DeepSeek: What Would Lenin and Marx Say About Romantic Love

Vladimir Lenin, as a revolutionary and Marxist thinker, approached most topics through the lens of class struggle, materialism, and the broader social and economic systems. While he did not write or speak extensively about love as a personal or romantic concept, his views on human relationships were likely shaped by his Marxist perspective.

Here’s how Lenin might conceptualize love, based on his ideological framework:

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This Valentine’s Day, Let’s Look to Marxists to Reimagine Love, Romance and Sex

Prison Notebooks

This Valentine’s Day, Let’s Look to Marxists to Reimagine Love, Romance and Sex

It’s certainly fitting to think of what Gramsci was writing from a fascist prison in today’s political climate. But it’s also true that we’re in another sort of interregnum, one of romance, sexuality and gender itself. And this one comes with its very own set of morbid symptoms, as anyone who’s tried dating lately can attest. Dating apps are a plague, every week there seems to be a new term for bad behavior (“ghosting,” “breadcrumbing,” whatever), work demands more and more of our time, leaving less and less for love, and a constantly destabilized economy leaves us anxious and stressed even if we do happen to have stable work. Abortion is now illegal in a huge chunk of the country, and homophobic and transphobic violence — not to mention actual bans on trans healthcare and drag — are on the rise. And even if you do make it to coupledom and want to have children, our country still has precisely no support for working parents. The material basis on which you might have thought you’d be able to build a life is crumbling. 

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Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle

Among the many problems that demand the consideration and attention of contemporary mankind, sexual problems are undoubtedly some of the most crucial. There isn’t a country or a nation, apart from the legendary “islands”, where the question of sexual relationships isn’t becoming an urgent and burning issue. Mankind today is living through an acute sexual crisis which is far more unhealthy and harmful for being long and drawn-out. Throughout the long journey of human history, you probably won’t find a time when the problems of sex have occupied such a central place in the life of society; when the question of relationships between the sexes has been like a conjuror, attracting the attention of millions of troubled people; when sexual dramas have served as such a never-ending source of inspiration for every sort of art.

Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle

Karl Marx, Jenny von Westphalen and Engels On Love and Marriage

Karl Marx, Jenny von Westphalen and Engels
On Love and Marriage

From Jenny von Westphalen in Trier to Karl Marx in Paris, 18 August 1844.

The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person is the relation of man to woman. The relation of man to woman is the most genuine relation of human being to human being. It therefore reveals the extent to which man’s natural behaviour has become human, or the extent to which the human essence in him has become his natural essence. The relationship also reveals the extent to which man’s need has become a human need: the extent to which, therefore, the other person as a person has become for him a need.

… If you love without evoking love in return – if through the vital expression of yourself as a loving person you fail to become a loved person, then your love is impotent, it is a misfortune.

Private Property and Communism, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune. 

A Letter From Jailed Palestine Action Activist Fatema Rajwani

Friday, 18 October 2024 — MintPress News

Fatema Zainab Rajwani, a Palestinian rights activist and member of Palestine Action, is languishing in a British jail for her involvement in direct action against Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms manufacturer with facilities in the United Kingdom. Rajwani and other activists sought to disrupt the company’s operations through physical means, hoping to stem the tide of weapons directly used by the Israeli military in Gaza and contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Palestine Action has long campaigned against the arms trade to Israel, calling for accountability for the violence against Palestinians.

A Letter From Jailed Palestine Action Activist Fatema Rajwani

Ramzy Baroud: My sister was the 166th doctor to be murdered in Gaza

“Your lives will continue. With new events and new faces. They are the faces of your children, who will fill your homes with noise and laughter.”

These were the last words written by my sister in a text message to one of her daughters.

My sister was the 166th doctor to be murdered in Gaza

Previously:

Journalist Ramzy Baroud Mourns His Sister Killed Today By Israeli Bombs