by revolutionaries like Gramsci and Mariátegui when they realize that historical materialism does not really lead to socialism.
Keywords: practical materialism; moral idealism; Marx; Gramsci; Mariátegui.

Edited version of published paper presented at 'Is Black and Red Dead?' Conference, Centre for the Study of Social and Global and Justice (CSSGJ) University of Nottingham, 7-8 September, 2009

https://socialhistoryportal.org/news/articles/110943

Paper presented at 'Practicing Theory - ASCA International Workshop and Conference 2011', Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, 2nd-4th March 2011 https://asca.uva.nl/programme/archive-conferences/asca-international-workshop-2011-practicing-theory/asca-international-workshop-2011-practicing-theory.html?1583659550967

Garland, C. (2014) ‘As Barriers Fall, Contingency Becomes Possibility: Protest Resisting and Escaping Containment and Categorization’, Part II Identity, Embodiment and Categorisation in Eds. Lamond, I. and Spracklen, K. 'Protests as Events: Politics, Activism and Leisure (London: Rowman & Littlefield International) Hardback ISBN/9781783480760 Paperback ISBN/978-1-78348-077-7 eBook ISBN/978-1-78348-078-4 

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783480760

1 "Tout ce que je sais, c'est que je ne suis pas Marxiste." (Karl Marx 1 ) Kein Gespenst ging 1989 um in Europa, sondern ein Aufatmen: Man vermeldete das Ableben des real existierenden Sozialismus, dem man als Beigabe das OEuvre Marxens gleich mit ins Grab legte, denn war Marx nicht mit dem sozialistischen Régime gestorben? Das Gespenst, das 1848 den alten Mächten Schrecken einjagte, stand nun für eine totalitäre Vergangenheit, die vor allem die Täter und Mitläufer von einst verfolgte und nicht selten auch einholte. Der Sozialismus ist tot, Marx ist tot, der Kapitalismus ist nun ‚alternativlos', die Geschichte gelangt an ihr Ende 2 . Die verständliche Freude über das Ende einer Diktatur mischte sich trübe mit dem Wunsch, nun auch aller Zweifel an der Deutungshoheit ‚neoliberaler' Theorien 3 , die schon seit Ende der siebziger Jahre die Wirtschaftswissenschaften ebenso wie die Politik bestimmten, ledig zu sein. Der Markt produziert unter den Vorzeichen von Konkurrenz und Profitinteresse 1 Friedrich Engels zitiert diese Äußerung Marxens in einem Brief an Conrad Schmidt vom 5. August 1890 (MEW 37, 436). Aus den Werken von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels wird im fortlaufenden Text unter den jeweiligen Siglen mit (Abteilungs-,) Band-und Seitenzahl zitiert: Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe, im Auftrage des Marx-Engels-Instituts Moskau hrsg. von David Rjazanov, Berlin 1927-1935 (abgek.: MEGA 1 ); Gesamtausgabe (abgek.: MEGA 2 ), hrsg. vom Institut für Marxismus / Leninismus beim ZK der KPdSU und beim ZK der SED; ab 1990 hrsg. von der Internationalen Marx-Engels-Stiftung, Berlin 1975ff; Werke, hrsg. vom Institut für Marxismus/Leninismus beim ZK der KPdSU und beim ZK der SED, dem Institut für die Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung und der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, 44 Bände, Berlin 1955-1999 (abgek.: MEW); zitiert wird im fortlaufenden Text. 2 Die Gespenster-Metapher griff Jacques Derrida auf und versuchte, sie für eine Re-Interpretation der Marxschen Theorie fruchtbar zu machen; vgl. ders., Marx' Gespenster. Der verschuldete Staat, die Trauerarbeit und die neue Internationale. Übersetzt von Susanne Lüdemann, Frankfurt/M. 5 2016; kritisch dazu Moishe Postone, Dekonstruktion als Gesellschaftskritik. Derrida über Marx und die neue Weltordnung, in: Krisis 21/22, Bad Honnef 1998, 115ff; auch im Netz unter http://www.krisis.org/1998/dekonstruktion-alsgesellschaftskritik/#1 (letzter Zugriff: 8. Juni 2018). 3

The article charts and discuss the historical use of the concept of imperialism in the Communist International (Comintern; Third International, 1919–43). By analyzing first, the establishment and framework of the Comintern's understanding and use of imperialism as a political and instrumental tool, the aim of the article is to look beyond the official and sanctioned policy of the Comintern on imperialism between the wars. In doing so, the author examines and discuss internal discussions as they evolved over time at Comintern headquarters in Moscow by analyzing documents filed in the Comintern Archive (RGASPI) in Moscow. Key concepts focus on the Leninist perception of imperialism; the periodization debate, and contextual explanations linked to the frequent policy shifts of the Comintern and its relation to Bolshevization and Stalinization. In conclusion, the article highlights the historical trajectory of imperialism and anti-imperialism as a constituent source of Bolshevik policy making in its interpretation of global society.

Around the world, historians, journalists and the public interested in the history of communism and the Left have complained about the scarcity of informal or private sources and testimonies about leading groups of the Comintern, the Communist parties and the Soviet leadership. Rightly, it was regretted that only scarcely, information had filtered out of Stalin closest circle, or could not be entrusted to posterity at all. Similarly, the small number of such authentic documents on the leadership of the Comintern in the 1930s and 1940s was emphasized concerning the multiple inflections of international communist policy according to the requirements of foreign policy and Soviet political power in general. The publication of the diary of the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov, who became "helmsman of the Comintern" under Stalin, and which includes the period between 9 March 1933 and June 1943, marked a major turning point for our knowledge and historiography. Although published some fifteen years ago, the Dimitrov Diary still offers a wealth of knowledge, whose exploitation has only just begun. The following transnational vision tries to resume the history of the Communist International and its relationship with Stalin and the Communist Parties in the light of the new insights provided by the diary. This vision sheds a light on the transnationally entangled process of how anticommunism and nationalism arose from the innermost of the Soviet system itself under the rule of Staline.