The Petty‑Bourgeois Theory of Soft Power

A petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of capitalism is a social phenomenon which, like anarchism, is characteristic of all capitalist countries. The instability of such revolutionism, its barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy, phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or another—all this is common knowledge.

Vladimir Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder

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Vladimir Lenin: The Military Programme of the Proletariat Revolution

Among the Dutch, Scandinavian and Swiss revolutionary Social-Democrats who are combating the social-chauvinist lies about “defence of the fatherland” in the present imperialist war, there have been voices in favour of replacing the old Social-Democratic minimum-programme demand for a “militia”, or “the armed nation,” by a new demand: “disarmament.” The Jugend-Internationale has inaugurated a discussion on this issue and published, in No. 3, an editorial supporting disarmament. There is also, we regret to note, a concession to the “disarmament” idea in R. Grimm’s latest theses. Discussion have been started in the periodicals Neue Leben and Vorbote

Let us take a closer look at the position of the disarmament advocates.

The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution

or: Vladimir Lenin Collected Works Vol. 23 (PDF)

Against Vulgarising the Slogan of Self-Criticism

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The slogan of self-criticism must not be regarded as something temporary and transient. Self-criticism is a specific method, a Bolshevik method, of training the forces of the Party and of the working class generally in the spirit of revolutionary development. Marx himself spoke of self-criticism as a method of strengthening the proletarian revolution. 1 As to self-criticism in our Party, its beginnings date back to the first appearance of Bolshevism in our country, to its very inception as a specific revolutionary trend in the working-class movement.

Against Vulgarising the Slogan of Self-Criticism

Lenin: Answers To An American Journalist’s Questions

Answers To An American Journalist’s Questions

1. The governmental programme of the Soviet Government was not a reformist, but a revolutionary one. Reforms are concessions obtained from a ruling class that retains its rule. Revolution is the overthrow of the ruling class. Reformist programmes, therefore, usually consist of many items of partial significance. Our revolutionary programme consisted properly of one general item—removal of the yoke of the landowners arid capitalists, the overthrow of their power and the emancipation of the working people from those exploiters. This programme we have never changed. Some partial measures aimed at the realisation of the programme have often been subjected to change; their enumeration would require a whole volume. I will only mention that there is one other general point in our governmental programme which has, perhaps, given rise to the greatest number of changes of partial measures. That point is—the suppression of the exploiters’ resistance. After the Revolution of October 25 (November 7), 1917 we did not close down even the bourgeois newspapers and there was no mention of terror at all. We released not only many of Kerensky’s ministers, but even Krasnov who had made war onus. It was only after the exploiters, i.e., the capitalists, had begun developing their resistance that we began to crush that resistance systematically, applying even terror. This was the proletariat’s response to such actions of the bourgeoisie as the conspiracy with the capitalists of Germany, Britain, Japan, America and France to restore the rule of the exploiters in Russia, the bribery of the Czechoslovaks with Anglo-French money, the bribery of Mannerheirn, Denikin and others with German and French money, etc. One of the latest conspiracies leading to “a change”—to put it precisely, leading to increased terror against the bourgeoisie in Petrograd—was that of the bourgeoisie, acting jointly with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries; their conspiracy concerned the surrender of Petrograd, the seizure of Krasnaya Gorka by officer-conspirators, the bribing by British and French capitalists of employees of the Swiss Embassy and of many Russian employees, etc.

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A Socialist, Feminist, and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work” (2020)

The question of women’s liberation is central to any revolutionary project, and thus so is the question of “sex work.” Esperanza Fonseca’s contribution, although coming from a Maoist political orientation with which we often have differences, [1] makes the stakes of this debate crystal clear, as she combines personal experience, public policy research, and historical materialism to argue that Marxists cannot uphold what she calls “sex-trade-expansionary feminism.”

Content Warning: Descriptions of rape.

The right of the subordinated classes of men to buy access to women’s bodies has been used historically to break class solidarity in order to maintain the dominant social relations of the time. This was true in feudal Europe and remains true today: when proletarian and petit bourgeois men get to buy women too, they develop a false consciousness and build solidarity with bourgeois men of their own gender rather than aligning with women of their own class. And because the overthrow of capitalism is only possible by the overthrowing of the bourgeoisie, prostitution serves two great purposes: (1) allows bourgeois men access to a reserve army of women for their pleasure, and (2) prevent class consciousness and thus helps stop the proletariat from organizing as a class.

A Socialist, Feminist, and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work” (2020)

The Militia and the Mole

This whole story seems suspicious to me. The overemphasis that the mole was a loner, that he was a criminal, and legally changed his name, etc.

The Militia and the Mole

John Williams kept a backpack filled with everything he’d need to go on the run: three pairs of socks; a few hundred dollars cash; makeshift disguises and lock-picking gear; medical supplies, vitamins and high-calorie energy gels; and thumb drives that each held more than 100 gigabytes of encrypted documents, which he would quickly distribute if he were about to be arrested or killed.

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