Communism: Difference between revisions

From NewgonWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Prue (talk | contribs)
Prue (talk | contribs)
No edit summary
Line 1: Line 1:
[[File:Communism.jpg|thumb|Communism... according to most Westerners]]__NOTOC__
[[File:Communism.jpg|thumb|Communism... according to most Westerners]]__NOTOC__
[[Youth rights]], including the sexual liberation of children, is compatible with some interpretations of '''communism'''/'''socialism''' (these terms are used interchangeably by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but are sometimes distinguished by Leftist individuals and tendencies). One Reddit post<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/owqdft/bourgeois_vs_proletarian_sexuality/</ref> claims that "by contemporary standards, Jenny von Westphalen "groomed" Karl Marx", as does a short youtube video.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92z_OrPN7z8 Jenny von Wesphalen groomed Karl Marx], by Benjamin Ingram (external link)</ref> Marxism views the nuclear [[family]] as a means for the subordination of children and women, exploitation upon which capitalism is supposedly dependent. [[Family values]] -- monogamy, homophobia, sexual suppression/repression, and other enemies of free love -- are enforced to maintain the traditional family unit. According to some communists/socialists, extending rights to the young would undermine the father's place of power and interrupt the inheritance of class and acceptance of classist models.
[[Youth rights]], including the sexual liberation of children, is compatible with some interpretations of '''communism'''/'''socialism''' (these terms are used interchangeably by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but are sometimes distinguished by Leftist individuals and tendencies). One Reddit post<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/owqdft/bourgeois_vs_proletarian_sexuality/</ref> claims that "by contemporary standards, Jenny von Westphalen "groomed" Karl Marx", as does a short youtube video.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92z_OrPN7z8 Jenny von Wesphalen groomed Karl Marx], by Benjamin Ingram (external link)</ref> Marxism views the nuclear [[family]] as a means for the subordination of children and women, exploitation upon which capitalism is supposedly dependent. [[Family values]] -- monogamy, homophobia, sexual suppression/repression, and other enemies of free love -- are enforced to maintain the traditional family unit. According to some communists/socialists, extending rights to the young would undermine the father's place of power and interrupt the inheritance of class and acceptance of classist models.
==Marx and Engles on age-gab sex==
<blockquote>
''What, then, does promiscuous sexual intercourse really mean? It means the absence of prohibitions and restrictions which are or have been in force. We have already seen the barrier of jealousy go down. If there is one thing certain, it is that the feeling of jealousy develops relatively late. The same is true of the conception of incest. Not only were brother and sister originally man and wife; sexual intercourse between parents and children is still permitted among many peoples today. Bancroft (The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, 1875, Vol. I), testifies to it among the Kadiaks on the Behring Straits, the Kadiaks near Alaska, and the Tinneh in the interior of British North America; Letourneau compiled reports of it among the Chippewa Indians, the Cucus in Chile, the Caribs, the Karens in Burma; to say nothing of the stories told by the old Greeks and Romans about the Parthians, Persians, Scythians, Huns, and so on. '''Before incest was invented – for incest is an invention, and a very valuable one, too – sexual intercourse between parents and children did not arouse any more repulsion than sexual intercourse between other persons of different generations, and that occurs today even in the most philistine countries without exciting any great horror'''; even “old maids” of over sixty, if they are rich enough, sometimes marry young men in their thirties.'' [...]
''In a letter written in the spring of 1882, Marx expresses himself in the strongest terms about the complete misrepresentation of primitive times [...] '''Marx replies: "In primitive times the sister was the wife, and that was moral."'''''
'''Frederick Engels'''. ''Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State'' (1884)
</blockquote>


==Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)==
==Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)==

Revision as of 15:10, 3 July 2023

Communism... according to most Westerners

Youth rights, including the sexual liberation of children, is compatible with some interpretations of communism/socialism (these terms are used interchangeably by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but are sometimes distinguished by Leftist individuals and tendencies). One Reddit post[1] claims that "by contemporary standards, Jenny von Westphalen "groomed" Karl Marx", as does a short youtube video.[2] Marxism views the nuclear family as a means for the subordination of children and women, exploitation upon which capitalism is supposedly dependent. Family values -- monogamy, homophobia, sexual suppression/repression, and other enemies of free love -- are enforced to maintain the traditional family unit. According to some communists/socialists, extending rights to the young would undermine the father's place of power and interrupt the inheritance of class and acceptance of classist models.

Marx and Engles on age-gab sex

What, then, does promiscuous sexual intercourse really mean? It means the absence of prohibitions and restrictions which are or have been in force. We have already seen the barrier of jealousy go down. If there is one thing certain, it is that the feeling of jealousy develops relatively late. The same is true of the conception of incest. Not only were brother and sister originally man and wife; sexual intercourse between parents and children is still permitted among many peoples today. Bancroft (The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, 1875, Vol. I), testifies to it among the Kadiaks on the Behring Straits, the Kadiaks near Alaska, and the Tinneh in the interior of British North America; Letourneau compiled reports of it among the Chippewa Indians, the Cucus in Chile, the Caribs, the Karens in Burma; to say nothing of the stories told by the old Greeks and Romans about the Parthians, Persians, Scythians, Huns, and so on. Before incest was invented – for incest is an invention, and a very valuable one, too – sexual intercourse between parents and children did not arouse any more repulsion than sexual intercourse between other persons of different generations, and that occurs today even in the most philistine countries without exciting any great horror; even “old maids” of over sixty, if they are rich enough, sometimes marry young men in their thirties. [...]

In a letter written in the spring of 1882, Marx expresses himself in the strongest terms about the complete misrepresentation of primitive times [...] Marx replies: "In primitive times the sister was the wife, and that was moral."

Frederick Engels. Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

But perhaps the most important illustration of the link between struggle and sexuality is the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which the working class exploded the limits of capitalism. In the brief period in which the revolution flourished, the revolutionaries abolished all laws against homosexuality, introduced divorce by request, abortion on demand and repealed the age of consent laws.[3]

The 1920s were a period of relative sexual openness for the USSR. Erotic "experimentation" was reportedly common during meetings of the Young Pioneer youth organization. Parents "complained that their 10–12 year old children came home at 3–4 am, declaring that they were at the Pioneer meetings and cut off parental protests with threats and accusations of counter-revolution."

The change in politics in the country by the 1930s roughly coincided with the start of a moral panic over "unhealthy relations" between children. It was claimed that "the abnormal sexual relations between children" had "taken on menacing proportions" and required "extreme measures." Sexual indulgence was thought to distract children from more productive activities. The state began to enforce a strict taboo against sexualities that did not conform to the Victorian model. The uniforms of one summer camp were criticized on the grounds that "pants are not entirely hygienic for girls, because they cause in them excessive friction in the sexual organs." Prohibitions on homosexuality were enforced, albeit predominantly "against those instances when juveniles and minors are the objects of homosexual interest," who may have been MAPs.[4]

The problem of youth sexuality was eventually deemed severe enough for the state to segregate male and female schooling. Ann Livschiz writes that this action reflected the "fundamental social conservatism of the majority of the top political leadership of the country and their great fear of youth, and particularly female, sexuality, as a force that could not be overcome, controlled or fully harnessed for the service of the state."[5]

Age-disparate sex: Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong

While exiled in Siberia, Josef Stalin is known to have had an affair with a 13-year-old female named Lidia, at the age of 36. In the biography Young Stalin (2007)[6], Simon Sebag Montefiore wrote:

We know no details of how this developed. But some time in early 1914 Stalin, now thirty-four, embarked on an affair with Lidia, aged thirteen.

We catch a glimpse of Stalin and Lidia together staggering from drinking-bout to drinking-bout because we have her memoirs of their boozy carousals: “In his spare time, Stalin liked to go to evening dances — he could be very jolly too. He loved to sing and dance. He especially liked the song ‘I’m guarding the gold, the gold . . . I’m burying the gold, burying the gold, Guess where, pure damsel with your golden hair’. . . He often joined birthday dinners.” The memoirs of Stalin’s thirteen-year-old mistress were recorded twenty years later [...] while she remained a Siberian housewife.

[...]

“He often liked to drop in on some people,” says Lidia, meaning herself. “And he also drank.” Was this how he seduced her — or she him? Girls in places like Kureika matured early — and Lidia does not sound like a shrinking violet.

[...]

Even though local lore discouraged affairs with exiles, the local girls were bound to be attracted to these worldly, educated revolutionaries in their midst. This statutory rape was not rape by force but an old-fashioned seduction.

Monifore notes the age of consent among other important contextual factors:

Fourteen was technically the age of consent in the Russian and European regions of the Tsarist Empire, but this was Siberia. Besides, there was no precise legal concept of statutory rape in Tsarist law: for the police, it was as much a crime “against female honour” as a violation of her father’s chattels. The seducer’s agreement to marry and then the exchange of marriage vows were seen as rectifying an untoward situation.

The Chinese revolutionary and statesmen Mao Zedong wrote romantic poetry in youth and lived an active sex life which included many young female sexual partners. There are only 2 claims of sexual activity involving people under 18. The first comes from anti-communist writer Jonathan Mirsky, who in 1997 claimed to have interviewed a 57-years-old woman ("Mrs. Chen") in Hong Kong, who said she began having sex with Mao in 1962 when she was 14 and he 69/70.[7] Chen appears to view the experience positively, with Mirsky noting that "She had plenty to say about the Great Helmsman’s virility and stamina", and how Mao cried after she was sent to work in the North of the country against his wishes:

After five years, Jiang Qing insisted that Ms Chen be banished to the north-east, to a lesser job. Mao, she claimed, took her on his knee and wept, but said he could do nothing. After some years in exile, she was summoned back to Beijing for a brief stopover where Mao, again weeping, said he could do nothing for her and was sending her back to Nanking where her marriage had been arranged. (Ibid).

It should be noted that Mirsky may be an unreliable source. His language is moralistic and derogatory ("monster"), and he consistently relies on and has even reviewed[8] the source for the second claim about minors, Dr. Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician (1994).[9] Dr. Li's book claims that Mao loved to reminisce about an encounter he had as a teenage villager with a "pretty" 12-year-old female. While this concerns attraction instead of action, Dr. Li's book is the major source for evidence of Mao's sexual prowess, and includes events which are framed negatively such as Mao's alleged contracting and spreading venereal disease through sex. Dr. Li's claims have been critiqued by professional Chinese historian Mobo Gao in a dedicated chapter titled How a medical doctor doctors history: a case study of Li Zhisui, in his 2008 book The Battle for China's Past.[10] There are many other professional critiques of commonly accepted anti-Stalin and anti-Mao claims.[11]

Anti-capitalist supporters

  • An immediate demand of the Communist Party of Great Britain was until the early 2020s: "The abolition of age-of-consent laws. We recognise the right of individuals to enter into the sexual relations they choose provided this does not conflict with the rights of others. Alternative legislation to protect children from sexual abuse."[12] They have since removed this demand and do not have a set-in-stone policy on the Age of Consent.

Marxists oppose all laws against “crimes without victims,” such as prostitution, drug use or pornography. We utterly reject the practice whereby looking at pornography is equated with violent crimes such as rape, sexual assault and even murder. We also oppose the criminalization of those who look at child pornography which, like all pornography, is simply words and images designed for pleasure. [...] In line with this, we do not think intergenerational sex is by definition abusive, nor do we think incest is a priori a crime to be punished by the bourgeois state. [...] We oppose age of consent laws because we oppose state intervention into people’s private sexual activities. We do not accord the capitalist state the right to decree the age at which youth may engage in consensual sexual activity. To create genuinely free and equal relations between people in all spheres, including sex, requires nothing less than the destruction of this class system and the creation of a communist world. In a classless society, social and economic constraints over sexual relations will be non-existent, and in the words of Friedrich Engels, 'there is no other motive left except mutual inclination.'[13]

In 1994, the Spartacist League supported MAP ally psychologist and gay liberation activist John P. De Cecco when local newspaper scandal led to protest against him at his university. In his defense, the League's San Francisco University youth chapter, the Spartacus Youth Club (SYC), organized a speakout protest/rally at the university.

  • The US Revolutionary Socialist League (disbanded):

We believe that all consensual sex is the business only of those involved. The state has no business regulating in any way expressions of sexuality between consenting persons of any number, sex, or age. The state's attempt to regulate youth sexuality in particular is rooted in young people's position as property of their parents and/or wards of the state. Young people are jailed in schools, economically exploited, and denied the most basic political rights. Society maintains this oppression by imposing the idea that young people are not capable of determing their own wants and needs, in particular their sexual needs and desires. We oppose age of consent laws. These laws deny the ability of young people to determine their own sexual needs and desires. They maintain the status of youth as property, and reinforce the closet for gay youth.[14]

  • Sandra Bloodworth:

Ultimately children will not gain genuine liberation until capitalism has been destroyed root and branch and a new society is built in which all human sexuality is encouraged and nurtured instead of despised and repressed.[15]

  • Harry Hay, pro-pederast founder of the modern gay movement.
  • David Thorstad, president of the Gay Activists Alliance and a founder of NAMBLA.
  • Marxist/anarchist women profiled on our feminism page: Shulamith Firestone, Germaine Greer, Simone de Beauvoir.
  • Roger Moody, Guy Hocquenghem, and various others associated with the early gay and MAP Movements.
  • Anarchist figures - German MAP figure Peter Schult; anarchist theorists/figures Hakim Bey, John Henry Mackay, Wolfi Landstreicher. Renown Anarchist Noam Chomsky, who was scandalized in 2023 media for his ever having been willing to associate with Jeffrey Epstein and Woody Allen: associations which he defends.
  • Philosopher Slavoj Žižek - various relevant statements.
  • Reddit thread which cites Michel Foucault, sees age-gap sex as proletarian (i.e. working class).
  • "Pedophilia is proletarian" (2021) video on youtube, by Benjamin Ingram. Other videos include "The Pedophilic Lebensraum Of Autonomous Zones" (referring to Hakim Bey).
  • YouTube streamer Vaush made various comments - largely accurate - on pedophilia early in his career. He argued that under socialism, the age of consent should be lowered: "As those [power] imbalances (or at least some of them), are redressed through the advent of socialism, the age of consent should therefore be lowered." He argued accurately that "From an anthropological standpoint, the age of consent at which it is presently set is a social construct. Obviously, [...] it's found in law not in nature." He criticizes Leftists for their "kneejerk disavowel of alternative looks at what constitutes sexual maturity," stemming from "disgust and not in reason." Vaush had peer age sexual contact in childhood: "When I was a kid I was having sex with other kids... Lots of sex. Gross, gross sex. More than you'll ever imagine. And it wasn't wrong. Or bad. And nobody got hurt by it." He later stated accurately: "It is possible for an adult and a child to have a sexual relationship, and for it to have positive outcomes." On fiction and non-fiction child pornography he said: "Zoophile, like, drawn stuff. Should be 100% legal. In fact, [...] I have yet to hear a convincing moral or legal argument as to why possession of child pornography should be illegal. Actual child pornography." When asked "Do you think it's immoral to be a pedophile?", he replied similarly to researchers like Allyn Walker, that "being a pedophile is morally neutral" because it's something you can't choose. His opponents use these statements to attack him, and Vaush has since disavowed these statements and now parrots dominant Anti discourse.
  • Viki1999, a transgender Austrian leftist YouTube channel who joined the platform on June 1, 2019, announced on May 29, 2023, that she was quitting YouTube after being accused of being a pedophile. Viki was accused because of posts she had made to her Discord server indicating she found a 15-year-old attractive, and that, compared to Florida's age of consent at 18, "in austria it's 14 ;)". Viki stated that these were jokes in context, and that accusations of pedophilia led her to feel suicidal. Her accusers have since apologized, and she plans to continue her career as a sex worker with far higher earnings than YouTube.

References

  1. https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/owqdft/bourgeois_vs_proletarian_sexuality/
  2. Jenny von Wesphalen groomed Karl Marx, by Benjamin Ingram (external link)
  3. "Sexual Liberation and Socialism," Socialist Alternative (Red Guide), issue 16, April 1997.
  4. Homosexuality in the USSR
  5. Livschiz, Ann (2008). "Battling "Unhealthy Relations": Soviet Youth Sexuality as a Political Problem," Journal of Historical Sociology, 21(4), 397-416.
  6. Sebag-Montefiore, Simon (2007). Young Stalin. Alfred A. Knopf. See also genetic proof.
  7. Mirsky. Me and Mao’s girl: An encounter with one of the Chairman’s underage lovers (The Spectator, 2011).
  8. Mirsky. Unmasking the Monster. Review of Mao's Private Life (1994)
  9. Wiki page for Dr. Li's book.
  10. The Battle for China's Past
  11. For Stalin and his time as statesmen, see the work of J. Arch Getty, Mark Tauger, Stephen Wheatcroft. See the work of Samantha Lomb, e.g. Stalin’s Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics (Routledge, 2017). Much of these researcher's conclusions are highlighted in historian Grover Furr's writings, such as Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Is False (2014), and Stalin. Waiting For ... The Truth! Exposing the Falsehoods in Stephen Kotkin's 'Stalin. Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941' (2019). Roland Boer addresses Stalin's religious views, e.g. Stalin: From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power (2017). A historically informed tract can be found in Domenico Losurdo, Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend (2019). For Mao, see Gao's later work such as his 2018 book Constructing China: Clashing Views of the People's Republic; Dongping Han, The Unknown Cultural Revolution (2000); Gregor Benton, Lin Chun (eds.), Was Mao Really a Monster?: The academic response to Chang and Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Story (2009); Lee Feigon, Mao: A Reinterpretation (2003); Daniel F. Vukovich, China and Orientalism: Western Knowledge Production and the PRC (Routledge, 2013). A general book addressing both Stalin and Mao's governments is economist Austin Murphy's The Triumph of Evil: the Reality of the USA’s Cold War Victory (2000, European Academic Press).
  12. 2020 archived UKCP Positions/Demands
  13. Spartacist League: Canada: Anti-Sex Crusade Targets Youth, Gays
  14. Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left - G Books
  15. Socialist Alternative: Children and Sex