Join the new world

Since the e-proletarian carnival of riot and psychedelia has as yet failed to joyfully liberate all e-humankind, the First of Nine of the Invisible Sub-Committees of the Extra-Revolutionary Committee of the Socialist Freedom Party has decided to share a lengthy snippet from the Prison Notebooks of Phoenix Quinn.

The unfinished parables on Bogdanov are found in the Notebooks assembled while PQ was taking a sabbatical in Czechia, trying to stir up feelings for a workers republic and whatnot, as usual.

Mighty, Mighty Bogdanovism


Phoenix Quinn (PQ) was a famously long-winded e-revolutionary who was supposedly observing a vow of silence during a forest retreat in the Czech Socialist Republic. A Spectacular Times correspondent sent in the following illuminated transcript proved that he had not, in fact, shut up.







Gathering in company near the Petrovy kameny, high atop Praděd in the Hrubý Jeseník, the assemblage of bikkhus and bikkhinis beheld a deva named J. Mahurin appear out of nothingness. He lit up the rocks with wondrous luminosity, delighting them all. He stood at the right side of PQ and asked him this question:

"What is the nature of in-game Stalinism?"


It is recorded that PQ responded at some length, to put it mildly...

"In eRepublikan society’s historical development toward world-wide e-communism, there is an unfortunate secondary tendency towards a narrow and linear view. This view is sometimes promoted by so-called "Stalinists" who have accidentally tipped over into a squalid mess of dogmato-revisionism.

"This is manifested in how some of our brothers bring the philosophical concept of the “negation of the negation” into the game. This is a strongly-held view that things proceed in such a way that a particular thing is negated by another thing, which in turn leads to a further negation and a synthesis which embodies elements of the previous things, but now on a higher level.

"This concept was purchased at a wholesale discount from the so-called "real world" philosophical system of a certain Mr. Hegel. As you probably know, these Hegelian philosophical warez exerted a significant influence on the famous other-worldly comedy team of the elusive K. Marx (not to be confused with G. Marx) and F. Engels (not to be confused with the F. Engels who actually exists within our New World).

"Legend has it that the philosopher-comedian spirit known as "K. Marx", in particular, placed Mr. Hegel’s view of dialectics on a materialist, which is to say, scientific, foundation. (Note to dear American readers: please do not confuse "dialectics" with "Dianetics".)

"Nevertheless, despite that efforts the Marx of Legend, attempts at applying some degree of science to the unfolding of history continued to be plagued by philosophical idealism, in much the same way that swarms of mosquitos plague summer visitors to our forest retreat no matter how many of them you slap away. In other words, this wooden and mechanical adoption of Hegel's theories is a very common and, frankly, rather annoying philosophical mistake.

"This is the view that history consists, in essence, of the unfolding of the Idea.

-- Mr. Mosquito, philosphical idealist


"A narrow understanding of the “negation of the negation” tends to develop into a condition we can call “inevitable-ism”. It is as if something is bound to be negated by another thing in a particular and entirely predictable way, leading to the hokey conception of a predetermined synthesis in a realm of human knowledge that is notoriously complex.

"We know now that such mechanical thinking does not even apply to the "hardest" of sciences, and by that I mean physics. The "science of history" is more like predicting the weather: a much fuzzier undertaking with an almost innumerable set of conditions and variables to account for.

"When applied to the historical development of the New World, the temptation to become simplistically formulaic is an ever-present danger for revolutionaries.

"In the legends that have come down to us from that Other World, the one some people call "Real", it is clear that such constructions were attributed to Real-Life Engels. According to those who have crossed over, his writings suffered from exactly this type of mechanical dialectics.

"An incredibly dumbed-down version of human history is attributed to RL-Fred Engels. It goes like this: primitive classless (communal) society was negated by class society, which in turn will be negated by the emergence once again of classless society, but now on a higher foundation, with the achievement of communism throughout the world.

"And that's that. Easy as falling off a log, right? Our dogmato-revisionist friends here in the New World have trouble resisting the urge to simply adopt whole-hog this type of a very mechanical story.




"So-called "Stalinism" is a variation of this tendency towards reductionism. Its roots are both esoteric, in the sense that it eerily mimics similar errors in that mysterious Other World, and obvious, in the sense that it is appealing, on a juvenile level, to think that the future development of society is easily predictable.

"In fact, the development of e-human society is an extremely complex, variegated and constantly-changing network dynamic. The tendency towards thinking of e-socialism and e-communism as a “closed system” -- that siren call of “inevitable-ism” -- has emerged again and again amongst certain leftist players as the eRepublikan eCommunist movement has unfolded through the various epochs of Beta, V1, V2 and V2.1, V2.2 and V2.3.

"As I have already alluded, according to the prophecies that have come down to us, this was a secondary shortcoming in the works of "Marx", quite a bit more so in "RL Engels".

"Scientific eCommunism as it is has developed and ben applied to the New World does not embody, but in fact rejects, any teleological notion that there is some kind of will or purpose with which our New World's nature, or history, or its admin, is endowed. Not withstanding such principles, tendencies of the dogmato-revisioinist kind continously asserted themselves with the development of the eCommunist movement.

"Now, I know it seems odd that players who attest to following a scientific philosophy would appeal to Other Worldly authorities. But it has been particularly noticeable, and has exerted a negative effect on the movement, that e-revolutionaries who claim to have "read books" concerning a certain "J. Stalin", have tended to show accelerated symptoms of woodenness with respect to their systems thinking.

"Such mechanical, somewhat metaphysical, even mystical, perspectives on materialism are not limited to "Stalinists". Many honest revolutionaries have been influenced, even if secondarily, by this legacy of the "Stalin" entity's philosophical shortcomings. Failure to break with such mistaken ideas completely engrains in the minds of some the nostalgic idea that "success" with eSocialism simply means mimicking one or two of the famous Other World legends.

"When in fact a careful reading of those legends clearly reveals that philosophical narrow-mindedness were key elements of the downfall of the recorded attempts at creating proletarian states.

"Whatever one thinks of the "realness" of such legends, it is instructive for revolutionaries to study them for lessons that might be applied to the New World. For example, it becomes quite clear that "a leaopard can change its stripes" when we are talking about proletarian power. In other words, a socialist country can turn into a capitalist, and even an imperialist country, while still "waving the red flag". Even when the revolutionary leaders and masses of revolutionaries make extensive critiques of erroneous tendencies, even when those critiques include a clear-headed criticism of nationalism, there is always a near-danger of separating off the revolutionary struggle in a particular country from, and even raising it above, the overall world-historic and revolutionary desire for eCommunism.


Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us.


"The thorough-going communists have examined ways in which this tendency towards mechanical and metaphysical thinking manifests itself in eRepublik, including in the socialist countries and within the stronger socialist and communist parties. Time after time, a narrow understanding of dialectical transformation becomes "entrenched" in an attachment to old, essentially capitalist, ideas of state power as an end in itself.

"Along with this, the new communists have re-analysed the material basis for internationalism. In an overall sense, it is the e-world arena that is most decisive, even in terms of revolution in any particular country. Especially in the era of admin-constructed capitalist-imperialism as a world-system of never-ending war and exploitation, this internationalist understanding needs to be incorporated into every specific approach to revolution, in particular countries as well as on an e-world scale.

"Internationalism has always been a fundamental principle of eCommunism. Since its very founding, the young turks of the communist movement, starting in Portugal and spreading around the New World, month after month after month, both summed up ways in which this principle had been incorrectly compromised in the history of the eCommunist movement, and strengthened the theoretical foundation for waging the struggle to overcome such departures from internationalism. They continue to carry forward the eCommunist revolution in a more thoroughly internationalist way with every lesson, through each twist and turn.

"This type of flexible and truly revolutionary thinking is not only evident in the eCommunist movement, it is the leading trend. The dogmato-revisionist tendency, while it emerges again and again, is actually quite small, while the new internationalist trends are much larger and are likely, in the end, to prevail."








All of the bikkhus and bikkhinis were stunned at PQ's eloquence and the depth of his insight. The deva J. Mahurin, who was not a communist at all during the time of his entry into the samsara of the New World, but an e-anarcho-primativist, smiled and nodded and then suddently disappeared in a wisp of smoke that smelled like sandalwood which had been harvested in a renewable, ecologically-friendly way.

Just as suddenly, another deva, this one name Comandante David, appeared out of nowhere from a shimmering transluscence. He was sitting astride an old bear and had an extremely peaceful countenance. He lit up the rocks of the Petrovy kameny with a wonderful luminosity that awed the assemblage. Moving about to PQ's right, he asked him:

"If you think you're so smart, Mr. PQ, then tell us what is the nature of "proletarian dictatorship" and eSocialism in the New World."


It is recorded that PQ responded at epic length, almost as long-winded as the first time:




"The "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a term found in the esoteric writings of the Other Worldly entity referred to as "K. Marx". According to the legends, this Marx was a very funny guy. This term was his way of describing socialist society, a type of state that he explained as a form of transition from exploitative and limited capitalist to liberated and Star-Trek-like communist society.

"The Marx Entity was making a joke at the expense of capitalist society, which he described as the "dictatorship of the bourgeosie". In his world, as in ours, they use their wealth, their positions of authority, their media, their control over the educational system, their claims to "history", and so on -- as well as their police and armies -- to maintain a class division that is favorable to their class.

"A socialist society, on the other hand, should continously empower the working and oppressed classes, with the goal of eliminating exploitative and oppressive class divisions altogether.

"The joke is actually a pretty profound one. For, just as the "dictatorship of the bourgeosie" often takes on democratic forms, so does the "dictatorship of the proletariat". In this context, "dictatorship" is being used somewhat ironically to mean, basically, "Republic". This is, ideally anyway, a form of state organization that is constitutionally bound and institutionally structured to reinforce specific relationships, both constraints and freedoms, under a body of law.

"It always possible for a Republic to turn into a fascist dictatorship. This occurs when the capitalist class -- whether of the traditional kind, or the kind that emerges from within a communist party whose proletarian center has been overthrown -- becomes threatened, or feels that is being threatened, with annihilation either by its capitalist rivals or by the proletarian revolution. In such cases, a small clique of the capitalists seize power for themselves, abandoning their own democratic forms.

"That type of dictatorship cannot occur in a truly socialist society. Or to put it more precisely, if a socialist state becomes a fascist dictatorship, then by definition it is no longer a socialist state because the proletariat is no longer in the driver's seat.

"The bourgeoisie has been perfecting their forms of "dictatorship" since Day 1 of Beta and have been receiving enormous assistance from admin at every step of the way. We can say that the game is rigged in their favor.

"The proletarian revolutionaries and their allies are still relatively new at it and must also struggle against the architects of the Matrix along with the struggling against the bourgeoisie. Despite various reversals. In fact, because of them, the work to perfect our understanding of how to manage transitional states, how to use and protect various types of "liberated zones" as part of the larger quest, continues to be a lively and engaging task for the e-communists.

"The new communists have deeply immersed themselves in learning from, upholding, and propagating the great insights into the world-wide communist transition that have been learned so far. They study very carefully the contradictions and struggles, the ebbs and flows, which mark this transition and whose resolution, in one or another direction, will eventually be decisive in terms of whether the advance is carried forward to New World-wide communism, or things are dragged eternally into a bit bucket of spectacularized capitalist boredom.

"As a result of all this, the eCommunists recognize and emphasize the need for a great role for dissent, a great fostering of intellectual ferment, and encourage immense scope for initiative and creativity in the arts in eSocialist society and in the eSocialist movement.

"The eCommunists criticize tendencies toward a “reification” of the proletariat and other exploited, formerly exploited and oppressed groups in e-society. They see clearly that such tendencies regard individuals in these groups only as representative of the larger interests of the e-proletariat. They oppose politics that treat "the people" simply as an Idea.



Postmodern society, characterized by the proliferation of signs and the collapse of time, has turned us into consumerist lemmings with cerebral malaise, shuffling towards our inevitable demise.



"Mis-understanding of Marx's joke about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is typically accompanied by narrowly pragmatic outlooks and approaches which severely restrict what is "relevant" to the revolution. More precisely, narrow, mechanical view on socialist transition tend to also place ridiculous limits on what can be declared to be true. With respect to engaging the masses of players, it takes the narrow view that only what relates to immediate experiences and struggles of the players, and to the immediate, short-term objectives of the socialist state and its leading party, at any given time, matters. Rather than offering a road to world-wide liberation, they offer only a bit of goulash and call that "socialism".

"This mis-characterization of socialism, of "the dictatorship of theh proletariat", not only entirely misses out on humor and fun and creativity, it tends to fall into the utterly skewed and illusory phenomenological perspective of “class truth”.

"This view of "truth" is in fact diametrically opposed to the scientific (materialist) understanding that truth is objective. Truth does not vary in accordance with differing class interests and it is not dependent on which class outlook one brings to the pursuit of the truth.

"If it is correctly taken up and applied as a living science and not as a dogma, a scientific outlook using the method of eCommunism is the science of discovering the qualities and the means of human liberation from suffering, exploitation and oppression. This should provide, in an overall sense, the most consistent, systematic, and comprehensive means for arriving at the truth with respect to the hugely variegated and complex arena of e-human social and economic development.

"That is not at all the same thing as saying that truth itself has a class character. Or that somebody who declares himself to be a "communist" is mystically pre-ordained to arrive at the truth with regard to particular phenomena, while people who do not apply, or who even oppose, the communist outlook and method are incapable of arriving at important truths.

"Such views of “class truth,” which have existed to varying degrees and in various forms in the eCommunist movement -- and often come into play when complex jokes like "dictatorship of the proletariat" are discussed -- suffer from that reductionist malady of vulgar materialism. They run counter to an actual scientific viewpoint and the method of materialist dialectics as applied to human crowds, swarms, their social organization, their in-game dynamics, and the psychological separation and grounding of individuals within that.

"The eCommunists always criticize one-sided views that emerge from time to time within the communist movement toward e-intellectuals. Seeing other deep thinkers and strategists only as a "problem", and failing to give full recognition to the ways in which they can contribute to the rich process through which the people in society overall really will come to a deeper understanding of reality and a heightened ability to carry out an increasingly conscious struggle to transform our e-reality in the direction of human liberation from exploitation, oppression, alienation and boredom, is a grave error.

"Communism belongs to the people. It has deep roots in every culture and is deeply embedded in all of the New World's great legends and in many of its philosophical, intellectual, political, economic and military traditions as well. How to get there -- and whether we will succeed -- is the great experiment we call eSocialism."








The other-worldly deva Comandante David patted PQ on the shoulder and said, "If you say so, my young Padawan." and then he and his old bear dissipated into a shimmering light, much to the amazement of the assemblage.

Out of the hub-bub of exited chatter that ensued, one voice arose amongst the others, posing a question to PQ. It was a young noob, recently incarnated into the New World, who had no fear of PQ's blatherings and genuinely wanted to know:

"Tell us PQ. If neither Other World "Marx", nor "RL Engels", nor the Great and Terrible "Stalin" of the Legends could overcome vulgar narrow Hegelianism, were there any amongst the Other Worlders who did?"


It is recorded that PQ responded with amazing brevity:



"Yes," he said, "There was one: the mighty, mighty Bogdanov.

"But I will tell you about him later. For now it is time to go beg for alms, as some rotten Stalinist has made away with the national bank and so our dear experimental socialist government is presently unable to provide us with bread."






Red Star Hamlet

A reminder: a Spectacular Times correspondent once sent in a report on a blisteringly long philosophical soliloquy from the New World's foremost cantankerous windbag. We reprint it here for your reading "pleasure".




From deep inside the Bohemian Šumava.

A young wanderer is softly singing a song based on the ancient Greek proverb: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Quietly taking in the sound of the wind through the trees and water trickling over the rocks...



...a small band of weary travellers rests, awaiting inspiration, listening for echoes of the ancient voices of the Boii people.



They are bruised and weary, their former retreat in the Hrubý Jeseník having been overrun by foreign invaders. Without assistance from anyone, they had fought for their adopted country with everything they had, then fell back through a long march into the deep woods of Southern Bohemia, to a place near the Bavarian border.

Grandmother Boob, who had journeyed with this happy tribe of New World travellers off and on for months, lay down next to her timeless old black bear, a beast with so many battle scars that it's hard to tell he was once a handsome young cub.

She poured a cup of tea from her famously ornate thermos that features a golden number 5. Handing a beaten and battered old tumbler filled with tasty Q5 tea to PQ, who was grooming his white bear (a beast somewhat mysteriously named "1987"), she said, "So. Mr. PQ, tell us more about this legendary person from the Other World whom you mentioned before the invasion of Moravia. This 'Bogdanov' character."

The bikkhini formerly known as Wren skootched up closer so she could hear better. The other members of the little gypsy caravan, along with their animal companions, gathered around too.




"Well," said PQ, "some people call him the 'Red Hamlet' because of how he anguished over the state of the revolution."



"The legends say that his name was Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov, although his birth name was Alyaksandr Malinouski (which in Belarusian is spelled Алякса́ндар Маліно́ўскі). The legends about him are legion and quite instructive, I believe, for navigating our way through the sorrows and joys of the New World.

"It is said that Bogdanov joined something called the Bolshevik (majority) faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the year 1903 of the Other World calendar. For the next 6 years he was a major figure among the early Bolsheviks, second only to the famous entity Vladimir Lenin in influence.

"Between the years 1904 and 1906 of their calendar, he published three volumes of a philosophic treatise called Empiriomonism, in which he tried to merge "Marxism" with the philosophy of some comedians named Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Ostwald, and Richard Avenarius. His work later affected a number of "Marxist" theoreticians, including Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин), who wrote something called "Imperialism and the World Economy", a book that the Lenin fellow later plagerized under the name "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism".

"A majority of Bolshevik leaders either supported Bogdanov or were undecided five years later (that's 1,825 days in our terminology) when the differences between Lenin and Bogdanov became irreconcilable. At that point Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In our world, we would say that Lenin set about trolling Bogdanov unmercifully. This was, in fact, Lenin's greatest skill, rather like Emerick. In their world, during the time of these legends, this was often accomplished by writing lengthy "books" on paper."




A ripple of laughter coursed through the camp, except amongst the anarcho-primativist compadres, who frowned, taking offense at the very idea of chopping down trees solely for the purpose of putting ink on them.

After taking a long sip of tea, PQ continued...

"In the year 1909 (which is their way of saying "about 697,262 days since the end of Beta") the Lenin published a scathing book of criticism entitled Materialism and Empiriocriticism, assaulting Bogdanov's position and, somewhat perversely, accusing him of philosophical idealism.



One of the younger bikkhus piped up, saying, "Philosophical idealism? Isn't that what you were blabbing on and on about during your last long boring lecture, with respect to the Stalin Entity and RL Fred Engels?"

"Yes," said PQ, "that's right. Now you might think that Mr. Lenin was on to something with his criticism of Mr. Bogdanov. After all, it is quite clear from the transmissions that have come over to us that Mr. Lenin succeeded in winning the leadership of the Bolshevik faction. And as you probably know, his image, his name and his personality are closely associated with the foundational mythology of Sovietism in much the same way that the Other World "K. Marx" Entity is associated with the foundational legends of Other World Communism more generally.

"It seems to me that the key lesson to be discerned in the studying the legend of Bogdonov is rather like that song you were singing earlier."



PQ smiled in the direction of the young traveller who'd been singing about old men planting trees. He continued...

"I don't mean to completely trash the Lenin Entity here. For one thing, the transmissions make it clear that he was very fond of cats. Also his life-partner, the great revolutionary librarian Nadezhda Krupskaya, was a very cool customer and she was honored by having a chocolate factory named after her, so he couldn't have been all bad, right? (RL note: Krupskaya Confections is still in operation at 21 Ulitsa Sotsialisticheskaya, 191119 St Petersburg, Russia, though it is now owned by a Norwegian company.)


Lenin, cat lover


Krupskaya, commissar of chocolate



"It is said that Alexander Aleksandrovich planted saplings that grew into trees that would last for centuries, much like this forest. Meanwhile Lenin and his cohorts, like Trotsky and Stalin, planted many trees that seemed to be strong, but then blew over, due to internal structural weaknesses, after several strong windstorms.

"This all comes back to philosophical idealism.

"OK. That's the prologue.

"Now let's take a closer look at the debate between Bogdanov and Lenin. Luckily for us, a membrane opened up recently between our New World and the so-called "Real" World where these "Bogdanov", "Krupskaya" and similar characters are said to have played out their adventures. When he crossed over, our good friend the Indolent Inuit, who travels between worlds all the time, was able to bring some fragments of these legendary texts back with him.

"In chapter 5 of "Materialism and Emperio-criticism", the great log-rolling Lenin fired up his main artillery against mighty, mighty Bogdanov in a section rather ponderously titled "Absolute and Relative Truth, or the Eclecticism of Engels as Discovered by A. Bogdanov". Evidently this little section of confused pseduo-scientific gibberish has often been deployed as a dogma-stick by so-called "Leninistas" to bonk the heads of so-called "agnostic" and "electic" socialists. So it is worth our time to study it carefully and separate out the wheat from the chaff.



"In his book, Mr. Lenin unloads his trademark polemical fury against Bogdanov for having criticized Mr. RL Fred Engels around the question of "eternal truth", something that RL Engels argued in favor of in his interesting but at times somewhat dubious work, "Anti-Dühring".

"Bogdanov had criticized Engels for using a banal and trivial example of an "eternal truth", i.e., that an entity named "Napoleon" had died on "date" referred to as "May 5, 1821". (In that other world, they don't use our handy system of simply giving each day a number; rather they use an obtuse and confusing system of "months" and "years" that are related to an amalgam of pseudo-historical and astronomical events recorded in the various ancient legends of their world.)

"The mighty, mighty Bogdanov had summarized his critique of RL Fred Engels by writing, rather clearly: "The recording of a single correlation, which perhaps even has no longer any real significance for our generation, cannot serve as a basis for any activity, and leads nowhere.”

"Choosing to interpret the scientific method in a wholly idealistic manner, the Lenin promptly trolled the Bogdanov character's observation by saying: "If you do not assert that it may be refuted in the future, you acknowledge this truth to be eternal."

"As you see, Lenin obviously missed the entire point that Bogdanov was making. Lenin carries on in this vein for a while, sharing deep thoughts like "Paris is in France" and so on. He finishes up this stand-up bit by claiming that "To be a materialist is to acknowledge objective truth, which is revealed to us by our sense-organs."

"Here, some alarm bells should be going off, my pretty little hamsters."

One of the bikkhus name Subhuti, who was not afraid to into philosophy, piped up: "Objective truth" is "revealed to us by our sense-organs"? Wut!?"





"Exactly," said PQ.

"To his credit, the Lenin entity does seem to realize in this part of the text that he was veering off into a severely solipsistic understanding of philosophical materialism. And so he then quickly tried to correct himself by quoting from another part of "Anti-Dühring" where Engels wrote: “The sovereignty of thought is realised in a number of extremely unsovereignly-thinking human beings; the knowledge which has an unconditional claim to truth is realised in a number of relative errors; neither the one nor the other (i.e., neither absolutely true knowledge, nor sovereign thought) can be fully realised except through an endless eternity of human existence."

"OK then. Let's pause and think about this.

"We can say that here Engels showed his insight. He recognized that that which is "revealed to us by our sense organs", if understood in an entirely individualistic way, leads into an infinite regress in which every person is obliged to re-create the entire body of human knowledge -- an impossible and rather ridiculous task. And so, to his credit, he acknowledged the role of the "endless eternity of human existence" is accumulating our shared store of knowledge and wisdom, as well noting the scientific method of refuting conjectures ("truth is realised in a number of relative errors").

"But Lenin has just tripped over his own "logic" and has not yet got a firm grip on his dogma-stick. He desperately wants to "prove" that Bogdanov was a "relativist" and not a "dialectician". For him, the nut of the argument is to "prove" that Bogdanov does not believe in the existence of "objective truth", and within that, "absolute truth", and is therefore an idealist of the most reprehensible sort. For Lenin, it is all about winning the cat fight.




"Our Leninski put his argument like this: "To acknowledge objective truth, i.e., truth not dependent upon man and mankind, is, in one Way or another, to recognise absolute truth. And it is this “one way or another” which distinguishes the metaphysical materialist Dühring from the dialectical materialist Engels."

"Ah-ha! Do you hear the alarm bell again, my friends? Anyone?

At this point the bikkhu Subhuti made a comment that cannot be re-printed in a family-oriented journal like this one.




"Yes, Subhuti, that's absolutely right.", PQ continued.

"The first sentence in Lenin's core argument is indeed pure Hegelian rubbish. He then went on to pile it higher and deeper by saying: "Human thought then by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths. Each step in the development of science adds new grains to the sum of absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposition are relative, now expanding, now shrinking with the growth of knowledge."

"This is the cleverness of the Lenin entity's comedy. Let's read it again. "..by its nature..." Eh? How so? Why must one conclude that the "grains" sum up to an "absolute truth"? Mr. Lenin doesn't say. He merely asserts that it is so.

"We soon learn that this was in fact only a rhetorical flourish leading up to his zinger: "For Bogdanov recognition of the relativity of our knowledge excludes even the least admission of absolute truth. For Engels absolute truth is compounded from relative truths. Bogdanov is a relativist; Engels is a dialectician."

"And, that, evidently, is A Bad Thing™.




"We've started to understand Mr. Lenin's style of comedy, haven't we? He likes to mix up rational-sounding, if somewhat limited, statements about science and materialist philosophy with grandiloquent but unsubstantiated claims about the "weakness" or "apostasy" of his opponent, all based on a quasi-religious faith in "the dialectic".

"The Lenin entity goes on to give a perfectly good example of a scientific finding that is true within the limits and constraints of its domain: Boyle's Law regarding the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas. This law is constrained because it only applies to an ideal gas kept at a fixed temperature. Mr. Lenin sets us up for another one of routines by stating, after having mentioned Boyle's Law, that "The “grain of truth” contained in this law is only absolute truth within certain limits. The law, it appears, is a truth “only approximately.”


Boyle's Law

"So far, so good, right? But then he immediately follows up with an utter non sequitur: "Human thought then by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths."

"WTFBBQ!?!? Where did that "then" come from? Deus ex "then", Mr. Lenin!

"After playing games like this for a while, the Lenin character finally gets around to the part of Bogdanov's book that really got his panties in a twist. This is where Bogdanov wrote: "The world outlook of the old materialism (PQ note😛 by which Bogdanov means Engels' eclectic understanding of science) sets itself up as the absolute objective knowledge of the essence of things and is incompatible with the historically conditional nature of all ideologies.”

Lenin, always quick with the clever repartée replies: "Every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, for instance, from religious ideology), there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature. You will say that this distinction between relative and absolute truth is indefinite."

"And so Mr Lenin leaves us there with... let's count them... one unproven conjecture ("it is unconditionally true that"), one meaningless phrase ("absolute nature") and one strawman argument ("you will say"), and finishes up with some good old-fashioned ad hominem attacks, this time "accusing" Bogdanov of being a follower of Hume and Kant.




According to our multiverse-travellers who have seen the whole Magillicuddy, Lenin's entire tome goes on and on like this for hundreds of pages."

A traveller who was a particular devotee of the famous anarcho-primativst deva J. Mahurin had been hugging his favorite tree while PQ spoke. When he heard "hundreds of pages", the young player gasped and shouted out "Shame!", amidst a good deal of tut-tutting from other like-minded tree-huggers.


"The parts of the text I have quoted give you the gist of it and capture the flavor of the core debate between Bogdanov and Lenin. Lenin's illogical arguments all come back to two deeply flawed concepts, both of which are hallmarks of philosophical idealism:

"1) The Hegelian idea that human social history is inevitably "moving" in some specific, predictable direction, and

"2) The Platonic concept that science is aimed at perfecting our understanding of idealized forms ("absolute truth")."

Here PQ paused.




The irrespressible Comrade Subhuti piped up again: "But Brother PQ. All you've done is point out that the Lenin was unsuccessful in his critiques of the Bogdanov. Why do you call the Bogdanov "mighty, mighty"? What did he do that was so remarkable? What seeds did he plant that would grow into trees that would stand for tens of thousands of days?"

PQ looked around at the assemblage. Some were already sound asleep. Others were beginning to wander off into the woods in pairs, some to "carry water", others (of the non-anarcho-primativist schools) to "chop wood".

"I think that's enough for now," said PQ, "We'll pick up on Bogdanov's accomplishments next time. For now I will just mention that while a chocolate factory was named after Lenin's love, Krupskaya, the Russian Institute for Haemotology and Blood Transfusions was named after Bogdanov."




After a lengthy break and nap, PQ finished up the teaching with the following recitation...

"Tectology is a term used by Alexander Bogdanov to describe a discipline that consisted of unifying all social, biological and physical sciences, by considering them as systems of relationships, and by seeking the organizational principles that underlie all systems. Bogdanov invented an original philosophy that he called “tectology” which is now regarded as a precursor of systems theory and related aspects of synergetics.

"In Russia, Lenin (and later Stalin) considered Bogdanov's natural philosophy an ideological threat to their revolutionary dialectic materialism (what it was not really) and put tectology to sleep. The rediscovery of Bogdanov's idea occurred only in the RL 1970s.

"Bogdanov created a unique conception, as the first 'modern' attempt at formulating the most general laws of organization. Tectology was created by Bogdanov to address issues such as holistic, emergent phenomena and systemic development. This constructive science built the elements into a functional entity by a science of the general laws which determine the organization.

"Starting point in A. Bogdanov's Universal Science of Organization - Tectology (1913-1922) was that nature has a general, organized character, with one set of laws of organization for all objects. Contained is an internal development of the complex units, as implied by Simona Poustilnik's "macro-paradigm", which induces synergistic consequences into an adaptive assembling phenomenon.

Bogdanov's visionary view of nature was an 'organization' with an interconnection into systems. The notions in A. Bogdanov's Tectology outlined the concepts and concerns of Complexity Theory by a full 50 years in advance of chaos theory and fractal mathematics.


"At the dawn of the 20th century Bogdanov in a qualitative way anticipated the system searches for a century, and perhaps even beyond it.

"If, for Lenin, socialism is winning, and then carried out, for Bogdanov socialist revolution - the result of socialist development. In the first place - creating a new man, a man of a single harmonious team. In 1918, he saw the transition of power in the hands of the proletariat as an adventure.

"He is remembered for the infamous verse Proletkult slogan: "For the sake of our tomorrow we will burn Raphael, will destroy the museums. Our Art tramples the flowers".

But the proletkult turned really red again. Red Hamlet was not understood by his contemporaries. Bogdanov's idea has been distorted. The main reason for Bogdanov's program of proletarian culture was proletarian science. Socialization of knowledge. Expanding the heritage of humanity. "Socialism is science" was the name of one of the program of works of Bogdanov. In his mind, namely Tectology, being accessible to everyone and being the property of everyone was the proletarian science of the future, a vehicle for uniting millions in a team.


"He wrote one of the first in history warnings about the danger of nuclear self-destruction of mankind and the necessity of universal controls to prevent the fatal outcome. With Science rallying millions into a single harmonious team, Bogdanov saw as an opportunity for humanity to face the challenges facing the Earth's civilization of the third millennium.

"Bogdanov's innovative work on comparative study of economic and military power of European nations, written in 1912-1913, was the first interdisciplinary work ever on systems analysis, which he later merged with tectology.


"After the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, Bogdanov refused multiple offers to rejoin the party and denounced the new regime as similar to Aleksey Arakcheyev's arbitrary and despotic rule in the early 1820s.


"In the summer of 1923, Bogdanov was arrested by the Soviet secret police on suspicion of having inspired the recently discovered secret oppositionist group Worker's Truth, interrogated and soon released.

"Lenin's sister Maria Ulianova was among many who volunteered to take part in Bogdanov's experiments.

"Bogdanov founded the Institute for Haemotology and Blood Transfusions, which was later named after him.

"His ground-breaking utopian sci-fi novel, Red Star, also dealt with feminist themes, which would become more common in later utopian science fiction, e.g., the two sexes becoming virtually identical in the future, or women escaping "domestic slavery" (one reason for physical changes) and being free to pursue relationships with the same freedom as men, without stigma.

"Other notable differences between the utopia of his famous pioneering sci-fi work, Red Star, and present-day society include workers having total control over their working hours, as well as more subtle differences in social behavior such as conversations being patiently set at the level of the person with whom they were speaking and with understanding for his personality although it might very much differ from their own.

"The novel also gave a detailed description of blood transfusion in the Martian society. Red Star was one of the inspirations for Red Mars, an award-winning science fiction triology written decades later by Kim Stanley Robinson. Bogdanov is the surname of the character Arkady, who is also a fictional descendant of Alexander Bogdanov.


"Both Bogdanov's fiction and his political writings imply that he expected the coming revolution against Capitalism to lead to a technocratic society. This was because the workers lacked the knowledge and initiative to seize control of social affairs for themselves as a result of the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of the capitalist production process. However, Bogdanov also considered that the hierarchical and authoritarian mode of organization of the Bolshevik party was also partly to blame, although Bogdanov considered at least some such organization necessary and inevitable.

"As a non-Leninist Bolshevik, Bogdanov's work became important (though "underground") influence on dissident factions in the Soviet Union who turned against Bolshevik autocracy in the 1920s and 1930s but accepted the necessity of the Revolution and wished to preserve its achievements.

"Bogdanov followed the novel Red Star with a prequel in 1913, Engineer Menni, which detailed the creation of the communist society on Mars. In 1924 he published a poem entitled "A Martian Stranded on Earth" that was to be the outline for a third novel, but he did not finish it before his death."




PQ said next: "Now let me say a few words about Lenin and then I will retreat into silence."


“The assertion that history is made by great men is from a theoretical standpoint wholly unfounded.”

"Such are the words in which Lenin himself turns on the legend which insists on making him alone responsible for the ’success’ or the ‘crime’ of the Russian Revolution. He considered the world war determining as regards the direct cause of its outbreak and for the time of its occurrence. Yes; without the war, he says, “the revolution would possibly have been postponed for decades longer.” The idea that the outbreak and the course of the Russian Revolution depended in very large measure on Lenin necessarily implies a complete identification of the revolution with the taking over of power by the Bolsheviks. Trotsky has made a remark to the effect that the entire credit for the success of the October uprising belongs to Lenin; against the opposition of almost all his party friends, the resolution for insurrection was carried by him alone. But the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks did not give to the revolution the spirit of Lenin; on the contrary, Lenin had so completely adapted himself to the necessities of the revolution that practically he fulfilled the task of that class which he ostensibly combated. Of course it is often asserted that with the taking over of state power by the Bolsheviks the originally bourgeois-democratic revolution was forthwith converted into the socialist-proletarian one. But is it really possible for anyone seriously to believe that a single political act is capable of taking the place of a whole historical development; that seven months - from February to October - sufficed to form the economic presuppositions of a socialist revolution in a country which was just engaged in getting rid of its feudal and absolutistic fetters, in order to give freer play to the forces of modern capitalism?


"The contradiction existing between the real historical significance of Lenin and that which is generally ascribed to him is greater and at the same time more inscrutable than in the case of any other personage acting on modern history. We have shown that he can not be made responsible for the success of the Russian Revolution, and also that his theory and practice can not, as is so often done, be appraised as of world-revolutionary importance. Neither, in spite of all assertions to the contrary, can he be regarded as having extended or supplemented Marxism. In the work of Thomas B. Brameld entitled ‘A Philosophical Approach to Communism’, recently published by the University of Chicago, communism is still defined as “a synthesis of the doctrines of Marx, Engels and Lenin.” It is not only in this book, but also generally, and quite particularly in the party-communist press, that Lenin is placed in such a relation to Marx and Engels. Stalin has denoted Leninism as ‘Marxism in the period of imperialism’. Such a position, however, derives its only justification from an unfounded overestimation of Lenin. Lenin has not added to Marxism a single element which could be rated as new and independent. Lenin’s philosophical outlook is dialectical materialism as developed by Marx, Engels and Plekhanov. It is to it that he refers in connection with all important problems: it is his criterion in everything and the final court of appeal. In his main philosophical work, ‘Materialism and Empirocriticism’, he merely repeats Engels in tracing the oppositions of the different philosophical points of view hack to the one great contradiction: Materialism vs. Idealism. While for the first position, Nature is primary and Mind secondary; exactly the opposite holds of the other. This previously known formulation is documented by Lenin with additional material from the various fields of knowledge. And so there can be no thought of any essential enrichment of the Marxian dialectic on the part of Lenin. In the field of philosophy, to speak of a Leninist school is impossible.

"In the field of economic theory, also, no such independent significance can be ascribed to Lenin. Lenin’s economic writings are more Marxist than those of any of his contemporaries, but they are only brilliant applications of the already existing economic doctrines associated with Marxism. Lenin had absolutely no thought of being an independent theoretician in matters of economics; to him, Marx had already said everything fundamental in this field. Since, to his mind, it was quite impossible to go beyond Marx, he concerned himself with nothing further than proving that the Marxist postulates were in accord with the actual development. His principal work on economics, ‘The Development of Capitalism in Russia’, is eloquent testimony on this point. Lenin never wanted to be more than Marx’s disciple, and so it is only in legend that one can speak of a theory of ‘Leninism’.

"Lenin wanted above all else to be a practical politician. His theoretical works are almost exclusively of a polemic nature. They combat the theoretical and other enemies of Marxism, which Lenin identifies with his own political strivings and those of the Bolsheviks generally. To Marxism, practice decides regarding the truth of a theory. As a practician endeavouring to actualise the doctrines of Marx, Lenin may have actually rendered Marxism an enormous service. However, as regards Marxism again, every practice is a social one, which can be modified and influenced by individuals only in very limited measure, never decisively. There is no doubt that the union of theory and practice, of final goal and concrete questions of the moment, with which Lenin was constantly concerned, may be acclaimed as a great accomplishment. But the criterion for this accomplishment is again the success which attends it, and that success, as we have already said, was denied to Lenin. His work not only failed to advance the world revolutionary movement; it also failed to form the preconditions for a truly socialist society in Russia. The success (such as it was) did not bring him nearer to his goal, but pushed it further into the distance.

"The actual conditions in Russia and the present situation of the workers throughout the world ought really to be sufficient proof to any communist observer that the present ‘Leninist’ policy is just the opposite of that expressed by its phraseology. And in the long run such a condition must without doubt destroy the artificially constructed Lenin Legend, so that history itself will finally set Lenin in his proper historical place."