Dialectical and Historical Materalism - J. Stalin (1938)
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@AdonaiLukather It's interesting that Stalin was a seminarian when he was younger, and that while he was in charge the amount of churches grew from something like 500 to 22000 (still about half the number of before). Hawkeye alludes to it there but Stalin stopped many of these purges himself, because he was opposed to them and they were used by opportunists. The way we conceive of his power is not in line with the way the USSR actually functioned, it was less centralized than we might imagine. When '''the great purge''' happened the very first thing he did was condemn the actions of opportunists.
Ray's quote wasn't intended to amalgamate the organized forms of Christianity with Marxism-Leninism, just to show Ray's opinion of marxism as a science, he only happened to mention Christianity there, to accurately represent how Marx's ideas developed and to show that this is a science that can be used in different ways. Yet it establishes a great point; that this method, because it's based in reality, exists whether your ideology forbids it or not. I find the fact that these churches would condemn it a great feather in its cap, since they were the ones hoarding land and wealth. Of course the benefactors of this continuous robbery would be very much against the rise of the proletariat. They owned son much land, and collaborated with the Czar, and continue to uphold this violent, thieving regime to this day, going as far as to make a saint of the man.
The Church was HATED by its most religious members in Russia, long before the Revolution, because they got big and fat off the money and land they got from the state.
The Soviets tried to correct this, took the land only amidst famines, and this is what earns them the status of being this vicious regime towards believers, when there is not a single religious capitalist state in existence! They were just as atheist as let's say the US in their state system.As long as churches act as collaborators with these regimes, they will meet the same fate when faced with revolutions, that much is sure. It's interesting that the clergy under Stalin is seen as collaborators when they were forced to focus on the faith and its members rather than on collaborating with the Czar for wealth and land. The latter is seen, especially by many orthodox converts in the west, as righteous Christian behavior somehow, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where by getting fat off the backs of aiding feudalism and capitalism, you cause the Church to become the main target for any righteous revolutionaries. The Orthodox Church you have in mind is not the one that existed before the Revolution, or it was but only in its hermits and monks and philosophers, and it's no the one that is gleefully getting back its land from the current Vlasovite regime in Russia.
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@Juri FIFTY SIX GIANT TOMES LENIN WROTE. Stalin read more in a MONTH than you will in your whole life. You're a moron. I know Russian as a second (well, fifth) language, so please refrain from posting your little retard links for Yanks
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Weimar germany transformation into the 3rd reich is clearly a failed capitalist state transforming into something socialism-esque - which was the trend worldwide. It fizzled out because probably socialism - in marxian terms - didn't have the material conditions to sustain itself.
What I don't get is why the german regime seems anti-marxian for the marxists. Something to be a marxian socialism DOESNT need to ear the cloak of socialism explicitly, and might even be OVERTLY ANTI-MARXIST. doesn't change the fact that it is a part of Marxian dynamics as presented.
Why is this so hard to admit to marxists.
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@Juri Stalin The premise of that book is so horribly retarded, but I commend you on being able to read an entire book at least, even if it's written by a complete charlatan. Is it all a great conspiracy that files hidden for years now show that Stalin explicitly begged France and the UK to attack Hitler together, an offer which they rejected? Is that all made up?
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@OrpingtonClose "What I don't get is why the german regime seems anti-marxian for the marxists."
If we start talking about all the things you don't get in this thread it's gonna cause issues with the server load
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Marx's discovered dialectical materialism, which is slightly different from materialism though that's not important right now.
It's an inverted Hegelian dialectic that applied German idealism to matter, assuming that, contrary to the Aristotelian or Platonic ideal of matter, to generate new forms of matter you'd need a violent reaction between two (or more) forces.
When applied to society, Marx observed that all revolutions involved two dominant social classes. In the case of the French revolution, it was the capitalists rebelling against the aristocrats. In this context, the former were "Marxist" because they understood the dialectical problem the current status quo imposed on them.
One of the issues with Marx is that after the 20th century, he was never considered a philosopher. Every critique or praise is in the context of an applied version of his philosophy in society. I personally disagree with this application since I'm in favor of the Hegelian dialectic but it'd be naive of me to deny Marx's philosophical vigor.
-BigusDickus
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@CO3 Having read the book I have several observations and questions:
- I can see how compatible the idea of a science of social development is with Peat's ideas and how one's spirituality is influenced by the environment.
- What did Peat think of Spengler, because his work at least in my eyes runs contrary to the idea poseted in the book about social and economic development.
- The idea that everything is continually in flux and leading to greater and greater complexities lines up with Peat's agreement with Process Theology. Whether or not he took this or was convinced of it separately I'm not sure.
- Wouldn't the people who lead technological developments be the Great Men of history leading the material dielectic?
- The idea that capitalism leads to over production always seemed bogus to me, I'm not sure it holds up today.
- The idea that all things are knowable is a messy one and one I haven't heard Peat repeat himself.
- Some ideas seem compatible with RW thought, most do not, especially the conception of slave owning and feudal societies.
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@AdonaiLukather It's very cool you read the book!
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I don't think Ray ever mentioned Spengler, and don't think he agreed with him on much, although @Pikeypilled has some threads on twitter pointing out some similarities in their thinking.
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In this work, as in most of his writings, Stalin is simply clarifying the ideas Lenin wrote about, and Lenin writes about his ideas of metaphysics (or the lack thereof) in a few works. Ray talks about it here:
*Danny Roddy: Well, that's good to know. Then, you told somebody somewhere that your idea was more like process theology. I've watched a few videos on that, but maybe you would replace God with consciousness. Is that right?
Ray Peat: Well, existence. I think Lenin gave a very good definition of matter. He said, "Everything we know is just memory and it's not matter. Everything we know comes from matter, and so matter is everything we don't know. Matter is possibility in the future." Nothing like the so-called materialists or religionists think of matter. Matter is nothing except what we can know and become.
Danny Roddy: I'm probably thinking about this too simplistically, but is that just the admission that we don't know that there is consciousness and memory, but it doesn't have to have ... The starting point is obscure?
Ray Peat: Yeah. You could make good guesses in all directions, but you can't work anything out in terms of forms, like that idea of Greek forms and atoms being number.
Danny Roddy: Is taking the leap to a specific creator not warranted?
Ray Peat: Yeah. If you have to leap, you're not there. The experience of, like Lenin said, that we have knowledge and experience, but where it comes from is always beyond what we know. It's always the future and potentiality. That means we're experiencing the nature of matter constantly. The present and the potential of our experience is what matter is. That's also the creative essence, which they call, "God," and put remotely somewhere else.
Danny Roddy: That's the idea behind process theology. It was this continual creation that things are in flux. Does that trend into the William James’ radical empiricism idea?
Ray Peat: Yep, yep.*
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They are important in the sense that they are a big factor in causing a change in material conditions. But the leaders of movements that want to overturn the order of things to best adapt to the material conditions, those are the Great Men in a larger, historical, sense.
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I think I've always implicitly believed it to some extent, Ray, Marx and Lenin put it into words for me. For things to be knowable, just means they are real, it doesn't mean it's practically possible to know them.
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"Right-wing thought" is almost like a contradiction in terms. That doesn't mean left-wingers are this great unified whole or anything, in fact most of them are simply well-fooled tools of the ruling class.
Many 'right wingers' nowadays have a revolutionary, rather than a reactionary outlook on certain issues, while most of the fake left is wholly reactionary to the point of fascism.
There is no 'real' right wing though I think, and this fact -that some right wingers are very much on the right side on certain issues- is exactly because no matter how far back you go or how deep you search, there is no well-defined political goal or ideaology. This is why wherever they go, whenever they could fascists would ape the names and symbols of communist parties. Goebbels had a defined policy of 'Mimicry'.
The true left in its essence is easy to corrupt precisely because the original Marxist goals are very clear; provide resistance to the scheme of the ruling class to totally control earth and destroy all those who oppose it.
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@CO3 said in Dialectical and Historical Materalism - J. Stalin (1938):
Danny Roddy: I'm probably thinking about this too simplistically, but is that just the admission that we don't know that there is consciousness and memory, but it doesn't have to have ... The starting point is obscure?
Ray Peat: Yeah. You could make good guesses in all directions, but you can't work anything out in terms of forms, like that idea of Greek forms and atoms being number.
Danny Roddy: Is taking the leap to a specific creator not warranted?
Ray Peat: Yeah. If you have to leap, you're not there. The experience of, like Lenin said, that we have knowledge and experience, but where it comes from is always beyond what we know. It's always the future and potentiality. That means we're experiencing the nature of matter constantly. The present and the potential of our experience is what matter is. That's also the creative essence, which they call, "God," and put remotely somewhere else.
what about Aquinas' five ways?
https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/100/st2.html -
@risk what about them?
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Z zawisza referenced this topic on
