Marx did not merely say they had an opportunity in the abstract, he was directly involved with them and actively seeking to aid them. That is not the action of someone who merely once on the side referenced it as a vague possibility then effectively rejected it, which is what you now have to claim to deny the actual history and Marx’s own words on the topic to maintain the idea that Marx effectively only thought a revolution would happen in the west. Just stop going in circles.

I don’t know why you’re continuing to double and triple-down.

Because you keep repeating something which is not true.

However, he did not think this was more likely than revolution in western Europe.

This is directly contradicted by his letters and actions. He and Engels were directly corresponding with Russian revolutionaries, and literally surmised a Russian revolution could in fact be the first to set off a world revolution and was actively interested in aiding it. You’re just refusing to take in new information.

To be annoyingly accurate, Marx still held the belief that the west would be the first to revolt and establish socialism

And he literally contradicts this, not just in this but his other research and letters, and even later editions of the communist manifesto.

https://monthlyreview.org/articles/marx-and-engels-and-russias-peasant-communes/

“The very existence of the Russian commune is now threatened by a conspiracy of powerful interests,” he noted—but if that threat is defeated, it “may become the direct starting-point of the economic system towards which modern society is tending; it may open a new chapter that does not begin with its own suicide.”14

Marx and Engels repeated that argument the next year in their preface to the second Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto.

In Russia we find, face-to-face with the rapidly flowering capitalist swindle and bourgeois property, just beginning to develop, more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West?

The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.

Marx and Engels did not study Russian conditions out of academic curiosity. On the contrary, they believed that Russia, once the heartland of backwardness and reaction, had become “the vanguard of revolutionary action in Europe,” so understanding it was a political necessity. This understanding fueled their consistent support for radical populists who took action against the Tsarist regime, and caused them to distance themselves from people who were limited to analysis and commentary. Their approach was motivated, as Marx wrote in another context, by the conviction that “every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs.”

And you’re entire response was denying this by suggesting Marx only thought this could happen in western, capitalist societies, which is flatly wrong. You aren’t even understanding the contention, nor responding to it.

Marx still believed that the west would be the first to transition to socialism.

And Marx literally directly contradicts you on this. This letter comes after the publication of Capital, and Marx is explicitly stating the opportunity to not have to become a capitalist country.

Now what application to Russia can my critic make of this historical sketch? Only this: If Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation after the example of the Western European countries, and during the last years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this direction – she will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians; and after that, once taken to the bosom of the capitalist regime, she will experience its pitiless laws like other profane peoples. That is all. But that is not enough for my critic. He feels himself obliged to metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale [general path] imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately arrive at the form of economy which will ensure, together with the greatest expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete development of man. But I beg his pardon. (He is both honouring and shaming me too much.) Let us take an example.

In several parts of Capital I allude to the fate which overtook the plebeians of ancient Rome. They were originally free peasants, each cultivating his own piece of land on his own account. In the course of Roman history they were expropriated. The same movement which divorced them from their means of production and subsistence involved the formation not only of big landed property but also of big money capital. And so one fine morning there were to be found on the one hand free men, stripped of everything except their labour power, and on the other, in order to exploit this labour, those who held all the acquired wealth in possession. What happened? The Roman proletarians became, not wage labourers but a mob of do-nothings more abject than the former “poor whites” in the southern country of the United States, and alongside of them there developed a mode of production which was not capitalist but dependent upon slavery. Thus events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical.

To be annoyingly accurate, Marx still held the belief that the west would be the first to revolt and establish socialism

Marx himself in his research felt Russia could move straight into communism.

In the postscript to the second German edition of Capital – which the author of the article on M. Shukovsky knows, because he quotes it – I speak of “a great Russian critic and man of learning” with the high consideration he deserves. In his remarkable articles this writer has dealt with the question whether, as her liberal economists maintain, Russia must begin by destroying la commune rurale (the village commune) in order to pass to the capitalist regime, or whether, on the contrary, she can without experiencing the tortures of this regime appropriate all its fruits by developing ses propres donnees historiques [the particular historic conditions already given her]. He pronounces in favour of this latter solution. And my honourable critic would have had at least as much reason for inferring from my consideration for this “great Russian critic and man of learning” that I shared his views on the question, as for concluding from my polemic against the “literary man” and Pan-Slavist that I rejected them.

To conclude, as I am not fond of leaving “something to be guessed,” I will come straight to the point. In order that I might be qualified to estimate the economic development in Russia to-day, I learnt Russian and then for many years studied the official publications and others bearing on this subject. I have arrived at this conclusion: If Russia continues to pursue the path she has followed since 1861, she will lose the finest chance ever offered by history to a nation, in order to undergo all the fatal vicissitudes of the capitalist regime.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/11/russia.htm

https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/siso.2018.82.1.67

Also don’t ask how how the Arab population is actually treated in Israel.

I haven’t read her myself yet, but Ursula K Le Guin is of note. Lathe of Heaven, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and The Word for World is Forest are worth looking at.

Terry Pratchetts work is very good. Lots of humour and light parody of fantasy tropes, and some occasional commentary. You could probably pick almost anything from the Discworld series and find something enjoyable.

October By China Mieville is an account of the Russian revolution of 1917. It’s not written as a perhaps more dry, academic account, but still decently researched and a good introduction that’s easy to read almost as if it was fiction. Apparently his science-fiction is good too, but I have no idea.

Gabriel Rockhill for example just came out with a book talking about how the CIA and capitalist institutions monopolize mainstream “radical” theory, twisting it into something that coexists with imperialism, such as the work of Slavoj Zizek.

That’s funny, because the book is objectively bad and full of awful readings of the Frankfurt school.

What he meant to say was “No war with Venezuela…without me”, as he’s still hasn’t finished his application for Blackwater Constellis.

The quote from the TNR review is genuinely insane. Validating my intense dislike of Yasha Levine that they genuinely think a license to use the internet is some sort of reasonable response.

I wish there were better critics.

Second, Valve argues that the plausibility of Consumer Plaintiffs’ claims hinge on allegations that Valve acquired Sierra’s World Opponent Network (“WON”), which Valve contests with a single affidavit. That argument fails for multiple reasons. The Court must reject Valve’s extrinsic evidence, which is contrary to its public admissions, at this stage. Regardless, the Complaint does not turn on these allegations. Valve’s relationship with WON, whether by acquisition or otherwise, helps explain how Valve has had monopoly power in digital PC game distribution since the beginning. But it is not the only relevant fact. Independent of WON, Valve leveraged its enormous installed user base and popular PC game franchises to force gamers onto Steam, such that when Valve began selling third-party games in 2005, it already held a monopolist position.

From the document you linked.

https://socialisttribune.substack.com/p/why-we-should-not-endorse-chi-osse

We in NYC-DSA endorse, with great success, candidates who are socialists and who champion our project of democratic socialism. After joining NYC-DSA in October of 2020, Chi left only a month later because he, as someone “on the left side of the political spectrum,” did not “align” with our organization. Socialists are proud of being socialists and express and practice our socialism by being in a socialist organization. We can look at Zohran serving on the Electoral Working Group Organizing Committee as an example of what a socialist cadre-to-candidate looks like. Our most recent slate of endorsees, moreover, shows that we are precisely not lacking in possible candidates.

“Not knowing what he was getting into” is absolute horseshit.

That’s quite some time, especially given his acquaintance and involvement with Mamdani

Having connections higher up is not a good basis for endorsing and devoting resources to someone who only rejoined for explicitly opportunist purposes (free labour for my personal campaign).

I also wouldn’t be surprised if the DSA was, five years ago, different than what we know now and Mamdani promoted

It’s no different, and Mamdani was a member and active part of DSA five years ago, and remained such, hence why he was able to get far more backing.

But it’s wild to use Mamdani as reason to back Osse whilst criticising and attacking Mamdani, who has more of a background working in and with DSA than Osse, who has literally rejoined for opportunist purposes by his own admission.

Funny how joining the DSA is “opportunistic” now. As if Chi is a literal top AIPAC recipient with a track record of selling our and corruption.

Again, Chi literally already joined and quit 2 years ago, and has literally stated he only re-joined because he thought they could win. Do you think as DSA gets wins like Mamdani there wouldn’t be opportunists looking to benefit off the back of DSA helping a campaign? It’s already happened. There have been people that got into office off of the work of DSA then shit on them in office. People need to prove themselves. not just just join an org then immediately expect everyone to get on board on their personal campaign straight away. Do you understand how building trust works, especially when you’ve already broken that trust previously?

It’s a vote over resources and the the fact that Chi is an opportunist.

DSA does not have infinite time and money and volunteers. They need to pick and choose what they support and where they spend their energy. Chi only re-joined because he saw them win with Mamdani, after having joined and quit 2 years ago, with rumours about him talking shit about DSA.

Mamdani should not be endorsing Jeffries, he should be doing what Jeffries did and be talking about “having conversations”. But that doesn’t mean DSA needs to back Osse.

As part of “Steam Play”, videos are re-encoded and downloaded to allow playback via proton in certain cases. On subsequent runs of the game, the video will likely work fine.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/guides/view/why-some-games-on-linux-steamos-steam-deck-have-broken-videos-and-what-you-can-do/

And the far right will get what they want anyway:

First, after the October 29 vote, the core trio of far-right parties — PVV, JA21 (Conservative Liberals), and Forum for Democracy — hold forty-two of hundred fifty seats. In 2023, they held forty-one. Wilders’s party lost eleven, yet JA21 jumped from one to nine and Forum rose from three to seven. In total, they control nearly one-third of the 150-seat parliament. This reshuffle is mainly tactical: once every mainstream party said it would refuse to govern with Wilders, many hard-right voters simply parked their ballot with JA21 or Forum, instead of abandoning this kind of politics altogether.

[…]

The historically more radical-left Socialist Party adopted the opposite pose as the GreenLeft-Labor alliance. It tried to copy the playbook of Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance: talk tough on borders while hankering after a lost social democracy. This may have seemed a viable strategy, since the far right predictably failed to deliver on its pro-welfare promises. But voters are used to governments of all stripes failing to deliver on bread-and-butter economic issues. So those attracted to the anti-immigration message stuck with the familiar far-right narrative — which the Socialist Party helped legitimize. Progressives and voters with a migration background just turned away.

D66, the Dutch left-liberal party, has made a sharp turn on asylum migration, demanding that asylum applications are made from outside Europe’s borders.

Party leader Rob Jetten said he wanted a change of international treaties and pushed forward what he called “the Canadian model” as an alternative to the current policies.

He said “the parties of the middle should take a step forward” to prevent, he said, the subject taking national politics hostage again.

“The current migration system is broken,” said Jetten. “From migration that happens to us, we will have to move to migration that we control ourselves.”

Under the Canadian model, all asylum applications would have to be requested outside the borders of the European Union, meaning asylum seekers who applied in the Netherlands would not be allowed in.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/06/dutch-d66-party-calls-for-stricter-asylum-policies/

Same fucking bullshit everywhere: Centrist parties winning after scandal and failure by right wing or far right party in government celebrates as if it’s some return to normalcy, when actually they increasingly adopt far right policy, rhetoric and framing, especially on immigration. At best they try to soft sell it through triangulation and borrowing vaguely progressive sounding buzzwords.

Meanwhile, no actual meaningful decline in the far rights share of the vote and party representation, and the perfect stage for a one term centrist government as people swap between far right parties and liberals continue to flounder and take for granted their own voters as having “nowhere to go” as they shift right.

It happened with Biden, it’s happening with Keir, and it’s the perfect setup to happen in the Netherlands.

You just defended claiming objections should be taken seriously from “serious” (lmao) countries in the specific context of someone trying to get the article rewritten to downplay claims of genocide by invoking the claims of interested governments that are the ones doing the downplaying for their own cynical reasons.

You’re an idiot who can’t follow the topic and context of conversation. Goodbye.

If you are not able to extrapolate, I’m not going to give an opinion on all ~200 governments in the world, or any significant fraction of them.

Only that there’s apparently enough “serious” ones to be OK to deny genocide in an encyclopedia.

Fundamental error. Wales and the wikipedia ethos is not about “not offending” people; it’s about creating a resource that can be trusted by as many people as possible.

And how you get trust is by denying inconvenient facts that are only controversial to morons and complicit governments and politicians according to you, because they’re “serious” in your stupid, shallow and meaningless criteria. Moron.

So if you’re just repeating the claim, there is no point. Say something new?

So if you’re not going to say anything of substance, there is no point. Say something that doesn’t waste peoples time?

So the statements of the Israeli government would not have much weight in this, as they have obvious incentive to lie. The government of Russia should not have much weight, because it wants to whitewash its war crimes in Ukraine. The government of the US should not have much weight, because it has been eviscerated of everyone of any intellectual capacity.

Good to know we’ve dealt with all 3 governments.

They are not neutral observers, but (some of them) make serious statements and are capable of responding to facts even when it concerns an ally. We don’t see that with the US. We do see it with the UK, so even though it is not neutral, it forms part of the lack of consensus.

Going on the basis of consensus means that sometimes Wikipedia will not state as fact something that is a fact. And that’s fine. It’s better than the alternative.

Somehow you’ve managed to be both inane and absurd. We can’t state facts because there’s no consensus, there’s no consensus because there are material and idealogical incentives to deny facts, so therefore liars and and co-conspirators get to pre-empt statements of fact, and this is better than the alternative to stating facts, because it might offend those who want to deny them. And the basis of this allowance of self censorship for alignment with the guilty is that some are “serious”, and they are “serious” entirely because they are “capable of responding to facts even when it concerns an ally”. This is despite the UK (a “serious” country) being directly complicit, having hidden its own legal advice on the sale of arms to Israel, having been in near lockstep with the US on policy, having declared Israel “does have that right” to deny power and water to Palestinians as collective punishment, having cracked down on domestic protests and made Palestine Action a proscribed organisation for mere trespassing and maybe criminal damage (of spraying paint on a plane), I could go on.