ComradeRat

finished reading this book last night, was pretty interesting. Tries to create an "autistic marxism". Imo it lacks engagement with 1)bipoc, 2) global south and 3) exploitation (though Chapman at least acknowledges the gaps), but otherwise great analysis of the connections between disability and capitalism particularly in the global north over the last 80ish yearz. I also do like how he draws on the connections between disability and surplus population

Rly shit takes from Engels here [Engels - The Magyar Struggle] Apparently there's worse yet to come in "Democratic Pan-Slavism"

Its also a total reversal from his position in septemberish 1848, when he was castigating germans for their chauvanism being the cause of slavs opposing revolution

Reading this like "nope, sorry bud all ur hopes and dreams are gonna be crushed next year" Poor marx

Marx has been maintaining this nonviolent resistance stance since the first article in Neue Rheinische Zeitung back in June, in part bc he believed the reactionaries would definitely lose

However, counterrevolution rallies and two days later Marx admits he was wrong: [Marx - Confessions of a Noble Soul]

And two days after that, Marx is explicitly advocating violent resistence: [Marx - A Decree of Eichmann's]

Source is Marx Engels Collected Works vol8. Its very interesting to see Marx and Engels operating as agitators/organisers rather than theorists

From Marx Engels Collected Works vol7

Overall the Neue Rheinische Zeitung articles have been very interesting both theoretically and to see Marx and Engels engaged in organisational work during what they hoped would be THE revolution

been reading Barbara Allen's biography of Shlyapnikov. Very well written and sourced almost entirely by archival stuff. But depressing because the workers' opposition gets run roughshod over by basically everyone in power (Lenin, Bukharin, Stalin, Trotsky, Molotov, etcetc). Been wondering what others' have read on the workers' opposition and what your takes are.

The 1930s have been by far the most depressing

But even the late 10s and early 20s have some "dude wtf" moments from leadership imo

Somewhat relatedly, what do folks think of the Democratic Centralists? I've actually never heard of that faction in the 1919-21 debates before

Very good book on soviet nationalities policy using archival research

This one does a good job of showing how rapidly the (centre) of the party shifted lines on nationalism

Russian opposition to affirmative action programmes was pretty strong

Nationality could be shockingly arbitrary and sudden (and often informed by politics)

Stalin begins to turn towards supporting Russians

collectivisation interacted badly with the nationalities policy

The degree of internal conflicts within the party and soviet bureaucracy was also a huge part of the book.

Ethnic cleansings going on, and there's still tons of affirmative culture programmes running. Weird contradictions

(Not gonna spam any more books / articles [today at least] but this one is Important)

This is an excellent essay that examines the similarities and differences between Marxist and Indigenous critiques of Capitalism. Imo they miss a bit in terms of the Marx side (mostly I'm just salty that they don't cite Marx in the Anthropocene), but overall this is an excellent piece that every single settler should be reading

This is a very important contemporary marxist work imo (despite being published only this year). It's VERY relevant to climate change, the question of production under socialism and communism. It's also essential if you wanna have an idea of what Marx was up to (in terms of theory) in the late 1870s until his death bc Saito's source for his arguments is the previously unpublished MEGA2 (which he worked on) and others' work on MEGA2. Highly recommend it, though it is somewhat (prolly VERY) abstract/academic.