Mistica: A Marxist Praxis

The Mística is the symbolic or dramatic social movement of Marxism initiated by Brazilian Landless Rural Workers. It is the popular movement practiced by the Communist parties and socialist organizations of the world. It was developed from Latin American liberation doctrine and interpreted as love for a cause, solidarity experienced in collectivity, symbolic presentation of the socialist movement, and belief in radical change. It is one type of philosophical movement which has a demonstrative attachment, praxis of pedagogy, behavioral collectivity, and cultural movement to change the social world guided by the theory of Karl Marx. It has political roots against the homogenization of culture, imperialism, and capitalist domination of the world. It uses art, music, drama, activity, symbol, media, and other modern tools which help the people for emancipation. This article will demonstrate some of the major aspects of mistica based upon the field observation of Brazil and Nepal.

Left Ruins in Ethiopia: Imagining Otherwise Amid Necroepistemic Historiography

This essay uses the notion of necroepistemology to expose the killing of the other as executed by the neoliberal historiography in Ethiopia. Utilizing Fanonian negative dialectics, it critiques the ahistorical, immaterial, and reified object, as well as universal history, promoted by the official Ethiopian historiography’s absolute time, space, and matter. It does so to reveal the ways in which the enduring social questions and new imaginations are dismissed by this historiography as the work of the global-local left. To counterbalance this practice, I return to the 1974 Ethiopian socialist revolution and to the staging of Ethiopian socialism as a critical transnational rethinking of the human in the country. At the same time, attending to the everyday struggle of women performers in both the imperial and revolutionary spaces, the essay reminds us how the revolutionary practice, which had envisioned a new social human, ended up marking female performers’ bodies as dangerous for the socialist movement. Revealing the ways in which women performers collaborated with and fought against a male revolutionary figure, this essay ends with a call to respond to the current necroepistemic moment to draw attention to the historically vulnerable people who are dying in Ethiopia in the here and now.

The Making and Remaking of a National People’s Hero and Exemplar in Mongolia’s Socialist, Nationalist and Democratic Mobilisations

This paper examines the case of Ard Ayush [the commoner Ayush], a widely recognised national hero constructed in the socialist movement and an exemplar who survived the post-socialist rejection of socialist heroes and was reconstructed within the post-socialist democratic and nationalist movements. The paper’s title borrows the notion of a ‘national people’ from David Sneath and the notion of the ‘exemplar’ from Caroline Humphrey. Extending Sneath’s discussion of ard [commoner and/or people] and ard tümen [national people], this paper shows how the concept of ard that was constructed through the use of exemplars has become ard tümen. Then, extending Humphrey’s discussion of the moral influence of exemplars, this paper shows how some exemplars constructed during socialism helped the socialist government shape and govern a national people.

The Austrian path to the constitution of 1 May 1934 – An application of the paradigm of ‘Militant Democracy’ just avant la lettre!?

This paper seeks to compare the academic model of ‘militant democracy’ advocated in 1937 by Karl Loewenstein with the real political developments that had taken place only a few years before in Austria, under the responsibility of Engelbert Dollfuß. It further aims to to reveal the ‘missing link' between the actions (mere plans included) of - in particular - Catholic political leaders in Germany 1931/1933 (Heinrich Brüning, Franz v. Papen, Heinrich Held), directed at least from 1932 onwards in particular against the rise of the National Socialist movement, well-known both to Loewenstein and Dollfuß. It is argued that Loewenstein's model contains serious theoretical flaws and paves, at least when taken literally, the way to dangerous exaggerations, while the approach of the Dollfuß government was far more balanced. Any assessment of Dollfuß’ measures that – as is still the case in Austria – only focuses on the breach of the constitution then in force (the main document being the Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz, B-VG) as such, without offering a better alternative to prevent the National Socialist danger is unconvincing, not only from a moral, but also, and in particular, from a legal perspective.

Soviets of Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Deputies in memorandum of E. G. Gerasimov (Gerasin) of June 14, 1918

This article discusses the a memorandum of the member of the Control and Audit Committee under the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs – Efim Grigorievich Gerasimov (Gerasin). Having supported the socialist movement and subsequently the February and October Revolutions of 1917 since his youth years, the author of the document has analyzed the system of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers 'and Peasants' Deputies that established on the local level in late 1917 – early 1918 and gradually replaced the county self-government. The value of the source lies in the fact that the author of self-censorship revealed the flaws of the new local government, having expressed the concern that they may lead to a civil war in the country. E. G. Gerasimov (Gerasin) dedicated particular attention to the problem of dialogue between the Soviet deputies and central government, and proposed to institute the post of special emergency mediators for controlling the execution of all provisions and “encourage” the representatives of the Soviets. The conclusion is made that the elimination of the existing flaws required the so-called “democratic centralism” in Russia, which suggested the combination of electivity of local administration along with the governing and supervisory power of the central administration. In this regard, the content of the document allows taking a look at the Soviets of Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers’ Deputies through the prism of a person who worked in that system, without idealization or “touchup”.

Social-reformist Experiments in Latin America during the Cold War

The article is devoted to the consideration and analysis of the practical policy of Latin American national reformism and social reformism during the Cold War. The author shows that the political and ideological gamut of the non-communist left movement in Latin America in the bipolar period was very wide. Specifically in this scientific article, the author refers to examples of the exercise of power by different directions of the socialist movement in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Chile. The author shows the existing connections between Latin American national reformism and the Socialist International and at that time comes to the conclusion that the ideology and practice of Latin American social democracy during the Cold War had a special, specific character. The common features characteristics of both the ideological project and the practical policy of the social reformist forces in the period under review were a commitment to political transformations, the expansion of social and political rights of citizens, the strengthening of the state and public sector in the economy, the priority of social policy, an anti-oligarchic strategy, a focus on a fair agrarian reform, anti-imperialism and the desire to defend national independence in foreign policy. In some cases (Nicaragua, Panama, Chile), the nature of social-economic transformations went beyond the framework of classical social reformism and had a revolutionary democratic content. The results of the center-left experiments in Latin American countries during the Cold War have varied, but by the 1990s most of them had failed. This is largely due to the fact that in the specific historical conditions of Latin American countries, national reformism in power led to the development of authoritarian and personalist tendencies, an increase in corruption and bureaucracy, attempts to merge the party and state apparatus.

“We were aliens, but no longer outsiders”: the strategies of political adaptation of the Mensheviks in Germany in 1920s

Автор исследует стратегии политической адаптации меньшевиков в Германии и их вовлеченность во внутриполитические процессы Веймарской республики. В зависимости от участия в международном социалистическом движении, места внутри Социал-демократической партии Германии, положения в Заграничной Делегации берлинских меньшевиков можно поделить на интернационалистов, «изоляционистов» и «интеграционистов». Политику Заграничной Делегации в 1920-е гг. определяли интернационалисты Ю.О. Мартов, Ф.И. Дан и Р.А. Абрамович. Полноценная адаптация политэмигрантов в Германии была бы невозможна без содействия меньшевиков-«интеграционистов», имевших хорошие связи в немецкой социал-демократии. Один из старых лидеров меньшевиков А.Н. Потресов находился в берлинской эмиграции в изоляции. Он контактировал с «интеграционистами», но из-за политических разногласий не взаимодействовал с Заграничной Делегацией. The article is devoted to a history of Menshevism in German exile in the 1920s. The author studies three strategies of political adaptation in Weimar Republic: Internationalism, Integration, and Isolation. A chosen strategy depended on the participation in the international socialist movement, a position either within the Social Democratic Party of Germany, or the position adopted in the Foreign Delegation, a governing body of Mensheviks’ party abroad. The Foreign Delegation Policy in the 1920s was led by the internationalists Martov, Dan, and Abramovich. The adaptation of Mensheviks-internationalists in Germany would not have been possible without the assistance of “integrationists” who worked as the specialists and experts in German Social Democracy Party. One of the leaders of the Mensheviks A.N. Potresov found himself in isolation in German exile. He maintained contacts with some "integrationists", but because of acute political differences with Dan, Potresov stayed away from the Foreign Delegation. This division came to an end after the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1933, when Mensheviks moved to the other states.

Organising National Socialism: Nazi Organisation in Sweden and the Netherlands, 1931–1939

This article compares the party apparatuses of the National Socialist Movement of the Netherlands and the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Sweden. These two parties, founded in the 1930s, both to some extent mimicked the organisational model of Hitler's party in Germany. While this has been frequently noted, the deployment of this model in practice has not been analysed in any detail. The article explores the specific characters of the Swedish and Dutch fascist party organisations diachronically vis-à-vis propaganda, member activism and internal cohesion, highlighting their changes, successes and failures. The comparison reveals that the party apparatus was highly dependent on the specifics of national infrastructure, demographic distribution and urbanisation and the physical landscape, with notable consequences for internal party cohesion and morale. In the final analysis the relative appeal and popularity of the parties is shown party be the result of how the Nazi organisational model was deployed in practice within each national context.