2019 and History

Another year comes to a close, and not only is there a new year on the horizon, but also a new decade. 2019 has seen many anniversaries and events which have parallels in history, so we'll be discussing some of them today. As always, I'm more of a modern historian so I will be gearing this towards more recent history, and I cannot cover everything which has happened this year. Let's see what happened over this year, and what parallels we can find.

100 Years since the Spartacist Uprising

We discussed the Spartacist Uprising back in January, and its legacy would impact the Left for the next century. By the end of the First World War the German Empire was collapsing - setbacks in the war, continued censorship, and rising mortality due to the British blockade was causing civil unrest. Marxist and socialist writers found new audiences in downtrodden and angered masses, and in October 1918 at the port city of Kiel sailors joined with local socialists taking over the city. This started a chain reaction where city after city saw the establishment of workers' councils, the soviets, across Germany. The newly established Spartacists under Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht saw this as the steps to bringing about a revolution, as what recently happened in Russia, so formed the Communist Party (KPD). On January 5 1919 protests in Berlin against the censorship by the new republic of Friedrich Ebert, who opposed revolution, quickly escalated into an armed uprising by workers. However, things did not go well for the Spartacists. Despite earning support from working-class Berliners the uprising was opposed by Berlin's wealthier communities. Splits within the Spartacists and less radical parties weakened them, and soon Ebert made an alliance with the Freikorps - a hard-right paramilitary whose members would later join the Nazis. The Freikorps would murder Luxemburg and Liebknecht, throwing their bodies into the Landwehr Canal. The two would become martyrs on the Left - especially Luxemburg being a Jewish, disabled, woman having to fight antisemitism, misogyny, and ableism. In the short term German socialism was taken over by more authoritarian Marxist-Leninists. Most of the libertarian Marxists were killed in the uprisings or fled to the Soviet Union where they would later be purged by Stalin, although there were still libertarian socialists around - most notably Clara Zetkin and Walter Benjamin. In the long-term the Spartacists offered guidance to new paths to an equal society, and Luxemburg has become a feminist icon.

China's Anniversaries

This year China has seen three anniversaries which offers a troubling legacy for president Xi Jinping. The first is the centenary of the May Fourth Movement. Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the overthrow of the Chinese emperor in 1912, students and intellectuals began an ambitious and radical movement to fundamentally change China. New theorists, such as Lu Xun, began radically critiquing society and started demanding a new China. The abolition of the Confucian social system, anti-imperialism, feminism, policies against footbinding, and socialism all were advocated, and at times implemented. Through this movement the Communist Party (CPC) emerged. This brings us to the second anniversary, the founding of the People's Republic. In October 1949, seventy years ago, the CPC finally won the decades long Civil War as Mao Zedong declared the new system in Beijing. Coming from the ideological roots of the May Fourth Movement it began a radical transformation of Chinese society. The final anniversary is the thirtieth anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre. By the 1980s officials in the CPC had began a series of reforms adopting aspects of market capitalism, enriching themselves in the process. With future job prospects uncertain, and inspired by pro-democracy protests in the Eastern Bloc, beginning in April students started protesting. This was deeply embarrassing for the ruling CPC - while Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev visited students went on hunger strike, and despite the CPC trying to paint the protesters as Western stooges they sang the world socialist anthem, The Internationale. However, the movement was heavily divided about what its aims were, they were united by their opposition to corruption and authoritarianism. Eventually the government cracked down on June 4 - the resulting reprisals killed many, possibly in the thousands. 

These legacies have proved problematic for the Chinese government. Since the 1980s China has dropped socialism, only keeping the aesthetic of socialism, so the CPC has the staggering paradox of having billionaires being members. An authoritarian, state capitalist party had to, therefore, celebrate two moments in history which aimed for the opposite (their achievements can be debated), and trying to suppress any memories of the third. Just as in the past the CPC has recently faced its own crisis of authority. Protesters have found new ways to criticise the state - consequently Winnie the Pooh is banned due to people comparing Xi Jinping to Winnie - resulting in embarrassments for the state. Marxist and Maoist students have been arrested for protesting the government; social media hashtags were shutdown because they were inadvertently revealing intense pollution in rivers; and since 2008 has been facing an underground Maoist movement. The liberatory rhetoric of May Fourth and Mao, (although in practice after 1949 he stopped this), comes at odds with China's current policies in restricting feminist activism, removing LGBT rights, and attempting to destroy Uighur culture through new policies and concentration camps. Xi Xinjing and the CPC, therefore, have to face this stark contrast in legacies.

Bolivia

I want to discuss Bolivia in a wider context of protests globally, but the YouTuber Bad Empanada discussed it well. I have put the link to his video here and I would recommend watching it.

The Death of Mugabe

On September 6 Zimbabwe's aged former dictator Robert Mugabe died aged 95. Mugabe leaves an uncertain legacy for Zimbabwe and the ruling ZANU-PF party. Before Zimbabwe's official independence in 1980 the country was ruled by one of the most unequal societies in the world during that time. A white minority settler government held the land, judiciary and government leaving the majority black African population landless, disenfranchised, and impoverished. With the exception of a few families who managed to get an education, the majority of the black population were excluded from society. Political repression led to a guerrilla war. Mugabe himself became a martyr for the amount of time he spent in prison, and he later became a key figure in the guerrilla movement coming to lead ZANU. When the war came to an end in 1980 he was elected president, and began an ambitious reform policy reducing unemployment, gave Zimbabweans easier access to education, and started tentative land redistribution. However, immense power was given to Mugabe, and he was hampered by how much economic power the settler population had. Land reform was further hampered as it could only happen when Britain paid Zimbabwe to redistribute land. Mugabe himself made things worse. He quickly moved to stamp out opposition - in 1983 he used a new force called Fifth Brigade to destroy the opposition party, Zapu, in what has been known as the Gukurahundi. As parties fell along ethnic lines this led to a genocidal campaign against the Ndebele killing 20,000. Corruption, especially from the 1990s, crept in where war veterans were left without land or employment so Mugabe could enrich his loyalists. The next almost thirty years was characterised by spikes in inequality, corruption, and poverty until Mugabe was ousted in a coup in 2017. His death now leaves a conflicting legacy. Mugabe was the one who broke white settler power in Zimbabwe, but he also snatched its future for his own greed. The current president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has been described as 'Mugabe's bodyguard', so the future of Zimbabwe has uncertainty in it.

A Year of Protest

Across the world this year we have seen protests against the reversal of rights, or against the status quo. Many of these movements have been led by young or marginalised peoples, and can be compared to the protests which broke out in 1968 worldwide. Then, as today, young and marginalised people took to the streets worldwide to protest capitalism, racism, misogyny, and the complacency of an entrenched elite. This year we have seen protests against aged leaders, (Algeria, Sudan); corruption and economic inequality (Chile, Lebanon, France, Haiti); imperialism (West Papua); racism and the reversal of rights (Bolivia, Hong Kong, India); authoritarianism (Iran); or a mixture (the UK, Brazil, Ecuador). These protests have purposefully created links to the past, or their origins can be found in the past. For example, protests against Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika have described themselves as finishing the Revolution of 1962, the war which liberated Algeria from French rule. Within the last month strikes in France have led to monumental protests and strikes led by radicals, and have directly linked themselves to both the Yellow Vests of last year, and France's radical past ranging from the 1789 Revolution to 1968. Protests in India and Hong Kong have arisen thanks to attempts to centralise authoritarian state power. India's far-right Narendra Modi over this year has removed the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, attempted to isolate that region, and has recently had laws passed which threatens to remove the citizenship of Assamese and non-Hindus, mainly Muslims. As a result, protests have erupted across India opposing this which have been compared to the fight for independence. Quite telling is that one of those arrested is India's most important historian Ramachandra Guha. In Hong Kong an extradition bill was passed which could allow people from Hong Kong to be taken to court in China. Over a million have came out since June to have this reversed, but splits in the movement have meant that they still drag on. A more radical branch, inspired by the anti-colonial riots of 1967, want to make it the start of a more equal and democratic Hong Kong, while others want the status quo - some controversially calling for US aid or waving colonial flags. 

There have been a wave of anti-colonial protests as well. The situation in Assam, Kashmir, and Jammu are legacies of the arbitrary nature of how Britain divided empire. Hindutva, Hindu nationalist, groups, like the far-right RSS, have tried in Assam to forcibly convert the indigenous people to Hinduism. As a result, the protests in these regions have been a way to fight continued colonial attitudes to indigenous peoples. West Papua has similarly come back into attention for the Indonesian government's imposition of militarised forces in the region resulting in deaths. In Latin America, indigenous communities have been out to protest the neo-liberal, or authoritarian, states in which they live as they were most impacted by these policies. Indigenous activists took over Ecuador's capital of Quito forcing the government to evacuate themselves; Mapuche in Chile flew their flags from prominent places in the capital; and indigenous peoples have recently protested against Bolivia's new and openly white supremacist government which came to power when Aymara president Evo Morales was ousted in a coup. Linking this to the past, Mapuche in Chile decapitated a statue of Christopher Columbus and placed the head in the arms of a statue of a Mapuche leader. 1492 still affects indigenous peoples today. Gay pride, worldwide, has become increasingly radical as we have seen the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which we discussed here, and communities across the world have reminded us how much we still need to fight. While there has been successes, (this year Ghana had its first gay pride, Botswana legalised homosexuality, and Austria legalised gay marriage), there have been major setbacks. Transphobia has become socially accepted in the UK in particular, which has been the focus of a new young generation of activists to resist - inspired by Stonewall.

Climate Crisis

It is not surprising that climate change is drastically changing the planet. As I am writing this fires have swept Australia and have already claimed 400 million animals - it is almost certain that we might see the extinction of several species within the decade, including the koala. Intense hurricanes have hit the Caribbean, floods devastated South Asia, and northern England (where I'm from) saw destructive floods as flood systems failed. Intense weather conditions are being caused by climate change, something being caused thanks to the activities of humans. When we discussed the Little Ice Age we saw how climate change deeply impacts societies. Flooding and bad rains destroy crops, drier temperatures cause other crops to fail, and the impact this has on natural habitats destroys local communities. As natural resources fail, just like in the 1600s, this creates conflict. We have already seen this recently. ISIS in Syria managed to recruit from young, unemployed men who had recently moved to the countryside because harsher weather had made farming less profitable. If human-caused climate change is not tackled this could become worse. The future is not too bright. The UK, Australia, US, and Brazil have noted opponents of reform, or outright climate change deniers, in power - Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro purposefully burned the Amazon this year. Consumption in the economically wealthy states means that climate change continues - India and China produce so much carbon dioxide largely to feed the needs of the global north, and the Amazon was burnt to make way for farming to feed the global north. There is a small beacon of hope. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, millions have since taken part in Climate Strikes across the world demanding states act to reduce their carbon output. Key politicians, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US, have pledged to create a 'Green New Deal' to tackle climate change. 

Trump's Impeachment

Very recently the US House of Representatives voted on December 18 to impeach Donald Trump making him the third president, and only member of the Home Alone 2 cast, to be impeached. The first was Andrew Johnson in 1868; he was Lincoln's vice-president who got the role when his predecessor was assassinated. Johnson had sympathies with the former slave holding planters in the South so had worked to block legislation which would have given increased rights for the former slaves. A tired Congress put him on trial, but he never ended up being formally impeached by both houses. The Senate, twice, failed to vote to impeach him, and the trial was adjourned. As the election was underway, and Congress knew that Johnson wasn't running, impeachment by both houses was abandoned. The second president to be impeached was not actually Richard Nixon (the president I believe is most like Trump), as he resigned before impeachment proceedings could formally happen. Instead, the second one was Bill Clinton for obstructing justice and lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998. Again, the Senate failed to vote about whether to impeach so only the House was the only one to impeach him. As the Republicans currently have a majority in the Senate, and a two-thirds majority in favour of impeachment is required, but then there is also not enough for an acquittal.

Thank you for reading and that's the last blog post for not only 2019 but also the 2010s. What 2020 will bring we cannot be certain, but until then I hope the rest of your 2019 is good. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

2018 and History

Some Gilets jaunes protesters

2018 is coming to a close and 2019 is soon to arrive. Over this last year we have seen many events occur which find their origin in history, as well as anniversaries of major events which shaped the world that we live in today. Of course, so many things have happened across the year so I cannot go over everything, and as my speciality is limited to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we naturally cannot cover everything. As a result, we'll cover several key events and anniversaries that has happened across the last year.

Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa, and the Legacy of Mandela

In February South African president Jacob Zuma resigned in favour of Cyril Ramaphosa. This became even more important with 2018 also see the passing of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and the one-hundredth birthday of Nelson Mandela. Nelson and Winnie were two of the many individuals who took part in the anti-Apartheid protests across South Africa. In 1948 the National Party under Daniel Malan instituted a policy named Apartheid which legally separated white South Africans from non-whites. This policy was not entirely new - racial discrimination and segregation existed long before the National Party - but now a government was in power wanting to explicitly expand segregation and prejudice. By the 1970s the government had gone as far as to create the 'Homelands' granting 'independence' to black African peoples in order to strip urban black Africans of their citizenship. Many different organisations emerged in order to oppose Apartheid including the African National Congress (ANC) of which Nelson, and later Winnie, became involved in. In June 1964 Nelson Mandela was put on trial and initially sentenced to death, but this was reduced to life imprisonment. Thanks to the ANC in exile Mandela became an international martyr and attention came onto his activist wife Winnie. Anti-Apartheid activism wasn't just limited to the Mandelas and the ANC - a variety of organisations took part ranging from the Pan-African Congress to the Communist Party. Following Mandela's imprisonment a new generation of activists emerged with new organisations, including Ramaphosa and the National Union of Mineworkers (formed 1982). By the late-1980s the Apartheid state was collapsing: a shift in the economy undermined Apartheid; domestic opposition increased; international sanctions destroyed the South African economy; the state's attempts to preserve Apartheid had destroyed its own economy; and Mandela's imprisonment continued to make him a martyr. February 11 1990 Mandela walked hand-in-hand with Winnie, and four years later the first multi-racial election took place which brought an end to Apartheid and brought Mandela to the presidency.

After a century of racial discrimination, and with the Mandela presidency focusing more on reconciliation than social justice, followed by fifty years of Apartheid had continued to leave South Africa's black population impoverished. Nelson's and Winnie's honesty in politics, as well as strong stance on social justice, had inspired a new generation born after the collapse of Apartheid. This issue was compounded by the intense corruption of the successive ANC governments under Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Amidst a corruption scandal Zuma resigned in favour of Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa has effectively used the legacy of Mandela by positioning himself as the successor to Mandela in order to rebuild the lost trust in the ANC. Time will tell how if this works out in his favour. 

Korea

Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in crossing the DMZ

Throughout this year relations have been changing between North and South Korea. In March the two Koreas in the Seoul Winter Olympics participated as one team and in April the leaders of the two states met and symbolically crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Following the end of the Second World War and the defeat of the Japanese Empire - which had formally ruled Korea since 1910 - the Korean peninsula had been divided along the 38th parallel. In the North a Marxist-Leninist government was implemented by the Soviet Union under Kim Il-sung while in the South a capitalist government was implemented by the United States under Syngman Rhee. Initially it was intended that the two Koreas would be united but Cold War tensions soon prevented this. Meanwhile, Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-sung both moved to solidify their own position - an uprising of Jeju island was brutally crushed by South forces as an example. Both wished to unify the peninsula and war broke out in 1950 as the North invaded the South. Kim's forces found quick success and almost succeeded in conquering the South until a US-led coalition with UN support landed. Initially the plan was meant to push the North back across the 38th parallel but unexpected success emboldened the US who now wanted to directly pushback communism. This made the newly declared People's Republic of China fearful that this would embolden them to push into China so the People's Liberation Army crossed the Yalu River. Chinese forces pushed the UN forces back and three years of stalemate followed costing the lives of 2.5 million Korean civilians. A peace treaty was signed at Panmunjom between all the combatants except for the two Koreas - to this day North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war. Currently the DMZ remains heavily guarded and is one of the most fortified regions in the world.

Since 1953 relations between the two states have not improved. Kim Il-sung and Syngman Rhee ruled in Pyongyang and Seoul respectively in two authoritarian regimes. One a Marxist-Leninist authoritarian regime, the other a capitalist authoritarian regime, meant that unification became a distant memory - even when South Korea became a multi-party democracy in 1987. Relations remained sour between the two states since 1987, especially thanks to continued American presence in the South and the North's testing of nuclear weapons in 2006. A regular occurrence since then is that the North tests weapons causing the South to adopt more recalcitrant positions which in turn causes the North to test more weapons. Earlier this year there seems to be a break in this trend - 2019 might see relations improve, or this thaw come to an end.

100 Years since the end of World War One

Londoners celebrating the end of World War I

This November saw 100 years since the end of the First World War - one of the most brutal and destructive conflicts in human history. The assassination of heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, on June 28 1914 in Sarajevo led to the European powers declaring war on one another - France, Britain, and Russia on one side (the Entente), and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other (the Central Powers). Immediately it became a world war - British and German troops first fought one another in West Africa and their fleets quickly did battle at the Falkland Islands. Britain's Dominions - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa - were brought into the war and Britain's alliance with Japan (as well as Japanese interests in China and the Pacific) brought it into the war. The Ottoman Empire, angered by Britain and France intervening in its affairs, joined the Central Powers as Italy unexpectedly went against its alliance with the Central Powers to join the Entente. By 1917 a stalemate had occurred and support for the war, which was very popular in 1914, had started to waver. The Central Powers even at this stage seemed to be in a position to see victory - revolution broke out in Russia in March bringing down the tsarist regime and in November a second revolution brought Russia out of the war. However, US entry into the war the same year made Germany fearful of American power accompanied by the slow disintegration of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian armies thanks to ethnic divisions. The Ludendorff Offensive aimed to quickly knock out France before US troops and resources to arrive to reinforce the Entente - it almost succeeded but doing so weakened the German lines, cost them their best soldiers, and depleted their resources. Soon enough the Central Powers collapsed and November 11 1918 a ceasefire was declared. After four years of fighting over 16 million were dead, a flu outbreak devastated the world, and soon enough conflict began once again. The war changed the world as we knew it - empires collapsed, the tragedy of the violence caused a demographic change, and new politics emerged. These legacies remain hotly debated today. In Britain the poppy has become a symbol of remembrance and in recent years has become subject to debates on national identity. Activist and World War Two RAF pilot Harry Leslie Smith, who tragically passed this November, wrote on Twitter: 'Instead of wearing a poppy for #Remembrance2018 we should wear our shame because as a human race we've learned nothing since 1918.' Wars are currently destroying Syria, Yemen and Iraq funded by Euro-American governments - we have to ask ourselves, have we learnt anything since 1918?

Meiji - 150 Years On

150 years ago one of the most important events in Japanese history took place. Japan for centuries had been ruled by shoguns - to summarise samurai warlords - with the emperor as a puppet. Then in 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened Japan to foreign affairs leading to a series of treaties - named the Unequal Treaties - which exploited Japan. Young samurai from Choshu and Satsuma were angered by the shogunate's seemingly lack of action and bowing down to foreign demands so in April 1868 they issued the Charter Oath. They vowed to 'restore' the emperor to power and fight back against foreign exploitation. The shogunate was overthrown, the emperor 'restored' (he remained very much a figurehead), and a process of 'modernisation' began. Japanese rulers knew that they had to reform society in order not to be conquered by Europe, but they debated how much society had to be changed. The old samurai order was abolished but should they allow capitalists? They looked to Europe and America for inspiration but how much inspiration should they take from the West? Within a generation Japan had become an industrialised imperial empire but these debates continued. Some have suggested that the bombings of Pearl Harbor, and later Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had their roots in the Meiji Restoration. It in undeniable that the era of the Meiji Reformers greatly shaped the future Japan. Recently, the emperor, Akihito, had announced that he plans to abdicate in 2019 - the first emperor to abdicate in centuries - and Akihito's reign had been involved in dealing with the legacies of pre-war, and wartime, Japan. He has repeatedly criticised the government's refusal to acknowledge war crimes throughout the Japanese Empire as well as readily accepting that he was to be a mortal and a figurehead - something his father Hirohito struggled to come to terms with.

1848-1968-2018

Since November in France we have seen the Gilets jaunes protests which have attracted over 300,000 participants. Emmanuel Macron's proposed fuel tax would have affected ordinary French citizens much more than the big companies who contribute most to climate change - wearing yellow vests protesters met in Paris and soon other grievances came to attention. Thanks to Macron's unpopularity, his approval rating is below 25%, the Gilets jaunes has attracted support from across the political spectrum. These protests have been France's largest since 1968. Across the world in 1968 we saw widespread protests: there was a spike in anti-Apartheid protests across the world; Catholics protested against discrimination in Northern Ireland; the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia broke out against harsh Soviet rule; students in Mexico, West Germany, the US, and UK clashed with police; race riots broke out in the US due to the assassination of Martin Luther King; and there were protests against military rule in Brazil, Pakistan, and Franco's rule in Spain. French students also protested in May 1968 which dwarfed that of the Gilets jaunes. Students and their teachers initially protested against harsh treatment of students by the police which expanded to target consumerism, capitalism, and American imperialism. Soon workers became involved with various wildcat strikes - 11 million workers ended up taking part in the protests. Communists and socialists became heavily involved but there were deep divisions among the left; the protesters adopted Maoist and libertarian socialist thought, although some protested for the imagery and not the ideals. Students jokingly said that Jimi Hendrix was leading their protest and graffiti read 'Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho' (I am a Marxist - Groucho tendency). The 1968 even created fears that there might be another revolution and caused a quick election. Just over a century before that Paris, and Europe, saw a major revolution.

1848 saw a series of revolutions sweep over Europe beginning in Paris which has since been called the 'Springtime of Peoples'. Crop failures deeply affected the poorest and when you're hungry you begin seeing the faults in society. Royal absolutism, power of the nobility, and serfdom created disaffected working, and middle, classes which led to revolution in 1848. In January a failed revolt broke out in Sicily but the most important one broke out in Paris in February. Discontent was growing over Louis Philippe's power, a limited franchise, and economic disparities. Paris was also home to major socialist thinkers including Louis Blanc and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon - one of the first and major anarchist thinkers. Revolt broke out in Paris and soon swept across Europe where they got support from different peoples over different ideas. Liberalism, socialism, and nationalism were hotly debated across Europe. It was during the revolts that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto. In the short-term the revolts failed. There were deep rural-urban divides, clashes between national identities, and fearing socialists moderates ended up siding with conservative forces. In France the Second Republic was declared which was soon brought to an end via a coup in 1851 by Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon, who declared himself Napoleon III. However, in the future the reforms that were passed thanks to the revolts, and the impact of the revolts helped bring about what the revolutionaries of 1848 hoped to get themselves.

Karl Marx - 200 Years On

This February we saw 150 years since the publishing of The Communist Manifesto as well as the 200th birthday of Karl Marx in May. Inspired by a variety of writers, most notably Hegel, Marx as a journalist caught the attention of the Prussian government, and later governments of states including France, for his radical socialist views. To briefly summarise Marx's views he was a proponent of dialectical materialism - where two opposing ideas clash which transforms or dissolves them. He also was a proponent of historical materialism - looking at how human societies develop over time and comparing societies based on these developments. Marx and Engels also argued for socialism; they praised capitalism for mechanisation and destroying feudalism but they also viewed it as exploiting workers who they saw as the true wealth producers. The ideas of Marx would go on to inspire thousands through history ranging from political thinkers like Vladimir Lenin and Angela Davis to artists like Pablo Picasso and Hayao Miyazaki. 

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Left to Right: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko

This year we saw the unfortunate passing of two of the major cultural creators of the twentieth century - Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Lee and Ditko were two of the heavyweights at Marvel comics and together the two created Spider-Man and his entire mythos. With Jack Kirby Lee ended up creating most of Marvel's major characters including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Dr Doom, and Ant-Man. Before Lee, Ditko, and Kirby came along comic book heroes were meant to be flawless individuals that young people could look up to and be inspired by - to this day Superman is still referred to as 'the big blue boy scout'. Marvel came along and made heroes real - they had money and family problems, they failed, got mad, had arguments, and struggled with their own power. Marvel was also keen to reflect reality. Published during the height of the Cold War heroes often clashed with Russian opponents given powers by nuclear weaponry. Stan Lee was a keen supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and was keen to reflect that in X-Men, and Black Panther was one of the first black characters to have their own comic line. Lee and Kirby, less so than the shy and retiring Ditko, put their bold personalities on display - 'Stan's Soapbox' discussed everything from future comics to his support for racial equality. Marvel has since become one of the world's major cultural icons.

Brazil and Bolsonaro

In October far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil. Bolsonaro has stated that he would rather have a dead son than a gay son, that Afro-Brazilians were not 'worth procreation', that the dictatorship should have killed instead of tortured, and that 'not an inch' of the Amazon will be protected. In particular, this year he praised Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet - the same year that the relatives of some of his victims got justice when some of Pinochet's murderers were put on trial. Bolsonaro was a paratrooper in the military during the dictatorship. With this post we'll look more at Brazil's dictatorship rather than how Bolsonaro came to power. In 1964 left-leaning president Joao Goulart began nationalising land, however, Brazil's traditional elite were land owners. During the Cold War, especially following Castro's victory in Cuba in 1959, nationalisation policies were viewed with distrust and even Goulart's moderate reforms were seen as a prelude to a socialist takeover. The military, supported by the US, intervened and ousted Goulart beginning a dictatorship which would last until 1985. Unlike the later Pinochet regime Brazilian military generals kept up a facade of democratic politics; there were two legal parties, the pro-military ARENA and the 'opposition' MDB. There was a joke that the only difference between the parties was one said 'Yes' while the other said 'Yes Sir!'. Torture was a tool widely used by the military - the confirmed people to be murdered was much smaller compared to neighbouring dictatorships thanks to this. Former president Dilma Rousseff was just one person to be tortured and imprisoned during the regime's rule. In 1979 the Amnesty Law was passed - individuals could research human rights abuses if supervised. It was thanks to this law that Brasil: Nunca Mais, a book detailing all the human rights abuses, was written and later published shortly after the dictatorship fell. However, at the same time the Amnesty Law allowed human rights abusers to be immune to prosecution if they testified.

In 1985 the military fell but the impact it had lasts in Brazil. It took until 2014 for an investigation to happen about the human rights abuses and with Bolsonaro now elected the future of this investigation is up in the air. Furthermore, the regime most affected the poor and ethnic minorities - indigenous peoples were disproportionally affected by the regime - and it seems the same could continue under Bolsonaro. There is a glimmer of hope. Under the regime a strong counterculture movement emerged among student groups which managed to embrace feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and environmental activism under the nose of the military. Ipanema and Copacabana have become world famous for its thriving LGBT culture, especially the beach, and you may be surprised to hear that this really took root under the military's rule. Under Bolsonaro's fist a thriving counterculture movement could emerge once more to resist him. 

Frankenstein - 200 Years Later

The Monster in the Universal adaptation

On a lighter note to end this post I thought it would be good to end with a cultural icon - Frankenstein. Published in 1818 by a 20-year old Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus has since become one of the most important novels of all time. As a fan of both the horror and sci-fi genres I owe a lot to Shelley - Frankenstein is one of the first horror novels and laid the groundwork for the sci-fi genre. Locked indoors by bad weather while touring Europe with her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, they played a game of telling stories and she later had a nightmare. She combined the two forming Frankenstein. The story focuses on scientist Victor Frankenstein who aims to copy God by creating life: he sews together corpses and using a brain he brings to life his creation, the Creature. Now brought to life and excluded from society he demands a bride to bring him happiness, and Victor and his Creation have to face their bleak existence. Since 1818 Frankenstein has had several new editions and has been adapted countless times. In 1910 a 12-minute loose adaptation was produced by Thomas Edison and is now readily available on YouTube. The most famous one is perhaps the 1931 Universal adaptation featuring Boris Karloff, pictured above.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. Thank you again for reading and it's time to say bye to 2018 and hello to 2019.

Karl Marx: 200 Years On

May 5 1818 Karl Marx was born. Over the next 200 years his ideas would greatly shape how people would view and shape the world. I myself am inspired by Marx's ideas. With the exception of a brief period in the 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in eastern Europe his ideas have been seen as the most, or one of the most important, by people across the world. The BBC radio show In Our Time in 2005 asked its listeners to name their most influential philosopher and with 27.9% of the vote Marx was voted the most influential with the second being David Hume at 12.7%. Today we'll look at three aspects of Marx. First, we'll look briefly at his life. Second, we'll look at what he believed. Finally, we'll look at his legacy.

Marx: A Brief Biography

Marx's Birthplace

Marx was born into a formerly Jewish family in Trier, then in Prussia's Rhineland province. His mother, Henriette Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew whose father had been a rabbi and his father, Herschel Marx, was a lawyer. After the defeat of Napoleon Trier came under the control of conservative Prussia who started enforcing a law barring Jews from public office. As a result Herschel converted the family to Christianity and adopted the name Heinrich over his Yiddish name. Although Karl's relations with his mother was always fractious he adored his father with him always carrying a photo of Heinrich, later even being buried with a photo of his father. Karl was the third of nine children with him becoming the eldest son when his brother died in 1819. Heinrich and Henriette were heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, and until 1830 Karl (and his siblings), were home schooled by Heinrich and when they went to school they were taught by a humanist. In 1835 he started at the University of Bonn before being transferred to the University of Berlin which saw him engaging with more radical, liberal philosophy joining the Young Hegelians in 1837. Inspired by the recently deceased Hegel they used his views on dialects, mixed it with leftist discourse and then used it to criticize society. This would bring Marx into conflict with the state for the first time - socialism would become strong in Germany but Prussia itself was very conservative. Marx was forced to submit his thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, in 1841 to the more liberal University of Jenna as his more conservative professors at Berlin thought it too controversial. Throughout his time at Berlin he made friends with fellow Hegelian Bruno Bauer who helped influence his views. The two around 1841 had become atheists and had debated forming an atheist journal.

While at university Karl also became engaged. One of the most important people in his life was his wife, Jenny von Westphalen. Four years his senior she was extremely well-read and got on well with Marx with them getting engaged in 1836 with them finally marrying in 1843. This was aided by the fact that he had obtained his PhD and started writing in 1842 for a radical socialist paper, the Rheinische Zeitung, in Cologne. It immediately came under Prussian scrutiny - Marx said that 'our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear' - and Russia even banned it! 1843 he and Jenny moved to Paris where Karl started writing for a Franco-German paper, German-French Annals, which was largely staffed by German exiles. However, another key figure in leftist ideology worked there as well - the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. It was in Paris that he had his first daughter, Jenny, and he met his closest friend - Friedrich Engels. Both had adopted communism by then - in 1845 Engels wrote one of his landmark books The Condition of the Working Class in England - and the two became extremely close. They were so close that Engels would often bail out Marx and even wrote Marx's surviving children into his will. That same year the Prussian king convinced the French Interior Minister to ban another of Marx's papers and exiled him to Brussels.

An Original copy of the Manifesto

The next ten years were both the worst and best years of Marx's life. While exiled in Brussels he visited England for the first time with Friedrich, saw the birth of the rest of his children, formed the Communist League, and published some of his best known works. One of the most important was The German Ideology, written with Engels, which set out their views on historical materialism. In 1848 a series of revolutions swept across Europe of which many soon adopted socialism. During this time Engels and Marx wrote their most important book: The Communist Manifesto. Short with little specialized language its aim was to introduce the proletariat and working classes to the idea of communism and bring about revolution. However, the Manifesto was soon banned by several states (it took until the 1870s for it to get popular), and the 1848 Revolutions were soon ended by reaction and as Marx had used his own money to fund Belgian revolutionaries he got exiled once again. After a brief stint in Cologne Marx and his family moved to London in 1850. During the early 1850s the rest of Marx's children were born and would tragically die. Thanks to TB and general sickness only three (Jenny, Laura and Eleanor) of his children would make it to adulthood. This would destroy Marx and he never recovered from the death of his children.

A barricade during the Paris Commune

While in London Marx continued writing and once again became a journalist, this time for the New York Daily Tribune. On the side he would organize socialist meetings with Engels and continue developing his ideas. Shortly after Lincoln's election he even wrote to him to tell him how much he admired him. He even left the Tribune in 1863 when the paper abandoned abolitionism in favor of supporting a quick peace with the Confederates. Although Marx did hold sexist views he also taught his daughters around this time to remain independent and only marry if they wanted to do so. In 1864 the First International was formed. This was an attempt to bring together leftists around the world to organize the workers of the world and Marx soon became very influential in it. However, a split emerged in the International which became accentuated after the 1871 Paris Commune. During the tail end of the Franco-Prussian War the Parisian people rose up and established a commune based on sexual equality, universal suffrage, and socialism - something which excited Marx. It was soon crushed through a variety of means. Marx believed that the Parisians had started dismantling the state too quickly and that was why it was defeated whereas Mikhail Bakunin argued instead that they reason it was defeated was due to the state still existing. This can be seen as the first major split in modern leftist thought with those supporting Marx being known as Marxists whereas Bakunin's followers became known as anarchists. During the International Marx's joint most famous book was published: Das Kapital. I should rather say the first volume was published - volume II was published in 1885 and Engels published volume III after Marx's death in 1895. Kapital set out Marxist theory on economics outlining the differences between a capitalist and communist economy. 

On December 2 1881 Jenny, at the age of 67, died after years of liver cancer. The loss of Jenny hit him badly and the sickly Marx could not handle it. Only his friendship with Engels, his daughters and finishing Kapital could keep him going. He was hit even harder by the death of his daughter Jenny at the age of 38 in the January of 1883. Losing two of his loved ones and his own illnesses took the life out of Marx. Eventually on March 14 1883 he passed away. At his funeral Engels said: On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep—but forever.

Marx's grave today

Ideas

Talking about Marx's ideas can be difficult as many times they have been 'strawmanned' just because of how confusing they can be. Marx's opinions changed over his life and he often showed nuance in his views. For one, Kapital normally takes the individual out of history but in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon he places much emphasis on individuals, in this case Louis Napoleon. Marx himself was inspired by Enlightenment figures, like Kant, who placed emphasis on individuals. Today we'll just cover the basics. A key aspect of Marxist theory is how he treated sociology and history as a science and with that came historical materialism. This looks at how human societies develop over time and by looking at trends in such societies you can compare them. Marx argued that these societies can be determined by their mode of production which is how labor and means of production (how good end up being produced). These broad modes are hunter-gatherer, 'Asiatic', ancient/antique, feudal, capitalist, socialist and finally communist. He never really spoke of how a society transfers from one system to another and Marx did change his view. In the 1850s and 1860s despite opposing British rule in India (although at times Marx had a racist streak in him) he argued that it was a necessary evil to allow Indians closer to socialism. In 1881 writing to Russian leftist Vera Zasulich he did say that it was possible for Russia to skip capitalism to go straight to socialism. Furthermore, he argued that the mode of production offered a base for a superstructure which in practice was a society. For Marx, (and Engels), everything in society from power to the media to the family were thus determined by the mode of production.

Most of Marx's writing is based on capitalism and socialism. It is important to state as well that Marx did not invent socialism and communism - these ideas predate Marx with communism being coined by Victor d'Hupay in 1777. Instead he and other contemporaries simply shaped our current understanding of it. Marx defined capitalism as a ruling class, the bourgeoisie, who owned the means of production and used a laboring class, the proletariat, to produce goods. Surplus value, profit, was then given to the owner - like a factory owner for example. This is contrasted with a socialist or communist system where workers, or the state, own the means of production and surplus value is split equally between them. Marx also saw what was happening in contemporary society and now has been said of predicting the future: Marx argued that automation was inevitable. However, in Marx's view this was more because the tools of production are communally owned and that machines replacing people would allow them to do their desired ambitions. Everything was to fit into this economic system. For one, Marx argued domestic abuse and treating wives as property was inevitable under capitalism - a capitalist in his view saw their wife as another tool to be exploited leading to abuse. Marx believed that as the interests of workers and owners were different this would lead to a class war which would establish socialism. However, he argued that false consciousness prevents this. This is an idea where the ruling group makes the lumpenproletariat (non-conscious workers) believe that society is fine. Here the famous line 'Religion is the opiate of the masses' came into play; Marx viewed the revolutionary potential of religion being changed to keep the masses in line. The last part of Marx's ideas (although he did not coin the term) I want to mention is the dictatorship of the proletariat. When Marx used this he did not mean a dictatorship in the typical sense. This instead was just a system where the proletariat rules.

Legacy

The October Revolution - the first successful Marxist revolution

Marx's legacy cannot be overstated. Marxism has influenced millions around the world in ways unthinkable. The most obvious example is the formation of Communist parties across the world which either brought to power Marxists (as in Russia and Cuba) or greatly changed the country (as in India and the USA). The Communist Party of the USA before the Second Red Scare were deeply involved with the Civil Rights Movement, such as CPUSA defending the Scottsboro Boys, and many key figures in American society were influenced by socialism. Malcolm X and the Black Panthers were partially inspired by Marxist thought and at university Martin Luther King did read Marx - although he was more inspired by the Bible than Marx. Marxists have been deeply involved with women's liberation and anti-caste measures in India and Marxists were very involved with the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa; in his autobiography Nelson Mandela mentions how much he was influenced by Marxism. Many national liberation movements were influenced by Marxism as well including Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam - the US in the 1950s lamented that they couldn't support nationalists in Europe's colonies as many were communist. Socialist agitation in many countries, including the UK, were important in establishing unions, minimum wages, workplace safety measures, and even universal healthcare. One thing the British are universally proud of is the NHS - the publicly owned health care system. Today four countries have communism in their constitutions - China, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. Cuba is now famous for its healthcare system, the amount of doctors it has and its high literacy rate. Marxism did develop a dark side. The horrors of Stalin and Mao, for example, lead to the deaths of millions. Many of the criticisms of Marxism lie with these examples.

British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that Marx is the first word not the last and his ideas have been repeatedly altered and adapted. Vladimir Lenin expanded on Marx to cover imperialism and his view on the dictatorship of the proletariat would be that of the vanguard party. Many of the criticisms that Marxism is authoritarianism stems from Lenin's vanguard party which did lead at times to dictatorships - as with the USSR under Stalin. Rosa Luxemburg (who influences my own political views) disagreed with Lenin arguing instead that the vanguard party would lead to authoritarianism and that elections via soviets should happen. Antonio Gramsci would expand on Marx's false consciousness with the idea of hegemony - he argued that culture also was used to prevent revolution and that it had to be changed if socialism could be achieved. His ideas proved very popular as Marx's modes of production and superstructure did not explain racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Marxist theory has greatly shaped academia. We see less emphasis on 'Great Man Theory' due to Marxist historians emphasizing 'history from below' and certain branches of history, such as feminist history, originated thanks to this. Post-modernism originated to criticize Marxism and other meta-narratives which has in turn inspired Marxist academics to look at their own research. Post-colonialist Gayatri Spivak is one such example of this. 

Conclusion

Regardless if you agree with Marx or not his writings have greatly shaped the world over the last century. Despite a brief period in the 1990s with the collapse of the USSR Marx's theories have remained deeply influential in many ways ranging from academics like Vere Gordon Childe (who coined the term Agricultural Revolution) to the Naxalites currently active in India to thousands who take part in May Day parades. Marx was far from perfect and his views were often flawed but they've inspired millions. Those who have been inspired by him have done horrific things but also many good things. No matter your position on his views it cannot be doubted that Marx and Marxism have been highly influential.

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Jonathan Sperber, Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life, (New York: 2013)

-Gareth Stedman Jones, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion, (London: 2016)

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, (London: 1975)

-Eric Hobsbawm, 'Marx and History', New Left Review, 143, (1984), 39-50

-Harvey J. Kaye, The Education of Desire: Marxists and the Writing of History, (New York: 1992)

-S.H. Rigby, 'Marxist Historiography', in Michael Bentley, (ed.), Companion to Historiography, (London: 1997)

-'Marx', BBC In Our Time

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