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/edu/ - Education

'The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.' - Karl Marx
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File: 1698871407744.jpg (959.92 KB, 1700x1244, frenchrev_main.jpg)

 [Reply]

Where the hell do I start with this shit? Unlike with the Russian Revolution I never see any leftists giving any clear recommendations for the French Revolution, so let's make a thread to address that now.

There are a whole bunch of differing interpretations that are neatly summarized in this Cosmonaut article: https://cosmonautmag.com/2019/09/historiography-wars-the-french-revolution/

Contemporary: The names that get dropped here are Edmund Burke's right wing critique of the French Revolution and Thomas Payne's reply. Seems like something I'm obliged to read eventually but is it a good place to start?

Bourgeois revolutionary: These are the historians that Marx and Engels themselves read: Guizot, Thiers, and Michelet (the latter Wilhelm Liebknecht really liked and who seems to be the most leftwing). The translations are usually pretty old so they might be a difficult read. Do you recommend any of these authors?

Second International Socialist: You have histories by Jean Jaures, E. Belfort Bax, a short one by Kautsky, and some others. Once again physical copies are mostly print on demand dreck, but I'm wondering if anyone recommends these.

Official Communist Academic: The big names here are Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul. These authors combine more rigorous research with an explicit Marxist mode of analysis - albeit presumably with some probrematic baggage about a "democratic bourgeoisie" that must personally lead the "bourgeois democratic revolution" and so on. Anyone read these?

Revisionist Renegades: The latter school actually had some clout in mainstream history departments so there was a big cold war push to discredit them - casting doubt on how independent the bourgeoisie was from the aristocracy etc. However, it's pretty much solely a negative critique, with the unspoken thesis being that the whole revolution was a senseless act of violence and that the ancien regime would have evolved into a parliamentary capitalist regime by itself.

So not ideal, but this school has the benefit of the most up-to-date research and prose. I actually already own one book in this tradition: Citizens by Simon Schama that I found at GooPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

 

I got into an argument with my professor on this topic. What book should I read on the great terror and to disprove some lies (especially about how it was to target political enemies)? Also, I heard my professor say the Britain was a liberal democracy, can anyone elaborate on that?

 

File: 1709082585985.pdf (1.48 MB, 173x255, Thompson.pdf)

>>21634
>Britain was a liberal democracy
In the sense that it was a corrupt shithole and the political elite controlled the populace's culture and labor, he's correct.


File: 1708880991454.png (319.53 KB, 520x840, ClipboardImage.png)

 [Reply]

Decided to start a thread on this topic after skimming through Bonnell's work and starting The Organizational Weapon(as much as the neocon pours through the page). The last chapter of Bonnell states but does not explain why the Russian capitalist was far less conciliatory than his American counterpart(though that's probably just because I skipped to the end and need to tread back) though that's certainly of interest. The book also tends to stress more cultural victories, such as Bolshevik journals being more practical and "proletarian" than their intellectual Menshevik counterparts. A younger, dumber version of myself would have turned this into some Maupin-type point but I don't know what to make of it now.

File: 1680698540183.jpg (317.9 KB, 910x645, together.jpg)

 [Reply]

I'm searching for good(!) resources on how to outreach, recruit, organize people.
Looking for modern material i.e. "Social Media" and "Youtube" should be part of that.
32 posts omitted. Click reply to view.

 

>>16210
>>16210
>tbh tho you are best off joining an effective org and learning through doing rather than reading theory
It is actually possible to do both. It is important that as communists that we make full use of democratic centralism as a method for which we make decisions concerning how we orient ourselves toward the struggle. Democratic centralism, compared to the so-called principle of "horizontalist concensus," enables the most organizationally advanced section of our class, in terms of development, to act quickly, to be able to turn on a dime and take off, starting off in strategized basegroups, and with clear vision of the objectives, and with coherent and developed understanding of the actuality of revolution, set out to intervene in the authentic struggles by the people, amidst the cascade of crises under this murderous system, the current material stage of imperialist capitalism. Our understanding of organization is that in order to that we may help make revolution, alongside the masses, providing them a platform from which they can act in their authentic crises, is that we have to be highly organized and purposeful: that there is absolutely a need for democratic decision making, and it must be a centralized fashion, where we have a debate within a set time frame, we have that necessary discussion time, and then we act, and do what the majority of us said we should do, and orient ourselves to unity of action, even if we might disagree.

 

https://foreignlanguages.press/colorful-classics/activist-study-araling-aktibista-arak/

 

>>16213
These do about as much relevant stuff as the DSA
There's no real party organization for workers in the US or really anywhere except for tentatively voting for established libleft parties, in this case the Democrats

 

>>20220
Seems good, I'll give it a read

 

>>21544
>>20220
Ok now that I've read it, it seems pretty good for any genuine Marxist organization to get shit done. It's meant to be read as a group and is a from an explicitly Maoist lens.

It outlines the baseline strategies and tactics for a Marxist org quite well. Tbf it's written by actual revolutionaries and not armchairs. Would love to see more takes on organization.


File: 1690931088778.jpg (89.82 KB, 736x581, ruderallandscape.jpg)

 [Reply]

General thread for the discussion of the ecology of disturbed sites with no more direct human oversight. Think overgrown fields,dilapidated parking lots,young forests,abandoned canals and vegetation overtaking urban decay. of course if someone wants to bring up the historical,anthropological and urbanist perspectives that would be cool too(yeah we multidisciplinary in this bitch). I'll probably bump the thread with charts and maybe some common ruderal species near me which might be relevant to some anons.

Here is a more thorough definition from natureserve:

>Ruderal vegetation is defined as "vegetation found on human-disturbed sites, with no apparent recent historical natural analogs, and whose current composition and structure (1) is not a function of continuous cultivation by humans and (2) includes a broadly distinctive characteristic species combination, whether tree, shrub or herb dominated. The vegetation is often comprised of invasive species, whether exotic or native, that have expanded in extent and abundance due to the human disturbances" (Faber-Langendoen et al. 2014). This definition includes both the "ruderal communities" and "invasive communities" of Grossman et al. (1998), but excludes their "modified/managed communities", which are now treated informally as managed variants of natural types.

>These ruderal ecosystems are sometimes referred to as "novel" or "emerging" ecosystems (Hobbs et al. 2006, Belnap et al. 2012). The vegetation is often comprised of invasive species, whether exotic or native, that have expanded in extent and abundance due to human disturbances, whether from abandonment of sites with cultural vegetation (e.g., abandoned farmland, orchards, plantations), or from extensive alteration and degradation of more natural vegetation. In many landscapes, ruderal ecosystems occupy large areas–sometimes more than any other category of communities–and can provide important biodiversity functions.

>For a ruderal type to be defined based on invasive plant species, it must contain a new set of diagnostic species in the region and have essentially removed the diagnostic species of existing native types. That is, invasive species overwhelmingly dominate a stand (e.g., >90% cover), and native diagnostic species are largely to completely absent, or replaced by new, often "weedy" native species. Setting a higPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
27 posts and 10 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 

>>20140
There's an app for this too called iNaturalist that this channel mentioned. It shows you species indigenous to your area and even has community features to join people in projects to restore indigenous ecosystems.
https://www.inaturalist.org

 

>>20139
Does anyone know more stuff like those videos? It's fascinating.

 

File: 1708133214677.png (199.69 KB, 260x406, Masanobu Fukuoka.PNG)

>>20092
How the fuck hasn't anyone even mentioned Masanobu Fukuoka on this thread yet?
He's like the centrepiece of this study.

 

>>21589
Who is that?

 

File: 1708792894505.epub (28.33 MB, Tristan Gooley - How to R….epub)

>>21571
I found this book, "How to Read a Tree", it's by a guy interested in natural navigation but it's not limited to navigation, it has lots of stuff about how a trees environment, history and health are reflected in its shape and parts.


File: 1708200257900.png (303.77 KB, 588x522, ClipboardImage.png)

 [Reply]

I've always found it weird that this event is never mentioned all too often, like from what I understand
>Muhammad and his followers in 622, facing hostility, flee from Mecca (a major regional trading center) to surrounding areas, specifically the city of Medina .
>After establishing themselves, they begin a protracted counter-war, chipping away at the Qurashi trading routes, and finally conquering the city. At 630,
>Muhammad dies in 632, the early Muslim expansion begins at 634
at what point does the rest of the Arabian peninsula get conquered/absorbed into the caliphate and why was it so easy to bring them into the fold then the Quraysh?

 

It was in 628-630 after the treaty of Hudaybiya when Muhammad sent letters to every Arab ruler and notable non-Arab ones. At that point Muhammad had basically defeated Quraysh militarily, controlled the trade routes going to the Byzantine empire & Europe, and was well-known throughout the peninsula.
Exceptions to that were other Hijazi tribes and the Ghassanids who were vassals of the Byzantines, they were conquered militarily after Mecca.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_career_of_Muhammad#Other_letters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_after_the_occupation_of_Mecca

Of course, since this was a diplomatic expansion based on "trust me bro" and Muhammad's reputation, the Arab rulers did revolt after his death and then subdued. You might argue that this was when the Muslims actually controlled the peninsula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridda_Wars

 

>>21596
but why was every other Arabian power, seemingly so easy to conquer then Quarish?

 

>>21597
Shit snowballs, I guess. They had more men & money by the time of the ridda wars.
Also if you look further into it, the Muslims weren't soloing the tribes in these areas, but had a bunch of local allies supporting their rule against local enemies.

 

>>21597
the quraysh were wealthier and ruled over a large metropolis
contrast that with agrarian tribes in the middle of nowhere


File: 1708688694152.png (337.38 KB, 338x500, ClipboardImage.png)

 [Reply]

Some people recommended me a book called "The Turning Point: revitalizing the Soviet economy" during a debate.

Is this talking point real or just propaganda?

File: 1650832978316-0.jpg (352.5 KB, 1473x2268, 814cR9d6LuL.jpg)

File: 1650832978316-1.pdf (1.07 MB, 168x255, Intelligent Materialism Es….pdf)

 [Reply]

Recently got this book, because it sounded interesting and reading the first pages I found it to be promising. So I'm dropping it in here. Perhaps we can talk about it.

It's a collection of essays by Evald Ilyenkov, a Soviet philosopher, who acted as a figure to make Hegel's role in Marxism understandable and accessible to the general public.
18 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

 

>>10452
>Evald Ilyenkov
I like some of his stuff but he's a bit too much of a hegelian for me. I lean towards the anti Humanist stances, kinda like althusser though I think his structuralism leans too far much into postmodern positions and his comments on political economy can be retarded especially on the productive relations. their was a brand of anti Humanist sentiment within the early Soviet Union though (prolekult specifically, though I have my issues with them).
>>10650
> i never read any hegel, only marx+lenin+stalin
Have you ever thought about reading Plekhanov before?

 

File: 1679592066577.png (3.23 MB, 1125x1492, ClipboardImage.png)

>>12647
Say what you want about Althusser, but he put anti-humanism into practice

 


 

David Bakhurst - Discussing "Ilyenkov's Hegel" from "The Heart of the Matter"

Nov 26, 2023 David is author of the ground-breaking "Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov". He is George Whalley Distinguished University Professor and John and Ella G. Charlton Professor of Philosophy at Queen's university, Ontario.

In this discussion we focus on his essay "Ilyenkov's Hegel", from his latest book "The Heart of the Matter: Ilyenkov, Vygotsky, and the Courage of Thought". The essay helps to situate Ilyenkov in his philosophical context and explore some of his goals and motivations.

 

I saw + read this article, have very minimal thoughts about it. Anyone else seen it?
https://cosmonautmag.com/2023/08/what-contradictions-cannot-be/

It critiques dialectical logic, specifically the concept of 'contradiction'. Specifically goes against Ilyenkov a few times too.

Personally it wasn't that interesting, from the start it makes clear that the only contradiction they will be talking about is formal contradiction, like "it is sunny today" vs "it is not sunny today". And later on it quotes Marx and mentions how when Marx says 'contradiction' he really could have just called it a social conflict or something. This is basically my view as well - it's not that useful to talk about contradictions, we have in the material realm, conflicts, and in the linguistic/theoretical realm, unresolveable issues of definition, of identity and non-identity and their interrelation. To me that's the heart of dialectics, the fact that any given thing's claim to total integrity as a concept is ultimately indefensible, yet difference is still maintained. That's the kind of 'contradiction' I see, the contradiction between the truth of any definition and it's failure to faithfully capture the reality it attempts to enclose, either because of deficits, broadness, or internal difference. It's all about that difference and identity. Do these concepts come before those of formal logic? It seems like a meta-logic, because the question of contradiction is of an abstract claim about reality being contradicted by another exactly opposite claim, it's about the negation of the original claim, and the paradox between that negation and the relative validity of the claim. Anyways I might be off on this last thought idk.


File: 1707399289047.jpg (211.3 KB, 1600x1600, soviet_german_brest_1939.jpg)

 [Reply]

Do you guys have any books that highlight the cleverness of Soviet warfare in WW2 that dispute the Zerg rush narrative of the West? As far as I know the allies had all of their information of what was going on on the eastern front from Germans who overembelished their military prowess and downplayed those of the Soviets.
4 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 

>>21570
>just shooting this out there for no reason
Fuck off
https://www.quora.com/How-true-is-it-that-the-Russians-raped-two-million-German-women-in-World-War-II/answer/Chuck-Garen#

 

>>21575
do you get paid to post garbage like this or you just have severe brainrot?

 

>>21576
Even worse, he does it for free because he's a literal NPC.

 

>>21575
none of these points you made are based on facts and just spewing shit like enemy at the gates, a movie, is a documentary.

 

>>21573
>The barbarism of the Soviet occupying forces can best be judged by the fact that many thousands of Hungarian men were raped or forced to unnatural excesses by Russian women soldiers. The Reds established a recreation camp near Kecskemét for more than thirty thousand sick and convalescent women members of the Soviet army and the police forces. From this camp, for instance, the Russian women banded together at night and swooped down on the surrounding hamlets, kidnapping the men and sometimes holding them captive for days.
Hawt


File: 1608527960881.pdf (1.12 MB, (Undergraduate texts in ma….pdf)

 [Reply][Last 50 Posts]

All good communists study math.

What are you studying right now? What is your favorite field of mathematics and why?

Personally, I really like the book "Linear Algebra Done Right" by Sheldon Axler. It is on Libgen if you are interested and I attached a pdf.
217 posts and 43 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 

>>20884
Oh it's the same here, and I assume that's the way it's taught everywhere, I was just too dumb to actually learn it when it was taught…

 

How are you supposed to read maths books that do not have exercises? Exercises are usually good enough to hammer the content into my brain but when there are no exercises I just forget it as soon as I am finished reading.

 

What do I need to study for operators? Stuff like "factoring an operator". I understand the analogy but I would like some justification for it.

 

>>21545
I mean what field of maths is this included in, linear algebra?

 

Can someone explain to me what "Third curvature" is, how it is different from Total Curvature (I'm not even sure about that either) and how it relates to Space-Time?


File: 1608528152577-0.png (1.42 MB, 1189x837, Translation Project.png)

File: 1608528152578-1.pdf (40.82 KB, Kautsky Revolution Preface.pdf)

 [Reply][Last 50 Posts]

If you know French or German, please contribute a chapter to /leftypol/'s first crowdsourced translation project! This project started on >>691.

The book is Karl Kautsky's history of the French Revolution, originally published as Die Klassengegensätze im Zeitalter der Französischen Revolution in 1889. Coming from the "Pope of Marxism", as Kautsky was then known, this text likely had an immense influence on Lenin and other revolutionaries of his day. It 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. The original German is available here: https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1908/frev/index.html and an old French translation is available here: https://www.marxists.org/francais/kautsky/works/1889/00/antagonismes-table.htm

What makes this work especially good for us to translate is that it's relatively short - just around 60 pages in total, divided into 10 chapters. With each chapter being 5-7 pages each, it is conceivable to translate a chapter in one day's volunteer work. Comrade Akko has already translated the preface, and is working on chapter 1. That leaves 9 chapters to complete:

Preface: Complete!
Chapter 1: Second draft complete (French)
Chapter 2: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 3: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 4: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 5: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 6: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 7: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 8: Complete! (Copyrighted work, permission secured)
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.
120 posts and 32 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 

>>10146
This children's cartoon is literally how grown ass adults in Yurop and Murica actually see this crisis.

 

>>10288
kiddie things for infantile people

 

Anyone have Russian translations they need?

 

File: 1706635735959.jpg (129.12 KB, 668x960, U.S._propaganda_for_agent_….jpg)

Help with Vietnamese translation of US propaganda during the 1960s? Thanks
(Posted in SEA thread here:)
>>>1744976

 

>>21534
fuck man I tried three times to link that post. Is this right?
>>>/leftypol/1744976


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