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George Orwell.....please heed the warning

right

Active member
Animal Farm was one of three novels that really changed the way I thought as a teen in the 70s. The other two were George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I personally got more from 1984 than Animal Farm. All well worth a read, and I think I will read them all again.

Animal Farm was a critique of Stalinist Russia. These days it's often quoted in the context of Communism bad, therefore Capitalism good. Not quite what he was saying. He hated totalitarianism but was himself a socialist who believed also in personal freedom and civil liberties. Kind of where my thinking is at present.
My mother a Canadian is also a socialist , and believes in personal freedom. I understand your point of view.
 

Cannavore

Well-known member
Veteran
Animal Farm was one of three novels that really changed the way I thought as a teen in the 70s. The other two were George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I personally got more from 1984 than Animal Farm. All well worth a read, and I think I will read them all again.

Animal Farm was a critique of Stalinist Russia. These days it's often quoted in the context of Communism bad, therefore Capitalism good. Not quite what he was saying. He hated totalitarianism but was himself a socialist who believed also in personal freedom and civil liberties. Kind of where my thinking is at present.
Stalinism in modern times is also referred to as red fascism and is usually condemned by modern American communists (of the anarchistic type).
 

Eltitoguay

Well-known member
Animal Farm was one of three novels that really changed the way I thought as a teen in the 70s. The other two were George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I personally got more from 1984 than Animal Farm. All well worth a read, and I think I will read them all again.

Animal Farm was a critique of Stalinist Russia. These days it's often quoted in the context of Communism bad, therefore Capitalism good. Not quite what he was saying. He hated totalitarianism but was himself a socialist who believed also in personal freedom and civil liberties. Kind of where my thinking is at present.
Regarding Orwell's 1984, it is the complete and orderly trilogy that conceptualizes and frames 1984: In the first and that generates the other two, Homage to Catalonia, Orwell is a foreign volunteer private soldier fighting with the Spanish Republic against the coup d'état of fascism and later Italian and German invasion), and affiliated with the POUM (a Marxist socialist/comunist party, fiercely anti-Stalinist)
Orwell-voluntarios.jpg

George-Orwell-and-Eileen-OShaughnessy-with-members-of-the-ILP-unit-on-the-Aragon-Front-outside...jpg

He attended for the first time the interim struggles of the Marxist left, and saw how Russian Stalinism penetrated the Marxist left and attempted to impose itself as the only way, over the others. All this, from the local and limited perspective of a foreign volunteer private soldier, in the Catalan and Aragonese sector of the front of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell writes a simple personal diary about those events, but in his anti-Stalinist democratic Marxist left vs. Stalinism approach, he makes errors of judgment due to his insufficient knowledge of what was behind that interim struggle of the left in the Spanish case, due to to be just a common soldier and a foreigner. Over time and with a more complete vision, Orwell warns of these errors (the POUM was not always as correct as he had idealized; and furthermore, many of the decisions of the PCE that he thought were directly inspired by Russian Stalinism, later recognized as pure and simple pragmatic policies for the state of war (such as prioritizing winning a war that was being lost, rather than completing a Marxist revolution).

With "Animal Farm", Orwell corrects the errors that, in his previous diary in Spain (they were widely publicized and taken as evidence, by the Stalinists, of the erroneousness of Orwell's general opinion), he made in his criticism of Stalinism. , transferring the previous struggle Stalinism vs. non-Stalinist Marxism, from localism and the very complex factors of the Spanish Civil War, to a classic fable, where we can focus on the issue from a 100% theoretical and universal point of view.

That universalism is maintained in 1984, when the setting is transferred to the entire planet in a science-fiction type future. Only now, the previous struggle between the left described has been definitively won by Stalinism, which has managed to pervert and corrupt the "social revolution" to the point that the so-called "proletarians" are considered, instead of the class to be rescued and glorified. , a social lumpen that the Party allows to subsist like animals on the outskirts of the cities. And in the face of that Stalinism, there is only one or more Stalinisms of different nationalities/cultures, or fascism.
 
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Eltitoguay

Well-known member
Stalinism in modern times is also referred to as red fascism and is usually condemned by modern American communists (of the anarchistic type).
Within Lenilist Soviet Communism itself, too. Lenin, the previous leader, wanted to oppose Stalin succeeding him. And in the same way, as soon as Stalin died, he was condemned.

That does not mean that Lenin or Trosky were saints, but it was clear that Stalin was morally and intrinsically evil, and for me, even worse than Hitler, because Hitler was a fanatic who could one day believe the hallucinatios that the latter had just invented. former; but Stalin, within his crudeness, was more of a very lucid cynic.
 

Eltitoguay

Well-known member
Regarding Orwell's 1984, it is the complete and orderly trilogy that conceptualizes and frames 1984: In the first and that generates the other two, Homage to Catalonia, Orwell is a foreign volunteer private soldier fighting with the Spanish Republic against the coup d'état of fascism and later Italian and German invasion), and affiliated with the POUM (a Marxist socialist/comunist party, fiercely anti-Stalinist)
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He attended for the first time the interim struggles of the Marxist left, and saw how Russian Stalinism penetrated the Marxist left and attempted to impose itself as the only way, over the others. All this, from the local and limited perspective of a foreign volunteer private soldier, in the Catalan and Aragonese sector of the front of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell writes a simple personal diary about those events, but in his anti-Stalinist democratic Marxist left vs. Stalinism approach, he makes errors of judgment due to his insufficient knowledge of what was behind that interim struggle of the left in the Spanish case, due to to be just a common soldier and a foreigner. Over time and with a more complete vision, Orwell warns of these errors (the POUM was not always as correct as he had idealized; and furthermore, many of the decisions of the PCE that he thought were directly inspired by Russian Stalinism, later recognized as pure and simple pragmatic policies for the state of war (such as prioritizing winning a war that was being lost, rather than completing a Marxist revolution).

With "Animal Farm", Orwell corrects the errors that, in his previous diary in Spain (they were widely publicized and taken as evidence, by the Stalinists, of the erroneousness of Orwell's general opinion), he made in his criticism of Stalinism. , transferring the previous struggle Stalinism vs. non-Stalinist Marxism, from localism and the very complex factors of the Spanish Civil War, to a classic fable, where we can focus on the issue from a 100% theoretical and universal point of view.

That universalism is maintained in 1984, when the setting is transferred to the entire planet in a science-fiction type future. Only now, the previous struggle between the left described has been definitively won by Stalinism, which has managed to pervert and corrupt the "social revolution" to the point that the so-called "proletarians" are considered, instead of the class to be rescued and glorified. , a social lumpen that the Party allows to subsist like animals on the outskirts of the cities. And in the face of that Stalinism, there is only one or more Stalinisms of different nationalities/cultures, or fascism.
As a summary of the meaning and intention of 1984 and its two predecessors, I would say:
A convinced socialist with great intellectual training, he lives precisely in the historical circumstance in which: 1) various leftist and Marxist parties have come to power in Europe (revolutionarily in Russia; democratically in France and Spain), and in which 2) fascism It was born to combat this leftist rise and also reached power in other countries. And the fight takes place, both political in parliaments and violent in the streets, between Marxists and fascists, which happened in Italy, Germany and Spain (where it would lead to military confrontation), mainly. And it appears on the side, for Orwell, that of "their own", that of "the good",3) Stalinism, to declare itself as the only leftism worthy of that fight, and to work harder and more thoroughly in combating the other leftists, than to capitalism or fascism, in addition to rejecting the democratic path.
And Orwell is "only" horrified by this, also seeing how Stalinism so easily penetrates workers and peasants who do not enjoy their intellectual preparation, when they are not totally illiterate. And he decides to send out a warning cry to "his own people": "Be careful because this Stalinism that tries to lead our fight and side, looks very similar to the fascist enemy."
 

Eltitoguay

Well-known member
Hey Got Bud , it's cool with me if you want to post anti Trump stuff here.
But my message is about the difference between stalinism and Trotskyism . In other words the difference between the communist state and a world wide communist movement. It is worth watching. Or better yet reading
...You yourself have emphasized the main difference: for Stalin, it was enough for the revolution to triumph in Russia, and then have certain satellite countries around it as "living space", which Hitler could also have said. For Trosky, the revolution should spread to as much of the world as possible, both out of philanthropy and interest (if a transnational liberal capitalist economy were to economically "attack/encircle" it, a collaborative communist economy needs ample living space to survive that attack).

Furthermore, at least after being exiled, Trosky accepted the democratic path and collaboration not only with other non-Lenilist Marxists (whom he also fought hard before), but even with social democracy, for the sake of the popular good.

Look, I am a Marxist sympathizer, I have been a member and I am a voter of the PCE ( currently a minority member of the governing coalition here; the POUM dissolved before I could vote; Its members joined the PSOE and others the PCE). I have always sympathized with the Trotskyists ,and I had friends in the JCR (Revolutionary Communist Youth, Trotskyists), but because of our common anti-Stalinism.
Orwell was his best world advertisement, and when you are contrasted with Stalinism, it is difficult not to win... Likewise, I admire Trosky, but he was not the character idealized for his opposition to Stalin, which has become popular. It is true that he became very humanized and democratized in his exile, but he also committed his sins when he was Lenin's right-hand man.
 
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Cannavore

Well-known member
Veteran
Within Lenilist Soviet Communism itself, too. Lenin, the previous leader, wanted to oppose Stalin succeeding him. And in the same way, as soon as Stalin died, he was condemned.

That does not mean that Lenin or Trosky were saints, but it was clear that Stalin was morally and intrinsically evil, and for me, even worse than Hitler, because Hitler was a fanatic who could one day believe the hallucinatios that the latter had just invented. former; but Stalin, within his crudeness, was more of a very lucid cynic.
yes
 

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
The CIA purchased the rights to 1984, which they had in produced in England.
It was their initial venture in the film industry.

A few moments with a search engine will provide detail on the subject that is more than interesting.
 
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