>>15627542
>Trudeau takes questions on invoking Emergencies Act to handle protests
>DOUGH
Mozambique
>Trudeau: We are announcing that Canada will offer a loan of up to $500 million to the government of Ukraine…this is in addition to the $120 million loan offered earlier in January.
money money money moooneeey
You are terrorists.
fuckin communism live bros
Soy Castro is coming for you terrorists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Poland
Martial law in Poland existed between 1981 and 1983. The government of the Polish People's Republic drastically restricted everyday life by introducing martial law and a military junta in an attempt to counter political opposition, in particular the Solidarity movement.
>Solidarity movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Polish_trade_union)
It was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Polish_trade_union)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_Ko%C5%82akowski
Although Leszek Kołakowski's works were officially banned in Poland, and he lived outside the country from the late 1960s, his philosophical ideas nonetheless exerted an influence on the Solidarity movement. Underground copies of his books and essays shaped the opinions of the Polish intellectual opposition. His 1971 essay Theses on Hope and Hopelessness, which suggested that self-organised social groups could gradually expand the spheres of civil society in a totalitarian state, helped inspire the dissident movements of the 1970s that led to the creation of Solidarity and provided a philosophical underpinning for the movement.
According to Kołakowski, a proletarian revolution has never occurred anywhere, as the October Revolution in Russia had nothing to do with Marxism in his view because it was achieved under the "Peace, Land and Bread" slogan. For Kołakowski, Solidarity was "perhaps closest to the working class revolution" that Karl Marx had predicted in the mid-1800s, involving "the revolutionary movement of industrial workers (very strongly supported by the intelligentsia) against the exploiters, that is to say, the state. And this solitary example of a working class revolution (if even this may be counted) was directed against a socialist state, and carried out under the sign of the cross, with the blessing of the Pope."
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/10/what-is-left-of-socialism
>The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had nothing to do with Marxian prophesies. Its driving force was not a conflict between the industrial working class and capital, but rather was carried out under slogans that had no socialist, let alone Marxist, content: Peace and land for peasants. There is no need to mention that these slogans were to be subsequently turned into their opposite. What in the twentieth century perhaps comes closest to the working class revolution were the events in Poland of 1980-81: the revolutionary movement of industrial workers (very strongly supported by the intelligentsia) against the exploiters, that is to say, the state. And this solitary example of a working class revolution (if even this may be counted) was directed against a socialist state, and carried out under the sign of the cross, with the blessing of the Pope.
What Is Left of Socialism
Karl Marx—a powerful mind, a very learned man, and a good German writer—died 119 years ago. He lived in the age of steam; never in his life did he see a car, a telephone, or an electric light, to say nothing of later technological devices. His admirers and followers used to say and some keep saying: it doesn’t matter, his teaching is still perfectly relevant to our time because the system he analyzed and attacked—capitalism—is still here. That Marx is worth reading is certain. The question is, however: Does his theory truly explain anything in our world and does it provide a ground for any predictions? The answer is, No. Another question is whether or not his theories were useful at one time. The answer is, obviously, Yes: they operated successfully as a set of slogans that were supposed to justify and glorify communism and the slavery that inevitably goes along with it.
When we ask what those theories explain or what Marx discovered, we may ask only about ideas that were specific to him, and not commonsense banalities. We should not make a laughingstock out of Marx by attributing to him the discovery that in all non-primitive societies there are social groups or classes having conflicting interests that lead them to fight with one another; this was known to ancient historians. Marx himself did not pretend to have made this kind of discovery; as he wrote in a letter to Joseph Weydemeyer in 1852, he had not discovered the class struggle but rather had proved that it leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, which in turn leads ultimately to the abolition of classes. It is impossible to say where and how he “proved” this grandiose claim in his pre-1852 writings. To “explain” something means to subsume events or processes under laws; but “laws” in the Marxist sense are not the same as laws in the natural sciences, where they are understood as formulas stating that in well-defined conditions, well-defined phenomena always occur. What Marx called “laws” are rather historical tendencies. There is thus no clear-cut distinction in his theories between explanation and prophecy. Besides, he believed that the meaning of both past and present may be understood only by reference to the future, of which he claimed to have knowledge. Hence, for Marx, only what does not (yet) exist can explain what does exist. But it should be added that for Marx the future does exist, in a peculiar, Hegelian manner, even though it is unknowable.
All of Marx’s important prophecies, however, have turned out to be false.
>https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/10/what-is-left-of-socialism
First, he predicted growing class polarization and the disappearance of the middle class in societies based on a market economy. Karl Kautsky rightly stressed that if this prediction were wrong, the entire Marxist theory would be in ruins. It is clear that this prediction has proved to be wrong; rather, the opposite is the case. The middle classes are growing, whereas the working class in the sense Marx meant it has been dwindling in capitalist societies in the midst of technological progress.
Second, he predicted not only the relative but also the absolute impoverishment of the working class. This prediction was already wrong in his lifetime. As a matter of fact, it should be noticed that the author of Capital updated in the second edition various statistics and figures but not those relating to workers’ wages; those figures, if updated, would have contradicted his theory. Not even the most doctrinaire Marxists have tried to cling to this obviously false prediction in recent decades.
Third, and most importantly, Marx’s theory predicted the inevitability of the proletarian revolution. Such a revolution has never occurred anywhere. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had nothing to do with Marxian prophesies. Its driving force was not a conflict between the industrial working class and capital, but rather was carried out under slogans that had no socialist, let alone Marxist, content: Peace and land for peasants. There is no need to mention that these slogans were to be subsequently turned into their opposite. What in the twentieth century perhaps comes closest to the working class revolution were the events in Poland of 1980-81: the revolutionary movement of industrial workers (very strongly supported by the intelligentsia) against the exploiters, that is to say, the state. And this solitary example of a working class revolution (if even this may be counted) was directed against a socialist state, and carried out under the sign of the cross, with the blessing of the Pope.
In the fourth place, one must mention Marx’s prediction concerning the inevitable fall of the profit rate, a process that was supposed to lead ultimately to the collapse of the capitalist economy. Not unlike the others, this prediction proved to be simply wrong. Even according to Marx’s theory, this could not be an inevitably operating regularity, because the same technical development that lowers the part of the variable capital in production costs is supposed to lower the value of the constant capital. Therefore the profit rate might remain stable or increase even if what Marx called “living labor” declines for a given unit of output. And even if this “law” were true, the mechanism whereby its operation would cause the decline and demise of capitalism is inconceivable, since the collapse of the profit rate can very well occur in conditions in which the absolute amount of profit is growing. This was noticed, for what it’s worth, by Rosa Luxemburg, who invented a theory of her own about the inescapable collapse of capitalism, which proved to be no less wrong.
The fifth tenet of Marxism that has turned out to be erroneous is the prediction that the market will hamper technical progress. The exact opposite has quite obviously proved to be the case. Market economies have been shown to be extremely efficient in stimulating technological progress, whereas “real socialism” turned out to be technologically stagnating. Since it is undeniable that the market has created the greatest abundance ever known in human history, some neo-Marxists have felt compelled to change their approach. At one time, capitalism appeared horrifying because it produced misery; later, it turned out to be horrifying because it produces such abundance that it kills culture.
Neo-Marxists deplore what is called “consumerism,” or “consumerist society.” In our civilization there are indeed many alarming and deplorable phenomena associated with the growth of consumption. The point is, however, that what we know as the alternative to this civilization is incomparably worse. In all Communist societies, economic reforms (to the extent that they yielded any results at all) led invariably in the same direction: the partial restoration of the market, that is to say, of “capitalism.”
As for the so-called materialist interpretation of history, it has provided us with a number of interesting insights and suggestions, but it has no explanatory value. In its strong, rigid version, for which one may find considerable support in many classical texts, it implies that social development depends entirely on the class struggle that ultimately, through the intermediary of changing “modes of production,” is determined by the technological level of the society in question. It implies, moreover, that law, religion, philosophy, and other elements of culture have no history of their own, since their history is the history of the relations of production. This is an absurd claim, completely lacking in historical support.
If, on the other hand, the theory is taken in a weak, limited sense, it merely says that the history of culture has to be investigated in such a way that one should take account of social struggles and conflicting interests, that political institutions depend in part, at least negatively, on technological development and on social conflicts. This, however, is an uncontroversial banality that was known long before Marx. And so, the materialist interpretation of history is either nonsense or a banality.
Another component of Marx’s theory that lacks explanatory power is his labor theory. Marx made two important additions to the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. First, he stated that in relationships between workers and capital, the labor force, rather than labor, is being sold; secondly, he made a distinction between abstract and concrete labor. Neither of these principles has any empirical basis, and neither is needed to explain crises, competition, and conflict of interest. Crises and economic cycles are understandable by analyzing the movement of prices, and the theory of value adds nothing to our understanding of them. It seems that contemporary economics—as distinct from economical ideologies—would not differ much from what it is today if Marx had never been born.
The tenets I have mentioned are not chosen at random: they constitute the skeleton of the Marxian doctrine. Instead, there is hardly anything in Marxism that provides solutions to the many problems of our time, mainly because they were not urgent a century ago. As for ecological questions, we will find in Marx no more than a few romantic banalities about the unity of man with nature. Demographic problems are completely absent, apart from Marx’s refusal to believe that anything like overpopulation in the absolute sense could ever occur. Neither may the dramatic problems of the Third World find help in his theory. Marx and Engels were strongly Eurocentric; they held other civilizations in contempt, and they praised the progressive effects of colonialism and imperialism (in India, Algeria, and Mexico). What mattered to them was the victory of higher civilization over backward ones; the idea of national determination was to Engels a matter for derision.
>Soy Castro Junta
This guy looks like a potato.
>I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals right now.
>how'd that work out?
https://www.dw.com/en/poland-blazed-the-trail-for-the-fall-of-communism/a-4809509
Poland blazed the trail for the fall of communism
Much of the world now associates the end of communism in Europe with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. But in fact, the dismantling of the system started in Poland some 10 years before with the founding of Solidarity.
In 1979, the first visit home by Polish-born Pope John Paul II gave ordinary Poles the courage to face up to their rulers. A year later, Eastern Europe's first free trade union Solidarity was born. The communists soon clamped down by imposing martial law, but the spirit of Solidarity lived on. In June 1989, Poles overwhelmingly voted for democracy in the first partly free elections.
As the victory of the democratic opposition was being announced on June 4, 1989, it was like a dream come true for the 10 million Solidarity members who had started the long march to freedom a decade before. Unlike in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, where anti-communist struggle was limited to narrow groups of dissidents, a mass grassroots movement had developed in Poland.
"It was a movement which came from below," said Solidarity sociologist Marek Garztecki. "Obviously, there were intellectuals who were helping to formulate programs, especially in later stages. But I believe that Solidarity was the first true embodiment of the concept of civil society."
The speed of change took everyone by surprise, including Ryszard Bugaj, one of the key opposition figures.
"In mid-1988, I was still convinced that I would forever remain a dissident," said Bugaj, now an advisor to the Polish President. "To me, it was amazing that the elections were allowed to take place. It was plain and simple: there was no turning back."
The policy of a "thick line"
But as the country blazed the trail for others in the region, Solidarity had to tread carefully. The communists were still in power in the Kremlin, with 50,000 Soviet troops stationed in Poland.
At a historic round table meeting in Warsaw in the spring of 1989, Solidarity and the communists struck a power-sharing deal that paved the way for the elections. A third of the seats in the lower house of Parliament were freely contested, plus all the seats in the senate. The communists and their allies were to automatically fill the rest of the seats. One of the Solidarity leaders Bronislaw Geremek made it clear that the movement was prepared to honor the deal in the election results.
"Solidarity is ready to support policies geared toward reform and changes of the political system," Geremek said at the time. "This marks the beginning of a political process, which we have long been working for."
But to some Poles, the deal seemed controversial. In a recently released documentary, Solidarity leaders including Geremek can be heard pledging not to prosecute former communists, no matter what evidence of their past wrongdoings came up. This later came to be known as the policy of a "thick line" to make a clean break with the past. Those who negotiated the deal said this was to allow everyone a fresh start in a new Poland.
However, critics like nationalist Christian Democratic politician Wieslaw Chrzanowski maintain that it was a sell-out.
"To all intents and purposes Solidarity allowed the communists to keep much of their influence," Chrzanowski said. "To me, the deal was unhealthy. Either you have completely free elections or you don't. Solidarity agreed to take all the responsibility, while the former communist bosses were free to pursue their business interests."
Was Polish democracy distorted?
As Poland's first non-communist Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki was being sworn in on September 10, 1989, he told Parliament his cabinet would represent all Poles - irrespective of their political views. Mazowiecki's government was enthusiastically received. Even though it had to quickly introduce a set of painful market reforms to stop the economy from collapsing, it still enjoyed strong popular support.
"Tadeusz Mazowiecki did a very difficult job very well and one has to give his government credit for a great deal," historian Adam Zamojski said. "The economic reforms were extraordinary. The amazing energy kept the country cohesive and prevented anarchy from breaking out, or what could turn into a nasty lot of arguments."
On the 20th anniversary of Solidarity's victory, there were those who said that Mazowiecki should have done more to bring the former communists to account. Critics said that the power-sharing deal with the communists distorted Polish democracy. But most commentators agree that the critics largely ignore the European realities of the day. After all, when the first democratic Polish government was being inaugurated, the Berlin Wall was still standing.
>The Unconquered: riveting story of Poland in WW2 narrated by Sean Bean.
"The Unconquered: Trying Times" is a thrilling story about the Poles' struggle for independence in 1918–1939, and the prequel to "The Unconquered" (2017).
Hold the line boys!