The Partisans

Author: Editor

Revolutionary Socialist Planning: Some Historical Lessons

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by Nat Winn

Socialism is a transition period. And we use the heights of power as a powerful instrument of that transition to global, classless communist society. And what does it mean to NOT put those tasks prominent in an understanding of planning? And Mao’s ten major relationships are a wonderful example of this. And it is also contained in the Maoist critique of “goulash communism” — where there is lots of talk about the “rights” of the people (rights to food, to education, to a job, to security, etc.) but somehow the most important right (the right to rule and transform society) is forgotten. This is in the Critique of Soviet Economics (which was also by Mao).

More than a seat at the table; BRICS lack vision but are clear on capitalism

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by Nat Winn

The BRICS seem like a hodgepodge of nations each with their own agendas and motives and lacking a clear vision of the future. Their main unifying tendency seems to be to want to mitigate the global power of the United States and Western European dominated alliance. As such they are not looking to dismantle the U.S. empire so much as to claim a seat at the global capitalist table.

Reclaiming Actually-Existing Revolutionary Pasts 

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by Ynker Ashkhadavoruhi

Here, we can return to Rodney’s analysis of bourgeois histories of the Russian Revolution, which includes the linking of these subjectivist conceptualizations within bourgeois history to the actual structures of funding in which centers of Russian studies are embedded – the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Carnegie Foundations, connected to capital – as well as with established ties to émigrés from the Soviet Union from whom Western historians learn about the evils of the Revolution.

A Historiography of the Great Purges

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by Nat Winn

This article was originally written in the late 2000’s when I was a grad student in history. It was meant to be a communist critique of a post modern approach to history writing that denied a criteria of truth in historical narrative and saw history as more akin to literature writing than the social sciences. The article respects the questions posed by the post modern approach, however, it aims to take a more dialectical view in looking at the way language and society impact on one another and how this allows us to glean more plausible truths from historical narrative.

Are the BRICS an anti-imperialist project?

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by Nat Winn

While the BRICS nations do represent a viable threat to U.S. dominated hegemony of the global order, is there anything that hints this alliance would represent a break with the current world capitalist system? Or do the BRICS merely represent a new emerging imperialist bloc of capital that would perpetuate the same imperialist system under terms more favorable to their bloc?

Mayhem and the Middle Finger

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by Ulantora M

In the American political context popular critiques such as those that emerged in the wake of recent disasters frequently get “translated” by liberal speak into terms that enable the singular condemnation of the right wing, and that too, on primarily moral and ethical terms, not in terms of a systemic critique that exposes the workings of capital and imperialist policies. But popular critiques of governmental action/inaction in the wake of tragedies, sometimes shed light – albeit through the cracks – on the priorities driving the U.S. state’s singular focus on sustaining and defending empire and capital over and above all else.

The Partisans Magazine Playlist

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The Partisans Magazine is excited to introduce our new Spotify playlist. We believe the revolution has to be infused with music and culture and dance. The songs on this playlist are songs of resistance and rebellion and we believe you will thoroughly enjoy both the artistic quality and the revolutionary spirit of the music chosen….

Marxism is not a layer cake

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by Mike Ely

If you teach scientific ideas in a religious way, you have not taught science, you have taught religion. If you gather up buckets of “true facts” and teach them in a rote and dogmatic way, you have not taught truth, you have taught rote and dogma.