'is it sunny or cloudy in the land where you live.' (april theses)

after raining in the morning all of a sudden it has dried up and the sun has come out. the black cat has come to visit. 

it is the anniversary of lenin's arrival at the finland station (now before you all start horsemouth knows this didn't work out so well). horsemouth's particular school of social justice warriors tends to take against the party-building variety of communism in favour, horsemouth would argue, of varieties of thought where these problems (how to have a successful revolution for starters) are magically solved by economics or by the people.

in this regard horsemouth thinks himself a tad naive. 

ok horsemouth spoke too soon - the skies have opened, the cat has retreated to the cover of the trees (or made a run for home). 

aaargh! horsemouth's brain keeps running catastrophist scenarios. his next encounter with the communal endeavour is a week off, in a way it is the waiting he can't stand.  ok he's had a phone conversation and now feels much calmer. 

the counter-factualists are broadly divided between those who think the problem lies in the idea of a party separate from the working class (and that if you pretend this separation doesn't exist then everything will be ok sarcastically adds horsemouth) and those who think it is the force of circumstances alone drove the russian revolution off course and into tyranny. 

or some muddle of the two.

'the people need peace; the people need bread; the people need land...' (april theses)

at the time lenin's speeches were not universally well received (even among the bolsheviks).

'lenin’s speech was attacked from all sides, only kollontai speaking in support of it...' - carr, as reported in mario tronti's a message from the emperor. 

so where are we now (over 100 years later)? let's just take one shall we...

the people need peace

as horsemouth writes this the world's attention has slipped from palestine (34,000 people dead almost all civilians) to the sabre-rattling between israel and iran (with the US, britain and france leaning in and intervening on israel's side). the world's attention has also slipped from the conflict in ukraine (180-220,000 estimated dead) and the conflicts in myanmar, yemen etc. 

the syrian civil war (613,000 dead) is last years thing. similarly afghanistan, iraq etc. 

you would think the world would get sick of the bloodletting. 

RIP loren goldner

horsemouth saw him speak twice and was impressed by his ability and willingness to engage with the arguments of his critics  fairly and clearly - both with his marxist critics and with the stepney youth who wanted to know what all the people gathered in that meeting room were doing there. 

crisis! that's over. said fukuyama. said gordon brown. said everybody. (it seems like a distant galaxy far far away)

but guess what happened? the 2008 financial crisis. 

so you are wrong about the instability of capitalism until you are right about the instability of capitalism, and then (soon enough) they will tell you that you are wrong again. 

capitalism understands itself in its own terms not in ours. 

all this and melville too.