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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   25597 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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What's interesting about Lenin's writings is that he's usually pretty forthright about what he wanted and planned. For much of the 20th century, there was an internecine dispute between orthodox Communists and a motley group of Western intellectuals (heavily influenced by the trots) about whether Stalin had "betrayed the Revolution." But Stalin was an organic evolution, and Lenin and especially Trotsky didn't just theoretically support measures of brutal repression but actively executed them. Stalin won in the 1930s because he was the moderate; Trotsky's point of view was something like there wasn't enough worldwide violence, not that there was too much. Naturally, once he decisively lost the fight, he changed his tune, but it's unlikely anything really changed inside his head until his death.

it's unlikely anything really changed inside his head until his death.

Was this a deliberate choice of phrase, I hope? IMHO Trotsky ice axe jokes never truly get old. Just like Trotsky.

One of the coolest things I ever got to see in a museum was the actual ice pick used to do the job

It's an ice axe, like REI has on its doors, not an ice pick like James Bond uses in Spectre. It's at the "International Spy Musem" in Washington DC.

Yeah, workshopped it for a minute or two and that's the best I could come up with. And agreed, Trotsky ice axe jokes will never get old.

"Entered his brain"? "Penetrated his thick skull"?

What's interesting about Lenin's writings is that he's usually pretty forthright about what he wanted and planned.

Yet so many people thought, "It's just a figure of speech; he doesn't really mean...". Kind of like Hamas.

Lenin was not exactly secretive, but from my reading his tone did become more militant as time went on, at least up until 1917 -- and, secretive or not, the carnage caught many people by surprise. It reminds me of the woke meme, what did you think decolonization meant?.

I always heard this line as a kid. That the Communists really meant well and sharing is good, but it just ran against human nature or got corrupted by bad people. Then you read what Marx and Lenin actually wrote and you realize they wanted revolution and power more than anything else. The feel good stuff was secondary to, and a justification for, the hatred and lust for power and violence.

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