Why I’m not a Marxist.

It's simpler Chris. You are not a Marxist because the liberal empire works for you. You fell no urgency to replace capitalism. You never starved, you aren't alienated, you had big opportunities in life, you were not born in a third-world colony of the West, etc.

𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐲 𝐄𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Scott Galloway, multi-millionaire professor, gives dire warning about the decline of American capitalism, expanding wealth inequality and far-right CEOs. ★ NEW ARTICLE ⬇️

You’re not a Marxist because you don’t even know what Marxism is. What an embarrassing video.

I have a problem with a well-known American leftist misrepresenting Marxism with this oft-repeated “utopian” trope. Marx and his colleague Engles repeatedly rejected utopian socialism. Sources are readily available. The project of Marxism is one of dialectical historical materialism, a never ending process of change which forecloses the possibility of a utopia!

Between 2017 and 2019, Chris Hedges and I occasionally exchanged correspondence. On August 7, 2019, I sent Hedges a letter, posted below, replying to a lecture denouncing Lenin that he gave at the Left Forum. The points that I made in the letter answer his latest attack on Marx: ------------- August 7, 2019 Hello Chris, I have just read your lecture on "The Dilemma of Vladimir Lenin," which has been posted on Truthdig. It may have amused the demoralized and cynical old farts of all ages who attend meetings of the Left Forum, but the lecture is an appalling piece of work that does you absolutely no credit. It is historically inaccurate and politically banal. You are an excellent journalist and know that the first rule of your craft is to check your sources. Before claiming that State and Revolution is an "unequivocal anarchist manifesto," you should have taken the time to first read Lenin's book. A large portion of the work is devoted to a detailed refutation of anarchist theory. Lenin argues, against the anarchists, that a "transitional state" is required by the working class to smash the bourgeois sate and defeat the counter-revolution. [Read Chapter 4, Section 2] But on the basis of your falsification of State and Revolution, you present an indictment of Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. You proceed to condemn Lenin, and, for good measure, Robespierre, as men who "created evil." Is that your considered appraisal of the outcome of the French and Russian Revolution, two of the most progressive events in world history? Your references to Rosa Luxemburg's pamphlet on the Russian Revolution distort the nature and significance of her critique, which she wrote as an ally and defender of the Bolshevik Revolution. You quote extensively from the pamphlet, but leave out the two paragraphs with which Luxemburg concluded her work: "What is in order is to distinguish the essential from the non-essential, the kernel from the accidental excrescences in the politics of the Bolsheviks. In the present period, when we face decisive final struggles in all the world, the most important problem of socialism was and is the burning question of our time. It is not a matter of this or that secondary question of tactics, but of the capacity for action of the proletariat, the strength to act, the will to power of socialism as such. In this, Lenin and Trotsky and their friends were the first, those who went ahead as an example to the proletariat of the world; they are still the only ones up to now who can cry with Hutten: 'I have dared!' "This is the essential and enduring in Bolshevik policy. In this sense theirs is the immortal historical service of having marched at the head of the international proletariat with the conquest of political power and the practical placing of the problem of the realization of socialism, and of having advanced mightily the settlement of the score between capital and labor in the entire world. In Russia, the problem could only be posed. It could not be solved in Russia. And in this sense, the future everywhere belongs to 'Bolshevism.'" But the worst part of your lecture is the claim, with which every anti-communist liberal will wholeheartedly agree, that "Stalinism was not an aberration. It was the natural heir of Leninism." Really? Then why did Lenin write his Testament, calling for Stalin's removal? Why was the Left Opposition formed under Trotsky's leadership in 1923? Why were Trotsky and thousands of his supporters expelled from the Russian Communist Party and Communist International in 1927? Why did Stalin launch the Great Terror in 1936 -- some 19 years after the Revolution -- which resulted in the extermination of the entire generation of revolutionary intellectuals and workers that had led the Bolshevik revolution? Your condemnation of Lenin, Trotsky and Bolshevism is made without any reference to the political struggles that had begun to emerge within the Russian Communist Party even before Lenin's death. You do not reference the fundamental issues of program -- Trotsky's socialist internationalism [Permanent Revolution] versus Stalin's retrograde national opportunism [socialism in one country] -- that underlay the struggle in the USSR. Nor do you take note of the objective economic and political environment within which the degeneration of the Soviet regime occurred. Inexcusably, you simply ignore what Trotsky himself had to say on the subject of the identity of Bolshevism and Stalinism. You might have taken a look at his famous essay, "Stalinism and Bolshevism." And as for the subject of morality, on which you sermonized at length, you would benefit from reading Trotsky's ever-timely "Their Morals and Ours." He deals at length with the subject of ends and means, and makes some highly relevant observations about the political dishonesty and hypocrisy of petty-bourgeois moralizing. There is an evident contradiction in your denunciation of Lenin. You reference the long history of bloody bourgeois counter-revolutions. You even acknowledge that one should not "glibly dismiss" the arguments of Lenin and Trotsky on the necessity of "authoritarian tools" [your words] to defend Soviet power against counterrevolution. You even admit that many of the arguments against Bolshevism consist of "dreamy platitudes." But your own arguments are glib and platitudinous. "History," you correctly write, "has amply illustrated that if there is no revolutionary party, or if a revolutionary party is destroyed, the forces of reaction triumph." But if this is the case, why have you devoted an entire lecture to denouncing Bolshevism, even to the point of condemning Lenin as a counter-revolutionary? How does your lecture assist in the education of the many young people who are turning to socialism? Whatever your intentions, it serves no other purpose than to buttress anti-Marxist, anti-communist and, of course, anti-Trotskyist slanders and shibboleths. In the end, it facilitates the disorientation of the youth in the interests of the Democratic Party and its DSA and Left Forum accomplices. I regret having to write to you so sharply. But I have taken the time to do so because I have respected your work, the sincerity of your condemnation of the policies of American imperialism, and your contribution to the defense of Julian Assange. For my part, I hope that you will accept this criticism, whether you agree with it or not, in the spirit of friendship with which it is offered. With best regards, David North ------------- Hedges replied later that day: Thanks David.  This is a longer discussion and I won't try to address it here, but perhaps one day we can talk about Lenin.  I make no claims to be an expert but my critiques are not novel, indeed Chomsky comes from this position as do scholars on Lenin such as Adam Ulam.  Chris ---------------- Our generally friendly correspondence ended the following year after Hedges, drifting further to the right, refused to publicly oppose the censorship of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality [IYSSE].

This is why you're not a materialist or a Communist You're a moralist & anarcho-liberal

Yikes. 1) That’s not Marxism 2) Anarchism serves power — always has When’s the last time you picked up Stalins writings?

You're the worst kind of Liberal

The adversarial role of the intellectual is a self-serving myth that keeps privileged liberals feeling in peace with their anti-communism. Even if they recognise its monstrosity, the fascist/capitalist system worked for them so they feel no urgency whatsoever to change it.

Marx wasn’t utopian at all. He founded scientific socialism.

Anarchism is utopian. Marxism puts socialism on a material, scientific foundation. Your rejection of power leaves it in the hands of the bourgeoisie and paves the way for fascism.