What ever else you think of this piece, it's worthwhile to know what The New Criterion is and what it represents. Though I suppose "Avidly Pro-Trump Literary Journal" is a concept that easily clears HN's bar for "intellectually interesting".
https://thebaffler.com/latest/decline-of-the-new-criterion-g...
Regarding the article, from what I know about Lenin, it’s spot on, and if you ever talk to anyone who survived his dekulakization [1] you’ll understand the violent nature of Leninism.
But I’m not a fan of a propaganda outfit that likes to hide behind the occasional high intellect piece, so thanks again for the comment.
Russia was a backwards pre-capitalist third world monarchy with vast economic inequality under one of the richest men in all of history, Nicholas Romanov II. He rejected attempt after attempt to reform his monarchy into a democratic constitutional monarchy, preferring to cling onto absolute power and repeatedly losing wars. The story of the Russian revolution is one of a transition from authoritarian rule to authoritarian rule.
Initially the revolution was widely praised by genuine revolutionaries, such as Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, & Rosa Luxemburg. The country was ruled democratically by a system of workers' councils (soviets), and workers were encouraged to form committees to self manage the work place democratically.
Within the year, however, the Soviets were dissolved and commissars were sent to the factories to take the place of the boss', effectively ending workers' self management. This was widely condemned by mainstream Marxists, most notably Rosa Luxembourg, who sent a historic admonitory letter to Lenin. This is when the idea of "Marxism-Leninism" as opposed to simple "Marxism" began to distinguish itself.
What Leninism has become now is a sort of paranoid ideology about "holding onto the revolution" against "the forces of reaction." They point to examples of successful workers' self management e.g. The Paris Commune, Anarchist Catalonia (read "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell), and claim that these revolutions were crushed because of a lack of "party discipline" and organization.
In 1969, Hillary Rodham wrote a 92-page senior thesis for Wellesley College about community organizer Saul Alinsky entitled "There Is Only the Fight" . . . : An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.
Apparently he is more than a bogeyman to Hillary Clinton.
It's not that I'm familiar with it, and am claiming that it's not. It's just that, based on a few minutes of browsing, nothing obviously "avidly pro-Trump" jumped out.
Edit: I also browsed some discussion of other submissions from it, and didn't find anything obviously politicized. But then, I didn't read it all.
I'm going to have to read that one.
Edit: OK, it was short.[0] But I also came across an article by historian Matthew A. Sears,[1] which points out ...
> There is a much darker side to Pericles’ legacy, however. For one, he narrowed the group eligible for Athenian citizenship, requiring both parents to be Athenian citizens — a requirement, ironically, that his own children did not meet.
> And, as is increasingly the view among ancient historians, he bore perhaps more responsibility than anyone else for the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, a ruinous 27-year conflict between Athens and Sparta that ended in Athens’ defeat and the temporary overthrow of the world’s first democracy.
> A frequent criticism of Pericles among his contemporaries was that he took a hard line against Sparta and pushed his city toward war not due to any higher principle or strategic goal, but to deflect charges brought against his closest friends and political allies.
0) https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/269472/
1) https://theconversation.com/do-something-trump-pericles-and-...