The BHOlshevik
July 1, 2010 7:08 PM
The world of Marxism is a confusing one, largely due to the fact that the hard-core "cadres" who advance the power grabs of the movement like to keep themselves as a moving target, often changing the names they use to describe themselves. Today I am introducing a glossary of terms that Marxist activists have used historically and currently :
- Marxist.
- Socialist.
- Communist.
- Marxist-Leninist.
- Bolshevik.
- Leftist.
- New Leftist.
- Progressive.
Marxist. Karl Marx himself has been quoted as saying, "But I am not a Marxist." There are many facets of the writer and activist Karl Marx: the sociologist, the communist, the author of the book on capital (the funding source of production) called Capital, or in German, Das Kapital. Beyond Karl Marx himself there are many varieties of Marxist, and the rest of this blogpost is dedicated to describing them.
Socialist. Although dictionaries define socialism as common or public ownership of the means of production, I find it convenient to consider a socialist to be a person who preaches the maxim, "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability." In this sense, any human family with a small baby finds itself behaving socialistically, each member, mother, father, and children, subordinating their own needs and desires to the need of the helpless, screaming infant. "Don't wake the baby" may be the first socialist slogan an older brother or sister hears, regardless of the political ideology of his parents. Because socialism in this sense derives from human nature and biology, socialism in a narrow sense will always be with us. That in no way implies that a nation must subordinate its citizens to the any screaming or whining moocher who stakes a claim on the productivity or prosperity of others.
Communist. Marx wrote that society, according to a belief in historical inevitability which he adapted from the German mystic philosopher Hegel, must pass through as stage of "socialism" before arriving at the utopian phase called "communism," where everything is owned in common and people always have whatever they need (not want, but need). Marx and his comrades established a party called the Communist Party based on this utopian fantasy. In Europe, many political parties use or used the same label, which has a negative connotation in the USA. The sharp Cold War epithet "commie" still has some impact on this side of the Atlantic.
Marxist-Leninist. When Lenin and his gang assumed control of the former Russian Empire and renamed the Soviet Union after the workers' councils (soviets) which purportedly monopolized all political power, the Marxist movement was modified to conform to Lenin's interpretation, which among most of today's Marxists call Marxism-Leninism. However, Lenin's faction had another name, shorter, and in my opinion, easier to remember:
Bolshevik. Lenin claimed to have majority support from members of the party he dominated at the time of the Russian Revolution, naming his faction the "majoritarians" or Bolsheviks. Although Bolshevik historically means essentially the same thing as "Marxist-Leninist," I prefer to call Bolsheviks Bolsheviks. The word is less likely to suffer the distortions inherent in "socialist," Marxist, etc. The implication of the word "Bolshevik" is that the ideas of both Marx and Lenin (as well as others) are clearly embodied in the ideology.
Leftists. American Bolsheviks, leery of calling themselves Communists or Marxists, tend to prefer describing themselves as "leftists," and pro-American talk show hosts and bloggers generally refer to them by that term too. Although I sometimes refer to "leftists" myself, I have two problems with the word. First of all, it it too vague, implying a range of opinion from a neo-conservative admirer of FDR to a ruthless mass killer like Mao or Pol Pot. Secondly, by implication, anyone who disagrees with leftists is labeled or self-labeled a "right-wing" ideologue, putting himself in the category where "leftist" historians placed Mussolini and racists like Hitler. The Founding Fathers were radicals, not right-wingers, and by the standards of the French National Assembly, on the left side of whose chamber sat the historic and original "Left," our Founding Fathers were far to the left of the French leftists in their advocacy of individual rights which were subordinated to the collectivist terror of the French Revolution.
New Leftists. As a result of the economic failure of Soviet socialism and the Cold War era western economic boom, Bolshevik theoreticians found it increasingly hard to defend their beliefs. The Bolshevik movement was reborn as the New Left, which appealed to youth and purported to be more democratic and humane than the "Old Left." Behavior condemned by the older Bolsheviks: drug abuse, hippie-style prankishness, and homosexuality, became acceptable and praiseworthy. Much of the ideological revision came from intellectuals at an academic institution in Frankfurt, which moved en masse to New York, where it called itself the New School of Social Research. The Bolshevism of the 1960's was rebranded as the New Left ideology, which had a powerful influence on the colleagues of Barack Hussein Obama, including William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In my opinion, however, beneath the "hip" trappings of the 60's New Leftist, hard-core Bolshevism and its goals were the beating heart of the movement. Obama's ruthless, hostile, and destructive treatment of the US economy, big businesses not in his pocket, the Gulf Coast, and supporters of the Founding Fathers bears this out.
Progressive. Since the late 1800's, the ideas of mystic, collectivist German philosophers who advocated a cult of self-sacrifice and worship of an all-powerful, paternalistic State, were adopted by US intellectuals, who passed them on to politicians like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Such intellectuals and politicians called themselves "Progressives," and their movement was well-described in a book called The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff. Some authors described the Progressives as socialists who don't use the term socialism. The Bolsheviks adopted (hijacked?) the Progressive title and today's Congressional Progressive Caucus is as Bolshevik as ever experienced in US Government. Its members scrupulously avoid calling themselves by a more accurate name, the Congressional Bolshevik Caucus.
BHOlshevik. Barack Hussein Obama is, on the surface at least, an enigmatic character. He hides his past, he asserts he is a centrist Christian advocate of a free market, and he even appears to ally with neo-Conservatives in his dealings with the Afghan Islamic militants. Lenin made no bones about being a Bolshevik. Obama, on the other hand, has created a persona which enables gullible fools and Democrat Party loyalists to pretend he is not a Bolshevik.
OK. I'll play along with the little game. Barack Hussein Obama is the world's first and only BHOlshevik President of the United States of America.
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