/edu/ - Education

I want an understanding of this topic farther than the "commie block" meme, both for personal reasons and educating a group of comrades that I have under my guidance.

Sorry for the vagueness but I don't remember where I heard this from and need to know.
Basically someone a long time ago said that either the GDR (East Germany) or USSR set up a massive computer farm and ran a complicated program assessing multiple variables and the current military balance of power as well economic factors, to try to make some predictions about the eventual course of the Cold War, and the computer basically spat out a prediction along the lines of "socialism's victory is inevitable the socialist bloc just has to hold on and continue resisting until X date/year, and we win by default because Capitalism exhausts itself". And of course IRL the socialist bloc was self-demolished before that victory date providing extra life to captialism.

It was a youtube video explaining this I think? Anyone remember?

Post works which you think should be translated into English here.

I'll start: I'm shocked that Karl Kautsky's history of the French Revolution (Die Klassengegensätze von 1789) has never been translated into English. Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik theorists all had an extensive knowledge of the French Revolution, and Kautsky, the "Pope of Marxism" would presumably have had an immense influence. This work was approved by Engels himself, and may have been foundational in establishing the Marxist theory of bourgeois revolution, yet it has never been translated into English.

Hello!

This is a thread where I wanted to share some works that I read so far and if possible you can share some of things that you shared. Just ask very few things.

1. Do not discriminate against other users based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, race/ethnicity, etc.
2. Creative banter is allowed, but no bigotry, slurs (sexist, racist, ableist etc.) or harassing other users.

*Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers*

Vladimir Lenin

*This is a great address that Vladimir Lenin has made in the topic of the objective conditions that Russia was in and the real necessity of a permanent revolution is to allow socialism to flourish, for socialism can't be established in one country. Capitalism is a international system that uses the international world market for trade and for exchanging commodities into the world market. This includes on how the proletariat is able to function as well by being employed by the same employer despite being in different nations, because the bourgeois could own private property in all of these nations to produce commodities and have resources shipped to them so workers can used them to produce commodities. This only furthers the claim of socialism in one country being impossible to happen, for that would require somehow the system only being around in national basis. But that can't happen, nor can socialism be made in one country, for that suggests that economics entirely is national, no, economics is international. Socialism in One Country is ridiculous. The market power expands on the international scale, hence you can't have an economic system in one country. Hence socialism in one country is impossible. Socialism and Communism has never existed yet at all, there was never any form of socialist and communist society. For money, classes, and the state has not been abolished, which the major thing for socialism to function. Both Socialism and Communism are moneyless, classless, stateless, societies that is based on the free association of labor. The thing here is that what we understand as Russia's workers state, is just a workers state, as in it is the revolution itself that takes place into the ongoing abolition of capitalism for the ongoing establishing of socialism from the efforts of the proletariat themselves rising up, and subjecting the bourgeoise to the authority of the proletariat against the bourgeoisiePost too long. Click here to view the full text.

How should I go around teaching a kid a new language?

I have recently started reading "Voltaire's Bastards, the Dictatorship of Reason in the West" by John Ralston Saul and I would like to start a thread to further discuss the book. I haven't read too much of it, however it does seem to possit a rather unique worldview and critique of modern (and by modern I mean last 200 years modern) political theory.

The book mainly possits that Reason, which first rose as an ideological tool to combat the divine right of the absolutist rule of the feudal monarchs, had mutated over the years into becoming the same type of tool of social control, a modern cult to justify the divine right of the technocrats. According to Ralston, this extends to all modern ideologies, as in his eyes communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism or nazism are all the same sort of ideologies of absolute solutions, trying to enforce their own types rationality and reason onto the world, while in the end reinforcing the same sort of rule of technocrats, be they soviet politburo or western business elites.

The book seems to be written from a rather idealist position, as to Ralston the main feature of the current age is the absolute dominance of Reason, which prohibits any critiques of the current order by either making it seem irrational and thus mute, or by entangling it into its own language of rationality. The book states that the worst part is that other perspectives of human thought in decision making that lay outside reason have all been marginalized - things like humanism, common sense, emotion or faith - and deemed lower than the perspective of reason.

I originally started reading the book as it seemed like it makes a good attack against the technocratic mindset of capitalism deffenders, which I rather struggled in arguing against when I encountered it, however from what I read, the book also raises claims against the validity of Marxism, and is set to lump it in together with the capitalist ideology. So, I was wondering, are there any Marxist replies to Ralston? Because what I read right now seems like a really prophetic critique of neoliberalism (the book came out right after the fall of USSR), thus its making me want to at least revisit my Marxist positions and see if they hold up.

This shit is bullshit, right? The big three (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau) begin their axiomatic construction of state power that we are totally atomized individuals and social interaction is constructed entirely through self interested contractual bargaining.

Is our entire western political system actually built upon these ideas? WTH?

Also: is pic related any good?

Greetings comrades, I’m searching for books about class in the states that cover history and evolution of class and present day class conditions. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If there is an objective reality, aren't interpretations of it merely falsehoods besides 1 truthful description of reality? I understand that every perspective is innately subjective, but theoretically, if there is an objective reality, then what we call interpretations could only be falsehoods besides 1 interpretation that actually describes reality as it is.

What exactly is Charisma? How much of it can be learned? I tried looking at sources for this(Wikipedia articles for example), but most of them seem only tangentially related to the topic. Books and resources are appreciated.