The "Patriotic Socialism" Question Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 18:54:25 No. 9279
New reading project for the Continental Floppa reading group is beginning. We will be reading various writings related to the subject of "Patriotic Socialism" and national identity. This thread is for slower discussion of the topic and readings and for posting links or uploads for relevant texts.
Join our matrix chat to get involved.
https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/ Our tentative plans are to discuss readings on Saturdays, but this will depend on what anybody joining the group has to say. We are still determining which texts to include in our readings and the order.
Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 19:28:39 No. 9284
S P O O K E D P O O K E D
Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 19:33:03 No. 9285
The first reading is from Lenin, two texts:
<Critical Remarks on the National Question <The Right of Nations to Self-Determination From Marxists.org
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/crnq/index.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm Marxists.xyz (/ourarchive/) also has Self-Determination
https://archive.marxists.xyz/library/vladimir-ilyich-lenin-the-right-of-nations-to-self-determination We are yet to have our voice chat meeting, so future plans are subject to change.
>>9284 We are critical of PatSoc lol.
Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 20:43:07 No. 9287
gay?
Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 20:44:08 No. 9288
sorry test post plz delete this and one above.did not intend to ruin good thread.
Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 20:47:38 No. 9289
>>9288 (checked)
all you did was give it a further bump
We are also planning to read some texts that are spooked on the topic, including Settlers by Sakai and things like White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, to better understand the discourse happening. Any related readings are appreciated. The group is open to suggestions and various levels of participation, including just posting in the chat or attending the weekly voice chats.
eugenics-kun 2022-01-06 (Thu) 21:17:38 No. 9290
I shared some of my thoughts on matrix about this matter and could share more if you're interested. You do seem to be mixing up patriotism and nationalism and the national question. (I usually don't do this on leftypol of all places, but CW: Eugene uses some foul language pertaining to homosexuality in describing fascism and brings up the dreaded e-word, as he typically does.) My criticism of the Patriotic Socialism op isn't that patriotism is intrinsically bad, or even that the American project is intrinsically bad and we should all hate the idea of this construct, "America", and by extension Americans. My criticism of this Patriotic Socialism op is that is so naked a ploy of the Maupin gang to indicate that they're rolling into the covid coup, but with a thin veneer of rightoid gloss to sucker in some of the rabble, for whom ideology is less important than attaching to some faggotry that will permit them to be violent. There's nothing patriotic about it, and they're presented this ridiculous notion of what the American project even is. An American patriot would have no interest whatsoever in Maupin's short bus gang, not even as useful idiots to sacrifice for the cause. Said patriots would probably want to defend their property, and have no reason to trust any socialist project. That's what their patriotism is for - to protect their stake in this country, because that's their home and their family and they see (with some good reason) socialists are a threat to that, especially socialists directed by Moscow or Beijing, whose ideology was always very alien to anything in the American experience. So in the American example, you're not talking just about some national question that is a matter of political aesthetics. Americans saw socialism as something utterly alien to their way of life, or could only accept certain forms of socialism that were very diluted, at best being about the same as social democracy. The American counterpart to European social democracy in the main was Progressivism, and this Progressivism was a rather different cosntruction from the outset. For one, while eugenics didn't play much of a role in conceptions of socialism (not counting "national socialism" which was a bunch of faggotry), eugenics was a strong force in American progressivism and remained so. The only other country I know of that can really get this is Britain (and by extension Canada, but they're not a real country). To really get the distinction requires understanding the eugenics movement and its impact, and that's a discussion y'all aren't ready to have. But the important takeaway is that American and British conceptions of "socialism", or what counted for it, had this eugenicist taint that isn't really replicated anywhere else. Nazism has been described by some as an import of this British and American eugenicist idea, with Hitler cast as George Washington and American fascists likewise calling Washington the first fascist. But Nazism was a quite different construct from Fabianism in more than just aesthetics. The one thing they shared in common is that they activated many of the same bases - teachers, the medical professions, what has been called the "clerks" who are fascinated with a rigid and orderly capital-S State and fetishize the construct. But in so many ways, Italian and German Fascism were a hitherto unknown movement, and not merely a recapitulation of capitalism or extension of liberalism. Nazism was a repudiation of the entire liberal project, proclaiming the defeat of liberty in favor of raw force. It took a while for American eugenics to catch up with this theoretical development in full, and in this go-around, the fascists learned well from history what works and what doesn't work, after the "noble experiment" of Nazi atrocities didn't work out. Anyway what does the eugenics and fascism talk have to do with "Patriotic Socialism"? It is not that fascists are bad because they actually love your country, and proper internationalists are supposed to hate their country or favor globalization. Fascism as a construct is actually very antagonistic towards the nation part of the nation-state; the MO of any coherent fascist polity is to supplant the nation entirely, so that there is only the idealized state above the toiling peons. Fascist elites, really, have no need of Germanness or Americanness or any national myth, except as expedients towards the overarching goal of the global fascist movement. That goal, as you can guess coming from me, is eugenics pure and simple. And so today's fascists, the actually competent ones, eschew the concept of patriotism, except as the thinnest gruel. So far as patriotism is still in vogue with fascists, it is reinterpreted as this male-homosexual bonding ritual, literally samefaggotry. This is exemplified in the totally-not-scripted focus group line, "Trump is saying what I'm thinking!" It's the ruling class gauging how receptive Americans were to samefaggotry, and oh boy there is a receptive base for that. Maupin is, in his own dorky way, making an appeal to that samefaggotry, just as he does by indulging this myth that Trump supporters are just mistaken and are secretly progressives. I can tell you, the typical Trump supporter would love to kill all the communists and take what little stuff they have, and would probably kill a good number of liberals and take their more plentiful stuff if they could get it. Trump voters as a whole, maybe this appeal could work on a few sods, but most people voting for Trump are voting for any piece of shit Republican that won't pass new Democrat taxes. There is this progressive illusion where they believe that politics is primarily ideological, and that spreading the right ideology will totally let people win (and this is coupled with a progressive belief that everyone should be like them if they are smart, a fainter form of eugenicist/fascist samefaggotry). Maupin is just channeling this failed method of the left, so that his flock are led once again into a ditch. Then Maupin goes back to his RT job, collects his paychecks, chuckles to himself that the peons are still hanging on to his every word, and life goes on. I may be a weirdo in that I don't think the American project as a whole is totally antithetical to something like a workers' movement or a socialist idea. If it did happen, though, it would be a socialism very different from any hitherto existing socialism, and it wouldn't take much off the Marxist-Leninist example at all. A great problem with that is that there aren't really theorists of this alternate socialism, because there's little willingness of people to adapt to America's conditions. They'd rather maintain their shibboleths and keep doing the same things that the left has historically done to fail. I'd also argue that the philosophical systems of the left are prone to drastic failures and should probably be reconsidered, but this philosophical disease doesn't affect solely the communists. It's everywhere. Anyway that's my $0.02.
Anonymous 2022-01-06 (Thu) 23:03:15 No. 9294
>>9290 I think the distinctions between nationalism and patriotism etc are going to be part of the discussion of the topic but I encourage you to read along with us Eugene. This thread is probably also a better place to long-post about the topic.
Anonymous 2022-01-09 (Sun) 22:57:04 No. 9374
Just a tip: order your readings beforehand, formulate a curriculum, especially if you're against patriotic socialism. It just looks like you're cherrypicking shit just for a specific agenda.
Anonymous 2022-01-10 (Mon) 00:55:18 No. 9375
A curriculum/study plan that includes essay writing is absolutely necessary for real learning. That said, there is no point in studying for the purpose of disputing "patriotic socialism" since it is not a real movement or even a phenomenon within the communist movement. It has so far only risen to the level of a small-scale Twitter controversy.
Anonymous 2022-01-10 (Mon) 01:56:18 No. 9377
>>9375 Well it's a historically relevant question, and the fact that it's getting some attention now suggests it may become significant again in the future. So far in the discussion we've noted parallels between the politics of Lenin's time and the politics of today on the topic. I think you are correct about incorporating writing, so I'll see about how to incorporate that part.
>>9374 I think we'll talk about a reading order in chat this week. It was bothering me too, not having a set list to read in the past.
>It just looks like you're cherrypicking shit just for a specific agenda. Well this all just started with a conversation where one of us had just gone and read Lenin on the subject and noticed how the people discussing the topic were largely ignorant of rather mainline arguments on the subject and seemed to just be talking from a liberal view.
Anonymous 2022-02-19 (Sat) 00:18:12 No. 9804
=REMINDER TOMORROW WE DISCUSS CHAPTERS 1-5 OF THE RIGHT OF NATIONS OF SELF DETERMINATION BY V I LENIN ==COME READ YOU CUCKS =
Anonymous 2022-02-19 (Sat) 22:26:21 No. 9813
It was a good 4 hours of discussing LENIN chapters 5-10 are for next saturday at 1/2 PM Atlantic Standard Time Be there of be reactionary
Anonymous 2022-02-24 (Thu) 22:21:11 No. 9898
>>9825 They're being swept away for being patriotic yankees who want to appeal to US nationalism. Them being white is incidental.
Anonymous 2022-02-24 (Thu) 23:20:53 No. 9899
>>9898 >Have talked to RednBlack >total lib LARPer <incidental *doubt*
Anonymous 2022-02-26 (Sat) 15:46:56 No. 9910
>Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. >Self-Det chapter 9 How was Lenin so right about Trotsky in 1914?
Anonymous 2022-02-26 (Sat) 22:47:08 No. 9914
Today's meeting we covered chapters 5-6 and 10 of Self-Determination, with a heavy emphasis on relating the issues raised in the text to the present day. Next Saturday we will finish the text (with time limits to stay focused on the chapters before opening to tangents at the end). There's still time to read the text and join the discussion. We are also discussing which texts to read next, drawing from this list in particular
>>9295 Anonymous 2022-02-26 (Sat) 23:14:10 No. 9915
Yep, never been happier I lefty the GlowieUSA
Anonymous 2022-03-05 (Sat) 14:19:21 No. 9968
TODAY We will be finishing Lenin's
Right of Nations to Self-Determination at UTC 6pm, four hours from now.
We will also discuss which texts to read next and the direction of the group in the chat, so
If you are interested in a beginner-friendly reading group please stop by. https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/ Anonymous 2022-03-06 (Sun) 00:00:58 No. 9969
Our weekly discussion has concluded, finishing the second Lenin text. So far we our sticking to fairly central works to lay the groundwork before eventually expanding to wider and more context-specific texts.Finished: <Lenin - Critical Remarks on the National Question <Lenin - The Right of Nations to Self-Determinations Next Week: >Lenin - The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination Upcoming >Luxemburg - The Nationalities Question (1918) >>possibly others by L, tbd >Lenin - The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up The discussion is open for any to join at any point, and the texts are short so far so it's easy to catch up too.
Anonymous 2022-03-11 (Fri) 18:59:37 No. 10030
Tomorrow is the next discussion session for Continental Floppa. 1pm EST / 6pm UTC
We will be going over
The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination which can be found here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jan/x01.htm Link to the reading group:
https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/ Anonymous 2022-03-12 (Sat) 15:13:01 No. 10036
TODAY 3 hours from now, 1pm EST / 6pm UTC
Continental Floppa reading
The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination .
The text:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jan/x01.htm The matrix chat:
https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/ Come even if you haven't read it, but also go read it. It's like 10 pages.
It's especially relevant in light of the PatSoc idiots meeting also literally TODAY to shill social chauvinism.
>>>/leftypol/845378 Lenin writes about exactly this kind of thought in this very text, in response to what happened in WWI due to the prevalence of this mentality.
It is of great importance that we combat this tendency so we do not see another episode of right wing socialists leading the proletariat of the first world against the proletariat of the the 2nd/3rd world
again . Do not let History repeat itself.
Anonymous 2022-03-12 (Sat) 23:50:20 No. 10039
Our weekly discussion has concluded, finishing the third Lenin text. So far we our sticking to fairly central works to lay the groundwork before eventually expanding to wider and more context-specific texts.
Finished: <Lenin - Critical Remarks on the National Question <Lenin - The Right of Nations to Self-Determinations <Lenin - The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination Next Week: >Luxemburg - The National Question (1909), Chapter 1: The Right of Nations to Self-Determination https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/index.htm Upcoming >Luxemburg - The Nationalities Question (1918) (optional) >Lenin - The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up (1916) The discussion is open for any to join at any point, and the texts are short so far so it's easy to catch up too.
Additional texts (possible supplementary material) discussed related to the topic: >Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World by Samir Amin >Rethinking Capitalist Development and Primitive Accumulation – Kalyan Senyal >PEOPLE’S AGREEMENT OF COCHABAMBA (2010) https://newmultitude.org/peoples-agreement-of-cochabamba-2010/ >Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber >…And Forgive Them Their Debts by Michael Hudson >Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins >The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions by Jason Hickel >Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists by Naomi Klein >ANDRÉ BRANDÃO- THE POTENTIAL AND THE HISTORICAL LIMITATIONS OF THE PROLIFERATION OF MARXISM-LENINISM IN THE BRAZILIAN YOUTH [TRANSLATION] https://newmultitude.org/andre-brandao-the-potential-and-the-historical-limitations-of-the-proliferation-of-marxism-leninism-in-the-brazilian-youth-translation/ Attached are the minutes from today's meeting, covering the discussion topics.
Anonymous 2022-03-13 (Sun) 15:57:03 No. 10042
>>10041 I don't really pay attention to grifting, fringe eCelebs most of the time to be fair.
Anonymous 2022-03-13 (Sun) 18:01:14 No. 10044
>>9825 >>10041 >>10042 Third guy is Peter Coffin.
All three of those people and more just had a conference.
>>>/leftypol/845378 If not them, there will likely be other people promoting a similar line. Chauvinism is a tendency that crops up again and again. It's something we need to be prepared to combat. The texts we just read have Lenin explaining why it's important to combat this, since it gets in the way of effectively organizing the international proletariat.
Anonymous 2022-03-18 (Fri) 22:03:03 No. 10069
Remember Daylight Savings Time is in effect. Check your local adjustments. Tomorrow is the next discussion session for Continental Floppa.
2pm EST / 6pm UTC
We will be going over Chapter 1 of Rosa Luxemburg's
The National Question .
You can find it here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/index.htm We will be on this text until we finish it (2-3 more weeks) and then move on to the next one: Lenin's
The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up .
Link to the reading group:
https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/ Anonymous 2022-03-19 (Sat) 13:20:37 No. 10072
voting to do something else except Lenin next week. Especially the group has already covered three texts by him.
Anonymous 2022-03-19 (Sat) 15:46:50 No. 10073
>>10072 We are on Luxemburg right now. We may discuss reading somebody else from that period (or earlier, like M&E's
On Poland ) before we read Lenin's summary of the discussion. After that the plan was to move to more specific local examples, of which we have several here
>>9295 Anonymous 2022-03-26 (Sat) 15:10:36 No. 10153
>>10069 We're doing chapters 2 & 3 of Luxemburg's
The National Question in 3 hours.
Next week will be chapters 4 and 5 before we move on to the next text.
Anonymous 2022-04-11 (Mon) 22:23:48 No. 10357
We've finished Luxemburg's
The National Question .
This weekend we will take off (Easter weekend and people may be busy.)
For the next weekend, we're reading Lenin's
The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up .
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jul/x01.htm Anonymous 2022-04-12 (Tue) 22:00:45 No. 10364
>>10357 why dont you finish this dick
also what are you guys gonna read next?
Anonymous 2022-04-25 (Mon) 01:13:31 No. 10454
Told that the reading group may be considering Settlers in the future, I was told whilst Settlers is a culturally important document, it doesn't have much the modern left can benefit from reading it and has many flaws to it. And I was instead suggested this reading list to better study the question of race and class in the American settler social formation and how racial chauvanism presented itself and sabotage the proletarian struggle for power, something that we can't understand from reading any one book. Here's the reading lists of books we should read before Settlers:>A Nation Beneath Our Feet by Steven Hahn <Workers of the World Undermined by Beth Sims >Roots of Oppression by Talbot <The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights by Robin Blackburn >Whiteness of a different color by Matthew Frye Jacobson <Black Awakening in Capitalist America by Robert L. Allen W. E. B. Du Bois is an author that would also be integral to study the question as well I think reading all these books and authors would give us a good comprehensive understanding, but we should also eventually read Settlers for its impact on the left as well to give us the tools to expose arguements and criticisms of the book by those who haven't actually read it
Anonymous 2022-04-25 (Mon) 05:01:03 No. 10455
>>10454 >Told that the reading group may be considering Settlers in the future, I was told whilst Settlers is a culturally important document, it doesn't have much the modern left can benefit from reading it and has many flaws to it. Black Reconstruction -> Settlers -> False Nationalism, False Internationalism are pretty much the go-to combination for those interested in understanding the thread topic from the context of the New Communist Movement.
Anonymous 2022-04-26 (Tue) 01:20:25 No. 10463
This Saturday Time: 6pm UTC (subject to change if it's inconvenient)
We'll be covering Lenin's The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up. (again)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jul/x01.htm We want to give everyone the opportunity to read and join the discussion, since this text is closing out our introduction to the topic before we move into the modern context in the following weeks. We'll be doing an overview of the Self-Determination question as well, including the question of how the question manifests in the present.
The plan for the readings in the following weeks are:
<1> Decolonization is not a metaphor by Tuck & Yang (2012) (40 pages) https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf <2> Democratic Confederalism by Abdulla Ocalan (2011) (48 pages) http://www.freeocalan.org/books/#/book/democratic-confederalism <3> Dawn: Marxism and National Liberation from Tricontinental (2021) (30ish pages) https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-37-marxism-and-national-liberation/ After that, we are planning to look at more specific contexts drawing form this list
>>9295 and other places.
Here is the list of suggestions we have been discussing so far.
<Stalin – National Question <Aimée Césaire <Ho Chi Minh - Report On The National And Colonial Questions At The Fifth Congress Of The Communist International <WEB DuBois, Cedric Robinson <Revisiting the Wages of Burman-Ness: Contradiction of Privilege in Myanmar by Cambell & Elliott Prasse-Freeman