For the average working-class person, classical music and the works of Shakespeare possess no relevance- as they make no sense. The workers are not conditioned to understand or appreciate these middle-class entities. Shakespeare and middle-class music have evolved out of the socio-economic privilege that is the cultural accumulation of the Bourgeoisie. In reality, this Bourgeois culture should not possess any meaning or relevance for the Proletariat. This is a body of pointless words and sounds imbued with a 'speciality' that only its creators can understand. The irony is that part of the profit generated by the labour of the Proletariat - and stolen by the Bourgeoisie - has provided the detached foundation of these exclusive cultural expression. Who cares 'What light through yonder window breaks?' Where is the food, clothing, medical care and housing in Mozart of Beethoven? The Bourgeoisie, of course, already possess these things and do not need to campaign to achieve these things again. The Bourgeoisie has accumulated the cream of Proletariat profit - kept the toilers completely impoverished - and built its opulent lifestyles upon the bones of the workers. Nice words and melodious notes do not free the mind of the workers from the oppression of the predatory capitalist system. The Bourgeoisie is free in the sense that it is dominant in the exploitative System it invented. The workers are subordinate. Being subordinate - the workers are forced to exist in a manner that sees the mind and body continuously oppressed. This encourages both inner and outer conflict and ensure emotional, psychological and physical violence rules the roost - not nice words or pleasant sounding musical notes. There are two ways forward. One is to reject the working-class and fully align with Bourgeois culture (and give-up any notion of Revolution). The second direction is to overthrow the Bourgeois System - and for the workers to sieze control of the means of production.
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Oliver Cromwell abolished the absolute monarchy that ruled Britain for centuries (in one form or another) in 1649 - and it was NEVER reinstated! What was established in its place was a 'Constitutional' monarchy allowed by Act of Parliament - and institution that is more 'theatre' than institute of governance - and which possesses NO real power (as it is legally and lawfully 'subordinate' to the Will of Parliament). This makes perfect sense - as this marks how the Bourgeoisie (or the 'middle-class') usurped political power from the Aristocracy - even though King Charles I made the valid point that as all the power of the British State resided in his personage (and his personage alone) - Parliament did NOT possess the legal right to a) try him, or b) inflict any sentence upon him. King Charles I, from the perspective of the aristocracy - retained ALL the power of the State in his personage which was represented only by his Will! In other words, his word was law. This arrangement was formulated centuries before by aggressive groups that simply assumed political dominance over the populace - and then enforced this dominance with arbitrary 'violence' termed 'justice'. Added to this dominance was the equally false assumption that this situation was 'Willed' by a God concept - and was therefore beyond dispute or alteration! Any attempt at altering this situation was viewed as contradicting the divine Will of God! This explains why Cromwell, although a very devout Christian, nevertheless, believed that the State enforcement of a religion (any religion) was wrong because it was 'evil'! He changed the definition of 'God', 'State' and 'Religion' - and he did this by fundamentally changing the relationship between these three distinct entities. As this was the case, Parliament pulled the legal rug from beneath the King Charles I feet, leaving him no legal or lawful defence following his complete military defeat. What is interesting is that NOTHING changed with the so-called 'Restoration'! Cromwell's basic re-definition of these relations stayed in place (empowering and justifying the Bourgeois seizure of political power) and still form the dominant legal framework today - despite a superficial legal fiction that gives the false impression that a 'Constitutional' monarch is the same as an 'Absolute' monarch - an assumption that is an obvious absurdity! If the British Crown today attempted to exercise any type of political power - Parliament would immediately 'abolish' it. If this is the case, what is the point of the British Crown? As an institution it signals which class the Bourgeoisie politically favours (that is, the 'Aristocracy' it overthrew) and which class it does not favour (the Proletariat - or that class which comprised the soldiers in the Parliamentarian 'New Model Army')! Although Cromwell's political orientation was the exact opposite - when his influence was overthrown in 1660 - the emerging Bourgeoisie abandoned its support (and promises made) to the ordinary masses that had fought and died for its cause - and instead switched its allegiance to the class it had fought against! By continuously supporting the aristocracy over the workers - the workers (although numerically superior) are politically the least powerful and are unable to influence society in their own favour.
The suffering this man unleashed upon humanity has been intense, ongoing and ever-increasing! Like Khrushchev before him, he was an arch 'Trotskyite' who manoeuvred his way into the position of 'General Secretary' of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - and was even 'President' of the Soviet Union between 1990-1991 - whilst he oversaw the final destruction of the then 74-year-old Workers' State! The US, UK and EU flooded the post-Soviet space with perpetuators of religious extremism, fascism and free market economics - a process which has saw ‘minority’ Neo-Nazi (and Neo-Fascist) fringe groups brought to mainstream power in the Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, etc! Although modern Russia is now a poverty-stricken, capitalist country suffering from the fascistic-leanings associated with Pan-Slavism, the Russian State has at least seen fit to unleash its military (the successor to the Soviet Red Army) upon its Ukrainian neighbours to combat the Neo-Nazi ‘Euro-Maidan’ regime which was illegally brought to power in 2014 by the US Obama Administration! The Americans have chosen Neo-Nazism as its primary foreign policy tool as it remains staunchly ‘anti-Russian’ in both its early anti-Bolshevik ‘Mein Kampf’ phase – and in its later post-1945 ‘Soviet crushing’ of Nazi Germany phase! This despicable fascist regime has subsequently been further armed, financed and politically supported by the US, UK and EU – with its military being primed for a major push into the territory of West Russia (advancing the cause of ‘NATO’ in the process)! In reaction, the people of the Crimea voted to leave the Ukraine and join Russia – whilst a number of left-leaning ‘Republics’ were declared throughout East Ukraine – all stating their secession from the Ukraine, their self-determination and their eventual intention of merging with Russia! Although the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi ‘Nationalist’ Battalions were used to ruthlessly destroy a number of these ‘Republics’ - two managed to hold-out for the full eight-years – namely Lugansk and Donetsk in the Donbass region. A UN Report states that between 2014-2022 the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi ‘Nationalist’ Battalions killed between 10,000-15,000 men, women and children in the breakaway region, maiming a further 50,000 people! As a consequence, the military actions of Russia are entirely legal - as Russia is coming to the aid of a population that has declared its ‘independence’ and which has ‘requested’ such assistance! Of course, it is ironic that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are also the successors of the Soviet Red Army, and that the Ukraine is the area that suffered the most during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR between 1941-1945 (killing around 41 million Soviet citizens). Indeed, the USSR took care to build as many defensive areas as possible throughout the Ukraine without openly effecting the quality of life for the local population, in an effort to ‘protect’ the population of the USSR from the threat posed by a NATO ground and air assault! Today, whilst the Neo-Nazi Ukrainians flaunt their Swastikas and their unbridled Western support – Russia abounds with working-class dereliction, racism, religious extremism and religious stupidity, homophobia and an intellectual and cultural poverty that has taken just 31-years to instil into their minds and bodies! Russian people in general are as ‘nationalistic’ as the Ukrainians they are fighting, and the Donbass inhabitants they are liberating! This fact underlies the power of the betrayal that the man pictured at the top of this article unleashed on the people of the USSR! A people that just 31-years ago viewed themselves as being ‘united’ and part of the ‘International Working Class’ - now view themselves as a ‘separate’ and ‘distinct’ (superior ‘Slavic’) race which hates all non-Russians and views the political left-wing of Europe and America (a political left-wing the USSR helped to nurture and grow throughout the 20th century) as being some type of ‘liberal’ conspiracy designed to import homosexuality (which modern Russians incorrectly associate with paedophilia) into Russia as a means to deprive Russia of its natural manliness! All this bourgeoise greed, hatred and delusion had been educated out of the minds and bodies of the citizens of the USSR through their Soviet (Marxist-Leninist) education – but in just 31-years of the bourgeoisie throughout the post-Soviet space taking back control of the means of production – nationalism, racism, hatred and discrimination are the new norms! The capitalist West may criticise the war between Russia and the Ukraine – but behind the scenes the Western leaders will be happy! The capitalist division of labour is nothing less than the division of the working class! When groups of limited self-interest form that possess no underlying and unifying base – then conflict and competitiveness are the inevitable result! When the working class is divided and fighting itself for the petty control of land – then it is too busy to ‘unite’ and form ‘Socialist’ groups that could effectively challenge the status quo! Surely, this is the greatest achievement of the man pictured at the top of this article – who lived just long enough after the collapse of the Soviet Union he engineered to see its constituent people start the processes of killing one another!
If the mind is cleared of its conditioned clutter, then the pristine thought processes that are exposed are able to engage the intellectual world with a far greater clarity and understanding! This ability to think with a greater strength and power of thought is referred to in within Buddhist thinking as developing the capacity of ‘prajna’ (panna) which is usually translated from the Sanskrit (and Pali) as ‘wisdom.’ Wisdom appears to be the ability to use the human mind to ‘think’ in a three-dimensional manner. This maybe compared to the normal psychological functioning of ‘two-dimensions’, etc. After clearing the mind of greed, hatred and delusion, and purging the opinion-capacity of false-thinking – then the human-mind functions at its optimum evolutionary output! Although some people, assisted by the power of the ruling class, have used their intellect to make tremendous strides in human-understanding, much of the time their developed knowledge remains obscure and difficult to access by the majority of human-beings who are part of the ‘oppressed’ class and who have no access to such empowering and progressive forces. Academic speciality tends to separate the workers from the bourgeois intellectuals but Buddhist meditation can serve as a self-administered programme of working-class ‘self-strengthening’ whereby the average worker can be transformed into an extra-ordinary thinker existing within typical proletariat conditions! Through ‘seeing beyond’ the oppressive conditions that define daily existence, the ‘enlightened’ worker can maximise the experience of life for him or herself and for everyone (and everything) living within the environment. This process can be used as part of the working-class self-organisation through unity toward Revolution and the transformation of society! Buddhist meditation gives the worker a means to transform their mind in their own time and outside of group activity or the daily grind of work. The average worker is conditioned as an individual and as a member of a class. Whereas joining the Communist Party and unionising to achieve class emancipation – the worker can sit and meditate in their own time to purposefully ‘uproot’ all historical conditioning from their own individual which has been implanted through family, community, education and employment, etc!
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AuthorAdrian Chan-Wyles PhD - Political Commissar and BMA (UK) Historian & Researcher. Archives
April 2024
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