Hi Irene. I think the importance of Lucak's role in the Bolshevik government of Hungary and his broader network of co-thinkers among the leading strata of Bolsheviks around the world is that it showcases the heterogenous underdefined character of Bolshevik- Marxist thought and its associated representatives and movements/sub-movements during the end of the 19th century leading up through the first few decades of the 20th century. Obviously within this stew, good and wise people emerged who did great good and fought against other factions over who would be victorious in interpreting the doctrines of Marx and Engels (which I sincerely doubt Marx even understood).
Hi Matt, it was'nt the "Bolshevik/ Marxist thought" that was „heterogenous and underdefined“ . The problem was the infiltration of counterproductive, falsifying, misleading ideas that eventually led to the destruction of the Bolshevik Revolution and all its positive achievements. The ‚stew' was artificially cooked up with Trotzikiism, Bucharinism, Fabianism, Left Wingism from elements like Ruth Fischer and later Frankfurt Schoo, an ideological framework conceived to destroy „Marxism" - all those destructive ideas were not born naturally but developed by bought of vicious characters. Compare it with all those dystopian ideas that came with the Huxleys, H.G. Wells, The CFC, The Counter Culture Movement, the Woke-ism etc.
The battle of ideas took even place within the Communist Movement. How could it have been otherwise? It is a class struggle, that expresses itself on all levels internationally. I do not see the point of questioning the contribution of Marx himself, his sincereness and those of his devoted followers who contributed so much, even their lives to bringing humanity on higher level. Russia would not be what it is today without the historic achievements of 1917, the founding of the Soviet Union on Dec 30th 2022 and modern China, with all respect for Konfuzius, would not be the powerful light in all the darkness today without the example of Bolshevik Russia.
Hi Irene. From everything I've read of Marx's own writings at this point, I can only say that his critique of imperialism is generally solid. The underdeveloped concepts and outright fallacies would be completely forgiveable if he didn't know about the existant works of Henry C Carey, Friedrich List etc which I have read extensively and have contrasted the two modes of thinking and writing about the science of political economy.
Marx's concepts fo class struggle carry over many Hegelian concepts and deny the existence of any school of thinking that isn't the British closed systems school (even reducing List and Carey to just a subsidiary of the British school). The fact is that he doesn't deal with "value" properly or the causes of technological progress. His assumptions of the predeterministic mechanistic ages moving from prefeudal, feudal, mercantile to utopian without any regard to the actual causal mechanisms of history which were understood by his leading contemporaries in England and Germany is also very bad.
I have never denied good people did things who considered themselves Marx, but I contend that their good was caused more by their being good reasonable people and less due to anything within Marx per se.
OR similarly, they took the things they liked from Marx and ignored the braindead notions of Marx's immature concept of class struggle (tied inexorably to Ricardo's supposed Malthusian "law" of diminishing return, and "law" of exploitation) which are NOT laws but mere outgrowths of systems of feudal oligarchical looting. I repeat, Marx's (and Engel's) writings are extremely ambiguous on questions of practical action, or fallacious on matters of general principles both in terms of 1) the axioms they assert to be unquestionably true and 2) their conscious omissions of higher truths.
The Bolsheviks, as a movement had good people within it, just as I can say Black Lives Matters may have good people within it, and maybe some miracle might arise were a couple of good BLM activists might someday in the future get power and then break from their profile and do something that upsets Soros (note: this is merely a thought experiment). It has happened a few times in history even though it is rare. It occured with Bolivar late in life even though he was an asset for the British Foreign Office for most of his life. It probably happened to Trump even though he was a Roy Cohn asset for much of his life. It happened to MLK even though he was an asset of Nation of Islam (which was run by intel operatives prior to him breaking profile).
For the good that occured under Stalin's policies before the war, during the war against Nazism and after the war, in my honest assessment it had more to do with his abiding by reason and good advisors like the networks of Vernadsky and much much less to do with anything actually written in Marx or Engels. Similarly for awesome socialists like Rosa Luxembourg or Jean Jaures, those works of theirs which I've read goes far far far beyond Marx and breaks entirely with his lame axioms of class struggle or value or mind (especially the satanic doctrine of Dialectic Materialism).
And as far as the good of the Bolsheviks as a romantic movement, like I've proven in my books and writings, there was a much much superior and authentic good which was contained in the Sergei Witte operations to infuse the American system into the governance of Russia and expel the Okhrana-Holy Brotherhood-Venetian nobility from influence while liberating the former serfs and jews using a full Hamiltonian-Lincoln program. This was of course the greatest threat to the oligarchy during that period in the context of a global array of statesmen across the globe conspiring to do this together - of which group Witte, Mckinley, Bismarck's List German network, Carnot, etc etc were leading members.
Thanks, insightful show as usual. Point if disagreement: Lukacs was not a Bolshevik, no matter what he might have called himself.
Hi Irene. I think the importance of Lucak's role in the Bolshevik government of Hungary and his broader network of co-thinkers among the leading strata of Bolsheviks around the world is that it showcases the heterogenous underdefined character of Bolshevik- Marxist thought and its associated representatives and movements/sub-movements during the end of the 19th century leading up through the first few decades of the 20th century. Obviously within this stew, good and wise people emerged who did great good and fought against other factions over who would be victorious in interpreting the doctrines of Marx and Engels (which I sincerely doubt Marx even understood).
Excellent talk, as usual Matt.
An amazingly meaningful, insightful knowlegdable discourse on Marxen’s influence is beginning here https://thesaker.is/the-saker-interviews-straight-bat-on-marxism-in-the-21st-century/
https://thesaker.is/part-2-of-sakers-interview-with-straight-bat-on-marxism-in-the-21st-century/
As to importance of Karl Marxen’s legacy see an amazingly meaningful and indepth dialogue is beginning here https://thesaker.is/the-saker-interviews-straight-bat-on-marxism-in-the-21st-century/ (partI)
and part II
https://thesaker.is/part-2-of-sakers-interview-with-straight-bat-on-marxism-in-the-21st-century/
Hi Matt, it was'nt the "Bolshevik/ Marxist thought" that was „heterogenous and underdefined“ . The problem was the infiltration of counterproductive, falsifying, misleading ideas that eventually led to the destruction of the Bolshevik Revolution and all its positive achievements. The ‚stew' was artificially cooked up with Trotzikiism, Bucharinism, Fabianism, Left Wingism from elements like Ruth Fischer and later Frankfurt Schoo, an ideological framework conceived to destroy „Marxism" - all those destructive ideas were not born naturally but developed by bought of vicious characters. Compare it with all those dystopian ideas that came with the Huxleys, H.G. Wells, The CFC, The Counter Culture Movement, the Woke-ism etc.
The battle of ideas took even place within the Communist Movement. How could it have been otherwise? It is a class struggle, that expresses itself on all levels internationally. I do not see the point of questioning the contribution of Marx himself, his sincereness and those of his devoted followers who contributed so much, even their lives to bringing humanity on higher level. Russia would not be what it is today without the historic achievements of 1917, the founding of the Soviet Union on Dec 30th 2022 and modern China, with all respect for Konfuzius, would not be the powerful light in all the darkness today without the example of Bolshevik Russia.
Hi Irene. From everything I've read of Marx's own writings at this point, I can only say that his critique of imperialism is generally solid. The underdeveloped concepts and outright fallacies would be completely forgiveable if he didn't know about the existant works of Henry C Carey, Friedrich List etc which I have read extensively and have contrasted the two modes of thinking and writing about the science of political economy.
Marx's concepts fo class struggle carry over many Hegelian concepts and deny the existence of any school of thinking that isn't the British closed systems school (even reducing List and Carey to just a subsidiary of the British school). The fact is that he doesn't deal with "value" properly or the causes of technological progress. His assumptions of the predeterministic mechanistic ages moving from prefeudal, feudal, mercantile to utopian without any regard to the actual causal mechanisms of history which were understood by his leading contemporaries in England and Germany is also very bad.
I have never denied good people did things who considered themselves Marx, but I contend that their good was caused more by their being good reasonable people and less due to anything within Marx per se.
OR similarly, they took the things they liked from Marx and ignored the braindead notions of Marx's immature concept of class struggle (tied inexorably to Ricardo's supposed Malthusian "law" of diminishing return, and "law" of exploitation) which are NOT laws but mere outgrowths of systems of feudal oligarchical looting. I repeat, Marx's (and Engel's) writings are extremely ambiguous on questions of practical action, or fallacious on matters of general principles both in terms of 1) the axioms they assert to be unquestionably true and 2) their conscious omissions of higher truths.
The Bolsheviks, as a movement had good people within it, just as I can say Black Lives Matters may have good people within it, and maybe some miracle might arise were a couple of good BLM activists might someday in the future get power and then break from their profile and do something that upsets Soros (note: this is merely a thought experiment). It has happened a few times in history even though it is rare. It occured with Bolivar late in life even though he was an asset for the British Foreign Office for most of his life. It probably happened to Trump even though he was a Roy Cohn asset for much of his life. It happened to MLK even though he was an asset of Nation of Islam (which was run by intel operatives prior to him breaking profile).
For the good that occured under Stalin's policies before the war, during the war against Nazism and after the war, in my honest assessment it had more to do with his abiding by reason and good advisors like the networks of Vernadsky and much much less to do with anything actually written in Marx or Engels. Similarly for awesome socialists like Rosa Luxembourg or Jean Jaures, those works of theirs which I've read goes far far far beyond Marx and breaks entirely with his lame axioms of class struggle or value or mind (especially the satanic doctrine of Dialectic Materialism).
And as far as the good of the Bolsheviks as a romantic movement, like I've proven in my books and writings, there was a much much superior and authentic good which was contained in the Sergei Witte operations to infuse the American system into the governance of Russia and expel the Okhrana-Holy Brotherhood-Venetian nobility from influence while liberating the former serfs and jews using a full Hamiltonian-Lincoln program. This was of course the greatest threat to the oligarchy during that period in the context of a global array of statesmen across the globe conspiring to do this together - of which group Witte, Mckinley, Bismarck's List German network, Carnot, etc etc were leading members.