Hurr communism is actually good, we just need to do it right

Oh it can be a good read as long as you have a unbiased analysis with full knowledge of the actual events, and the position of the author and all that jazz, as can any book.
But it's TAUGHT as a "good" position in school, with "good guys" and "bad guys".

> as can any book.

I guess subjectively but in my opinion Orwell, was in the technical scene a brilliant writer.

>But it's TAUGHT as a "good" position in school, with "good guys" and "bad guys".

Bad teaching can be a problem, Ive read reviews calling it an anti-communist screed, so the themes tend to go above the head of some.

Napoleon represents Stalin and is portrayed as nothing but a corrupt manipulator obsessed with his own power

>its not capitalism, its crony capitalism, or CRAPitalism as I like to call it
>in a real free market capitalist system this wouldnt happen

Don't act other ideologies aren't using this excuse.

>Don't act other ideologies aren't using this excuse.
But I'm not

Ok I meant Major. He's supposed to be a more positive character. One good thing about Lenin is that he died early.

Could be a matter of teaching. It was taught as essentially a "socialism good communism bad" novel in TEXAS of all places.
It was taught to us kids just as it was intended by the author, a giant piece of apologism.
This was not an unbiased and secular teaching.

Orwell was a social democrat. And by the end of his life who the hell knows.

You think he died with a black pill stuck in his throat?

Orwell was a left-libertarian.
>fascist bootlicker from /pol/ triggered by Animal Farm
Color me surprised.

He's a mystery to me. When people say he was socialist they think of modern common definition. Today he would be centre left social democrat. Which would still make him a proponent of strong controlling government, Not what people have in mind when they think of Orwell.

Here's your

Agorist perhaps?

kys nationalist retard

you bastard, you know full well the OP doesn't give a (you)

>filthy communist defends a Russian Revolution apologist

neck yourself bolshevik

>I've never read Homage to Catalonia
Do it. It's the ultimate anti commie pill. Once you're done you are wishing for helicopters.

i think I will (not the user you replied to btw), what's the general summary?

If you actually read Homage to Catalonia you would realize that the CNT got fucked by the commies by almost comical portions. They even gave them 30 year old rifles from the 19th century because the commies didn't want the anarchos to be capable.

Commies are scum, Spaniards are bros and the left wing press has always been full of shit. It ends with Orwell along with wife and friends fleeing the country because they are being denounced as "fascists" by the commies.

>One of the dreariest effects of this war has been to teach me that the Left-wing press is every bit as spurious and dishonest as that of the Right.I do earnestly feel that on our side--the Government side--this war was different from ordinary, imperialistic wars; but from the nature of the war-propaganda you would never have guessed it. The fighting had barely started when the newspapers of the Right and Left dived simultaneously into the same cesspool of abuse. We all remember the _Daily Mail's_ poster: 'REDS CRUCIFY NUNS', while to the _Daily Worker_ Franco's Foreign Legion was 'composed of murderers, white-slavers, dope-fiends, and the offal of every European country'. As late as October 1937 the _New Statesman_ was treating us to tales of Fascist barricades made of the bodies of living children (a most unhandy thing to make barricades
with), and Mr Arthur Bryant was declaring that 'the sawing-off of a Conservative tradesman's legs' was 'a commonplace' in Loyalist Spain. The people who write that kind of stuff never fight; possibly they
believe that to write it is a substitute for fighting. It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours. Sometimes it is a comfort to me to think that the aeroplane is altering the conditions of war. Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

>Could be a matter of teaching. It was taught as essentially a "socialism good communism bad" novel in TEXAS of all places.
I think the kind of socialism the book is apologetic for is not antitethical to communism, considering Orwell fought in a marxist militia and later went on to claim he would have rather joined the anarchists.

Orwell didn't know anything about economy but he was anti-authoritarian and he cligned to the people who he believed represented his worldview the most.

>Today he would be centre left social democrat.
How do you conclude that?

>Not a single proof

>not against the state
>not in favor of revolution
>critical of both fascism and communism
>somewhat of a social conservative

Bitch please, he would shit on milquetoast socdems and be a trade unionists ala TUSC

Marxists aren't against the state either (in fact the withering away of the state never happened) so I don't see how that makes him centre-left. Besides, he fought in a marxist militia and he even said that he would have rather joined the anarchists. And I don't think he criticized communism, rather what he naively thought was a distorted version of it as opposed to muh real communism considering the aforementioned. Regarding him being somewhat of a social conservative, I don't think that makes him center-left, look at North Korea.

He said he was democratic socialist. Basically soc-dems who appeared after Bernstein's reforms of marxism.

>Besides, he fought in a marxist militia
>t. someone who didn't read catalonia

The revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona had
attracted me deeply, but I had made no attempt to understand it. As for
the kaleidoscope of political parties and trade unions, with their
tiresome names--P.S.U.C., P.O.U.M., F.A.I., C.N.T., U.G.T., J.C.I.,
J.S.U., A.I.T.--they merely exasperated me. It looked at first sight as
though Spain were suffering from a plague of initials. I knew that I was
serving in something called the P.O.U.M. (I had only joined the P.O.U.M.
militia rather than any other because I happened to arrive in Barcelona
with I.L.P. papers), but I did not realize that there were serious
differences between the political parties. At Monte Pocero, when they
pointed to the position on our left and said: 'Those are the Socialists'
(meaning the P.S.U.C.), I was puzzled and said: 'Aren't we all
Socialists?' I thought it idiotic that people fighting for their lives
should _have_ separate parties; my attitude always was, 'Why can't we
drop all this political nonsense and get on with the war?'

>(I had only joined the P.O.U.M. militia rather than any other because I happened to arrive in Barcelona with I.L.P. papers), but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties.
>(I had only joined the P.O.U.M. militia rather than any other because I happened to arrive in Barcelona with I.L.P. papers), but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties.
>(I had only joined the P.O.U.M. militia rather than any other because I happened to arrive in Barcelona with I.L.P. papers), but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties.

I'm no Spanish (maybe one could correct me if I'm wrong) but the Spanish Civil War was basically a continuation of the same war between monarchists and republicans from late 19th century but with some radical shitheads on both sides.

Uh, that text literally says he thought they were all socialists?

Not that guy but how does this text go against what he said? Orwell is basically another idealist entering a vastly complex political war

The Spanish Civil War was a failed pronunciamiento.

He would probably initially support the Cuban revolution not knowing what they were doing (or that the favorite country of revolutionary champion Che was North Korea).

I don't see how that is relevant to the discussion of whether Orwell didn't fought for the socialists in Spain

Orwell was a socialist, but in today's world he would probably be right of Bernie. Do you have any idea how poor people were 100 years ago? As much as I love la belle epoque, I have to admit that I would have been fucked had I lived there.

That's what I am saying. This is young Orwell before he got fucked by commies. He was an naive idealist, not some bloodthirsty communist revolutionary. There is almost a 10 year difference between the Orwell who fought in Spain and the Orwell who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm. The events of the Spanish civil war are the foundation of his thinking he lays out in these books. Orwell is like a teenager today idealizing socialism and making excuses for communism before realizing what terror it brings and then becoming one of its greatest detractors. Remember, Orwell didn't have Cambodia and the USSR to look at as a negative example yet. It was the fucking 1930s and news travel slowly.

Ohhhh so this is entirely based on your conjecture of his personality. I mean it is fine to psychoanalyze Orwell but quoting random text doesn't give your argument credibility.

Plus he wrote back to his editor when everyone was thinking 1984 was about socialism to reinforce that it was about authoritarianism. If he was genuinely anti-socialist by then, why go through the effort?

Happened again just the other week in south Sudan.

>not against the state
Ok, sure, i'll concede that
>not in favour of revolution
He advocated heavily for revolutionary socialism in Homeage to Catalonia, condemning the government for being so non revolutionary that the people in Morroco felt better under franco.
>>critical of both fascism and communism
Seems more a critic of authoritarianism in general, and judging by his writings he spesifically loathed fascism because it wasn't even pretending to be a transitionary phase for a greater good.
>>somewhat of a social conservative
If Orwell's a social conservative then i'm the fucking pope, he called for the detonation of a church because it looked shit.

>Ohhhh so this is entirely based on your conjecture of his personality.
After reading three books written by him back to back, I'll take that leap. Which books written by Orwell did you read?

He was less "anti socialist", but more along the lines of "the people who are pretending to fight for your rights are going to eat you alive in the name of progress and justice, all for the sake of personal power and ideology." Which is why communism is trash to begin with. (Ignoring the obvious economic fuckups, but that's a given)

Near the end of his life he described himself as democratic socialist. Still shit-tier but he believed it was the closest to his own anti-imperialist beliefs.

>levels of relative poverty have fallen
What the fuck are you talking about, relative poverty is already a subjective as fuck measurement, and there are very clearly cabals of hyper wealthy individuals who have lives far, faaar better than any man here could even dream of, show me the definition of "relative poverty" they're using.

But he definitely hated communism and was disappointed socialist press was whitewashing the USSR.

>Still shit-tier
Still nowhere near being a social cohnservative, using democratic means to achieve socialism is the kind of legitimacy that socialism needs to work properly.

>If Orwell's a social conservative then i'm the fucking pope,
By today standards Orwell would be a racist sexist homohobe misogynist.

>As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents. [...] n addition to this there is the horrible — the really disquieting — prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words "Socialism" and "Communism" draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, "Nature Cure" quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

Literally the kind of person who would post here to bitch about SJWs.

>I'll take that leap.
>Making conjecture of the author based on your perception of his text

>Which books written by Orwell did you read?
I read about his life nigga.

>Which is why communism is trash to begin with.
I mean, if that is your takeaway from 1984 or Animal Farm then that is great, but let's not pretend that it is what Orwell wanted to say.

And you still haven't answered me, if Orwell turned away from the ideology of socialism, why would he write back to dismiss any claims it was about socialism

>By today standards Orwell would be a racist sexist homohobe misogynist.
>social attitudes have changed over a near century
Woah.
Orwell wasn't bitching about the conduct of those people, he was railing against how they made the movement looked, in the same way a priest might try to reign in a follower whose zealotry drives people away from the faith.

>I read about his life nigga.
Which books? A Wikipedia summery doesn't count.

>And you still haven't answered me, if Orwell turned away from the ideology of socialism, why would he write back to dismiss any claims it was about socialism
No idea, can't look inside the mans head. I suppose he hated socialists but still idealized what he thought socialism could or rather should be. Kind of like a center left progressive today who wants to hang SJWs without going full ancap or 1488 and staying somewhat true to his initial principals despite everything.

Fair point, but why is Orwell's apologism for socialism bad if he lampoons everything wrong with it?

>it is another leftist shitting on other leftists
Goddamn if one person becomes class conscious every time one leftist denounced others for being naive/wrong/tyrannical/ etc etc since the First Internationale , there would be revolution by tomorrow. Just coz Orwell is carrying on the 'proud' tradition of a sectarian left doesn't mean he isn't a leftist

Besides that text is clearly about him ranting about virtue signalling milquetoast liberals of the time. Which makes me laugh at the suggestion above that he would be some Fabian socialists when he would probably be a working class trade unionist if he was alive today

Orwell was a cunt to the core.
>Anglos are the greatest race on the planet and South Asians are shitskin animals but racism is a horrible thing, fuck those Krauts
>how DARES Tolstoy criticize Shakespeare, Tolstoy is a nobody, I'm literally shaking because he said something bad about my sacred Anglo meme writer
>Stalinism is evil but Lenin and Trotsky were good guys and should've been given a chance, real communism has never been tried
>let me describe in detail how anarchist Catalonia was a disorganized shithole where nothing functioned properly but make no mistake I still like it because people called each other comrade
>let me constantly kvetch how we're losing my precious romanticized nostalgic idyllic Arcadian rural England but I'm actually a socialist progressive xD
>I had to shoot an elephant in Burma and it gave me PTSD
More people should read his essays to find out what an insufferable faggot he was.

>Just coz Orwell is carrying on the 'proud' tradition of a sectarian left doesn't mean he isn't a leftist
I never said Orwell wasn't a leftist or a socialist, but that he did a great job at pointing out whats wrong with communism and socialism in the first place.

>>Stalinism is evil but Lenin and Trotsky were good guys and should've been given a chance, real communism has never been tried
Excusable position in 1940. In 1970, not so much. He was a slave of his time, just like everyone else is.

>Which books? A Wikipedia summery doesn't count.
>Making conjecture of the author based on your perception of his text

>No idea, can't look inside the mans head.
Then don't make baseless conjecture on what he would or not would do dumbass. Your conjecture seems less about who Orwell really was or more about what you wanted him to be (and the state of the Left)

Honestly, i would be a socialist, had i not studied economics.
Socialists have good intentions, but they cling to a dusty tome. As my professor once said, left leaning economists are stuck between volume 2 and volume 3 of Das Kapital. He told us of it, he told us he had to memorize it word for word for a course, being born in a communist country. They are either blind or misguided.
I finally understood Thatcher, her quote, "They'd rather have the poor poorer, provided the rich were less rich."
What the left has left is psychoanalytical and philosophical jerking off (sniffs and tugs shirt), they have no real economic argument.

Probably mislead by Days that Shook the World.

>Fair point, but why is Orwell's apologism for socialism bad if he lampoons everything wrong with it?
I didn't say that, i'm arguing against the idea that Orwell was a social conservative, which he almost certainly wasn't, Orwell repeatedly writes about equality, and how important that socialism brings about both social and economic equality, he advocated explicitly for revolution, and a pushback against the leading socially conservative views at that time, fascism, and actively fought to achieve this end, he was explicitly anti-imperialist, in a country where the continued maintenence of the empire was (pre-war) a given.

>pointing out whats wrong with communism and socialism in the first place.
And again you can't take that as anything special since leftists already do this all the time.

My point exactly. He was born in 1903. Can't imagine what it must be like to see the world go to shit in just 3 decades.

At the same time he was a rabid Anglo nationalist with outright reactionary sentiments, read Coming up for air.

>And again you can't take that as anything special since leftists already do this all the time.
Not anymore they don't. The SJW left is neo-bolshevik. They've just replace the bourgeoisie with straight white men and the working class with black transwomen.

And? Having some rightwing non orthodox views in addition to left wing non orthodox views doesn't make you a social conservative.

Identity politics is not the same than class struggle

>i'm arguing against the idea that Orwell was a social conservative, which he almost certainly wasn't,
I am talking by today standers. If we brought Orwell from 1940 into the present day he would be on our side, against cultural destruction, revisionism, hedonism, trans children and identity politics.

Oh but it is. Class struggle is more legitimate than race struggle, I guess, but its the same playbook. Exactly the same.

Oh so you want to complain about the New Left? Sure identity politics has replaced class struggle for multiple centrist liberals for the past few decades, but that don't mean the flame of the Old Left isn't coming back.

And no, SJW and neoliberals are not leftists. One only needs to read the Guardian shit on pic related since him being Leader to know the difference between identity political liberals and class conscious leftists

t. leftypol
True leftists are a minority. The left has been completely undermined with identity bullshit and you know it.

>I am talking by today standers. If we brought Orwell from 1940 into the present day he would be on our side, against cultural destruction, revisionism, hedonism, trans children and identity politics.
And there's the fucking rub, you don't care about the actual intellectual interests of this person, you only care that he's on your side, that you have someone you can claim was in agreement with you to make your ideology looks better.

Orwell was a socialist, you clearly are not, he wouldn't agree with you.

>red baiting this hard
>in a thread about an actual socialist
Of course the remnants of the New Left is still around but let's not pretend the surge Corbyn and Melenchon (and Bernie I guess?) has experienced is due to idpol alone

where is the Old Left making an appearance?
The AnComs are still pro-immigration social liberals.

I just find it comical how he pushed for destruction of social order everywhere but England because he felt sentimental towards it.
>Spain - fuck Franco, fuck Falange, fully automated luxury anarchism NOW
>America - primitive barbarians and gangsters, they need a good socialist revolution to set them straight
>Russia - GOOD, tsars were cunts and there was nothing in Russian culture worth preserving anyway, fuck all monarchs
>England - ACKSHUALLY, T-THE MONARCHY IN BRITAIN IS A GOOD THING, AND MY PRETTY LITTLE VILLAGES IN KENT ARE SO DREAMY I DON'T WANT NO INDUSTRIALIZATION HERE AND REVOLUTION WOULD BE POINTLESS
Typical "good for thee but not for me" hypocritical English faggot.

>he wouldn't agree with you.
Not on everything, but then again, who would? I simply like his writings and they give a great insight into the time the lived in.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in Britain is a sign that the "old left", the left wing that focuses on economic and social equality, has made leaps and bounds, even the Manchester Guardian, one of the most left wing papers in Britain before you start going into the realm of the explicitly extremist like the daily worker didn't support corbyn, and yet he broke practically all expectation, gave May a bloody nose, beat back his own parties calls to back down, he's been extremly successful, and his speeches exemplify the idea of equality, in matters of social standing and economic policy.

He's an anachronism. The UK isn't the world. Look at the US, look and antifa and then hang yourself.

With pic related pushing the Overton Window.

>still pro-immigration social liberals
You mean American antifa? wew lad. LARPers from both left and right don't count senpai

He is actually being propelled by Momentum, filled with young socialists that Blairites has been sacred of.

Melenchon's Insubordinate France is also another phenomenon of a old school socialist leading a wave of young socialists

>He's an anachronism. The UK isn't the world. Look at the US, look and antifa and then hang yourself.
He's an Anachronism that almost went and won it, the Tories would be in a minority government (read, can't get fuck all done) without the loyalists, which is frankly a fucking horrible position to be put in.

And hell, looking all over the map you see a distinct fall of neoliberalism, Trump openly calls for the creation of uncompetitve business's and protectionism for the sake of the worker, in greece an honest to god fascist party's making ground, poland's moving distinctivly towards worrying authoritarianism.

>left
>libertarian

Actually Franco was the one fighting agaisnt the Government, but ey, dirtycommieswhocaresright?

Government spending increases Aggregate Demand, which, as long as supply continues to grow, will provide more long term economic growth than can be achieved with strictly supply side measures (such as cutting back regulation, or direct investment), which eventually have to give.

>LARP
>they're actually out there throwing punches
>you aren't

>they don't count even though they're the majority
Heh.

>Overton window is real
Worst meme ever

Punching fascists on the street would not suddenly fix their healthcare but rather feeds into the spectacle that will scare the masses into le radical centrists. desu they should join the IWW or the DSA for permanent change. Punching fascists is fine but they has to be something more.

[spoiler] I am not American [/spoiler]

>Of course it wasn't the case in history.
You mean to say that Dzugasvili didn't innovate anything else than killing fellow party members? That the mass terror, omnipotent security organs, war on peasantry, war on religion, attempt to destroy currency, extermination of Don Cossacks, physical extermination of 'bourgoise' as a class etc. were Uljanov's doing?
Which, of course, is a fact.

Doesn't mean i'm full on ancap. Many unknowing capitalist advocates use regulation as a dirty word. However, regulation is essential, but it needs to be smart and flexible, and it shouldn't disproportionately create barriers to entry. The biggest problem of those who advocate for regulation is that they are generally getting money from big businesses, which want regulations that will limit their competition.
Government pumping money does help, but again, it needs to be done carefully. Overspend and things will look great for a time. Until they don't, and then you have to spend more and more. Like giving an alcoholic a bottle of scotch.
My concern is that people in government seldom do things carefully. They want their policies to hold water until their time in office (or limited terms) are done. They want to pocket money from the massive corporations.

We know you're not American, you're an Anglo trashbag.

Keep guessing and projecting faggot

If you're not looking for demand side growth (Government spending is one effective way of getting it, by the by) then you have to implement economic policy that increases the aggregate supply within an economy, which has most commonly been done with lowering government spending and using subsidy, or deregulation, this sounds like a political argument rather than an economic one, you can't just have "smart and flexible" regulation to fix the problem that any regulation is going to impact aggergate supply negatively, your arguments aren't economic, they're arguments against the corruption present within the government, so i hardly see how taking an "economic look" at the situation led you to your current beliefs, because the left's economic position is rather clear, demand side growth, and the right wing economic position is also clear, supply side economic growth.

If this is the only reply you could muster up I shouldn't even continue to argue.

Lenin lived shorter but he was evil piece of shit. In many ways he scares me more than Stalin. He belongs to the era of early marxists back when those idea were relatively new and had many supporters in the west and there was an actual threat of worldwide revolution. Which he tried and failed in 1920.

>they should join the IWW
American ANTIFA is thoroughly attached to the IWW

America is Anglo you retard

No, is Hispanic.

America is mongrelized, but mostly German. Not Anglo.