Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution

It is impossible to speak seriously about Marxism in the West without incorporating the role of Christianity in each social formation.

Jones Manoel
Black Agenda Report
June 10, 2020

https://blackagendareport.com/western-marxism-loves-purity-and-martyrdom-not-real-revolution

Another great discussion w/ #RossWolfe about his trilogy of essays critiquing the late neo-Stalinist philosopher & historian #DomenicoLosurdo, w/ particular focus on #Losurdo's attacks on #WesternMarxism in his eponymously titled book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9QM64C1glw

(the trilogy is here:
https://newintermag.com/against-losurdo/
https://newintermag.com/losurdos-lies/
https://newintermag.com/revisionism-revisited/)

#Marxism #FrankfurtSchool #socialism #politicalTheory #historyOfMarxism #Stalinism #campism #philosophy #books #bookstodon @bookstodon

Fascinating trilogy of essays by Brooklyn Rail's #RossWolfe critiquing the late neo-Stalinist philosopher & historian #DomenicoLosurdo, w/ particular focus on #Losurdo's attacks on #WesternMarxism in his eponymously titled book.

https://newintermag.com/against-losurdo/
https://newintermag.com/losurdos-lies/
https://newintermag.com/revisionism-revisited/

Also a great pod discussion of the series w/ Ross: https://www.patreon.com/posts/138384057

#Marxism #FrankfurtSchool #politicalTheory #historyOfMarxism #Stalinism #campism #philosophy #books @bookstodon

"The first part of this essay introduced the controversial Italian neo-Stalinist philosopher and historian Domenico Losurdo, whose ideas have grown influential in the Anglophone world over the course of the last fifteen years. His most recent book to be translated into English, Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, and How it can be Reborn, offers a point of entry into his broader body of work. To understand the nature of his polemical intervention, the category of “Western Marxism” first had to be reconstructed. Different theorists, representing a range of currents on the New Left, evaluated heterodox strains of Marxism in the West in various ways, depending on how they oriented themselves toward actually-existing socialism and revolutionary politics in the present. In the second part of the essay, Losurdo’s concrete engagements with the so-called “Western Marxists” were examined in detail to see whether his criticisms of them were fair. By and large, they were found to be either dishonest or misleading. Now in the third and final part, it will be seen just how far his version of Marxism deviates from the path laid down by Marx, Engels, and Lenin."

https://newintermag.com/revisionism-revisited/

#Marx #Marxism #Engels #Lenine #WesternMarxism

I don't have much patience for Losurdo's Stalinist deliriums. In any case, it's awesome that just one of the dozens of famous marxist intellectuals of the 21st century is an apologist of the old USSR and its authoritarian state capitalism...! His critique/rant of Nietzsche just stinks. And Nietzsche is probably my favorite philosopher.

"Losurdo, a self-styled realist, felt that classical Marxism’s assumption that revolution had to happen in the leading capitalist countries was unfounded and needed to be revised. Overcoming capitalism would be a much more drawn out process than Marx, Engels, or Lenin had imagined, and would require state-building.

This brings in one of Losurdo’s favorite hobbyhorses: his thesis that the Marxist doctrine of the withering away of the state has had disastrous consequences for efforts to realize communism. He made this argument again and again throughout his œuvre, at times even arguing that the doctrine betrayed a harmful anarchist origin.80 Whereas Marx, Engels, and Lenin had predicted the eventual disappearance of state power, Losurdo believed that this millenarian forecast stood in need of revision (...) ” In contrast to this more positive attitude toward the state, Western Marxists seized on the most utopian elements of Marxism, “accentuat[ing] the messianic tendency in Marx and Engels.” Eastern Marxists were compelled to take the reins of power, and thus were not afraid to get their hands dirty. Lenin purportedly moved away from the fantasy of the withering away of the state in practice, according to Losurdo, even if he never officially renounced it in theory.
(...)
Needless to say, Losurdo diverged sharply from what Marx, Engels, and Lenin had to say on each score (...) His readings are so tendentious as to strain credulity, and must thus be compared with the source material to gauge the accuracy of his accusations."

https://newintermag.com/against-losurdo/

#Marxism #Stalinism #Philosophy #Capitalism #State #StateCapitalism #WesternMarxism

"If we want to be serious about fighting the intellectual world war, then, we need to build more power collectively. And we need institutional power..."
#westernmarxism #marxism #anticolonial #communism #anti-imperialism

https://youtu.be/ciINv0GlDkU