you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 11 points 6 months ago* (31 children)

Some recommended reading about George "I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler" Orwell:

one could say the widespread misperception of who he actually was and what he stood for is rather... orwellian 🙄

  • source
  • hideshow 31 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago*

    "I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power—till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter—I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity."

    I think the first sentence was taken a bit out of context. In the second he says he would kill him if got the chance to. I think he's just trying to say that Hitler was charismatic.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago

    Its a bit off topic, but its really amusing in that Isaac Asimov article how he talks about the Spain thing where Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists were at odds. Basically, the left righting amongst themselves.

    The more things change...

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 28 points 6 months ago (22 children)

    The guy fought Nazi supplied Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. This take is nuts, he almost died for the CNT-FAI. He's not a Nazi sympathizer.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 22 child comments
  • [+] 9 points 6 months ago (20 children)
  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (15 children)

    The USSR didn't supply the anarchists. They The Communists actively refused to give them arms and worked against them. That was the cause of Orwell's disdain towards them. source: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/noam-chomsky-on-anarchism#fn70

    Edit: Correcting sentencing after being corrected in a reply.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 15 child comments
  • [+] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (14 children)
  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    To be honest I don't care if the communists are Soviet or Spain. The arms that the USSR was sending didn't reach the anarchists. That was the only claim I was refuting.

    Reiterating for the sake of clarity.

    That the Communists withheld arms from the Aragon front seems established beyond question, and it can hardly be doubted that the motivation was political. See, for example, D.T. Cattell, Communism and the Spanish Civil War (1955; reprinted New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), p. 110.

    The fact that the footnote ends with Orwell's own quote is just a nice tie back to the discussion.

    Regarding the rest of the comment I'm not interested in reenacting "anarchist vs ML: spanish civil war" online theater. I just wanted to push back on the claim that the USSR supplied anarchists.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [+] 2 points 6 months ago* (8 children)
  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (7 children)

    Ok. You wanna dance? Let's dance.

    The USSR did supply (provide any weapons to) anarchists in Spain.
    However the Communists¹ didn't supply (provide as many weapons as they could have to) anarchists in Spain.

    ¹: because as you pointed out the fault wasn't just the USSR but Spanish as well.

    I was hoping that the context made the distinction clear but clearly that is not the case.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [+] 4 points 6 months ago* (6 children)
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    That the Communists withheld arms from the Aragon front seems established beyond question

    That is my source. It's good enough for me. The fact that Chomsky (a well respected academic*) published that is good enough for me.

    *: There are ties to Epstein, but for me that doesn't invalidate his academic opinion.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [+] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)
    1. I'm not a leftist. I'm an anarchist. One that is drifting further and further from "the left" as discussions like these happen.
    2. I haven't quoted Orwell once. My source is a footnote that has Orwell's quotes among others. My main one for the claim you made are from D.T. Cattell.
    3. Are you really claiming that the front being slow is the same as them playing football? Or do you actually believe that the POUM was playing football with the fascists? because that is the only way your claim that Orwell is unreliable by refuting this makes sense.
    4. I think the fact that the Communists were intentionally withholding supplies makes the claim that they were supplying anarchists complicated enough to warrant my reply, even if it was a bit too absolutist.
    5. None of this matters. Our disagreement is ideological, both of our minds are made up and neither of us is budging, so why are we doing this. Especially when the subject is a civil war nearly a century ago.
    6. It doesn't matter weather or not the USSR supplied anarchists. The Communists were (same as in the own russian revolution) suppressing the anarchists and stopping them from achieving their goals. They made decisions that actively hurt the collectivized society in Aragon.
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [+] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    After taking a walk and taking time for some reflection. Yeah. You're right. I don't really know what I'm talking about and am taking a "vibes-based" approach. However for me that's preferable to giving vanguardists any credit for anything.

    That being said I did find this: https://socialismtoday.org/archive/38/spain38.html

    Arms for Spain: The Untold Story of the Spanish Civil War. By Gerald Howson, John Murray, 1998. Reviewed by Dave Murray

    The biggest myth to bite the dust, is that the Soviet Union under Stalin materially aided the republican side. He has tracked down documentary proof that the vast bulk of military material supplied to the republicans by Stalin was of poor quality, that the republic was charged at or above market price and that by falsifying the currency exchange rates employed in these deals, the Soviet Union defrauded the republic of at least $51m (at 1936 prices). Helpfully, Stalin arranged for the Spanish government to ship its gold reserves (in 1936 the fifth largest in the world at $518m) to the Soviet Union and, guess what, by the end of the civil war most of it had been transferred to the Soviet government as payment for arms procurement or in return for credits at the Soviet Bank in Paris. That Stalin was one of the executioners of the Spanish revolution is no surprise to us Trots, but Howson has done us a favour in furnishing us with cold hard facts.

    Now I can't find an actual open copy of the book (nor am I spending that much effort looking for it) so I can't really give you anything more.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    The May Days is not some unknown event.

    I can walk down the street here see the bullet holes.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Being anti communism is the same as being pro Nazi now?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Everything we know about Orwell disagrees, from his review of Mein Kampf to his comments about Jews and Homosexuals. He opposed fighting the literal German Nazis until war actually broke out. The civil was was a few years and a single book, and hardly representative of his entire life.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    The great Orwellian contribution to future technology is that the
    television set is two-way, and that the people who are forced to hear and
    see the television screen can themselves be heard and seen at all times and
    are under constant supervision even while sleeping or in the bathroom.
    Hence, the meaning of the phrase 'Big Brother is watching you'.
    This is an extraordinarily inefficient system of keeping everyone under
    control. To have a person being watched at all times means that some other
    person must be doing the watching at all times (at least in the Orwellian
    society) and must be doing so very narrowly, for there is a great
    development of the art of interpreting gesture and facial expression.

    Interesting that someone like Asimov has not seen how technology would make this possible, like it’s right now

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago

    What no Foucault does to a MF.

    The idea that every person will only behave as though they are being watched if they are actually being watched, fails to recognize that if people know that they could be watched at any time, but can't actually see if the watcher is watching them, they will behave as though they are being watched all the time.

    Panopticon goes brrrr

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago

    Interesting that someone like Asimov has not seen how technology would make this possible

    He did. A few paragraphs later he says:

    Orwell was unable to conceive of computers or robots, or he would have placed everyone under non-human surveillance.

  • source
  • parent