Organizing Grievances: marxist nerd adult comedy here

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

marxist nerd adult comedy here

from an email list i won't name because i don't know who would or wouldn't want their identity revealed. and Human Subjects is the order of the day, people.

>From Engels: "Hungary, Poland and Russia are the only countries in Europe where invasion is impossible in winter."

Wow. If only Hitler had read some more Engels!

-(Poster 1).

^^^
(Poster 2): Actually, I'm kind of glad he didn't (smile).

19 comments:

wobblie said...: To be fair, Operation Barbarossa began in June. It was the failing to win a quick and decisive victory, thus getting bogged down in the Russian winter, that ultimately did them in.; December 17, 2008 at 1:50 PM
lex dexter said...: you really do rock the military history, huh, wobs?

the Red Army freaks me out.; December 17, 2008 at 2:09 PM
wobblie said...: I recently finished Deutscher's bio of Stalin, so the topic of the invasion of Russia is still pretty fresh in my mind.; December 17, 2008 at 2:11 PM
lex dexter said...: oh my god, Deutscher's Stalin bio! was it great?

i envy you, you dude-who's-not-in-grad-school, you!; December 17, 2008 at 2:26 PM
RK said...: Weren't there some issues with rough terrain (mountains) that contributed to the inability to exact that swift victory?; December 17, 2008 at 2:26 PM
gabbagabbahey said...: or, you know, he could have (and presumably did) read about Napoleon doing the same thing.

I wouldn't really have considered Engels a 'go-to guy', to use your parlance, on military history.; December 17, 2008 at 3:03 PM
wobblie said...: lips: The Stalin bio pales relative to the Trotsky volumes, but it was still an engaging read. It's hard to give a fair hearing to the 20th Century's totalitarian par excellence, but if there's one person who could do it, it's Deutscher. The copy I found was completed prior to Stalin's death, so I'm curious to know if there's an updated version. Bonus fun fact - did you know David Horowitz, back in his "radical" days, wrote a bio of Deutscher?

rk: The real thing which impeded the Germans was trying to achieve an decisive victory over a front which stretched some 2000 miles, combined with the German military grossly underestimating the capacity of the Red Army. Eastern Europe and European Russia is, geographically speaking, a prime invasion route - pretty much flat, which is why to this day Russia freaks out about having NATO "at its doorstep," so to speak.

GGH: check and mate.; December 17, 2008 at 3:24 PM
wobblie said...: Eastern Europe and European Russia are... jeebus, and I call this my native tongue.; December 17, 2008 at 3:25 PM
lex dexter said...: wobs,

i live for nuggets like that Horowitz nugget. it's amazing how many former Trotskyists have drifted rightward, or in Hitchens' case, just-plain-weird-ward. this is also true of the "New York" school of abstract expressionist painters, and of that school's great theorist, Clement Greenberg.

the last issue of the New Left Review features a former Althusser student and leading light in contemporary political philosophy named Alain Badiou who tracks a similar trend of former French "Maoists" who have come to support Sarkozy.; December 17, 2008 at 3:31 PM
lex dexter said...: gabba,
Engels' being an unlikely military strategist was the inspiration of the original (quoted) post, i think.

Poor Engels. Even _the Origins of Marriage, Family and the State_ (or whatever it's called) hasn't gotten much play in the U.S. since first-wave socialist-feminism.; December 17, 2008 at 3:33 PM
wobblie said...: Nor is his The Condition of the Working Class in England acknowledged as one of the classic public health texts.; December 17, 2008 at 3:37 PM
Wilbur said...: Oooh, military history? Awesome. Pop quiz: name a famous WWII Axis or Red Army commander. I'll go first: Zhukov. Battle of Stalingrad.; December 17, 2008 at 5:23 PM
RK said...: Heinrich Himmler-- Schutzstaffel and Gestapo commander.; December 17, 2008 at 5:28 PM
Wilbur said...: Oh damn, RK! You went for the THROAT, DAWG! Himmler was a pig farmer before the war.; December 17, 2008 at 5:32 PM
wobblie said...: Aren't we macabre today! Goering, Luftwaffe.; December 17, 2008 at 10:14 PM
lex dexter said...: [just an aside - i cannot believe Dave3544 hasn't yet entered the fray. this is his wheelhouse, too.]; December 17, 2008 at 10:59 PM
wobblie said...: Really? I never figured Dave as much of a WWII man. But then again, there's really not much to argue about in that regard, eh?; December 17, 2008 at 11:49 PM
dave3544 said...: The Desert Fox.

http://www.tisinc99.com/wwi049396.html; December 18, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Wilbur said...: Nice one, Dave...I was wondering when Rommel was going to get some props around here. He was - at least to some effect - involved in the plot against Hitler, ya know...Forced to take cyanide pills for it, too.; December 18, 2008 at 5:51 PM