I don’t know if it this is the best way to start a new newsletter but I wanted to jump on a controversy between two writers I follow, Noah Smith and Freddie deBoer.
Is it not simply the last hopes of the extreme left for the recovery of Marxism in Europe are with Russia. So everything that weakens Russia including military support of Ukraine must be opposed. Anecdotal but a person from the far left in the Uk was asked in a TV interview if he agreed the bringing down of the wall was a good thing. He couldn't bring himself to give an answer. He just sat silent in front of the camera.
I honestly don't know. I used to have one Marxist friend and follow Freddie and that's about the extent of my knowledge of Marxists in the West.
... but, fwiw, it seems to me it's mostly about nostalgia. Freddie acknowledges that Putin is a right wing thug, not adverse to using religious refences to bolster his idea of Russia (whether he believes or cynically uses the Orthodox Church, we can't be sure) i.e. if Putin gets his way, Russia would be a religious, conservative, hard right country i.e. fascist in the sense of Franco's Spain or Salazar's Portugal.
I cannot see Russia/Putin as giving a new life to Marxism in the West. For that, it'll have to wait until no one remembers clearly enough the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'm 47, I lived through the 90s, my wife and I are transmitting that knowledge to our kids, though for them it's now hearsay but they'll remember. If we have grandkids, we'll communicate that experience to them too. But, after that, it'll fade... just like WWI and WWII are fading. So it's at least 1 to 2 generations in the future.
Is it not simply the last hopes of the extreme left for the recovery of Marxism in Europe are with Russia. So everything that weakens Russia including military support of Ukraine must be opposed. Anecdotal but a person from the far left in the Uk was asked in a TV interview if he agreed the bringing down of the wall was a good thing. He couldn't bring himself to give an answer. He just sat silent in front of the camera.
I honestly don't know. I used to have one Marxist friend and follow Freddie and that's about the extent of my knowledge of Marxists in the West.
... but, fwiw, it seems to me it's mostly about nostalgia. Freddie acknowledges that Putin is a right wing thug, not adverse to using religious refences to bolster his idea of Russia (whether he believes or cynically uses the Orthodox Church, we can't be sure) i.e. if Putin gets his way, Russia would be a religious, conservative, hard right country i.e. fascist in the sense of Franco's Spain or Salazar's Portugal.
I cannot see Russia/Putin as giving a new life to Marxism in the West. For that, it'll have to wait until no one remembers clearly enough the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'm 47, I lived through the 90s, my wife and I are transmitting that knowledge to our kids, though for them it's now hearsay but they'll remember. If we have grandkids, we'll communicate that experience to them too. But, after that, it'll fade... just like WWI and WWII are fading. So it's at least 1 to 2 generations in the future.
Agreed but it is not Putin but what comes after Putin that is their concern or I think is their concern. I may of course be completely wrong.