Definitions of religion, like definitions of the state, generally tell us more about the social and political allegiances of the author of a given definition than about the true nature of religion or the state. Loyalties – that is, class interests and class outlook – are transferred into definitions; especially is this true of religion. Typical of such definitions is a theologian’s formula for Christianity as ‘the synthesis of the highest aspirations of man’. The fact that definitions are (...)
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20- ENGLISH - MATERIAL AND REVOLUTION
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Religion : its social roots and role
2 June 2008, by Robert Paris -
Communist policy toward art
28 May 2008, by Robert Paris...........................The surrealist group.................................
Leon Trotsky
Communist Policy Toward Art
(1923)
It is untrue that revolutionary art can be created only by workers. Just because the revolution is a working-class revolution, it releases – to repeat what was said before – very little working-class energy for art. During the French Revolution, the greatest works which, directly or indirectly, reflected it, were created not by French artists, but by (...) -
Art and socialism, William Morris
28 May 2008, by Robert ParisArt and Socialism
By William Morris
My friends, I want you to look into the relations of Art to Commerce, using the latter word to express what is generally meant by it; namely, that system of competition in the market which is indeed the only form which most people now-a-days suppose that Commerce can take.
Now whereas there have been times in the world’s history when Art held the supremacy over Commerce; when Art was a good deal, and Commerce, as we understand the word, was a very (...) -
What is the permanent révolution ?
23 May 2008, by Robert ParisLeon Trotsky
The Permanent Revolution 10. What is the Permanent Revolution?
Basic Postulates
I hope that the reader will not object if, to end this book, I attempt, without fear of repetition, to formulate succinctly my principal conclusions.
1. The theory of the permanent revolution now demands the greatest attention from every Marxist, for the course of the class and ideological struggle has fully and finally raised this question from the realm of reminiscences over old (...) -
Indochina and revolution
22 May 2008, by Robert ParisOn Vietnam
The text below is extracted from Sur le Vietnam, a series of articles published in Informations et Correspondences ouvrières from the end of 1967 and the beginning of 1968, at the height of the movement against the Vietnam war in Europe and North America. Whilst this description as a whole has not hitherto appeared in English, the final chapter, The Saigon Insurrection of 23 September 1945, was the only account of the events available in Britain for many years, having been (...) -
War of the Classes
15 May 2008, by Robert ParisSite : Matière et révolution
www.matierevolution.fr
Summary of the site in french
Summary of the site : The Matter and the Revolution (in english)
Why this site (in french) ?
To write us, tape here
Jack London
War of the Classes
PREFACE
When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological studies of a (...) -
Why I am not a Christian
15 May 2008Site : Matière et révolution
www.matierevolution.fr
Summary of the site in french
Summary of the site : The Matter and the Revolution (in english)
Why this site (in french) ?
To write us, tape here
Bertrand Russell
Why I Am Not A Christian
March 6, 1927
As your chairman has told you, the subject about which I am to speak tonight is "Why I Am Not a Christian." Perhaps it would be as well, first of all, to try to make out what one means by the word (...) -
Claude Lévi-Strauss sociology
15 May 2008, by Robert ParisClaude Lévi-Strauss (1958)
Structural Anthropology Chapter II Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology
LINGUISTICS OCCUPIES a special place among the social sciences, to whose ranks it unquestionably belongs. It is not merely a social science like the others, but, rather, the one in which by far the greatest progress has been made. It is probably the only one which can truly claim to be a science and which has achieved both the formulation of an empirical method and an (...) -
Chaos and dialectics
14 May 2008, by Robert ParisChaos and Dialectics
in "Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science"
By Alan Woods and Ted Grant
Dialectical materialism, elaborated by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, was concerned with much more than political economy: it was a world view. Nature, as Engels in particular sought to demonstrate in his writings, is proof of the correctness of both materialism and dialectics. "My recapitulation of mathematics and the natural sciences," he wrote, "was undertaken in order to convince (...) -
The State and Revolution, Lenine
14 May 2008Lenine (Septembre 1917)
CLASS SOCIETY AND THE STATE
1. The State: A Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms
What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred (...)