Anybody know of an old soviet era book ?

[dougie]

I once read a book review of Animal Farm (or maybe 1984 ) and the reviewer said something about Animal Farm being very similar to a book written earlier by a soviet writer . In this book it was a satire of capitalism and all the animals were different elements of capitalist society . Does this ring a bell with anyone here ? Or can you turn me on to any one who might have knowledge of old soviet writers .
Myself I hated Animal Farm ( by the way I am a communist ) ,it makes much more sense to me that the pigs would be the capitalists and the dogs would be the evil armies of oppression and plunder doing their bidding .
Anyway thanks and have a nice day !!

[ravana]

dougie, I'm from former USSR. I know soviet literature. But don't know who d'you exactly mean under the meaning "old soviet writers"
I'll try to find any infornation about that book.

Where are you from? As I know real communists remained only in Turkey and Italy.
I would like to talk to you about communizm next time.

[dougie]

Thanks for your help Ravana , I have some new info I will send to you , if you can read Russian there are a few sites in Russia that I am wondering if you could translate for me .
And yes " Virgina " there is a communist , or rather hundreds of millions of us and soon it will be our time . A time when we will smash the chains of oppression , the shackles of injustice and the noose of ignorance and bring true freedom and liberty to all . The present " Roman Empire " is about to fall
and fall hard , they are morally and financially bankrupt and become more reckless and desperate every day .
Hey ! But until then have a nice day !
Oh by the way I am from Canada .

[Art]

If you find out the name of the book please let me know! Sounds very interesting.

Thanks!

Art (also Communist)

[Liina]

I know that my question will be slightly out of the theme of this thread and I apologize for it but I`ll ask it anyway. Do you people really believe that communism can work out in real life? Even Thomas More already called such a society "utopia" and I`m sorry if I offend anybody now but communism is slightly utopic.

By the way, I`m from the former soviet socialist republic.

[Art]

I know that my question will be slightly out of the theme of this thread and I apologize for it but I`ll ask it anyway. Do you people really believe that communism can work out in real life? Even Thomas More already called such a society "utopia" and I`m sorry if I offend anybody now but communism is slightly utopic.

By the way, I`m from the former soviet socialist republic.

The term Utopia actually came from Thomas More, and has only been related to the genre concerned with an 'ideal' society since, I don't think he was specically suggesting that the community he described was an impossible one, however, the word Utopia is of Greek derivation, and means 'not place'.

Perhaps better than asking whether communism can work out in real life is asking whether capitalism can continue to thrive. When considering individual countries it is possible to believe that capitalism is thriving; westerners have a relatively high standard of living, education and healthcare, and the economies of western countries tend to thrive. However, more and more of the population of these countries is being forced into the working class. There are no longer many small businesses or self employed people because they simply cannot compete with either the business of the huge companies and nor with the wages. Currently however, there is no need for the working class to react against their conditions (unlike in the Russian Revolution, in which people were forced into a situation in which if they didn't revolt against their conditions they would perish) and there is no class conciousness (such as a strong communist party, or trade union movement) to enforce this to happen. When looking at capitalism on a global scale its humanitarian problems are much more evident. Millions of people are living in poverty due to capitalism, with big corporations chasing profit around the world resulting in everything from war (current war for oil in Iraq is a good example) to disease to poverty.

Hope this made sense... it has been a long day!

[Liina]

Yeah I know what means utopia and where it comes from, otherwise I wouldn`t have used that word at all. If T More already called this society "no place" then I think it suggests that he didn`t believe it could really come true. But it`s just the belief of More.

I would like to explain now why I think that communism is impossible to work in real life. See, there are always people who are a bit smarter than some other people, who have managed to accomplish something more than other people. Communism is basically about equality in society but that also suggests that all people should have equal mental and physical abilities too because otherwise people couldn`t be equal. But people are not equal - this is a law of nature, people can`t change it therefore they can`t live equally. A society that works well needs people who govern and people who work. People who govern are generally smarter (or luckier if I think about the Estonian government:P) than the ones who work and smarter people usually become richer more easily. Nobody wants to give his riches away to some people who haven`t accomplished that much (let`s be honest, it is so) and they try to derive from the law that tells them to share their wealth to poorer ones. There are always people who are able to do it successfully therefore there is still no equality and therefore communism as the society of equals is impossible. It is a very beautiful idea though:)

I apologize again for turning this topic into something totally different but I just couldn`t not answer to Art because then it would have seemed like I had agreed with him/her (sorry, I`m not sure about it:P).

[ravana]

Hello Dougie!
At last I've found it. It's "Animal rebellion" by N.I.Kostomarov. (1817-1885)
it was written in 1879-1880, was published only once in 1917, then it was forgotten forever till one of magazines of Latvia was published "Animal farm" by Orwell in 1988. This was first acquaintance of soviet readers with "animal farm". Just then "animal rebellion" was remembered and it was published in 2002.
http://www.orwell.ru/a_life/kostomarov/russian/r_gonk/translit#fn1
You can translate this page. It’s about similarities between “Animal farm” and “Animal rebellion”. It seems Orwell is really plagiarist.

But I don't know if you could find it in english?

[den]

A great book I read years ago by Georgy Vladimov, Verny Ruslan (“Faithful Ruslan”) written in the 60's, it's a scathing satire of the Stalinist Gulags from the eyes of a guard dog, probably an alsation. Good luck trying to find a copy I have been for a long time.

[dougie]

Today maybe one of the greatest in my life . I just finished ( 20 min ago )another project I have been working on for the last 2 weeks , that being a CD with 170 peace and anti-war mp3 songs . I bought 200 blank disks and burnt them and am now handing them out to anyone that will take it . It has been exhausting and I was on a real high when I got the covers printed and handed out the first one ( 10 min ago ) .
Then I thought I would check my mail ( which I have let slip for the last few days ) ...........When I saw your message ........I almost hit the ceiling !!!
literally . I am at a cafe near where I work during the day and I jumped up and let out a roar , something I have never done in a public place . I was so hyped I couldn't sit down and stop bouncing around for 10 min . Thank you so much !!!
This has been one of those things I have wanted to know for years , I had accepted as inevitable that I was going to have to spend a week in the library going through micro -fiche rolls . And I really would have , it was my next project after the disks .
Like I say you are the coolest .......You have no idea what this means to me .............. " ....and yes "Virginia " there is a Santa Claus ......" .......
and his name is Ravana .
I see that there are a few other new messages here and I will spend the next few days getting back on track . For the last 2 weeks I have been listening to hours and hours ( 170 mp3's = 11hours ) of old ,new , weird and powerfully inspiring socially relevant music and I have really been moved by it . So my soul has been stirred ( the revolutionary one ) and with what you have done for me today I know ....in my heart and every cell of my body ....as inevitably as the sun will rise every day and the winter will come every year and the snow and ice will will melt every spring ......I know without a " smidgen " of a doubt that the revolution is near and we ...win !
So like always have a " great " day .
Dougie

[Koa]

Where are you from? As I know real communists remained only in Turkey and Italy.


:eek: :eek: :eek: Have you been listening to the Italian Prime Minister (writing his name make me too sick ;)) cursing communists for every little thing? He's the only one that can see communists in a country where left-wing parties have never been united and strong enough to take the slightest initiative, at least in recent times. I don't want to turn the discussion in politics, but I must correct you... In Italy there might be people that call themsleves communists, but as a matter of fact real ones are probably no more than 2 or 3.

I actually had a look at this topic (only now as I rarely check this side of the forum) cos it reminded of a book I heard about... It's from the 1920s by a Russian called Zamyatin, the book is called "My" (=We) and apparently it's a sci-fi thing that can be considered as predecessor of books like '1984'. The more I found this description the more I got curious, but it's quite rare to find that book... Some people I know found it in a library after looking very hard everywhere, and btw they said it was quite hard and boring to read (despite being very short).

[crisaor]

:eek: :eek: :eek: Have you been listening to the Italian Prime Minister (writing his name make me too sick ;)) cursing communists for every little thing? He's the only one that can see communists in a country where left-wing parties have never been united and strong enough to take the slightest initiative, at least in recent times. I don't want to turn the discussion in politics, but I must correct you... In Italy there might be people that call themsleves communists, but as a matter of fact real ones are probably no more than 2 or 3.
Actually, that's subject to debate. Communists are "loyal", or "believe in", or whatever, to a system, not a state, so to reduce their presence to individual states is mistaken, although because of some historical conditions, some countries have a communist party more developed than others (and thus, I assume, a higher number of people who subscribe to this ideology). Koa, Italy has been at some point the bastion for communism outside the URSS, thanks to Antonio Gramsci, despite what the current situation might be. Of course, nowadays being communist is just a way of inviting people to laugh at you, considering the majority of the people doesn't really know what communism means, as there are multiple meanings for it. And that's one of the reasons the unnamable owner of Milan blames his own stupidity on "the communists", a categorie so misused that it has already lost its meaning.

[emily655321]

There haven't been organized groups of communist supporters in the US since the 30's, but the term persists among extreme conservatives who like to throw it around to, in their mind at least, slander liberals. (i.e. "those Commie bastards.") But they also only get laughed at. McCarthy's blacklisting of all kinds of famous people as "communists" in the 50's pretty much killed the credibility of the term's use on both sides. Now to say you're communist in North America pretty much just means you're going through a phase where you've chosen a random liberal ideology to support, as symbolic retaliation against the sitting government. There really is no such thing as a Communist Party in the West anymore.

[Art]

There really is no such thing as a Communist Party in the West anymore.


By 'the West' are you simply refering to the USA? Or incorporating Europe as well?

[ravana]

Wouuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!! so much emotion!!!!!!!!!!!! so much praise!!!!!!!

Thanks dougie. :redface:

[ravana]

Koa, I've seen him once on Tv, bald man, right? there were news regarding the plastic operation of his nose. I know about real communists of Italy from one italian movie, but I don't know its name.
I remember when Gorbachov visited Turkey, turkish communists met him with tomatoes and eggs.(By the way he deserved it)

except Zamyatn there's also O.Haxly (if I spelled right?)

We went through communizm. It's rather good idea for humanity. But I have to agree with Liina that it's utopia. I'm for sosialism, but not like for one we had in USSR. I'm for Chinese one. You know first when USSR established they let own private properties.
There's one famoes quote "it was not good idea to experiment it in such big country as Russia".
I think if USSR wasn't involved to "A cold WAR" the level of life in it would be much higher. It's true that there was not unemployment in that such big country.

Let's remember those famous persons who were communists:
Teodor Drieser, Nazim Hikmet.

[Koa]

Actually, that's subject to debate. Communists are "loyal", or "believe in", or whatever, to a system, not a state, so to reduce their presence to individual states is mistaken, although because of some historical conditions, some countries have a communist party more developed than others (and thus, I assume, a higher number of people who subscribe to this ideology). Koa, Italy has been at some point the bastion for communism outside the URSS, thanks to Antonio Gramsci, despite what the current situation might be. Of course, nowadays being communist is just a way of inviting people to laugh at you, considering the majority of the people doesn't really know what communism means, as there are multiple meanings for it. And that's one of the reasons the unnamable owner of Milan blames his own stupidity on "the communists", a categorie so misused that it has already lost its meaning.

That's what I was meaning... Actually, lately the word 'communist' only makes me laugh cos it makes me think of the unmentionable guy's attacks to a non-existing entity. Yeah, there were pure communists in another era (Togliatti comes to mind too), I must admit I don't know much about them but still I have the impression that even at the time they lacked something in the organisation, so they didn't do much concrete at least in internal politics.
And yes, I know lots of people who call themselves 'communists' but I dont think they really know what it means. Personally, I don't like cathegories...

[emily655321]

By 'the West' are you simply refering to the USA? Or incorporating Europe as well?

I meant Western Europe and North America, and I presume South America but I have very little knowledge of its countries so I don't know if any of them are still communist. (I thought Chile and Argentina either used to be and then changed, or weren't but now are. :confused:) Anyway, I don't mean there aren't any people in those places who are socialists -- there just aren't enough of them to have an organized, politically-active Communist Party.

[crisaor]

I meant Western Europe and North America, and I presume South America but I have very little knowledge of its countries so I don't know if any of them are still communist. (I thought Chile and Argentina either used to be and then changed, or weren't but now are. :confused:) Anyway, I don't mean there aren't any people in those places who are socialists -- there just aren't enough of them to have an organized, politically-active Communist Party.
That's untrue. There's a communist party in Italy (badly organised, of course, but existant), which I assume it's the largest of western Europe. Regarding the US, I have a friend living abroad and he told me that there was a communist party where he was living (Washington). I ignore if it's legally entitled to compete in the elections, but it's there.
Regarding South America, there has never been a communist regime anywhere (Cuba is a different matter), the military dictatorships supported by the US have made sure of that. I think that what you're thinking of is the current government of Chávez (nationalist, refuses to privatize the national oil company) in Venezuela, and the historical governments of Salvador Allende (socialist) in Chile, and Juan Doming Perón (right winged general, personal friend of Franco and Mussolini, sympathetic towards the nazis, who portraited himself as being left-winged, it's a long story) in Argentina. None of them were communists, specially the latter one. I live in Argentina, and today there are plenty of political groups orientated to communism in its very diverse forms (Marxist, Leninist, Trotskist, Maoist, etc.) that are legally recognised. The problem is, there are more partys than members, if you catch my drift. No one is really interested in that ideology, when having some more urgent problems (unemployment, media propaganda, hunger, etc.). Besides, this is pretty much a conservative country, so people are inclined normally to ignore such discussions and just go along with the usual system (which is a very poor democracy), where the upper classes always have control the situation. Also, communists in Latin america have had historically a horrible handling of situations. Being the main rivals of some democratic governments (Perón, for instance); they suppported dictatorships who overthrew those governments. So, as you can see, nobody has a reason to see communism as a way out of problems, including myself.

[Admin]

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