Again, this book proves to be a good sleep aid for the kids, and by the time I finish a chapter they reach sound sleep status!

On to the book:

Intro

I appreciate the contrast between the Soviet and Capitalist world presented through language. The idea that in the capitalist world people talk of "I" and "ME" more than "US" and "WE". I like the kind of humorous examples such as: Ukrainian farmers who never went up in an airplane talk of “our stratosphere records” and “the loss of our Maxim Gorky airplane” as they take up collections to build ten new ones. It had me wonder if this was the case in places like Cuba or China. I also appreciated this paragraph from the intro:

This Soviet world is my theme; I give scant space to those fast disintegrating forces that fought it. I tell not the “whole truth,” for truth is never “whole”; there are always at least two truths in conflict: the truth that is dying and the truth that is coming into existence. American Tories who intrigued for King George had their truth also, but it remains only as piquant sauce to romance; the truth of the Continental armies remained to build the modern republic. They themselves recalled the frozen feet of Valley Forge less as suffering than as heroism; their raids on hungry farms passed into memory not as banditry but as necessity and daring. History’s greatest gift to victors is that not only they, but their truth survives.

This, as well as the opening of the intro I think we can all relate to:

We who go back and forth between the Soviet world and the world of capitalism—not only in space from New York to Moscow but also in spirit from intimate life with Soviet people to intimate life in America—feel keenly this difficulty. Important words like freedom, democracy, dictatorship have different meanings on different sides of the border.

This, conflation of words is something we struggle with even today. Here, she's talking about a physical pace, but even in today, once you've entered into the mental space of the Soviet world, into the world of Marxism, this definitional crisis is something you have to struggle against. Freedom, democracy, dictatorship, all words we've spent countless hours of our lives attempting to explain from the Marxist perspective to our liberal friends, neighbors, and acquaintances.

It's funny how much of this book just rhymes with our current experiences. The analysis doesn't change all that much, because the form hasn't changed all that much, what has changed is the content that makes up that form. The intro really sets up the optimistic tone of the next chapter (and I'm sure, the whole book) with For this war differs from other battles in that all men, even the conquered foes, are absorbed into the ranks of the conquerors—joint heirs to all the fruits of victory. I think we know though from history, that not all conquered foes became joint hairs to the fruits of victory, but this was published in 1936, and the "Great Purge" would begin the same year. Now, I know very little about that period of history, only that the purges were very likely driven by paranoia, and in some cases, a great lack in direct communications between local leaders and Moscow. I recall from an episode of the AES Podcast, where they had a revisionist soviet historian on, and he talked about the lack of telegraph communications in the nation. He had mentioned that old newspapers existed in archives with notes scrawled on them by local leaders regarding news from Moscow. Implying that, instead of direct orders, many local leaders were inferring orders based on what they could read in the news.

Chapter 1

I do appreciate a good Marx quote. In fact, I really enjoyed the interweaving explanations about the Marxist world view within this chapter.

The philosophic basis of Marxism is “dialectics,” which views every reality, whether of nature, the mind, or society, as in process of continual change through the development and clash of “inner contradictions.” This theory applied to the study of history shows how economic, political and social systems are constantly changing, at times slowly, at times by leaps, catastrophes, revolutions. American capitalism of the Civil War period is not the capitalism of today. The democracy of the New England town-meeting is not the democracy of the modern imperial nation. They may be called by the same but names deceive; the thing changes even while you look at it to disdain or admire. Even your disdain and admiration changes, the meaning of your words and concepts. What was true, right, desirable yesterday may not be true, right, desirable tomorrow. Systems have their day and cease to be.

This I feel calls back to the above discussion about language, how, over time these things develop and change. The development of these things, phenomenon, and ideas though changes the content of them, even if the label we apply to that content, or its form, are entirely different.

[...] For Marx the fundamental thing about any human society is not its system of ideas or religions, nor the form of government nor the nature of its family life. These things are important but derivative. They are determined by the ways in which human beings get food, clothing, shelter, by the stage of their advance and the tools they use in these fundamental operations. In a world whose economic structure fails to reward honesty and altruism, a Marxist would not spend his efforts preaching these virtues, but in creating an economic system where honesty really prospered, where each man’s success must be [built] on the success, rather than the ruin, of others. The new economic system would make new people; under it, education in the new ideals would be swift and hopeful.

This is such a great distillation of what Marxism is attempting to analyze and put into the world. Telling someone that "Capitalism engenders a set of social relations that we are all adherent to" or some other variation is almost meaningless to most people. But, telling them our world is structured "by the ways in which human beings get food, clothing, shelter" should get them thinking in ways my previous example wouldn't.

Marx finds the key in his theory of “class struggle.” Man’s science and invention create new ways of production, and these in turn create new “classes” of human beings, i.e., groups of people who have different and conflicting relations to production. Between these classes a struggle goes on around the ownership of the process of production, which is the means of life.

Again, just a good summation of how class struggle drives history forward. I really enjoy the last sentence too, describing the "process of production" as the "means of life", because it's true! All production, to some extent, is in service of providing the "means of life", and what those means are changes based on the level of technological achievement of a given place and time. Cars were once a luxury and a novelty, but through the development of the process of production of cars, cars eventually were elevated to the status of "means of life". Once you wouldn't or even couldn't work more than a few miles from where you live, now, that's almost unheard of, and having a car is broadly the only way to sustain your life under our current arrangement.

She continues:

Thus at different stages of human history new classes arise from new ways of working and the struggle between them produces social change. Modern capitalism has not done away with class antagonisms, but it has this distinctive feature—it has simplified them. “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into . . . two great classes directly facing each other—bourgeoisie and proletariat,”8 those who live by owning and those who can live only by selling their labor power, by seeking a boss.

I like this framing of "selling their labor power" as "seeking a boss". She uses it earlier in the chapter when talking about the financial crisis (another historical rhyme) "Millions of the middle class were thrown into the same abyss of ruin with millions of wage-workers; they wait together on bread-lines, study together the government relief programs, hunt together for a boss. [...] most put their trust in bosses, someone who owns and will give them access to the means of production and of life." People might say they are "looking for work" or "looking for a job" but there is a neutrality in those phrases that seems to not exist in "seeking a boss". I bet, if asked, most people would cringe at the question "Are you looking for a boss?". The answer to that question is "no", and the fear of having a boss is what dominates the minds of the middle class, the petite bourgeoisie.

Between these two remain for a time the middle classes, distraught survivors of those small property owners and independent craftsmen who once embodied the demand for private property against a feudal past. They suffer deeply under advancing capitalism which dislodges them steadily and painfully into the ranks of hired hands. They struggle against their fate, but their strivings are confused, for their instinctive desire is to go back to small scale property. Their cry is to “share the wealth,” to start over again that old society of small owners which led to the present-day monopolies and which would lead to them again if it could be revived. The right to private property was once revolutionary pledge of freedom, but this also has changed with the passing of history. Private property in farm plots and hand tools freed serfs from feudal masters; private property in steel mills creates a new slavery. Even small ownership today, wherever it survives or comes into being, is at the mercy of large scale finance.

Uh-oh, I hit the character limit! Cont...