#Peak Lenin

[psychotrenny]

People who use "Bourgeois Decadence" in a moralist way are so fucking funny. Like when Lenin talked about "Decadence" it was in terms of material decline; falling economic performance and inability to meet people's needs. It has nothing to do with individualist moral degeneracy. To take an example from classical history there's a massive difference between "Roman Decadence" in terms of excessive concentration of private wealth amongst the highest levels of aristocracy, punishing tax burdens on what's left of the free peasantry and subsequent lack of money and manpower to maintain state apparatus VS "Roman Decadence" in terms of they had to much sex and free bread and so become too weak and effeminate to fight back against the hyper-masculine barbarian hordes.

Like it takes an incredibly idealist thought process to conflate these two very distinct uses of the word. Anyone who does so renders everything else they have to say suspicious at best and outright worthless at worst. Like this sort of idealist moralism embodies Bourgeois Ideology much more than whatever "decadent" behaviour they wish to criticise. It's peak revisionism

[celtigxr]

THE PINK DREAD - CH. 27 (Masterlist)

Chapter Summary: Jace and Valeana go for a horseback ride in the Godswood. What could possibly go wrong? Word Count: 4492 CHAPTER WARNINGS: menstruation blood, menstruation talk

Series tags: Aemond x Plus size!OfC, Aegon x Plus size!OfC, Celtigar!ofc, Plot with Smut, mdni 18+, Aemond End Game, Angst, Comedy, The Dragons Don't Dance, slow burn, friends to enemies to lovers, enemies to friends to lovers.

Credits: Lace Banner by Aquazero, pearl divider by Pommecita

Notes: Tryin' to to be upset over the fact that I didn't get as much reception from last week's chapter than I thought it was.... But's fine. I'm totally fine [says in a Ross voice]. lmao, but for real, thank you to those that did. Aside from Aemond motorboating dem tiddies, it was the first ~real~ smut scene that wasn't a dream sequence, so I hope it was enjoyable.

“You’re quiet,” Jace pointed out at last, now that they were sufficiently down the walking trail in the Godswood. 

“Sorry,” Valeana apologized, looking down at her hands as they clutched the reins. “Had a long night of fretful sleep.” 

Not a lie, but a half truth. The aftermath of her tryst with Aegon had left her more indecisive than she previously was. Outside of Aemond’s love affair with her breasts that night, what she had with Aegon was her first sexual experience. The first time she had seen male genitalia (that close, anyway, and on a grown man), the first time she had ever touched a man in any intimate capacity. Hells, she had never even kissed anyone, and yet she had a cock in her hand, twitching and hard until it painted her fingers with pearlescent seed. 

His member was intimidating at first glance, though she had no basis of comparison. Were all men of that size? He was heavy in her hand, her fingers just barely wrapped around the width of it. How is something like that supposed to fit anywhere in her body? Yet despite the intimidating size, it filled her with a primal need, something inborn in every living thing that needs to procreate. Had Valeana not started on her monthly bleed that very night, things might have progressed to a point of no return. Perhaps the Mother did that on purpose. 

Her face heated up, mostly from embarrassment. With her legs straddling his thigh, hips rutting into the rough fabric of his breeches, she had nearly forgotten about it. That was the closest thing to man touching her privy parts, and contact that wasn’t her own conscious fingers, was a new sensation entirely. The roughness assaulting her pearl, while at the same time being prodded internally by the twig of cotton she had inserted before bed. It had never occurred to Valeana that she was even allowed to be sexually aroused while she was bleeding, or if her body was even capable of it. But Aegon lit the match and it was immediately a forest fire.

 It was more intense than those moments she satisfied herself, but then again maybe it was the added stimuli. Unfortunately, she had not reached her peak that night. Her anxiety got the best of her, and she was concentrating too hard on Aegon’s pleasure than her own. When she reached her bedquarters, she desperately wanted to finish herself off, but she was forced to pull out the sopping wet cotton and replace it, effectively killing the mood. She had leaked right through it, decorating her lenin shorts in pink streaks of blood. Surely she bled on Aegon’s thigh as well, and that thought brought her immense dread. 

Her middle cramped, as if reacting to her musings. Valeana ran a hand over her stomach when Jace wasn’t looking, and tried to keep her face neutral.

“Sorry to hear that,” he glanced over at her, giving her a once over.

She was wearing riding clothes, the first time in weeks where she was in breeches. Her prosthetic was well hidden under the leather, and she was wearing a pair of tall riding boots that lace all the way above her knee. Her cream coloured tunic was tucked into her breeches, but she wore a long leather vest with a belt that fit snugly around her waist. 

Valeana raised an eyebrow at his staring, “Are you undressing me with your eyes, Jacaerys?”

He gave a short laugh, galled at her boldness. With a tinge of pink on his cheeks, he turned and took a glance at their shadow. Ser Steffon, riding an intimidating red stallion many yards away. He was too far away to hear a single word, but his eyes never strayed away from them. 

“No–” He fumbled with his words, then cleared his throat. “It’s just… I’ve never seen you in breeches. I’m surprised you’re riding astride. Don’t most young ladies prefer side saddle?”

“No one prefers side saddle, Jace,” she adjusted herself on the speckled white and grey mare, aptly named Snowflake. “It is uncomfortable, and easier to fall off if you do not keep balance.”

Jace nodded, “I suppose. But doesn’t riding astride… cause your maidenhead to break?” Valeana turned to him with a look of disbelief, and he quickly tried to save himself. “I only bring it up, because I’ve heard it can be painful–”

“Do not worry about my maidenhead, Jace,” Valeana shook her head, laughing despite herself. “I’ve been riding for years now; my gelding back home is a racing horse, and I take him jumping frequently. If it were to break, it would have happened already.” 

Shaking his head with a smile that betrayed his amusement, Jace conceded, “Fine. I shall not think about your maidenhead any longer.” 

Valeana raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if she should take the bait. A mischievous little smirk coiled across her face, “Until you have to.” 

Jace’s head whipped in her direction, which caused her to cackle. His expression was priceless; brown eyes wide, face a deep rouge, mouth agape.

“Val-Valeana!” His grin slowly widened at her gall.

“Sorry! Sorry, my Prince, I could not resist,” Val took in a deep breath to steady herself. She blamed Aegon for her sudden crassness. 

Jace peered at her, his grin pulling into his own fox-like smirk, “Is this your way of saying you wish to marry me, Valeana?” She scoffed at that, but he went on. “It is a rather churlish way to propose to me, but I am not against it.”

“Do not get ahead of yourself, Jacaerys,” she rolled her eyes. “I am merely pulling your leg.” 

He hummed, leaning his head back to shake out the curls from his eyes. Jace went pensive for a moment, the sound of hooves on dirt and birds chirping filled the gap. “I have been hearing a lot of things about you.”

Valeana gave a slow blink of irritation, not because of him, but because she is constantly being told a new addition to her reputation almost every day. It was getting tiresome. 

“Things that are not flattering,” he goes on, his lips in a pout. “Things that I do not think people will want for a future Queen of Westeros.”

She sent him a quick glare. Her teeth dug into her tongue. Like your mothers reputation? It was quite hypocritical if Rhaenyra rejected Valeana as a daughter-by-law due to an unsound reputation, given the one she obtained. One she got at an age younger than Val. 

“Rejecting me already, Jace?” She wasn’t entirely sure why she was so angry about it, it wasn’t like she was taking this courtship seriously. Jace complicated her life, even if he was in all actuality, the safest choice out of the three. Her mind briefly thought about what Daemon said the other night about her mother settling for her father.

“No,” he turned to her, his brows knitting a bit in concern over her sudden change of demeanor. “My family is no stranger to conjecture and rumour. My mother has been subjected to it her whole life. I just wish to hear your side of the story, so if it comes to it, I will be able to defend you and your honour.” 

His answer honestly surprised her. Her mouth popped open and shut like a fish, at a complete loss for words, “That’s… That is kind of you, Jace.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Only because the only impression I have of you isn’t a positive one.”

He shrugged, smiling a bit, “I am a man now.”

Valeana gave him a once over, “Oh, look at that. So you are.” 

The prince chuckled. His teeth ran over his bottom lip to contain it, so he could resume their more serious discussion. “So, tell me, what is true, and what isn’t?”

“That depends on what you’ve heard,” she sighed, idly stroking Snowflake’s mane. 

“You ran all over the castle in the dead of night, completely inebriated.”

She sucked in her lips; the word ‘guilty’ written across her forehead.

“Are you serious?”

“I was not alone,” she waved him off. “It was me, Lady Wylla and Lady Ellyn.”

“You got drunk with Cregan’s sister, and Lord Borros’ daughter?”

“They’re very good drinking companions.” 

Jace shook his head, though out of amusement, not disappointment. “Alright. How about a tryst with Aegon in a closet?”

Heat bloomed at her cheeks, “He was trying to flee my sister and pulled me into a closet as his captive. He was a nuisance, that is all. And because I know this will fill you with joy, I beat him with a broomstick afterwards.” 

Jace grins broadly, “You are right, that does fill me with joy.” He then clears his throat, “And your courtship with him… is that conjecture too, or…?

Images of Aegon’s cock in her palm flashed in her mind. 

“No,” she forced herself to say. “That… is true.” 

He stared at her, face full of incredulity, “I was hoping that to be untrue. Valeana, why on earth would you be courting Aegon, of all people? He has not changed, at all.”

“It is a long and complicated story,” she sighed, “One I am tired of explaining.” 

Jace was unconvinced, though. No matter the reasons, whether they were rational or not, he was determined to convince her otherwise. 

“You remember how Aemond was the only one amongst us that did not have a dragon?”

Valeana stared at him for a beat, “...Yes. And you lot teased him relentlessly for it.”

“Aegon the most, if you recall,” Jace briefly glanced at her before returning his eyes to the path. “One day during our training at the Pit, Aegon told him that he–we had a dragon for him. Luke brought forth a pig with wings strapped to his back, and they called it The Pink Dread. Later on, I heard from Aegon that Aemond tried to claim a dragon in the pit, and nearly got burned alive for it.” 

Her brow was furrowed as she digested what he told her, “He never told me about that.” Aemond rarely told her about any of the cruelties that his brother and nephews inflicted on him, but she was usually aware. A lot of the times it happened right in front of her, or she would spot it from a distance. But he’d never let her defend him, as much as she wanted to, as much as she tried. However, she felt that would have been something he would tell her about, given that he made an attempt at claiming a dragon.

“Probably because Aegon jested that you were his pig mount. Called you  Sowleana Pigletar,” Jace chanced a look at her, and regretted it when he did. Valeana was looking down, her face pulled into a full frown, and the creases in between her brows were deep. “Valeana, I had little part of it. I was not even aware of it until the day of.”

“But you were complicit,” She shot back, not bothering to look at him. Instead she gently spurred her horse so she was trotting forward to get ahead of him. It all made sense now: the oinking from Aegon and Lucerys, Aemond’s avoidance of her during the last weeks of their friendship. “You realize that had it not been for the three of you, Aemond would not have pushed me? You drove him into hating me.” 

“Valeana– you cannot blame others for what Aemond did to you,” he spurred his horse, trying to catch up with her. “He made the choice. He chose his pride over his friendship.” 

It was true, but she scoffed at it nonetheless, wanting to hear none of it. She spurred her horse more, but just so she could pull the reins and have the mare cut Jace off on the trail, forcing him to look at her. 

“You never answered my question at the ball. Would you be trying this hard if I was still fat?”

“Valeana, I–”

“You wouldn’t,” she answered for him. “You know you wouldn’t. You have no interest in who I am beyond my body – just like every other man. And the only reason you are trying is because you realize that pleasing your mother is now more worth it than it would have been if I still looked the way I did when we were children. But you now have obstacles that you did not think would be in your way. 

“Jace, we are simply not compatible. I do not wish to be with a man who only loves me with conditions, because he was told he has to by his mum.” 

They both stared at each other, she with challenge and pain in her eyes, and he with guilt and a crumbling resolve. Finally, with a taut jaw, Jace nodded, conceding to her words. 

“You are right. You are right… I do not want that for myself either.” 

Valeana nodded, then inhaled deeply to sigh, “I know you aren’t the same person, Jacaerys. And you must believe me when I say that neither is Aegon, as much as he appears to be.”

Jace nodded, despite the fact he was not willing to accept what she said was true. “Is he what you want? Is he going to love you without conditions?”

“I do not know,” she surprises herself by admitting the truth. “And… I don’t know what I want.”

A small smile crept on his face, “Aemond.”

“What?”

“You want Aemond. And he wants you… I’ve seen how he looks at you. All of the damn court sees how he looks at you.”

Biting her lip, she looks down at her fingers. She didn’t want to talk about Aemond, at least not with Jace. Another complicated matter that she didn’t even know how to explain to herself, let alone to others. 

“And what do you want, Jace?” She changes the direction of the conversation, pulling the reins of her horse to move back toward the trail, before Ser Steffon could catch up with them. “Mayhaps I can help point you in the right direction.” 

He considers her offer while resuming his trot alongside her, “My position makes it so that I do not have much of a choice. I have accepted my fate of simply being a piece on the chessboard, and I know that my future bride will have to be one that would benefit my mother’s side, should there be… contention after my grandfather’s death.” 

She eyed him as he talked. The impending possibility of a war of succession was a taboo topic amongst the courtiers. Everyone thought about it, but were afraid to bring it up. Valeana loathed the topic of war above all else, and tried to avoid thinking of the possibility. What she dreaded most was having to choose a side, when she was so hopefully in the middle. 

“I want peace. That’s really all I want… And–and,” His cheeks reddened a bit as he struggled to find his words. “There is only one who could ensure that will be the case. One woman in the entire Seven Kingdoms that is capable of helping me achieve that goal.” 

A slow smile crept on Valeana, instantly knowing exactly who he was referring to. “Have you talked to her since you arrived?”

“I tried to,” he admitted. “She is…”

“An enduring mystery,” She finished for him.

“Indeed.” 

“Have you thought about this for a while?”

“Since we were children…” He trailed off, suddenly bashful. “I’ve never thought she was strange, just simply… unique. Always thought that we would be betrothed; it made the most political sense, uniting our families. But the proposition was thwarted in a Small Council meeting… I had assumed that Alicent wanted her to wed Aegon. Yet that did not happen.” 

“It would be the King’s doing that they are not already,” Valeana added. “Though I fear that the Hand and the Queen will try to make it happen.” 

“Unless you choose Aegon,” Jace smirked jokingly. 

“Unless Helaena chooses you,” she mocked back, earning her a sheepish smile as he looked away. 

“You should talk to her, Jace. See if she is interested in a courtship… Because I agree with you. Alicent would not want to make a natural enemy out of her daughter, and Otto wants at least one of his grandchildren to be a king or queen. Helaena is smart enough to understand that.”

He nods, “I say she is the wisest of us all. The problem is approaching her… It is difficult to understand her mind, as much as I wish to.” 

Valeana thinks for a moment, tilting her head up to look up at the branches that blocked the sun. “Bring her milkweed.” 

Jace tilted his head at her like a confused puppy, “Bring her a weed?”

She nodded, “Milkweed. It is what Monarch butterflies use to lay their eggs, and their caterpillars will live upon a leaf until it is entirely devoured. Then they will cocoon themselves to be transformed. She will love it, especially if there are eggs already attached to it. And, I dare say she will understand the symbolism immediately. Monarch butterflies, Jace. It’s practically a proposal.”

He pouted his lips as he considered it, “Alright. I trust your wisdom… But I am going to need help identifying milkweed.” 

Val snorted, “Of course you do.” 

The rest of the walk fell into casual chatter. Along the way, Valeana pointed out the milkweed, even so much as getting off her horse and pointing out what the eggs looked like. When he asked how she knew, she just told them she actually paid attention to Helaena when talked about her insects. 

“Men need to listen to women more often; you’ll learn a thing or two.” 

After a while, they had made a lap around the forest, and were not far from the gate. Looking over her shoulder, Valeana could make out Ser Steffon, still a distance away, and has not dawdled too far. 

“That knight of yours has a stare that could burn down castles,” Jace remarked after looking over at the knight. He gave a tentative wave, but was not given a response back. 

“Yes, Ser Steffon is terrifying. Let’s outrun him.”

“What? Are you serious?” 

“We’re almost there, and I’m sure Snowflake would like to do something other than trot along a path. Isn’t that right, girl?” She gave the animal a pat on her neck, receiving a little snort in return. 

“Alright, but if he pulls a sword on me, I am hiding behind you.” 

“That’s fair,” she turns to look at Steffon, and even from a distance she can see that he’s starting to grow suspicious; they keep on looking over at him. “On the count of three… One…two…”

“Three!” Jace kicked his horse and darted off. Valeana shouted after him after doing the same. The two stared to speed along the train, hooves kicking up dirt and thumping loudly, causing birds to fly away. Ser Steffon did not take long to react though, and was soon cutting through the forest shouting for them to stop. 

“I’m going to beat you, princeling,” Val shouted as she galloped next to him. 

“We’ll see about that, Celtigar! Last one to the Heart Tree owes the winner two golden dragons!”

She guffawed, “You’re on!”

Valeana leaned forward, spurring her horse faster and getting ahead of him by a foot. Every once in a while, they had to duck and move around branches that would flick in their faces, or rocks that were in the way. Eventually, Val veered off course when the pathway got too narrow to have them both racing side by side. Steffon was also closing in behind them, yelling at his charge for not staying on the path. Too exhilarated to listen, Valeana continued her pursuit of victory. Despite the uneven terrain, she was able to get ahead of the two men, until a fallen tree blocked her way. Undeterred, she urged Snowflake forward and the mare took no hesitancy in leaping over the log. 

The jump was high, the leap was far, the motion made Valeana’s body lift in the air and fall squarely on the saddle. It was like a gut punch when her bottom landed on the hard back of the horse. She let out a loud groan, and immediately folded in on herself, hands grasping at her pelvis as Snowflake slowed down to a trot before stopping. 

“Lady Valeana!” Steffon raced over to her, followed by Jace. 

“Valeana!” The prince got to her side before the knight had. “Valeana? Are you alright?” 

As the dull ache started to subsided, she lifted her head to glare at Jace, “I’m fine.” 

“Lady Valeana, did you break anything? Should I fetch a maester?” The knight trotted to a stop on the other side of her horse, his hand reaching out to grasp her shoulder. 

“I broke… something,” Valeana sat up straighter, huffing away a strand of her hair that fell out of her braid. “But I am fine, Ser Steffon.”

The two men eyed her curiously. The younger glanced down to where Val’s hands balled in front of the apex of her thighs, and that was when he started to chuckle uncontrollably. 

“What did I tell you?”

She growled and glared at him, “Ser Steffon, Jace is making fun of me! Unhorse him!” 

Valeana was in desperate need of a bath and the moment she had returned to her family’s apartments, she demanded one to be made. Her thighs were sore, though not quite as much as her core, or her pride. She still can’t believe she broke her maidenhead while horseback riding. How incredibly cliche. And with Jacaerys as witness, no less! 

Her family’s wing was blessedly empty when Rosy prepared her bath. She stripped off her leathers one by one, starting with her boots, so she could free her left leg. All the while, she told Rosy of what happened, and the maid did everything in her power to conceal her amusement. 

The bath was infused with lavender oil, raspberry leaves, and dried chamomile flower buds. As predicted, her cotton plug was sopping wet once again, though she wagered it was from the fractured hymen. At least it would save her from a painful first-coupling, but she couldn’t help the feeling that she was worth less now. Afterall, it was drilled into the heads of all gently bred girls that their worth is determined by their virginity, and the proof of that was a piece of stretched skin tucked deep inside her.

And now that was gone. 

When Rosy left, Valeana submerged herself in the tub and sat in the water for a while. She did not know how long “a while” was, but when she surfaced, she was still alone, and the sun was lowered sufficiently enough for the sky to have an orange and purple ombre. 

Minutes later, after Rosy returned to help her out of the tub, Valeana stuffed herself with more cotton before redressing into a much more comfortable dress. A simple burgundy thing, with long sleeves and a belt loosely hanging at her hip. While she strapped in her leg again, Rosy plaited her wet hair after she wrung it free of any more water.

Once all cleaned and dressed, Valeana found herself far too exhausted to even leave the apartment. Instead, she trailed into her shared bedroom, closed the door, and slumped to the end of her bed before collapsing in it nose first. Grumbling in the covers, she moved around to make herself comfortable, resting on her cheek as she stared at the balcony doors…. That were slightly ajar.

Beyond the window she could spot something blue sitting on the stone bench that was situated in the center of the modestly sized balcony. Blinking and furrowing her brow, Valeana pushes herself to get out of her bed despite the protests of her exhausted limbs. As soon as she opened up the door, she instantly recognized the bouquet of blue and purple hydrangeas; the branches were tied with a piece of white lace. 

Val slowly approached it cautiously, as if it were a trap.

 And it was. 

“You take incredibly long baths.”

She jumped, yelped, and twirled around ready to give the fight of her life, but when she saw who it was, she growled, “Seven Hells, Aemond.” 

He hummed his laugh, the curve of his smile dimpling his cheeks, effectively melting her into the floor. Oh, what she would do to see that smile every hour of every day. Aemond was sitting on the balustrade railing, one leg hanging off the end, the other laying straight while he rested his back against the castle wall, away from the window’s view. When she took a step towards him, he pulled himself off and met her halfway with a few short strides. 

“How did you even get up here?” She cranes her neck to look up at him. 

His hands reached out to run it down the length of her thick, long braid, still damp but not enough to soak the fabric of her dress. “I climbed.” 

“You climbed?” Val looked over the railing, and then back at him, “Aemond, we are four stories above ground! You could have fallen.” 

“Heights do not frighten me,” he gave a shrug, still toying with her braid. “It was worth it… Though I could have used your hair to help me onto the balcony.” He gave the plait a playful tug, making her swat at his hand. He silently laughed again before moving his hands to cup her face and pull her close. Aemond then pressed his nose against the crown of her head and inhaled deeply. Like muscle memory, her arms grabbed onto his sides to fill the gap, laying her cheek on his chest while her arms circled his waist. 

“I’m sorry I did not come to you sooner,” he said while his hand smoothed down her hair, and rested his chin upon her head. Aemond’s arms caged her shoulders, enveloping her into his embrace with a sense of desperation. “I was detained at every corner.”

“It’s alright,” she spoke to his chest, inhaling his scent deeply, trying to wash her mind of her transgressions. Valeana suddenly felt incredibly guilty, now with Aemond in her arms. Part of her thought he was a dream, a trick of her mind, a delusion she came up with at the Ball in her inebriated state. But he was here, on her balcony, risking his life on a steep climb to give her a bouquet of hydrangeas. And here she was, willfully debauched by his brother… with a broken maidenhead, thanks to a horse. And Jacaerys.

“You’re here now,” she buried her face into his chest, trying to hide her shame. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT SNEAK PEAK

“Lord Borros visited me today, proposing a betrothal between you and his daughter, Lady Maris,” His father began, surprising Aemond little as he had suspected this topic would come up eventually .  Aemond’s tongue rolled around in his mouth, his eye not meeting the King’s. “What did you tell him?”

Notes: This one and the next may be a little on the short, but I promise you, it's worth it, and the next two chapters are heavy on Aemond. I honestly think the longest chapter I have so far is actually 29. So, couple of things: I'll be posting the cast list hopefully soon. There will be two, one of the main cast, and one of the side cast. Another is I decided that I'm going to wait until TPD is over before posting Aegon's spinoff, because of how much I've been dragging my feet with these chapters. I need to focus on catching up to my original 10+ chapters ahead I had before.

Tag: @queen-of-elves, @keylin1730, @anakilusmos, @weepingfashionwritingplaid, @sugutoad, @desireangel, @t0biasparabatai

( if you wish to be tagged for this story, just give me a reply! )

Please do not re post, redistribute or plagiarize my work. The only other place this story is posted on is ao3 under the same username.

[libertineangel]

A history & overview of communist groups in Britain

I've done so much reading into all the different splinter groups here, trying and failing to find one worth joining, that I might as well make all this accrued knowledge useful in case anyone wants to know what the situation is like (spoiler alert, it's a shitshow). I'll put it under a cut 'cause it'll probably get fairly long, and I'll tackle the Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist sides separately 'cause they split in about 1932 and have barely had any crossover since.

I will not be unduly neutral or polite in my assessments, because Mao would call that liberalism and also it's no fun, so get ready to roll your eyes a lot and understand exactly what made Monty Python do the People's Front of Judea bit.

The (ostensibly) Marxist-Leninist side

In 1920, several smaller Marxist groups merged to form the Communist Party of Great Britain, the official British section of the Third International, and immediately set to work arguing with itself about the viability of parliamentarism, eventually adopting Lenin's position on the temporary utility of reformist unions & parties, which led them to spend several years trying - and even succeeding in a couple of seats - a strategy of entryism into the Labour Party, which is a phrase we will all get tired of by the end of this post; when Labour then lost the general election in 1924 it blamed the Communists and banned all their members, which sounds awfully familiar.

The CPGB did gain a fair bit of support & swelled its membership during the general strike of 1926 though, albeit in a handful of specific areas and industries, and then lost most of them again during the Comintern's Third Period because the workers didn't want to abandon their existing trade unions in favour of revolutionary ones. Did a couple of decent things in the 30s, fought at Cable Street and raised a small battalion for the International Brigades; they went back & forth on their stance on WW2 in line with the Comintern, supported strikes, actually reached their peak membership (~60,000, still tiny compared to their European comrades) during the war because they were the loudest anti-racist, anti-colonial voice around who did do a fair bit to raise public awareness of Britain's horrific treatment of India.

In 1951 they issued a new programme, The British Road to Socialism, which is pathetic reformist bollocks that insists peaceful transition to socialism is possible and sensible, and five years later the Soviet suppression of the '56 uprisings caused a massive split that saw a good 30% or so leave the party, causing them to return to the good old tactic of trying to push Labour and the unions leftward.

Nothing material really came of that and the Party declined further with the Sino-Soviet split, after which a minority of pro-China members left to form the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which has since turned Hoxhaist (also surprisingly anti-immigration, and I'm fairly sure they're transphobic). Throughout the 70s they got increasingly Eurocommunist until even more revolutionaries got sick of them, and in 1977 another split saw the formation of the New Communist Party of Britain, which claims to still be anti-revisionist while also having spent the last 24 years insisting everyone vote for Labour (also from what I've heard they don't even email potential recruits back, so I doubt they'll survive beyond their current old membership, not that they'll be much loss because I don't believe they've ever actually done anything). Tensions between the Eurocommunist leadership and the Party membership continued to rise through the 80s until a final split in '88 produced the Communist Party of Britain, which is still extant today and still uses that silly electoral reformist programme from the 50s, and as an indicator of how that's going they earned 10,915 votes in the London Assembly elections this year, the third fewest of any candidate, less than half even of the fucking Christian People's Alliance (also their youth wing the YCL has marched alongside TERFs up in Scotland, they're the party that one author endorsed over Labour).

The CPGB finally folded in '91 and its leaders founded a series of steadily softer left think tanks, while other self-declared Leninists went on to form the Communist Party of Britain (Provisional Central Committee), which is so small and insignificant I can't even figure out when they actually started; nowadays they are, to quote someone off Reddit, "a small and almost entirely male group of Kautsky enthusiasts and leftist trainspotters with a knack for the fine art of unintentional self-parody, who regularly publish articles defending Marxism against the feminist menace."

Entirely separate from all that shit, in 1972 a group of students inspired by Hardial Baines formed the Hoxhaist Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), and honestly I don't really know much about them because nobody online seems to have any idea if they do anything and looking at their website burned my fucking eyes. There's also the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (yeah a different one), formed in 2004 when a bunch of people got expelled from infamous union leader Arthur Scargill's party; they are so rabidly transphobic it makes the CPB look welcoming.

Finally, there's the Revolutionary Communist Group, which surprisingly formed out of the Trotskyist International Socialists (which became the SWP, we'll get to that soon); they're not a formal Party because they don't think the revolutionary situation here is developed enough for one, but they are fairly active in protests and pickets. Unfortunately, back in 2017 they dragged their heels investigating a member's sexual assault and then let the perpetrator back in after a two-month suspension and apology letter.

The Trotskyist side, if you can stomach it after all that bollocks

Modern British Trotskyism descends entirely from the Revolutionary Communist Party of 1944, formed by the merger of two smaller groups at the request of the Fourth International. They split after three years over the viability of entryism into the Labour Party, with the majority correctly seeing it as bollocks. Unfortunately, the majority RCP did fuck all afterward and grew disillusioned enough with the leadership to throw their lot in with the minority breakaway known as The Club, who kicked them all out again and proceeded to never do anything of note whatsoever (they eventually changed their name to the Workers' Revolutionary Party and imploded in about nine different - equally irrelevant - directions in the 80s when founder Gerry Healy was expelled for having serially abused women in the party for decades).

Followers of notable RCP member Tony Cliff (formerly the 4I's leader in Palestine) joined him in his new Socialist Review Group, devoted to Trotskyism but breaking from orthodoxy in favour of Cliff's theory of state capitalism that's silly even by Trotskyist standards that I don't think even the party itself really adheres to anymore. They changed their name to International Socialists in 1962, tried to appeal for left unity and got roundly ignored by everyone except a small Trotskyist group called Workers' Fight, which joined the IS, swelled their own ranks, tried to challenge the leadership and got thrown out again; they still cling onto existence as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, whose existence I had completely forgotten until I saw a poster of theirs down my road and remembered I was in fact at the London Young Labour conference which banned them for refusing to properly investigate the repeated abuse of a teenage boy in their youth faction. The IS still tried to grow, but expelled what would become the aforementioned RCG in '72, expelled the faction that's now Workers Power in '74 (whom I have never heard of, which at least means I don't know of any awful shit they've done), tore themselves in half in '75 when Tony Cliff decided older workers were reformist and recruitment should focus on the youth, and in 1977 they renamed themselves the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP did do a few decent things, like form the Anti-Nazi League and organise Rock Against Racism, but to be honest those had a much bigger impact on the British punk scene than actual politics. Using charities and campaign groups to jump on bandwagons for shameless self-promotion is mostly what they're known for these days, along with making placards for any protest anywhere no matter how irrelevant they are to the party's platform; their membership and image among the left took a tremendous blow in 2014 after the Comrade Delta scandal, in which they were found to have covered up the National Secretary's repeated sexual abuse for years.

Followers of other notable RCP member Ted Grant joined him (after their expulsion from The Club) in his Revolutionary Socialist League, which believed in entryism into the Labour Party, and in 1965 it split with the 4I (because the 4I thought they were shit) to become Militant. They actually managed to take control of Labour's youth wing and successfully pushed the Party to commit to nationalising the country's major monopolies, but when Labour - on a platform of spending cuts and reformist liberal appeasement - lost the election to Thatcher in '79 they blamed it on the Communists and in December '82 they got blacklisted (which sounds awfully familiar). Took a while for that to sink in though, and Militant-affiliated members actually managed to take over Liverpool City Council through the mid-80s - they planned a massive amount of public works building, cancelling redundancies and other such things that sounded good but they really couldn't pay for, and tried to play bankruptcy chicken against Margaret Thatcher, which went as badly as you'd imagine and embarrassed them on the national stage (even if the people of Liverpool still supported them). Their last act was to help instigate the Poll Tax Riots in 1990, but that was one good deed to many for a Trotskyist group and they finally split in '91 - a majority decided they should finally sever ties with Labour and strike out on their own, while the minority insisted that entryism into the Labour Party really could net real national success if we just keep trying come on guys let's stay on the sinking ship history has taught us nothing!!!

The majority formed the Socialist Party, who have done nothing of note ever, and in 2013 they failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment within their ranks. In 2018 their international, the Committee for a Workers' International, experienced a split which it looks to me was over the old established leadership not getting with the times when it comes to women and LGBT+ people, and the majority went off to form the International Socialist Alternative, with the Socialist Alternative being its British branch; just last April the Irish section disaffiliated with the ISA because of its poor handling of abuse allegations against a leading member.

The minority stayed in Labour under the name Socialist Appeal, under the leadership of Ted Grant & Alan Woods, never really doing anything, and in 2021 Keir Starmer's left purge finally banned them, which was totally unrelated to their decision to finally strike out on their own this year as the Revolutionary Communist Party (yeah a different one). They're a money-grabbing newspaper-obsessed cult who've harboured abusers in five different countries, and to be honest I don't even see why they still exist now that they're no longer devoted to entryism considering that was the entire reason they split from the rest of Militant in the first place, they might as well reunify with the CWI or the ISA but far be it from me to expect insular Trotskyist control freaks to make sensible, practical political moves or to ever get the fuck over a split.

[roamingleaf]

"Picture Perfect"

Tw: Intox, R@pe, Mask, restraints,

Harassment was on the menu for this evening affair as she could feel her rosy tinted frame being carted off towards a grand white double door. Laying there on top of draping ivory lenin those legs of hers were fastened to their individual corners, leaving her legs slightly spread as to give a peak between those decadent softly sloping thighs. Terribly, our pesky, phased bunny had seemed to be too dazed and confused to truly fight back. There must have been something in those drinks during that Gallery showing tonight. How did such an angel end up in the midst of hell?

Nothing was supposed to ruin this night for Her. All week with vigor her tiny fingers typed back and forth with this lofting gentlemen she had met while out to brunch. Though she could not hear the sweet words being texted to her, her mind couldn't help but imagine the basey tones of his commanding voice speaking fluently through each response. Hence why the poor bunny easily fell into that fox's dreaded clutches. Within a few days she was already standing in front of that familiar mirror against the pink painted walls of her room staring intently at the dress picked out for their evenings rendezvous. It was as if those searching hazel gems she hailed as eyes were checking that narrow, almost painted on cocktail Forrest green gown for any blemishes.

Fortunately for our adoring, excited, giddy bunny, the dress greatly showcased her like the marble, sculpted, magnum opus she had always been. Before anymore confusing landmines could be set off in that fragile head of hers, that calling gentlemen was beckoning at the door. As if a great race had been set off that sweet bunny raced towards that barricade to swiftly answer his call. With soft pleasantries they exchanged a hug that well groomed gentlemen hand met her dainty wrist with a glowing, miniature, orchid, corsage.

"This'll only compliment your beauty." That suave make-believer softly proclaimed as his thumb brushed against the top of her hand as he pulled his away. Who was this dude? Was he even real? Similar questions would circle through her head, though, it never allowed her to untangle his spiderweb.

With those few words exchanged they headed towards his car to make haste into the night. As they pulled up to a refined, dusk shimmered Palace of a museum her eyes were stunned by the line wrapped around the corner. Though, he didn't seem bothered by it in the least bit. Turning into the garage, and that line of folks disappearing behind that closing door he parked into a spot that confidently had his name stained across the steel sign. Exiting, they both made their way towards a well lit door that led to stairs.

Once their final door had given way it revealed a chittering room of equally well dressed couples. Statues, paintings, and all sorts of art now started to flood her view from left to right. Feeling a little overwhelmed by the sudden mass of people, lights, and cacophony of chattering, our bunny grasped to her towering ticket's arm for safety. Happily he would do her one better, slipping that same arm around her waist hastily to pull her into the security of his personal bubble. From there, she could feel the warmth of his chiseled chest, while the smell of his cologne started to become so alluringly intoxicating to that wandering bunny.

Under his watchful guidance she was funneled white wine, which at first she humbly tried to decline, but, knowing one could hurt she gave into his whim and started to sip his sweet nectar. One, turned into two, which turned into three. Before she knew it that cloudy dome was becoming too full of crystal Pinot grigio. That was when the night turned from a dream princesses would have, to a nightmare fashioned by the darkest of desires.

When did her eyes become heavy? So heavy that they shut for longer than a blink should. And finally, when they finally opened them, her meek, slender, bared body was being presented to a table of gentlemen all wearing the same Fox mask. Yet, somehow through her dazing fields that tenacious man's fragrance was well known to her. Oddly, he would raise once she had been set table side. From his lofty perch above her two of his fingers would walk along that exposed canvas as numerous eyes scanned her body, as she did so long ago.

"Gentlemen" said that thunderous fox. Those words gave way to her pillowy, delicate, shapely thighs being pulled apart in front of the eyes of those hungry crowds. The only response that could be heard was a choir of unzipping. Tonight, this precious portrait would be studied carefully by numerous artisans.

-🪶

[ha-bakbuk]

Ellerimle büyüttüğüm Solar iken dirilttiğim Çiçeğimi kopardın sen Ellere verdin

Dağlar dağlar Kurban olam yol ver geçem Sevdiğimi son bir olsun Yakından görem

Kuşlar ötmez güller soldu Yüce dağlar duman oldu Belli ki gittiğin yerden Kara haber var

Daglar daglar :))

#leninpeak #climbing #mountaineering #mountains #summit #7000m (at Lenin Peak) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgHvRn8tj_W/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[darlinggeorgiedear]

Why do people who like george and mary dont like to accept that they refused asylum to the romanovs lol. Tsar Nicholas II was a bad leader to his country and he refused to step down which i would understand why he would get killed but his children were innocent. I watched the infamous s5 episode 6 of the crown out of curiosity and it was incredibly inaccurate except for the scene where the OTMA sisters were shot dead and this was incredibly hard to watch. Why do people think they dramatized the sister’s death when this particular scene is the most accurate in the entire episode. Monarchists or not, the romanov sisters were innocent.

They probably focused on OTMA death to illustrate loss of innocence. So sad!! I wish they would stop recreating their death. Also, the Crown capitalizes on sensationalism so their portrayal of the execution is not surprising at all.

There are many layers to why Nicholas and his family never left Russia and George is just a small chapter. I don't think George betrayed Nicholas, and if he would have known what was going to happen to them he would have acted differently. (even though I am not sure if George really could have saved them even with peak effort). If George was guilty of anything concerning the Romanov's, it was bad judgment, yet majority of those involved were equally ignorant.

I am not denying that George thought it was not a good idea to have the Romanov brought to England during the end of WWI because of public opinion. I just don't think that was the Romanov's only option, so doesn't fully explain why they died. I also know that George was a good man (like Nicholas) and was not a coward. On multiple occasions, George was not afraid to stand up in a morally wrong situation, which makes me believe him when he claims to have been equally blindsided by the whole situation.

Also, Mary was Consort and did not have say in any of this. George had a minor part, but Mary had no part! There is a letter where she wrote that she was worried about them, but didn't want to bring it up to George because she knew there was nothing they could do at that point (1918). Also, Mary did try to appeal to the Vatican (with Alfanso) to acknowledge the Romanov's as asylum seekers according to Alexandra Churchill who wrote the book "In the Eye of the Storm" about George.

I think it might seem that some are in denial when refuting that George "denied the family asylum", yet I would argue those that blame George for their deaths are jumping to conclusions (When George argued that the Romanov should not come to England because of public opinion, Lenin wasn't even in power, instead it was Kerensky who vowed not to hurt the family. The main problem in 1917 was moving the family away from radical St. Petersburg). There is so little information on this subject, yet a lot of folklore, so I think people on both sides are really grasping at straws.

[methed-up-marxist]

‘Imperialism’, in Marxist terms, has a specific definition. It is an economic definition that explains how capitalism came to dominate the world and how it continues to survive. It’s an explanation that implicates the ruling-classes of every nation great and small. Frustratingly for us, the term ‘imperialism’ has been tampered with and obscured until it means something else entirely to most of society. When Lenin wrote Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism in 1916,(1) he was responding to the misuse of the term by the so-called socialists of the Second International. In this case, socialists, of whom Kautsky is the most famous example, had lost their Marxist minds and instead put their trust in the state and reformism. When the First World War was on the horizon, they performed various opportunist backflips to invent a definition of imperialism that justified supporting their own nation’s war efforts. In fact, throughout Lenin’s critique, we see that the capitalist defenders of imperialism, those who cherished the destruction of the world, put forward better understandings of imperialism than the misguided socialists.

Today, we have even more problems, not least since Stalin’s distortion of numerous terms.(2) In fact, perhaps the only word that’s been distorted more than imperialism is communism itself. Now, the word ‘imperialism’ is found on every ‘communist’ poster. Where the second-internationalists redefined imperialism to defend their own Western countries, leftists influenced by Stalinist and Trotskyist distortions redefine imperialism to defend any enemy of the West. Gaddafi, Hussein, Chavez, and most recently Sinwar, all become noble anti-imperialist fighters. Then again, Ukraine reminded us that plenty of ordinary liberals are happy to use the term too, now applied to Russia – again, to support one warmonger against another.

In short, imperialism is not simply a policy that one country takes against another.

We cannot talk of imperialism without talking of capitalism. Capitalism, in theory, we are taught, is defined by its free market, free competition between the individual owners of manufacturing businesses. In Europe in the 1860s, this form of capitalism was at its peak, with industrialisation having been completed. The crash that followed in 1873 saw the growing emergence of cartels – businesses joining together to take out the competition. During a short boom in 1889, more and more businesses were taking to joining cartels, and throughout the 1890s the cartel system became an established and durable business form – mostly in the trade of raw materials. By the next economic crash of 1900-1903, cartels seemed like the solution for the capitalists, and free competition, the problem. Ownership of the means of production was now well on the way to being concentrated in the hands of a shrinking minority. In another word, monopoly. Monopolies, formed by the initial alliances of a few businesses, were in the position to bully, blackmail and eradicate smaller businesses. The owners of these conglomerates have no particular knowledge of industry but know how to accumulate and invest wealth. We call these financial speculators.

While the means of production were being concentrated, so the banks were too, and their purpose changed in the process. Originally, the bank was an intermediary through which capitalists made payments. As with the cartels, the small banks became absorbed or eliminated by growing banking alliances, alliances which eventually could take total control over the capitalist business owners, and essentially run capitalism. Then finally, the biggest banks and the biggest businesses came to operate together, and this monopolist system was completed by the union of the banks, the businesses, and the state. In Lenin’s words, “a sort of division of labour amongst some hundreds of kings of finance who reign over modern capitalist society���. Total control of the economy was no longer in the hands of the owners of industry, but in the hands of speculators and bankers; the vast separation between money capital and productive capital, this is finance capital at its most powerful. The country that produces the most is no longer the most powerful – but the country that owns the most. There we have what we would call superpowers, a tiny minority of countries running capitalism through financial domination.

At a certain point, the capitalist drive for expansion leads capitalists beyond their own homelands in search of greater profit. They start to export capital to less economically developed countries, investing in industry abroad, handing out loans, and ultimately forcing a monopolist model of capitalism onto the entire world. The entire world then is divided among a minority of highly developed capitalist countries. No stone is left unturned – where a profit can be made, it is made – without any regard to human life or ecological health. And once again, alliances are formed between the capitalists of different countries, among the state and among the owners of capital, to eliminate the competition from other countries. It is easy to see, without much explanation at all, how such a system arrives at international rivalries, and at times of crisis, war. This has not changed today. The political independence of countries is never 'true' independence as their economies and militaries rely on backing from a superpower, or indeed are caught between rival superpowers. We might call these states proxy or client states. In this situation, no economic rivalry, no war, no coup, exists outside of capitalist world domination – outside of imperialism.

Imperialism then is a phase of capitalism, not just the foreign policy of individual states. Lenin provides five essential features:

1) The concentration of production and capital developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life. 2) The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ‘finance capital’ of a ‘financial oligarchy’. 3) The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities. 4) The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves. 5) The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capitalist powers is completed.

[the-queerview]

The Substance

2024

by Coralie Fargeat

My dear readers, it's been a while since I decided to post. It was a long summer, ending with me visiting North Korea, just kidding, i just saw North Korea, which is already pretty amazing and frightening. Unfortunately my experience was disrupted, since a few week before my arrival some American tourist ran into North Korea and got shot, rest in peace idiot. They say never judge a deceased and in retrospective, i can't since those tours are literally disneyland trader joes tourist traps kind of, but lets not roast on peoples buisnisess here, lets roast the films, that take us on rides in our grey existence.

I would like to start by saying, that it's a pretty good year for babes and a pretty good year for horror film. We had Brat summer and soon there will be Nosferatu Autumn, with Lily Rose Depp starring in Nosferatu (102 years after its first release). We have Hunter Schaefers first cinema film, where she is not there for like 5 minutes like in Hunger games or entirely Naked for a few minutes like in Lanthimos kinds of kindness. Not to hate on nudity here, but we have a quite problematic history with women* and nudity. I highly recommend here Linda Nochlins representing women, on womens representation within western art history paintings, which is till todays core a major influence on cinematography. Which brings me to start today with a Portrait by Gericault, titled : Monomaniac of Envy (Monomane de l’envie) from 1822.

The Substance is a film following Elisabeth Sparkle ( Demi Moore), a former Oscar winner now aging TV -Starr with an aerobic ( I assume) show. (We might be remembered here of Jane Fonda, who indeed was an actress and the figure for aerobic in the 80s, when american propaganda preached they can't control the world in post vietnam war america and they only thing they can control is the BODY.) Elisabeths nasty boss is firing here for being to old, sad and isolated as she is, we don't learn so much, about her inner world. They cinematograpghy is resembling a distant, almost, stretched, lets say overdrawn perspective, probably similar to the characters inner world. Everything is clean, but not personal. Theres a giant photograph of Elisabeth in her almost comic looking loft. It reminds me somehow of older sowiet films, where a picture of Lenin would hang on the walls or some shit, so I thought, damn, the main dictator in Elisabeths Life is probably herself. And turns out right. Long story short, I try not to spoiler the grande scenes here, but one word, the billboard scene.. Elisabeth gets in contact to an anonymous note by an anonymous person, after some tragedy, and orders the SUBSTANCE. She will pick it up, inject it, and after some alien shit, which you see in the first picture, a second version of herself, that is herself will crawl literally out of her back. This version is young, hot, and will fuck Elisabeth up. Her name is Sue ( Margaret Qualley) and the rule is, that Sue got 7 days, and Elisabeth got 7. If one breaks the rule, they basically both fucked.

So the movie itself, is literally like, when popstars get the chance, like i dont know, rihanna doing superbowl singing all her bangers. kind of this vibe, So for horror film nerds, and i m sure i didnt guessed all but we have of course, david lynchs twin peaks and pretty sure wild at heart. we have suspiria by dario argento, especially the soundtrakc and BLOOD, we have some cronenberg body horror, and crazy camera like in gaspard noes enter the void, but all in all, i guess, what i was missing in the film, is that the first half was literally fucking amazing. it had it's own signature, it didn't need the references from my part, like yeah those dude directors did important work, i wish Fargeat would trust herself maybe more, that what shes doing is the right thing to go for. Also I literally loved ALL THE DETAILS. Like i could start analyzing so many bits of it.

I loved, that it was dealing with Envy, fear or aging, MISOGYNY, and comparison in such a smart way. The first half of the film, felt like an entire advertisment, which is the core to all evil, as we know. We literally spent actually years of our lifes watching advertisments.

The second half of it, reminded me to much of 80s body horror, it had its campy moment. And here I m being unfair probably. I did my research and Coralie Fargeat is born 1976. She was a a child in the 80s, and this was a time, that formed her culturally and therefor aesthetaically to a certain degree... or did you never noticed that fashion designers usually end up designing clothes, that they loved to wear as kids/teens? I feel like, if Coralie Fargeat felt like working in this 80s rubber stuff was important for, fuck , let her do it. Also in the 80s there weren't many female filmmakers around, especially not in the dudy dude horror scene. So whatever.

Also I was tbh in shock about the violence. Like many times, my partner had to close my eyes in the cinema, cuz i was hella scared of the intense violence. Maybe Kira Muratova ( an amazing ukranian filmmaker, that I truly adore for insane films) was right, when she said, women make harder films. I wonder if it has something to do with being in pain every month, of the injustice of the binary patriarchal world, or the violence transwomen experience?

There was for sure a very insanity level of violence, but at the same time, the most stunning portrayal of envy against a version of yourself, that you might never see. I loved that it also reflected so much the world in a sense, the decadence of the west, hollywood, glamour, age, ozempic, comparison, starving for youth vs the isolation of those from the current wars in the middle east, the starvation in Sudan. The proatogists were isolated in every scene almost. The Bathroom was the scenery of the crime, similar to the way we use this room to get ready for the outer world. The only real personal details in the film I experienced in the notes, those handwritten notes, that would always appear. I kept thinking about them for days. They became almost a metaphor for me, that different then then all the advertisments, the substance delivery typography, all those for Elisabeth Sparcle seemingly important objects, where not personal, thou its about her,about her body. while those handwritten notes by the strangers, seemed more personal, then the things that surround her, since trough the handwriting they are proof of a human life. Turns out, they were a signifer of what is missing in her world, the way she experience having the body, its no intimate, not adressed.

Also Demi and Margaret were so fucking amazing, i 'm literally blown away. Like i WISH i could like scream and hug them and be like. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. I bet all their friends and family are proud like crazy. This shit was insane, playing that? Insane. They did so good, like not many ppl can read a script like that and be like...mhhh yup. So GRANDEUR APPLAUSE !!!!!!!

All in all I highly recommend checking out the Substance, I m sorry if I spoilered to much. Big trigger warning for violence, also some scenes are literally gross, depending on you, bring a friend or a lover, and watch it in the cinema, if your socio cultural situation allows you to, i can imagine this film being censored, otherwise just be illegal literally. Like we live in hell.

but dont watch it alone, only if you are freaky deaky i guess.

love to my readers.

the queerview

ps: Also I did watch blink twice by Zoë Kravitz. a queerview will follow, but its so hardcore to watch blink twice and p.diddies freak party assault stuff. mentally i cant go down that road, but Kravitz did literally on time...

[amrass]

Get to know me Tag Game! Thanks for the tag @elecctromechanika 💙

Last Song Played: Rules by Doja Cat

Favorite color: Charcoal gray

Favorite food: Potato pizza

Current fave characters: Micah (RDR2), Reinhold (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Shin & Noi (Dorohedoro)

Currently watching: Berlin Alexanderplatz, Mejoo & Cats (for 5+ years lol), Severance, Twin Peaks

Last movie watched: Goodbye Lenin (History was interesting, the story not, and I dislike 00s filming trends)

Current obsession: My horror film watchlist for October, weight lifting, the book Tristram Shandy

Last thing googled: "Tristian Shandy" because I've somehow misread the title until now …

No pressure tags: @meow-meows-of-the-desert @the--end-is--nigh @dell-delta

[argyrocratie]

i was thinking about how a marxist can make a difference between dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (liberal democracy) and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (litteral dictatorship) and then ask myself if some do the same for dictatorship of the proletariat

like reconizing at lest some of the so call "actually existing socialist" state as indeed a dictatorship of the proletariat but deploring them as being the litteral dictatorship kind

i guess a number of trotskist sort of fit with the degenerate worker state position

-

anyways the original though came into being because i was imagining a self describe marxist-leninist that considered lenin to have peaked at state and revolution and then fell into revisionism and opportunism afterward as an head of state

[adarkrainbow]

The Yaga journal: Baba Yaga in Soviet movies

And we reach the final article I will translate from the “Yaga journal”: Baba Yaga sur l’écran soviétique (Baba Yaga on the Soviet screen), by Masha Shpolberg! 

In 1979, the Soviet studio Soïuzmultfilm produced a three-part cartoon for the Olympic Games that had to happen the following year. The first episode opens with a choir of journalists proclaiming in all the languages of earth: “Micha the bear-cub was just elected Olympic mascot of Moscow”. Baba Yaga listens to this in her cabin, and becomes enraged: “Why him? Why him and not me?”. “Everybody agrees to it!” the journalists say. “And Baba Yaga is against it!” she says, before attacking the television screen with her broom. Throughout these three short episodes, the “Baba Yaga is against it!” cartoon tells the various attempts (and failures) of Baba Yaga and her assistants (Zmeï Gorynytch and Kachtcheï the Immortal) to prevent Micha from reaching the games. The plot relies on the omnipresence of Baba Yaga in the Soviet imagination, and her importance as a symbol of folk-culture. However Baba Yaga did not always have such a status. The witch and her tales were banned by the Soviet Union soon after its creation. Starting in 1918, the year of the creation of the komsomol or “union of Leninist-communist youth”, the Soviet Party reorgaized the educational system: it was decided that fairytales had no place in education. Its rural and pagan roots were problematic for a State which wanted to create an industralized and rationalized world. Galina Kabakova explained that on one side, the fairytale did not carry the values of the new society, and on the other the marvelous and fantastical was considered toxic for the minds of the youth that were to build socialism.

The persecution of the fairytale knew its peak in 1924, when Nadejda Krupskaïa , the companion of Lenine and the president of the Glavpolitprosvet, the Central Comity in charge of Political Education, demanded that all public libraries got rid of the books “with a negative emotional or ideological influence”, as well as the books that “did not conform the new pedagogic approach”. This included the fairytale books of Afanasiev. As the cultural historian Felix J. Oinas explains, in the beginning of the 20s several Soviet critics argued that the folklore was carrying the ideology of the dominant classes, which in turn led the proletarian literary organizations to receive very negatively folktales and fairy tales. A special section of the Proletkult for children even attacked fairy tales based on their “glorification of the tsars and tsarevitchs”, claiming that they were “reinforcing bourgeois ideals” and “causing unhealthy fantasies” in children. When the fairytale re-appeared in the middle of the 30s, it was because the Soviet political culture had decided to re-appropriate the Russian folklore for itself. Just like the Romantic nationalists of the pre-Revolutionnary era, this ideological turn aimed at melting the personal identity in a vaster, collective identity. And what was the best medium to do it? Cinema. Alexander Prokhorov, in his “Brief history of the Soviet cinema for children and teenagers”, explained that the cultural administrators of Staline changed their view on folk-culture, and the fairy tale became a legitimate cinema genre since it helped visualize the spirit of the miraculous reality proclaimed by the Stalinian culture. The end of the NEP, in 1928, also put an end to the importation of foreign movies, freeing the Soviet cinema from all competition - and of all commercial goals. 

In 1934, during the first congress of Soviet writers, Samouil Marchak and Maxime Gorki insisted on the importance of childhood literature for the creation of a new Sovietic man, and in 1936 the Sovnarkom, the highest governemental authority, established two new studios out of the ancient Mejrabpomfilm: Soïuzdetfilm, for children movies, and Soïuzmutfilm, for cartoons. It is in this political and institutional context that the young moviemaker Alexandre Ro’ou (in English his name is spelled “Rou”) decided that, for his first film in 1937, he was to adapt a very famous fable, “Wish upon a Pike”. The success of this movie allowed here to adapt a fairytale, more complex on an ideological level: Vassilissa the Beautiful, in 1939. Through this movie he became the “founding father” of the genre of the cinematographic fairytale. It is in this movie that Baba Yaga made her first appearance in cinema, played by a man - Guéorgui Milliar. Throughout the next thirty years, Milliar would play Baba Yaga in three other movies of Ro’ou: in Morozko (1964), in “Fire, Water and Brass Pipes” (1968) and in “The Golden Horns” (1972).

In this article, the author will analyze the evolution of the character of Baba Yaga throughout these four movies - based on the social and political context. While always created by the same movie-maker, and played by the same actor, Baba Yaga is never the same character in these movies. Throughout the years she is slowly “domesticated”: from a macabre and intimidating force of nature, she becomes a vain hag, more superfical than wicked, from a relic of the past, she becomes a modern mascot. By analyzing the narrative and aesthetic choices causing this transformation, the author wants to analyze the allegories of each movie in their historical context. 

I) Baba Yaga in the Stalinian era: Vassilissa the Beautiful (1939)

Vassilissa the Beautiful, a movie adaptation of the story “The Princess-Frog”, was conceived as much as an entertainment as a teaching tool. In the version of Ro’ou, Vassilissa is not a princess and Ivanouchka is not an idiot. The two are rather hard-working, intelligent, honest people. The brothers of Ivanouchka oppose the duo by the women their find as wives: an excentric aristocrat, and a gluttonous merchant’s daughter. The entire first part of the movie presents an allegory of the fight of the social classes. The brothers and the wives do nothing while Ivanouchka goes hunting and Vassilissa does the chores, and then they pretend to have done the honest workers job. 

Baba Yaga only appears in the second half of the movie, when the wives burn the frog skin of Vassilissa, and the maiden is ravished by Zmeï Gorynytch. A title-card mentions “In the land of the Zmeï, Vassilissa the very beautiful was guarded by Baba Yaga”. Traditionally, the role of kidnapper in Russian fairytales is played by Kachtcheï the Immortal, who doesn’t appear in the movie - but the Zmeï here fills his role as “the rival of the male hero for the hand of the woman, usually a fiancée or a wife, sometimes his mother” and “the male counterpart of Baba Yaga”. So, as much in their home as in the magical land, Ivanouchka and Vassilissa must fight against oppressors that take away their goods and exploit their work. Jack Zipes noted that, according to the marxist reading of the fairytales, Baba Yaga symbolizes “the entire feodal system, where the greed and brutality of aristocracy are responsible for the hard living conditions. The murder of the witch is the symbol of the hatred felt by the peasants against this aristocracy, that hoards and oppresses.” However, in the Vassilissa movie of Ro’ou, Baba Yaga plays a more ambiguous role. Her skinny and nervous figure, the rags she wears, allows her to hide herself in nature. Her hunched back imitates the rocks, the way she spreads her arms and legs imitated tree branches. By fusing with the landscape, she can attack Ivanouchka without ever being seen by him. Often Ro’ou likes to superposition to allow Baba Yaga to appear and disappear suddenly. As a result she seems half-translucid in many scenes, suggesting that she is a force of nature - or even the personification of the forest. 

The “magical” part of the movie plays on the contrast between the domain of Baba Yaga (the forest) and the domain of the Zmeï (the mountain). The two realms are heavily inspired by the expressionist cinema of Germany (especially the sets of the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, in 1920), but couldn’t be further from each other. The world of the Yaga is the one of the dark forest, confusing and threatening, but deeply organic and human. The world of the Zmeï, however, is an industrialized, hyper-sanitized, geometrical world. A post-human world, or one devoid of humanity: a fascist world. Indeed, the historical context of the movie invites an allegorical reading: the Germano-Sovietic Pact was signed the 23rd of August 1939, and the movie was released the 13th of May 1940, one year before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in june 1941. At the time, while Germany wasn’t an official enemy (and it is hard to imagine that Ro’ou selected this tale with a political purpose in mind). But the movie is a proof of the tension that existed at the time about the entire situation. Baba Yaga, who keeps turning and roaming around Vassilissa, reminds of the painting of occidental paintings, “Death near the Maiden”. It isn’t just the virginity of Russia (aka, the integrity of its frontiers) that are threatened - it is her very life that is at play. 

Vassilissa, a girl who is obedient and modest when she is free, becomes proud and rebellious in captivity. She is a model of resistance that anounces the true female heroes of the Second World War in Russia, such as Zoïa Kosmodemianskaïa (made famous by the movie of Leo Arnchtam in 1944). Just like Zoïa, Vassilissa is ready to sacrifice herself for the good of others, and to follow her own principles. When Baba Yaga discovers the hat of Ivanouchka in her isba she aks Vassilissa “Where is he? You say nothing? If you say nothing, I will make you talk. Maybe fire will make you more talkative.” Vassilissa is only saved from torture by the arrival of Zmeï Gorynytch. 

The analogy between the monster and the foreign invader is reinforced by the third cinematographic fairytale of Ro’ou, Kachtcheï (Koschei). Filmed in the Altaï and the Tadjikistan in 1944, and released the day of the victory (9th May 1945), the movie tells “how Koschei the Immortal fell onto Russia like a thunder clap in a peaceful sky, burned out houses and our bread, massacred the population and took away thousands of women”. Even if the historical facts cannot allow us to read “Vassilissa” as a simple allegory of the war to come, the images still carry the possibility of an upcoming conflict. We can read it in the presentation of Vassilissa as a resistant-model, as much as in the glorification of the elements of folk-culture (aka, part of Russian culture). The movie is also preceeded by a prologue in which three bards introduce the tale by playing gousli (gusli), a traditional musical instrument. When Ivanouchka goes searching for Vassilissa, the text says “He wandered for a long time throughout his native earth” - even the typography of the title-cards reminds the medieval books. All these elements create throughout this movie a new “nationalist vocabulary”, and so unite a nation threatened by an external force. As Prokhorov explains, “The movies of Ro’ou, just like the kolkhoz musical comedies of Ivan Pyr’ev, were answered an official demand of art inspired by the narodnost (popular spirit/folk spirit)”, an art that “allowed the entire Soviet community to stay in touch with their popular spirit, as the metaphysical source of the communal strength”. The internationalism of the first years of the Soviet Union was slowly breaking down in front of this romantic and deeply essentialist view of the nation. 

II) Baba Yaga throughout the Thaw: Morozko (1964), Fire, Water and Brass Pipes (1968) and The Golden Horns (1972)

The period that followed the war was once again difficult for the fairytales, and all those that studied folk-culture. Félix Oinas explains: “After the war, the Russian folklorists knew another series of trials, perhaps the most difficult of them all. The era of the ideological dictatorship of Jdanov, nicknamed Jdanovchtchina, started in 1946, and quickly became an anti-West witch hunt”. Vladimir Propp had just published “The historical roots of the fairy tale”, which was heavily criticize due to containing numerous quotes of Western folklorists, as well as comparativist ideas, not to say cosmopolite ones. In 1947, Soïzudetfilm was re-organized and became the Gorki studo: the studio however did not have any order or demand for children movie.  In 1952, the situation led Constantin  Simonov and Fedor Parfenov to publish an open letter in the Literaturnaïa gazeta “Let’s resurrect the cinematography for children”. However it was only in 1957, after the death of Staline and the succession of Khrouchtchev, that the minister of culture finally commissioned an augmentation of children movie production. In 1961, the Gork studio was named “Gorki central Studio of cinema for children and the youth”. 

When Ro’ou produced Morozko, in 1964, it was in conditions very different and yet paradoxically very similar to the ones in which Vassilissa the Beautiful was produced. The first novelty was the use of color: the second half of the movie takes place in winter, which forces a restrained color palette, even in the makeup and costumes - it is limited to the red and pale blue of the traditional Russian paintings. The appearance of color makes the Baba Yaga younger, as well as more visible in the landscape - but it doesn’t make her more lively. When Ivan discovers the isba in the middle of the forest, and when said isba obeys his order for it to turn towards him, he is sincerely surprised. Baba Yaga gets out of the house yawning, and she asks grumpily “What do you want? Why, unexpected, uncalled, did you dare turn the cabin and wake up the crone?”. It is almost as if everyone in the story was forced in their part of the story against their will.  If the Yaga of Vassilissa was jumping from tree-top to tree-top, but the Yaga of Morozko keeps complaining about back problems and she asks Ivanouchka to leave her alone. She only does magic because Ivanouchka forces her to, and her speech is filled with affective diminutives ending in -tchik. Ivanouchka, in the end, doesn’t need to vanquish Baba Yaga, he rather has to convince her to help. 

The male equivalent of Baba Yaga, Morozko (Grandfather Forest / General Winter) turns out to be just as harmless as the witch. When he sees Nasten’ka, abandoned by her family to die of cold in the forest, he immediately comes to her help. The role of the two magical characters (Morozko and Baba Yaga) in the life of the young protagonists is limited to the one of a godfather or godmother. The equivalence of these two relationships is highlighted by a sequence which puts in parallel Morozko putting warm clothes on Nasten’ka and Baba Yaga doing the same for Ivanouchka. Another parallel can be found in the way the protagonists call their helpers: Ivanouchka calls Baba Yaga “Yagusia” or “Babulia-yagulia”, while Nastenka calls with affection Morozko “Morozouchka-batiouchka”. From villains, Morozko and Baba Yaga are transformed into helpers, the Donors of the Vladimir Propp’s functions. 

The most important consequence of this transformation is the new nature of the “source of Evil”. Evil doesn’t come anymore from what is supernatural, but it rather comes from what is too natural: the flaws of ordinary humans. It is the jealousy of Nasten’ka stepmother and the boasting of Ivanouchka that cause their initial separation and the unbalance that Baba Yaga and Morozko try to remedy to. The qualities preached by Morozko are very close to the ones glorified by “Vassilissa the Beautiful”: hard-work, modesty, and intelligence. What is different is the goal of these virtues: the seriousness and gravity of “Vassilissa the Beautiful” is gone. In Morozko the characters are funny and light-hearted. Ro’ou was trying in “Vassilissa” to animate the visual popular culture, inherited from the lubok and illustrated movies. But in Morozko it all becomes a great show, a smooth surface without any depth. When Ivanouchka leaves his birth-house to go seek his fortune, he passes by a group of young girls that dance and sing when seeing him - these are traditional dances and songs, but the aesthetic is much closer to the one of a technicolor musical than a medieval fantasy. 

“Fire, Water and Brass Pipes”, filmed by Ro’ou four years later, in 1968, goes even further in the idea of a show or entertainment. Caracterized by saturated colors and random explosions of music and dance, the movie is aiming at the audiovisual variety show at the cost of the stylistic coherence. This excess alos manifests at the narrative level: while Morozko reunited two distinct fairy tales (Morozko and Ivan-with-the-bear-head), “Fire, Water and Brass Pipes” is a sort of remix of elements taken from numerous myths, cultures and legends (not even all Russian!). The skeleton of the plot is roughly the same: as usual, Kachtcheï kidnaps the beloved of Ivanouchka, and he must undergo a series of trials to get her back. These trials, symbolized by the fire, water and brass pipes of the title, are so many occasions to introduce very different elements, ranging from Greek philosophers to the god Neptune. 

In this movie, Ro’ou also modifies the traditional structure of his cinematic fairytales in another way: instead of beginning by the human drama which starts the plot, he begins by the presentation of the magical beings. It is in this “prologue” that we have a full humanization of Baba Yaga: she becomes a mother, and is shown to be able to feel empathy and sorrow. The movie opens with Baba Yaga flying through the sky, rushing to the wedding of her daughter with Koschei the Immortal (also played by Milliar). When she arrives, she is humiliated twice. First, she fails to land properly, implying she can’t move as she used to. Then, nobody recognizes her at the court except for her own daughter and Koschei. This is quite revealing that in this context she introduces herself not as Baba Yaga, but as a relative of the happy couple: she joyfully says (rhyming in Russian), “I am the mother of the bride, Koschei the Immortal is my son-in-law”. This image of Baba Yaga as a mother is not taken out of nowhere: already in the story of Afanassiev called “Baba Yaga and Small-One”, the witch had forty-and-one daughters, that died by her hand. In the movie of Ro’ou, a new importance is given to her maternity as well as to her physical problems (she handles her mortar badly, she falls every time she tries to dance): it all indicates that maybe the life of a witch can be affected by the flow of time. This Baba Yaga is implied to have always been as she is now: she lived a period of youth, and now she is aging. So her life can have a beginning... and an end, like the life of all mortals. 

The prologue that presents the maternity of Baba Yaga also has a role in the narrative of the movie: it explains why the Yaga is so willingly helping Vasia (the new name of Ivanouchka). Indeed, when Zmeï Gorynytch offers Koschei a magical apple that makes him young again, he sends away his bride, deeming her too old for him, causing a public humiliation. By helping Vasia defeating Koschei and freeing his beloved (Alionouchka), Baba Yaga is actually avenging her own daughter. She needs Vasia as much as Vasia needs her. 

The Golden Horns, made in 1972, thirty-tree years after Vassilissa the Beautiful, was the last movie of Ro’ou that uses the character of the Baba Yaga. After being reduced to a second role in Morozko and “Fire, Water and Brass Pipes”, she finally regains a prominent role. Queen of the forest, she has no rival except for the deer with golden horns - as she complains to a group of hunter, the deer keeps undoing all of her traps and ruining her projects. She doesn’t have back problems anymore, and she is healthy enough to dance and sing. Indeed, throughout the movie she keeps insisting that she is still young. In the beginning of the story she is playing cards with a friend, Duraleï. When he accuses her of cheating and calls her “old hag”, she throws him away from the isba and she says to herself “He dares to call me hag, me, who everybody says has a young soul!”. The Baba Yaga of The Golden Horns isn’t wicked, but she is vain - she is a pretentious old woman that spends hours in front of her mirror. The three young lechïï that serve her constantly flirt with her, and calls her by the diminutive “Babou-yagusen’ka”, and the witch herself flirts with a group of hunter-robbers. Baba Yaga even has a musical number, a song throughout which she turns her hand-mirror into a guitar and sings “I can’t see her enough, Yaga the Fair / Oh my love, me, me me!”. 

Beyond the changes brought to the very image of Baba Yaga, Golden Horns is different from the previous movies in two main aspects. The first: the question of the relationship between genders. In Golden Horns, it isn’t a young man who tries to save his beloved from the hands of Baba Yaga or Kachtcheï. It is rather a mother, Evdokia, who tries to save her children. The final conflict is one between two women: one a mother, the other (the Yaga) an old maid. As a result the values of the more are much more conservative in nature. The song of the young girls in the prologue, with the title-cards, compare Russia to a mother. “Always happy, and a bit sad / So is Russia, my mother. / Like the fairytale, intemporal and kind / So is Russia, my mother”. It is this same Russian earth that protects Evdokia in the final battle against Baba Yaga. As the Yaga takes weapons, Evdokia remembers a small bag of soil her neighbor gave her. “Native earth, protect me!” she screams as she throws the soil towards Baba Yaga. These two sequences insist on the sacred nature of the Russian land, “mother” of the people and symbol of maternity itself. The movie implies that it is Evdokia’s maternity that makes her invincible, and that it is the vanity (the “wrong use of her gender”) that dooms Baba Yaga. The absence of a father figure also helps the manifestation of more conservative political messages. It is possible to read Evdokia as a feminist figure: she is independant, and she goes searching for her two daughters without fear. She is intelligent and strong: she isn’t even shocked when she learns she must battle Baba Yaga in a sword-fight. However, she is continuously guided and helped by masculine figure in positions of authority: the Sun, the Wind, and Golden Horns. Golden Horns also offers the perfect example of a theory brought by Evgueni Margolit and summarized by Prokhorov: “Soviet cinema expressed the ideal community of the future as a land of children, where the government filled the role of the strong, order-giving father of the people”. Evdokia, the figure of the mother, is thus treated like a child by the figures of the Father.

In conclusion, this movie offers a new definition of the political action. Like in most fairytales, the movie starts with a transgression: the twin girls of Evdokia, Machen’ka and Dachen’ka, disobey their mother’s instructions and go too far in the forest. What they cannot know is that two wicked spirits trap them, and use them to start a revolution against the Baba Yaga’s tyranny. The movie ends with a tribunal, formed by the small children-wood spirits, alongside the former friend of Baba Yaga, Duraleï. Through a vote, they decide to punish Baba Yaga by banishing her to the swamp. The events of this tale must thus be understood in a wider context, that is seen at the beginning of the movie: this movie represents a shift of powers in the forest, and is the triumph of the humble people, of the simple folks against the monarchy. 

Conclusion

In “Vassilissa the Beautiful” (1939), made before the movie, Ro’ou tries for the first time to give a cinematographic shape to the world of the folktales. Taking inspiration from the iconography of the lubok, of the illustrated book, and of the German expressionism, he creates a ciaroscuro universe filled with heavily connotated characters, all either wholly good or wholly evil. Baba Yaga, in this universe, like in the one of fairytales, according to the interpretation of Propp, is a liminal character, the guardian of the frontier between the known and the unknown. Often camouflaging herself in the forest and the rocks that surround the isba, she embodies the dark side of the nature. In a movie whose goal is to enrich the nationalist vocabulary of a land threatened by an external force, Baba Yaga becomes a problematic figure, at the same meant to be “one of us”, since she is part of the Slavic folklore, but also “one of them” since she is unpredictable and hostile. 

In the three movies realized by Ro’ou one after the other during the period known as the “Thaw”, the Baba Yaga of Vassilissa is domesticated, becomes a satire, her fangs are removed to make people laugh. While these movies keep feeding from the imagery of Russian nationalism, and keep trying to maintain the authority of the State, they are aimed at being more of an entertainment than a mystical communion with the soul of the people. By giving to Baba Yaga a biography - children, love interests, a passion for clothes and other fashions - these movies remove her from the mythological world, and give her a place in the contemporary world. It is how she becomes, at the time of the Olympic games of 1980, a cult figure, a legitimate rival to Micha the bear-cub for the title of Soviet mascot. 

[satgurutravelae]

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Conclusion

Kyrgyzstan’s stunning landscapes and vibrant culture make it a must-visit destination. Whether you’re relaxing by the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul, exploring the dramatic Tian Shan Mountains, or experiencing nomadic life at Song Kul Lake, each site offers a unique story. For travelers seeking a smooth journey, Kyrgyzstan holiday packages ensure you don’t miss a thing, with curated itineraries and comfortable stays.

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3. What is the best time to visit Kyrgyzstan?The best time to visit Kyrgyzstan is during summer (June-September) when the weather is ideal for outdoor activities like trekking, hiking, and lake visits.

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5. How long is the flight from Dubai to Bishkek?The flight duration is approximately 4-5 hours, depending on the airline and route.

[secretariatbourgeoisophobe]

I would very strongly recommend Helen Yaffe's We are Cuba! (2020) which details how Cuba survived the Special Period (the collapse of the USSR which saw GDP reduction of 1/3 and the loss of 60-80% of international trade almost overnight) and continued to develop into the 2010's. It was written mostly in 2018/19 so doesn't deal with the impacts of COVID and Biden's approach to Cuba in recent years but her use of first-hand interviews of Cuban political leaders and ""regular"" people is insightful.

I have it on good authority Yaffe's Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution (2010) is also very good in detailing the Great Debate in Cuba, over the question of economic development model and its divergences from the orthodox Soviet methods of the time. However, I couldn't find a free version online and physical copies are stupid expensive. Some of these themes around the Great Debate are included in her We are Cuba! above so it's not the end of the world if you don't have it.

And because you already mentioned Walter Rodney, his How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1st ed 1972, this ed 2018) is a seminal work on its exact title. Doesn't talk about the history of socialist states per se but having clear information about the role of European underdevelopment of Africa is useful for concretising our understanding of imperialism. Would recommend reading it alongside Lenin's Imperialism.

Also, a documentary not a book is The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006, dir. Faith Morgan) discusses Cuba's development policies and priorities during the Special Period when it lost access to almost all of its oil supplies. It's a very close study of a particular aspect of Cuban development during a challenging time and well worth watching if you have an hour.

hi, i hope you dont mind me asking this question! i often come across lists of reading recommendations for communists, and they are usually focused entirely on communist theory. which is important and im already on that, but i wonder if you also have recs for learning about history? especially the history of the soviet union, but also other past and present socialist states. i sometimes find myself reading theory and understanding the concepts in a vacuum, but with very little understanding of the historical context they were written in, if that makes any sense. and id like to get a basic grasp of the history of various socialist projects that isnt just the typical western "the ussr was evil!!!!" thing

Hi, historical context is indeed very important for works of theory, especially if it's more than a hundred years old. Lenin's What is to be Done, for example, is very conditioned by its historical context of Russia still being predominantly feudal, with only a timid appearance of the proletariat in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and therefore the very first trade unions, which he talks about. The understanding of these texts is amplified, and quite often enabled by knowing at least the basic historical context. Below I'll list the historical works I've read (and others) with some commentary, but I encourage anyone who has something to add to do so, since I am as of only recently getting more into historiography.

Anything by Anna Louise Strong (I've read The Soviets Expected it (1941) and In North Korea (1941), there's also The New Lithuania (1941), The Stalin Era (1956) and When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet (1959) for example). Her works, which I'd consider primary sources since they are written from her own experience witnessing events and talking to a lot of people, are extremely useful if you wish to form an idea about how some aspects of socialist states worked. The limitation of her works also resides in this specificity and closeness, these are not works that present a broad view of long processes, but a slice of the present with the sufficient historical context. They are still very, very good.

The Open Veins of Latin America (Spanish versrion), by Eduardo Galeno (1971). This one is focused on the history of imperialism in Latin America, how it evolved from the moment the first Spanish foot touched ground to the time it was written in (It talks about Allende before he was assassinated but after achieving power, for example). Perhaps it's not exactly what you're looking for, but it contains very important general context for any social movement that has happened since 1492 to 1971

The Triumph of Evil, by Austin Murphy (2002). I have mixed feelings about this book. While it insists on this weird narrative of absolute evil, which IMO takes away a lot of value from the overall points made, it is an astonishingly in-depth analysis of the economic performance and general merit of socialist systems against their capitalist counterparts. Most of the book is dedicated to comparing the GDR to the FRG, and both the economic and social data it exposes was very eye-opening to me when I read it about 2 years ago. If you can wade through the moralism (especially the beginning of the introduction), it's a gem. I've posted pictures of its very detailed index under the cut :)

Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti (1997). Despite the very real criticisms levied against this book, like its mischaracterization of China, it is still a landmark work. Synthetically, it exposes the relationship between fascism, capitalism and communism.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad (2019); The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World, Walter Rodney (2018). I'm lumping these two together (full disclosure, as of writing I'm about four fifths of the way through RSOtTW) because they deal with the same topic, Prashad being influenced by Rodney as well. Like both titles imply, they deal with the effects the October revolution had on the exploited peoples of the world, which is a perspective that's often lost. Through this, they (at least Prashad) also talk about the early USSR and how it functioned. For example, up until reading Red Star, I hadn't even heard of the 1920 Congress of The Toilers of the East in Baku, or the Congress of the Women of the East.

From here on I'll link works that I haven't (yet) read, but I have seen enough trusted people talk about them to include them

How to Cast a God into Hell: The Khrushchev Report, by Domenico Losurdo (2008). This one talks about how the period of Stalin was twisted and exaggerated through destalinization.

Devils in Amber, by Philips Bonoski (1992). This is about the Baltics and their historical trajectory from before WW1 to the destruction of the USSR (I'm not very sure on those two limits, perhaps they fluctuate a bit, but it definitely covers from WW1 to the 60s)

Socialism Betrayed, by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny (2004). This one deals with the process leading up to and the destruction of the USSR itself.

The Jakarta Method, Vincent Bevins (2020). This is about the methods the US used in the second half of the 20th century to stamp out, prevent, or otherwise sabotage communist movements and other democratic anti-imperialist movements.

I know some of these aren't specifically about socialist states, which is what you asked, but the history of its opposition is just as important to understand because it always exists as a condition to these countries' development and policies chosen.

[milkboydotnet]

"Comrade Mao brought to a new and higher stage, the third stage, in the development of theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism, by putting forward the theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship through cultural revolution (starting with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) to combat revisionism, prevent the restoration of capitalism, and consolidate socialism. The GPCR brought to the peak Comrade Mao’s theoretical and practical achievements along the Marxist-Leninist line. It is the most important component of Mao Zedong Thought, on top of its other components. It serves to underscore the series of major contributions Comrade Mao made in philosophy, political economy, social science, rectification movement in party building, and protracted people’s war in the new democratic revolution. The CPP has sought to learn the principles and lessons involved in the theory and practice of the GPCR and in the earlier components of Mao Zedong Thought. In philosophy, Mao elaborated on and developed Lenin’s identification of the unity of opposites (divide into two) as the most fundamental law of materialist dialectics. He applied materialist dialectics in the process of gaining higher knowledge from the dialectics of theory and practice, in carrying out the new democratic revolution through people’s war, and undertaking socialist revolution and construction. In political economy, Mao had the advantage of learning positive and negative lessons from Stalin’s policy of socialist industrialization and agricultural collectivization. He criticized the revisionist reversal of socialist revolution and construction, and he put forward the line of self-reliant socialist construction by using the basic and heavy industries as the leading factor, agriculture as the base of the economy, and light industry as the bridging factor under conditions of imperialist blockade, revisionist betrayal, and natural calamity during the Great Leap Forward.

In social science, Mao developed further the theory and practice of the new democratic and socialist stages of the Chinese revolution. But his most important achievement in social science was recognizing the problem of modern revisionism and the continuing fact of classes and class struggle in socialist society and in adopting solutions. He put forward a series of campaigns to uphold, defend, and advance socialism, such as the anti-Rightist campaign, the Great Leap Forward, the socialist education movement, and ultimately the Cultural Revolution as he faced greater resistance from the revisionists and capitalist roaders within his party. In party building, Mao adopted and developed further the Leninist teaching on building the proletarian vanguard party. He excelled at developing the rectification movement as the campaign for educating the Party cadres and members in Marxist-Leninist theory and practice, as the method for identifying the errors and weaknesses and for saving the patient from the disease, and as the way for the Party to better serve the masses, mobilize them, let them acquire power, and come under their supervision. In people’s war, Mao had already demonstrated how the toiling masses of workers and peasants could defeat an enemy that was superior in military equipment and trained personnel through the strategic line of protracted people’s war by encircling the cities from the countryside in semicolonial and semifeudal countries. By winning the new democratic revolution through people’s war, the revolutionary proletariat and the people obtain the state power to proceed to socialist revolution. The theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship through the GPCR was regarded as the greatest epoch-making contribution of Mao. It was aimed at combatting modern revisionism, preventing capitalist restoration, and consolidating socialism. Even as the GPCR would be defeated by the Dengist counterrevolution, it still confirms and explains how socialism can be subverted and destroyed from within. Such a lesson will guide the forthcoming socialist revolutions. We, the Filipino proletarian revolutionaries, have studied the GPCR as the answer to the problem of modern revisionism arising in socialist society in view of the degeneration of the bureaucrats and intelligentsia in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. At the same time, we benefited from its underscoring of the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Mao in the new democratic and socialist stages of the Chinese revolution. Like the Paris Commune of 1871 being defeated by the bourgeoisie, the GPCR was defeated by the Dengist counter-revolution and capitalist restoration, but it laid down the basic principles and methods for future adoption and further development in confronting the problem of revisionism and degeneration in future socialist societies." Jose Maria Sison

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.13 (after 1940)

1941 – World War II: Montenegrins begin the Trinaestojulski ustanak (Thirteenth of July Uprising), a popular revolt against the Axis powers. 1951 – Vuoristorata, one of the oldest still-operating wooden roller coasters in Europe, is opened at the Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, Finland. 1956 – The Dartmouth workshop is the first conference on artificial intelligence. 1962 – In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismisses seven members of his Cabinet, marking the effective end of the National Liberals as a distinct force within British politics. 1973 – Watergate scandal: Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of a secret Oval Office taping system to investigators for the Senate Watergate Committee. 1977 – Somalia declares war on Ethiopia, starting the Ogaden War. 1977 – New York City: Amidst a period of financial and social turmoil experiences an electrical blackout lasting nearly 24 hours that leads to widespread fires and looting. 1985 – The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Moscow and Sydney. 1985 – Vice President George H. W. Bush becomes the Acting President for the day when President Ronald Reagan undergoes surgery to remove polyps from his colon. 1990 – Lenin Peak disaster: a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan triggers an avalanche on Lenin Peak, killing 43 climbers in the deadliest mountaineering disaster in history. 1995 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-70 to deploy the TDRS-7 satellite. 2003 – French DGSE personnel abort an operation to rescue Íngrid Betancourt from FARC rebels in Colombia, causing a political scandal when details are leaked to the press. 2008 – Battle of Wanat begins when Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas attack US Army and Afghan National Army troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. deaths were, at that time, the most in a single battle since the beginning of operations in 2001. 2011 – Mumbai is rocked by three bomb blasts during the evening rush hour, killing 26 and injuring 130. 2011 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 1999 is adopted, which admits South Sudan to member status of United Nations. 2013 – Typhoon Soulik kills at least nine people and affects more than 160 million in East China and Taiwan. 2014 – Germany wins the 2014 FIFA World Cup defeating Argentina in the final following a 1-0 win after extra time. 2016 – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron resigns, and is succeeded by Theresa May. 2020 – After a five-day search, the body of American actress and singer Naya Rivera is recovered from Lake Piru, where she drowned in California.

[wanderingmind867]

My Red Guardian concept:

Vladimir Ivanovich was born in the 1950s to high ranking communist officials in Leningrad. Named for the revolutionary hero Vladimir Lenin, young Vladimir grew up idolizing communism and all it stood for.

When the Avengers were founded, Vladimir was a teenager. And seeing these heroes serving a country he had been taught to see as a decadent, imperialistic empire confused him. Why would anyone want to help the United States? It was even more perplexing when Captain America showed up. Captain America, a man who worshipped the United States and decked himself out in their flag. Why would anyone do that?

His parents told him about how Captain America was created (being government operatives, they've at least heard rumours), about the super soldier serum and the quest to make a perfect man. Although they also said that Captain America technically helped the USSR fight the Nazis in WW2, Vladimir had stopped listening by that point. All Vladimir heard was that there was an American worshipped for being transformed into a "super-soldier", and he found this incredibly unnerving. It awoke a desire in Vladimir; a desire to prove you don't need fancy serums and technology to be a hero.

Vladimir began training to become a proud soldier for his nation. Hearing about how the Red Guardian died fighting the Avengers or about how the Black Widow defected to America made him even angrier. He couldn't know why those things happened, he just felt it was proof of the Avengers being dishonourable and corrupt. He worked hard and trained even harder because of this, slowly making his body reach the peak of human strength through sheer willpower. He needed no super-soldier serum, he just needed his strong will.

In 1976/1977, when the Soviet Union announced their plans to create a communist counterpart to the avengers, Vladimir was the first person to sign up. This was his dream. His life's goal. Finally, he could represent communism on the world stage and prove that you don't need to have superpowers to be a hero! Vladimir takes on the mantle of the Red Guardian (thus making him the third Red Guardian), and becomes the leader of the Union of Soviet Super Soldiers. (Although he had deep objections to this name, he resigned himself to it). Now, Vladimir dreams of taking on Captain America. The Red Guardians natural strength vs Captain America's Super Soldier serum. Then and only then can he prove that you don't need serums and fancy government "eugenicist steroids" to be a hero!