And a paper tiger? A lot of strawmen in this one. Maybe this is a relevant criticism (barely) of certain "official" Communist regimes circa 1960, but it´s hardly a serious criticism of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Note also the hypocritical "pie in the sky" message. Endure yer suffering, proles! Nupe, won´t happen, comrade. Or should I call you "citizen"?
Hübinette menar att svenska influerare gillar Kina för att det numera är väldigt "kapitalistiskt"...
"Go Woke, get broke?" Bokstavligt talat. Annorlunda uttryckt: Vad har hänt med "kinesernas" gamla frontgrupp Clarté?
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| Credit: Mvshreeram |
Komala, which apparently claims to be Social Democratic these days, has joined the Kurdistan Parties Coalition, which the United States may (or may not) arm against the Iranian regime. A propos the previous blog post.
Komala Party officially joins Kurdistan Parties Coalition
Another party joins opposition alliance
International support crucial to ending the regime in Iran
Yesterday (February 20), Neptune conjoined Saturn. Which happens roughly once every 35 years. In mundane astrology, this signifies dramatic regime change. Especially in Russia. The two planets were in conjunction in 1917, 1953 and 1989. That is: during the fall of Czarism, the death of Stalin and the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Hmmm...
So if this pattern holds, something very important will happen in Russia very, very soon. Will Putin die and Ukraine in some completely bizarre way defeat the Russian army, leading to the collapse of the Federation as we know it?
Apparently, Neptune also enters Aries, which it last did during the American Civil War. So perhaps we should be careful what we wish for! As for China, they just entered a Yang Fire Year of the Horse. Last time that happened was in 1966. You know, the beginning of the Cultural Revolution...
I admit that I don´t believe a word of it. Still, maybe I should replenish my private stash of snacks just in case.
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| - Vilken jävla hushållsgris? Det finns ingen sån här, jävla revisionist! |
It seems socialism works or something. I mean, look at this stuff. The Hua-Deng-ist revisionists were right. Who knew?
It seems me and JMG have something in common. We both hanged around the far left political subculture in our sadly misspent youths. In JMG´s case, the place was Seattle, where he encountered the RCP and FSP. I actually encountered the RCP in another US city, but not the FSP, although I certainly devoured the latter group´s magazines and pamphlets. As for Situationism, the anarchists around 1985-90 still talked about them. If you knew were to look, you could even buy Swedish translations of some of their pamphlets. I agree that they were typical French rebel intellectuals: some interesting takes here and there, but of course completely unpractical from a political POV. Their Swedish co-thinkers (which I think were called The Golden Fleet) were apparently unpractical for another reason - they were constantly high on drugs!
But I´m digressing...
The essay linked below is apparantly the first in an entire series. I already have one (important?) disagreement: Marx and Engels were hardly "beta-Marxists" (JMG´s neologism for New Left-derived middle class reformists with a pseudo-radical veneer). They really did support the creation of an independent workers´ movement. However, Marx and Engels were pragmatic enough to support the workers´ movement even under conditions when a revolution was highly unlikely. This led to a tension in the Marxist movement between those who believed in a future revolution (which on the standard interpretation included Marx and Engels themselves - although some have argued that "the late Engels" became a reformist) and those who really wanted reformist politics.
But the latter group (who went on to appropriate the Social Democratic label) didn´t want a "managerial aristocracy" of the current type, but (at least initially) a different kind of managerial elite based on the organizations of the labor movement. "Beta-Marxism" emerges when the labor movement is no longer a serious contender for political power in capitalist society and the managerial elites turns towards (or even creates) middle class "identities" and their protest politics, immigrant groups co-opted by the system, and so on. This does lead to relevant policy changes.
JMG´s description of "alpha-Marxism" (Leninists and Stalinists) and "beta-Marxism" (the New Left, often absorbed by the Democratic Party in the US) are spot on otherwise. I mean, I could name names! It will be interesting to see where he finally lands in his analysis of the Situationist situation...
The "Revolutionary Communist Party" or Revcoms (Bob Avakian´s outfit) are busy preparing the next Maoist genocide. In name only (obviously) since these guys ever leading a succesful revolution is about as likely as pigs sprouting wings! Come to think of it, the latter is probably more likely, give or take 10 million years of additional evil-ution...
I heard about "the Taoist Messiah" a couple of years ago, when reading up on Taoism (here spelled Daoism). Or rather really existing Taoism, which turns out to be very far removed from California hippies, organic farming or Winnie the Pooh.
Think divine saviors appearing on mountains and revealing scriptures, Messianic movements organizing millenarian rebellions against reprobate emperors, a chosen remnant creating utopia...and then off to the next cycle, rinse and repeat, all throughout Chinese history.
The emperors responded by killing everyone suspected of involvement in such movements. Even having a name suspiciously similar to that of the Taoist Messiah could be enough to seal your fate...and that of your entire family.
I think it´s obvious that we´re dealing with Zoroastrian influence eclectically combined with "real" Taoism. Thus, the savior figure is said to be an apotheosis of Lao-tse, his mission is to "balance the Tao", and he appears as part of a cyclical cosmology (rather than the once-and-for-all version of Zoroastrian and Abrahamic soteriology). Still, it does seem to "work" (kind of).
It could be argued (and I do argue) that the Taiping rebellion was a "Christian" version of the same phenomenon, while the Communist Party of China is a secularized ditto. And today, the CPC is challenged by a more typical millenarian cult. Yes, that would be Falun gong!
It seems that Li Hong never really left the building. Or that mountain...
The whole TikTok refugee thing is "so 2025", and we´re not even a month into the new year yet. So TikTok users - who presumably deny that the Chinese ownership of TikTok is a national security threat - respond to the American ban on the app by migrating to a heavily censored China app named after Chairman Mao´s Red Book which actually may be a real security threat?!
I know this isn´t really a joke (cyber surveillence and ditto terrorism are a thing) but I can´t help laughing. Note also the bizarre irony that it was Biden who banned the app (you know, the POTUS referred to as "China Joe" by Trump supporters), while Trump is trying to save it?! Presumably, because one of the *American* owners gave a hefty campaign contribution to the very same Donald.
RedNote, by contrast, seems entirely owned and controlled by some mainland ChiCom front operation. The end of the world has never been more fun to watch!
Americans get first taste of Chinese censorship
US TikTok addicts flock to "Little Red Book"
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| Två Tiktok-flyktingar? |
Jag tror bestämt att 2025 just fick sitt första nyord: Tiktok-flykting. Rubriken är förresten missvisande.
Amerikanska Tiktok-flyktingar söker skydd i Kina
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| President-elect Anura Dissayanaka Credit: Eranga Jayawardena |
Look who won the recent presidential elections in Sri Lanka. I´m old enough to remember when these guys were considered the worst of the worst terrorists, up there with Sendero or Abu Nidal! Or even the LTTE...
Communists don´t usually take power by winning democratic elections. The second link goes to a Marxist blog (which I don´t think supports the JVP) explaining the crisis in Sri Lanka.
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| The Great Chicago Fire |
HA HA HA. I´m old enough to remember when these shysters *actually endorsed Kamala Harris*. That is, they endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 POTUS elections. Which means they endorsed Harris, too. But listen to their whining now...
If a vote for Biden (and "Cold-blooded Kamala") was right in 2020 to stop "the fascist Trump-Pence regime" (no less), why is it wrong in 2024, to stop the "fascists" from, you know, coming back? Exactly.
However, (psycho)analyzing Bob Avakian might be completely pointless, and these days the Revolutionary Communist Party´s personality cult of their Chairman is so hilariously bizarre, that the entire "party" comes across as a one-man operation. It looks as if Avakian is effectively worshipping himself.
But who knows, maybe the RCP can move the needle with say ten votes in Illinois.
Bob Avakian is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today
En kulturartikel i Aftonbladet som hävdar att Venezuelas kontroversielle president Nicolas Maduro har kontakter med evangelikala kristna. Tidigare var han anhängare av Sai Baba?! Han har även gått på kubansk kaderskola och varit maoist.
Gud stavas förresten med stor begynnelsebokstav. Fixed it for you.
Breitbart News claims that two far left groups in the US are literally on the Chinese payroll. Or perhaps on the payroll of a mysterious pro-Chinese US billionaire who lives in Beijing.
The groups in question are the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), which I assume are Maoists, and the Party for Liberation and Socialism (PSL), which are "Marcyites". Don´t even ask!
I don´t rule any of this out, but the main drivers of the BLM protests in 2020 were the Democrats, specifically the Obama faction. This was revealed already at the time. Note also the salient fact that both the FRSO and the PSL have pivoted to anti-Israeli activism, which would still align them with China...but not with the Biden Administration.
If anything, the October terrorist attacks by Hamas have driven a wedge into the Woke-liberal-leftist coalition. I think I can live with that wedge.
In general, history makes more sense if you assume that many of the "radicals" and "revolutionaries" are really on somebody´s payroll! Or that it´s an ethnic thing...
"Röda khmererna: Pol Pots revolution i Kambodja" is a Swedish book from 2022 by Peter Fröberg Idling. It´s published by Historiska Media, a press with a wide assortement of popularized but still surprisingly informative books written by various authors. The topic this time: the Khmer Rouge and their reign of terror in Cambodia 1975-79.
The bulk of the story is well known by now: how the Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated the capital of Phnom Penh after a bloody civil war, how they subsequently turned the entire country into a enormous labor camp, and how the regime was finally overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion. The Khmer Rouge genocide may have claimed the lives of over one million people. Few people would have missed the name of the crazed dictator behind it all: Pol Pot. Since the Khmer Rouge were Communists, their depradations are placed in the same ball park as those of Stalin or Mao.
While none of the above is "wrong", there is also a wider context: a brutal colonial history, constant conflicts between Vietnam and Cambodia that go back centuries, and Richard Nixon´s "secret" war (including carpet bombings). At their peak, a large proprotion of the Cambodian peasant population must have supported the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot´s bizarre regime was overthrown by another Communist government and his movement kept afloat as a "contra" force by the United States and Thailand. Add to this the constant scheming of Prince (or King) Sihanouk, and the story suddenly gets more complicated...and arguably even more brutal. All of this is covered by the author.
The book also contains more unexpected information. For instance, that Pol Pot (whose real name was Saloth Sar) was something of a dandy and bon vivant in his younger days. Somewhat ironically given later developments, Saloth Sar came from a kulak background and had a family connection to the royal Cambodian court. He seems to have been a charismatic, smiling and jovial man...well, until he wasn´t, although I suppose he kept his charisma. He flunked both high school and college, first due to his bohemian lifestyle, later because of his revolutionary pastimes. In other words: another intellectual mediocrity who fancies himself the Messiah. It´s not even clear if he had any real grounding in Marxism-Leninism. Fröberg Idling believes that his main source of inspiration was the French revolution, including its most radical and terroristic phase. Pol Pot´s source? A work by Peter Kropotkin!
Another new piece of information is that Cambodian nationalism was a by-product of French colonialism. Not just in the trivial sense that colonialism breeds resistance, but also in a more "ideological" sense. It was the French that made the Cambodians interested in Angkor Wat. The old temple complex had been in ruins for centuries and nobody much cared about it (except maybe a few Buddhist monks) before the French became fascinated by it and the ancient Khmer Empire in general. This prompted Cambodians to turn Angkor Wat into a potent symbol of Cambodian nationalism. Indeed, even the ultra-Communist Khmer Rouge had the silhoutte of Angkor Wat on their flag. (If Wikipedia is to be believed, the author makes two factual errors about Cambodian flags. The first flag showing Angkor was adopted in 1863 by the French-dominated puppet kingdom of Cambodia, while the flag used by the nationalist Khmer Issarak was re-used by the pro-Vietnamese Hun Sen regime, not by the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps a vexillology nerd could weigh in on this?) Note also that both the ideals of the French revolution and Marxism are, of course, Western.
A constant theme in the book is Pol Pot´s weird and quasi-Masonic secrecy, unique among Communist parties. The very existence of the Communist Party of Kampuchea was a secret, the party using the cover name "The Organization" (Angkar). Its leadership was just as secret. It took several years after the "revolution" before the Khmer Rouge revealed that the leader of their regime was a certain Pol Pot. But that´s really a pseudonym (the exact meaning of which is unknown) and Brother Number One was given an entirely fictitious biography. At this point, he was paranoid and strongly xenophobic, constantly moving his HQ around Cambodia. It struck me that even this strange obsession with secrecy (including when actually in power!) could be derived from some kind of Jacobin or Blanquist conspiracy during or after the French revolution.
Another thing that shines through (despite the author for unclear reasons not liking Michael Vickery) is the weird blend of authoritarianism and decentralization during the Khmer Rouge´s years in power. The decentralization aspect is emphasized in Vickery´s books. Cambodia or "Democratic Kampuchea" was sub-divided into seven "zones", each under its own effective leadership. The conditions in the various zones varied considerably, with the Eastern zone bordering Vietnam being the most lenient, while other zones were under the control of de facto dacoit warlords who really did "hate the cities". At the center, Pol Pot tried to keep control with semi-regular purges left and right. His commands were often contradictory, the production quotas impossible, and the paranoia rampant (but nevertheless "justified", since Vietnam *did* conspire against the Angkar). Most people who died under the Khmer Rouge probably perished due to famine, malnutrition and overwork. For more on Pol Pot´s utter insanity, see my review of the book "Pol Pot Plans the Future", which contains translations of the few internal Angkar documents that have come to light.
It´s difficult to "explain" any of this in a strictly rational fashion, but the author does point to a few factors. For instance, that violence has long been part and parcel of Cambodian culture. It´s an extreme "honor culture" in which every sleight is punished with over-the-top violence, which in turn leads to new violence. Add to this colonial terror and civil wars. The fact that Cambodia has long been weak and squeezed between its more powerful neighbors Thailand and Vietnam is also part of the picture. Obviously, extreme nationalism can appeal to people in such a situation. As for the Khmer Rouge, the author believes that they are best seen as a kind of cult or sect, which under extraordinary conditions of societal breakdown managed to take power. (The Taliban in Afghanistan could be another example of this.) And yes, the "Communist" mixture of utopian millenarianism and authoritarianism obviously also plays a role here. A trail not explored by the author is that millenarian cults seem to be pretty common in East Asia (and perhaps Southeast Asia?). The Khmer Rouge may be part of a tradition that long pre-dates Communism. Indeed, maybe Communism is seen by many adherents in Asia as a new millenerian cult? The author does speculate that Pol Pot might in some strange sense have been influenced by Buddhism and mysticism.
The book ends with an epilogue, in which it becomes clear that most of the Khmer Rouge were never punished for their crimes. Pol Pot was - somewhat ironically - unseated by his own supporters in 1997 in a remote part of Cambodia after ordering yet another round of purges, this time of fellow guerilla commanders fighting the new Cambodian administration. Pol Pot was placed under house arrest and died of unknown causes in 1998. For some reason, the author strongly dislikes Hun Sen and the pro-Vietnamese ex-Communists, constantly accusing them of being somehow implicated in the genocide, when in fact they were the moderates who tried and succeeded in removing Pol Pot from power.
With those reflections, I end this review.
