#037 Revolutionary Strategy Series
This week we continue our reading of boss level Chapter 9: ’Republican Democracy’ and talk all about the need to ditch bureaucratic centralism.
Panelists:
C Derick Varn - Pop The Left / Symptomatic Redness
Kyle - General Intellect Unit
Lexi Dog Robot - Swampside Chats
Pouya - Machine Noise Expert
Sophie - Trans Trans Revolution
Comments (2)
Something I've struggled with in this series is the slipperiness with which people use the phrase "Soviet defencism." As I understand it, the term strictly speaking means "in the case of a hot war between the USSR and the US and its allies, you should (or should have) support the USSR." But in this series, people use the term to mean anywhere between that position and "Stalin did nothing wrong," depending on what suits them. I'm not saying this is being done deliberately, but there does seem to be a lack of clarity about what is precisely met. Like, Derick has fairly recently described himself as a "soft Soviet defencist": I don't really know what that means, and I'd be curious to know if anyone else holds whatever that position is. I'd just like to see some measured consideration of these issues beyond "lol can you believe that people defend mass killings under Stalin."
Who knows what the term means. Lots of these existing terms morph so much that now Socialism is capitalism and communism is dictatorship. I think you can safely predict that most people use the term today to mean I support what Stalin did.... I can't remember the exact discussion in this episode, since i edited it about 2 months ago, so forgive me if i am spouting rubbish :)