Doug Enaa Greene
By Doug Enaa Greene
May 13, 2019 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Cosmonaut — The argument that a “cultural revolution” is a necessary part of a socialist revolution is generally associated with Mao Zedong and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) that he initiated in China. However, Leon Trotsky, in a vastly different way than Mao, stated that Russia needed a cultural revolution. According to Trotsky, a cultural revolution was needed along with industrialization to construct socialism. Trotsky’s industrialization plan for Russia would increase the social weight of the proletariat. A cultural revolution would raise the masses’ cultural level by eradicating mass illiteracy and superstition and change their habits and customs, which would make the working class fit to rule society.
May 5, 2019 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Cosmonaut — Michael Harrington (1928-1989) was the most important advocate for democratic socialism in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century. He is widely, and deservedly, recognized for writing The Other America, a seminal exposé of poverty in the United States. However, Michael Harrington was not simply a public intellectual but a political activist who developed a vision to make democratic socialism into a major force in American life. His strategy was to realign the Democratic Party by driving out the business interests and transform it into a social democratic party. This new party of the people would then not only represent the interests of the vast majority and pass genuine reforms, but begin the transition to democratic socialism. Michael Harrington’s politics and vision have outlived him and they remain the “common sense” of much of the American left, shaping debates in the organization he founded, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, 1910
By Doug Enaa Greene
October 25, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Voice with author's permission — At the height of the Second International, Karl Kautsky was recognized by socialists and anti-socialists alike as “The Pope of Marxism” for his popularization and systematization of Marxist ideas. The great figures of the day looked to him for guidance, whether Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, V. I. Lenin, or Eugene Debs. Since Kautsky was such an authoritative voice on Marxism, his subsequent betrayal was so deep that later communists could be forgiven for mistaking his first name as “Renegade” (as Lenin bitterly called him). Although Kautsky fell into obscurity following the Russian Revolution, in the last few years there has been a revival of interest in his politics in both academia (notably by the scholar Lars Lih) and on the political left. This raises questions about the meaning of Kautsky’s orthodox Marxism and about what, if anything, a renewed revolutionary left should adopt from it as our own?
Schemes of state and municipal ownership, if unaccompanied by this
co-operative principle, are but schemes for the perfectioning of the
mechanism of capitalist government - schemes to make the capitalist
regime respectable and efficient for the purposes of the capitalist; in
the second place they represent the class-conscious instinct of the
business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist,
while all may unite to prey upon the workers... To the cry of the middle
class reformers, “make this or that the property of the government,” we
reply, “yes, in proportion as the workers are ready to make the
government their property.”
James Connolly [1]
By Doug Enaa Greene
August 1 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Voice — A recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times boldly stated, “Americans
like socialism now.” Increasingly among younger people, the word
“socialism” has lost its Cold War stigma. According to the article, the
new-found interest in socialism is linked to the 2008 crash and its
recovery, “which has seen nearly all newly created wealth claimed by the
1% while wages stagnate, has led to a rebirth of the American left.”[2]
In other words, for most people, capitalism just wasn’t working.