We’re starting off with a very short one for the first week. This text was published in 1915, two years before the October revolution, and is sadly still highly relevant in the imperial core.

This reading group is meant to educate, and people from any instances federated with Lemmygrad are welcome. Any comments not engaging in good faith will be removed (don’t respond to hostile comments, just report them).

You can post questions or share your thoughts at any time. We’ll be moving on to a new text next week, but this thread won’t be locked.

You can read the text here.

  • cimbazarov@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat.

    banger quote. So he’s calling out the people who say they are against the war, but take no action that would impede the government from waging the war.

    The war cannot but evoke among the masses the most turbulent sentiments, which upset the usual sluggish state of mass mentality. Revolutionary tactics are impossible if they are not adjusted to these new turbulent sentiments.

    I think this is important when analyzing our own modern day situations, and not just taking what Lenin lists out here and applying it willy-nilly. It is my belief that we do not need to gain the support of the masses before performing an action because if we can understand the “turbulent sentiments” correctly, then we can come to a conclusion of what the correct action is. By performing the correct action we gain support of the masses. I think of it kinda like the whole UnitedHealthcare CEO situation, but the killer was not organized and only arrived at a correct action by chance.

    Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments,

    This is a nice way of framing it. In the end our goal is the revolution and everything we do is to achieve that end.

    edit: I dunno how you are going about selecting texts, but could I submit a vote for Theses on the National and Colonial Questions