I think in the Marxist account the state is whatever is functionally the mediator of class struggle and it’s not like there would no longer be a government in Marxist communism (something that some anarchists express disdain for), it’s just that the character of a government that is no longer the mediator of class antagonisms is very different. Marx also never suggested that history would end, though he clearly implied it would reach a stage where it proceeds on very different terms. He would probably agree that the revolution would need to be defended forever because you can’t just not have politics (even if a lot of the mainstream functions of the government, the “administration of things” becomes sort of depoliticized), but as you say it would require very little violence.
But I wasn’t calling the DPRK anti-Marxist because it opposes being dissolved into an international body (though afaik it does and therefore it is), I was talking about them railing against basically every conceivable aspect of historical materialism.
As Losurdo puts it, Marx sometimes didn’t imply an end to the state saying “the falling away of the state AS SUCH” and other times clearly implied it would go away entirely saying “the falling away of the state” and then discussing the ways that no state power would be needed. It seems Marx just slipped sometimes into that line of thought, but I don’t judge the main body of his work for that slip (the historical materialism and analysis of capitalism)
But what do you consider ways that the DPRK rails against historical materialism? I’ve never heard this claim, genuinely!
I sympathize with this, though I have a ‘philosphy of science’ critique of these sorts of critiques–the forest missed for the trees sort of thing. Holistically considering quotes and portions of huge things as evidence of something while actions and a holistic look may still show its opposite. That is all to say, this doesn’t convince me, but I get that it can be convincing.
I didn’t read this all–I won’t lie by saying I did. But I took an example:
"The main factor in this change is alleged to be the fact that it is now not objective conditions, but man that plays the decisive role in history:
“It is not objective conditions but man that plays the decisive role in the development of history”. (Kim Song Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995: p. 144). "
This seems very easy to me to clarify as the combination of the idea that objective conditions are also created by humans, or at least the most dominating ones. It is just highlighting the opposite in a dialectic which Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were needing to push the other pole of in their times. When Kim Song Il was writing, it was much more important for the movement to recognize the human aspect.
It reminds me of what I read recently (will have to look it up) where Ho Chi Minh talked about Lenin ‘bending the stick’ the other way by saying a more extreme argument to bring the opinions towards a better understanding of the dialectical motion
![[CW: Transphobia] Congrats to North Korea for winning the U-17 Woman's World Cup!](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/e0f95f39-e410-42a1-8130-454ce954a438.png){kind=link}
I think in the Marxist account the state is whatever is functionally the mediator of class struggle and it’s not like there would no longer be a government in Marxist communism (something that some anarchists express disdain for), it’s just that the character of a government that is no longer the mediator of class antagonisms is very different. Marx also never suggested that history would end, though he clearly implied it would reach a stage where it proceeds on very different terms. He would probably agree that the revolution would need to be defended forever because you can’t just not have politics (even if a lot of the mainstream functions of the government, the “administration of things” becomes sort of depoliticized), but as you say it would require very little violence.
But I wasn’t calling the DPRK anti-Marxist because it opposes being dissolved into an international body (though afaik it does and therefore it is), I was talking about them railing against basically every conceivable aspect of historical materialism.
As Losurdo puts it, Marx sometimes didn’t imply an end to the state saying “the falling away of the state AS SUCH” and other times clearly implied it would go away entirely saying “the falling away of the state” and then discussing the ways that no state power would be needed. It seems Marx just slipped sometimes into that line of thought, but I don’t judge the main body of his work for that slip (the historical materialism and analysis of capitalism)
But what do you consider ways that the DPRK rails against historical materialism? I’ve never heard this claim, genuinely!
https://espressostalinist.com/2011/11/01/bill-bland-the-workers-party-of-korea-and-revisionism/
Bland was wrong on plenty of things and I’m not endorsing his Hoxhaphilia, but I like this as a collection of quotes.
I sympathize with this, though I have a ‘philosphy of science’ critique of these sorts of critiques–the forest missed for the trees sort of thing. Holistically considering quotes and portions of huge things as evidence of something while actions and a holistic look may still show its opposite. That is all to say, this doesn’t convince me, but I get that it can be convincing.
I didn’t read this all–I won’t lie by saying I did. But I took an example:
"The main factor in this change is alleged to be the fact that it is now not objective conditions, but man that plays the decisive role in history:
“It is not objective conditions but man that plays the decisive role in the development of history”. (Kim Song Il: ‘On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea’, in: ‘On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea’; Pyongyang; 1995: p. 144). "
This seems very easy to me to clarify as the combination of the idea that objective conditions are also created by humans, or at least the most dominating ones. It is just highlighting the opposite in a dialectic which Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were needing to push the other pole of in their times. When Kim Song Il was writing, it was much more important for the movement to recognize the human aspect.
It reminds me of what I read recently (will have to look it up) where Ho Chi Minh talked about Lenin ‘bending the stick’ the other way by saying a more extreme argument to bring the opinions towards a better understanding of the dialectical motion