Roland Boer's Blog, page 63

Public Lecture: University of Auckland

I am delivering the following public lecture at the University of Auckland, on 9 September.

PUBLIC LECTURE IN THEOLOGY

What has Marxism to do with Religion?

‘Opium of the people’ is one description of religion that we find in the work of Marx and Engels. When it came to socialists in power, they were supposed to have repressed all forms of religious expression. The curious fact is that many of the major Marxists – Marx and Engels included – had a good deal more to say about religion, especial...

Klara Zetkin’s left buttock

By the early 1930s, Klara Zetkin was suffering from the heart problems from which she would soon die. In the meantime, she needed injections of camphor to raise her blood pressure. On the occasion of one such injection, the nurse administering the stimulant began to prepare her left buttock.Zetkin instructed the nurse to find another site on her body. ‘That one’, she said, ‘belongs to Dr Zamkov’.

Stalin on international cooperation

Against the standard position that Stalin saw enemies all around him and was seeking world conquest, it is worth recalling comments like these. This is from 1947, in response to an interview question:

Let us not mutually criticize our systems. Everyone has the right to follow the system he wants to maintain. Which one is better will be said by history. We should respect the systems chosen by the people, and whether the system is good or bad is the business of the American people. To co-operat...

The Fundamental Limitations of US Democracy

Yesterday, the first of my articles was published in the People’s Daily, the CPC’s main newspaper in China. It is called ‘The Fundamental Limitations of US Democracy’, and may be found here and here(among a number of sites). However, since the article is in Chinese, below is the original text before it was translated.

The Fundamental Limitations of US Democracy

Roland Boer

Always be suspicious of anyone who claims to embody “democracy” without any qualifiers. Why? If they do make such a claim...

Stalin’s advocacy for the United Nations

It is usually suggested that Stalin agreed to let the Soviet Union join the United Nations when Roosevelt offered him the power of a veto at the Yalta conference in February 1945. One should be wary of such spin, since Stalin had already – at conferences in 1942 and 1943 – been strongly in favour of such an organisation. Even more, we find clear public statements in support of the UN, as with the following from the celebration of the October Revolution in 1944:

Accordingly it is not to be den...

A note to my mother: the ocean is cold

In an earlier post concerning my winter swim in the ocean, I mentioned that the water was somewhat chilly but that the swim was glorious. Of course, I used some poetic license to emphasise the water’s temperature. My mother decided to write me an email to point out that the water in these parts was 18.1 degrees and that such a temperature is not so cold. I am not sure where my mother found such a statistic, for today I went for another swim. This time I was in the water, swimming laps in the...

A reason for the Wehrmacht’s defeat at Stalingrad: German orderliness

By 1942, the German Wehrmacht had suffered its first and stunning defeat at Stalingrad. Here the tide of the Second World War turned. Stalin reflects at some length on the reasons, one of which he puts down to the German propensity for orderliness.

In this respect, things are far from well with the Germans. Their strategy is defective because, as a general rule, it under-estimates the strength and possibilities of the enemy and over-estimates its own forces. Their tactics are hackneyed, for t...

The pleasures of age: a winter swim in the ocean

I have always marvelled at the old fogeys, who manage to swim throughout winter in these parts, even in water that would make a normal person blue with cold and suffering the effects of the cold on motor control. I speculated that perhaps such people had begun to lose the function of some nerves, so that they lost feeling to some extent. I wondered whether the many experiences of life made what once seemed like extremes into rather normal events.

Today, 9 August 2015, I decided to go for a sw...

Stalin’s cultural revolution: creating a Soviet intelligentsia

Earlier I wrote a post on Stalin’s definition of cultural revolution, in which education played the central role. On that occasion I called the pentecost of languages and people. But by 1939 he began to include the creation of a Socialist intelligentsia in his definition:

As regards the cultural standard of the people,the period under review has been marked by a veritablecultural revolution. The introduction of universal compulsoryelementary education in the languages of thevarious nations of...

Stalin on veneration and children’s books

In the 1930s, appreciation and even veneration of Stalin was on the rise. One example was a proposed children’s book concering Stalin’s own childhood. He was not impressed. When this item is cited, it is usually done so to point out that Stalin preferred not to have some uncomfortable experiences from his earlier life recounted. However, no attention is paid to the main reason for his misgivings: that it would foster the veneration he detested so much.

I am absolutely against the publication...