Étiquette : communism

presse

Pat Flanagan : The God that Failed

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 21/08/2022
Aucun commentaire sur Pat Flanagan : The God that Failed

Article de Pat Flanagan paru dans Freedom, 10 July 1982, Vol. 43, No 13, p. 15

Iain Hamilton, Koestler: A Biography. Secker and Warburg, 1982. 398pp. £12

MOST on the left today are too young to know of Arthur Koestler’s life and work. Those who do—this is especially true of Marxists—tend to dismiss the 76 year old Hungarian as an ex-Communist supporter of capitalism who abandoned politics for speculative-mystical philosophy and psychology when his God—Stalinist Communism—failed. Koestler is, after all, the leading contributor to the ‘God That Failed’ essay-collection by ex-Communists edited by Richard Crossman and published in the early 1950s.

Étiquettes 1982, Anarchism, Arthur Koestler, biography, book, communism, freedom, Iain Hamilton, Pat Flanagan, review, Secker and Warburg

revues

Karl Korsch: Revolution for what? A critical comment on Jan Valtin’s « Out of the Night »

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 24/03/2021
Aucun commentaire sur Karl Korsch: Revolution for what? A critical comment on Jan Valtin’s « Out of the Night »

Article de Karl Korsch signé L. H. paru dans Living Marxism, Vol. V., No. 4, Spring 1941, p. 21-29

« Soiled with mire from top to toe, and oozing blood from every pore », a seafaring man emerges on this side of the Atlantic to tell a weird story of intrigue and conspiracy, of spying and counter-spying, of treason, torture, and murder. It is a true story, a reliable record of tangible facts, albeit mostly of facts that remind one of the « stranger than fiction » columns. Yet there is the difference that they are not isolated facts which seem unbelievable only because they do not fit into the common assumptions derived from everyday experience. Valtin’s book reveals a whole world of well-connected facts that retain their intrinsic quality of unreality even after their non-fictitious character has been established. It is a veritable underworld that lies below the surface of present-day society; yet unlike the various disconnected underworlds of crime, it is a coherent world with its own type of human actions and sufferings, situations and personalities, allegiances and apostasies, upheavals and cataclysms.

Étiquettes 1941, book, communism, essay, Germany, Jan Valtin, Karl Korsch, Living Marxism, review, Richard Julius Hermann Krebs, Soviet Union, Stalin

presse

Nicolas Walter : Orwell and the Anarchists

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 14/03/2021
2 commentaires sur Nicolas Walter : Orwell and the Anarchists

Article de Nicolas Walter paru dans Freedom, Vol. 42, No. 2, 30th January 1981, p. 9-12

GEORGE ORWELL died in 1950. He had become famous with the publication of Animal Farm in 1945, and much more famous with the publication Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949. But he was too ill to enjoy his fame, and he died of tuberculosis at the age of 46. Since then, he has grown steadily more and more famous, and after becoming a classic in his own life he has now become a name known by virtually everyone who reads at all. Almost all his books have been continually reprinted, and most of his shorter writings have also been conveniently reprinted in the four-volume Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters. Of all modern writers, in fact, he is one of the easiest to get hold of; he is also one of the easiest to get to grips with, for all his work has a style and structure which are so spare and simple and a personality and purpose which are so peculiar and powerful that introduction and explanation are virtually unnecessary. In a way, then, there is no need to read about Orwell at all, only to read Orwell; but this hasn’t stopped many people writing about him.

Étiquettes 1981, Anarchism, Britain, communism, essay, fascism, freedom, George Orwell, George Woodcock, Labour Party, Nicolas Walter, novel, socialism, Spain, writer

revues

Trends in Arab Thought: An Interview with Sadek Jalal al-Azm

Auteur de l’article Par SiNedjib
Date de l’article 21/09/2018
Aucun commentaire sur Trends in Arab Thought: An Interview with Sadek Jalal al-Azm

Entretien de Sadik Jalal al-‘Azm par Abu Fakhr, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Winter, 1998), p. 68-80.

Abu Fakhr: You have stated that one of the errors of the Left was that it neglected the importance of civil society, democracy, human rights, secularism, and so on. At present, many are giving up the mantle of Marxism and enlisting in the ranks of the secularists as though they believed secularism could serve as a shield against religious fundamentalism [salafiyya]. Where do you believe we are headed in the near future?