The Great October Revolution: A Nightmare Dressed Like A Daydream?*

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Image by Viktor Bulla, public domain

10-23-2024 ~ This year marks the 107th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. In the evening of October 25, 1917, the Winter Palace in Petrograd (today’s St. Petersburg) was stormed.
This event marked the beginning of the Great October Revolution, one of the most significant political events of the twentieth century that shaped the course of history for decades ahead.

Leading up to the events of October 25 was another revolution in late February 1917, which brought to power a group of leaders from bourgeois political parties that formed a provisional government headed initially by Georgy Lvov, a liberal reformer, and then by Aleksander Kerensky, a social democrat who as Prime Minister from July to October 1917 continued Russia’s involvement in World War I despite that being very unpopular among the soldiers and with the masses in general. In early March of that year Tsar Nicholas II, who had ruled imperial Russia since 1894 but had managed to make autocracy the most unpopular it had ever been, abdicated. Five months later, Russia was pronounced a republic.

Although the provisional government did introduce some reforms on the political front, prompting even Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to declare Russia in April 1917 “the freest country in the world,” it was the Red October Revolution that turned the old order completely upside down by inaugurating a socialist regime and making Soviet-style communism a global ideological and political force that lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.

Still, more than one hundred years later, the rise of the Bolsheviks to power continues to divide scholars, the chattering classes and even the educated public. There are several issues that are particularly divisive, such as whether the October Revolution was a popular insurgency or essentially a coup, and whether Stalinism evolved naturally from the basic principles and political strategies of Lenin or was an unexpected development.

Likewise, there is still a great deal of ambiguity, disagreement and confusion over the nature of the regime that flourished in the Soviet Union after Lenin’s death in 1924. For example, did the Soviet Union represent an “actual socialist society,” a “degenerated workers’ state,” or simply a “totalitarian state economy” in which the communist ideology functioned as a mere instrument of political legitimization and imperial rule? Read more

U.S. And China Why Not A Deal?

• by: Richard D. Wolff

Richard D. Wolff

21-10-2024 ~ An old theme within social theory holds that societies with very unequal distributions of wealth can sustain their social cohesion so long as total wealth is growing. Such total growth enables all who get a distributed share of that wealth—even those with the smallest shares—to experience at least some increase. The rich with the biggest shares can grab most of the growth so long as some is provided to those with small shares. The pie analogy works well: so long as the pie is growing all distributed shares of it can also grow. Some will grow more, others less, but all can grow. If all do grow, social stability is facilitated (assuming the society’s population accepts unequal shares). Modern capitalism’s prioritization of economic growth as urgently necessary reflects such social theory (much as economic growth has reinforced it).

Of course, if instead, a society’s population prioritizes movement toward less unequal shares, economic growth becomes relatively less important. If a society’s population seriously accommodates climate change, economic growth can become still less important. Were social movements endorsing such priorities to grow and ally, they could well alter societies’ attitudes toward and commitments to economic growth.

U.S. capitalism from 1820 to 1980 favored and fostered rising total wealth. The share going to wages grew while the share going to capital grew more. Notwithstanding many bitter capital/labor struggles, the United States as a whole exhibited considerable social cohesion. This was because, in part, a growing pie allowed nearly all to experience some growth in their real income. “Nearly all” could be rewritten as “whites.”

In contrast, the last 40 years, 1980–2020, represent an inflection point inside the United States. The growth of total wealth slowed while corporations and the rich took greater relative shares. Therefore, middle-income people and the poor found their wealth either not growing much or not at all.

The reasons for slowing U.S. wealth growth include chiefly the profit-driven relocations of capitalism’s dynamic centers. Industrial production moved from Western Europe, North America, and Japan to China, India, Brazil, and others. Financialization prevailed in the capitalism left behind. China and its BRICS allies increasingly match or exceed the United States and its G7 allies in levels of production, technical innovation, and foreign trade. The U.S. response to their competition—growing protectionism expressed by imposing tariffs, trade wars, and sanctions—mobilizes increasing retaliation that worsens the U.S. situation. This process is continuing with no end now visible. The U.S. dollar’s role in the world economy declines. Geopolitically, the United States sees former allies such as Brazil, India, and Egypt shift loyalties toward China or else toward a more neutral position relative to the United States and China. Read more

The Corporate Vehicles Changing International Commerce

• by: John P. Ruehl

John P. Ruehl – Independent Media Institute

10-20-2024 ~ The unchecked rise of financial entities designed to conceal wealth and questionable activity has created a global, collaborative ecosystem. It is fueling corruption and crime while allowing those involved to escape accountability.

On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members simultaneously exploded across Lebanon, killing dozens and wounding thousands, including civilians. The pagers were licensed by Taiwanese company Gold Apollo from the manufacturer BAC Consulting, a Hungary-based company registered in 2022. BAC Consulting is suspected of being an Israeli front company, working alongside Israeli shell companies that facilitated transactions with Gold Apollo and Hezbollah entities. The operation shows Israel’s use of “corporate vehicles” to launch the attack and obscure responsibility.

After growing in use during the Cold War, the rise of the internet and global finance has made corporate vehicles easier to establish and operate. Though some serve legitimate purposes, the massive growth in new companies over the past two decades has masked the growing use of entities used for questionable purposes. Governments, corporations, ultra-wealthy individuals, organized crime, and militant groups use them to obscure their activities and assets. Their sophistication continues to evolve in an increasingly interconnected ecosystem.

The success of a front company hinges on its ability to appear legitimate. They engage in genuine business activities to blend in, making them particularly useful for intelligence operations. In the 1980s, for instance, Israeli intelligence established a resort and scuba business on the Sudanese coast to secretly smuggle Ethiopian Jews to Israel. But while this was a rare case with a humanitarian goal, intelligence agencies more often rely on corporate vehicles for less altruistic reasons. Read more

The ‘Blue Economy’ Myth: We Have To Stop Thinking The Ocean Can Be Run Like A Business

• by: Nnimmo Bassey

Nnimmo Bassey – Photo: https://nnimmobassey.africa/blog/

10-13-2024 ~ Protecting the Earth’s oceans is problematic when profit is the leading concern.

In response to the increasing global demand for resources and the economic pursuits that come with it, attention on the world’s oceans continues to grow. But how should marine resources be properly managed? The blue economy is the umbrella term that looks at the planet’s oceans from an economic perspective and refers to the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.

On one side of the coin are the exploitative activities and economic sectors, including fisheries, aquaculture, maritime transport, tourism, offshore renewable energy like wind and tidal power, and biotechnology. On the other side are marine conservation efforts.

Global platforms like the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Center for the Blue Economy have called for oceanic sustainability efforts.

In March 2024, the United Nations Environmental Assembly adopted a resolution on “strengthening ocean efforts to tackle climate change, marine biodiversity loss and pollution.” A press release issued by the European Commission after the session stated, “By submitting and negotiating the resolution, the European Union and its Member States reiterated their determination to play a leading role in protecting, conserving, restoring, and sustainably utilizing the world’s oceans.”

The concept of the blue economy is rooted in the recognition that the oceans are vital to human well-being and the global economy. Still, they are also threatened by overexploitation, pollution, and climate change. Therefore, the blue economy seeks to balance economic development with the need to protect and restore the ocean environment, ensuring that future generations can enjoy marine resources. Read more

What Ideas From The Paleolithic Are Still With Us In The Modern World?

• by: Jan Ritch-Frel

Michael Hudson – Photo: michael-hudson.com

10-11-2024 ~ An interview with renowned economic historian Michael Hudson on where our calendar comes from, his collaborations with the late intellectual David Graeber, and the long-lost practice of forgiving debt.

Is the order of the modern alphabet connected to how our shared ancestors counted the phases of the moon and its effect on tides 50,000 years ago? Did the first stirrings of government and bureaucracy emerge from the efforts of early astronomers to reconcile solar and lunar calendars? These are the kinds of questions that have kept economic historian Michael Hudson up at night.

On the surface, learning about the origins of the methods people use to bring order to their lives—such as time, weights and measures, and our financial systems—seems like just another history lesson. One ancient practice leading to another, resulting in guesswork of what people did before the last Ice Age.

But it goes beyond interesting. It’s very useful. The more we can parse out and extrapolate the beliefs and attitudes of previous eras, the more we might be able to step out of present behavior patterns and perceive social problems we keep creating because we thought we had to.

A deeper reach into human history is now possible, thanks to a growing body of archaeological and scholarly research collected in recent decades. Many experts in related fields have speculated that this research will have a large social impact as it percolates through centers of influence and we become accustomed to relying on a wider, global human historical evidence base as a reference. Society will greatly benefit from minds that are trained to think in deeper timescales than a millennium or two—archaeology and biological sciences increasingly permit useful insights and pattern observations into humanities at a historical depth spanning millions of years.

Hudson’s research has already made inroads into modern life. Many contemporary economists rely on his understanding of financial history in the Ancient Near East. Hudson’s collaboration with the late anthropologist and activist David Graeber inspired his launch of the debt cancellation movement during Occupy Wall Street. Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a popularized adaption of Hudson’s research on the early financial systems of the Near East, encouraging Graeber to follow up and coauthor the bestselling book The Dawn of Everything, an overview of new interpretations in archaeology and anthropology about the many paths society can take.

I reached out to Hudson for a conversation on these topics, starting with his reflections on what drew him into prehistory in the early 1970s, and his collaborations with Harvard prehistorian Alex Marshack. Read more

Kusel – Montag 18. November 2024: Hannelore Bähr liest: Die entgleiste Welt.