The Regrettable Century
The old forms of the Left are moribund and the new forms are stupid. We're making a podcast that discusses the need to organize a Dialectical Pessimism and develop a salvage project capable of sparking a new workers' movement for socialism. A clean, honest, and unsentimental melancholy is required; we are cultivating one and would like to share it with you.
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
-- Antonio Gramsci
The Regrettable Century
Patreon Preview: Velvet Counterrevolution & Divorce
Just like the Prague Spring, it seems clear that the intentions of its participants were the opposite. The vast majority of Czechoslovaks who participated in the movements that brought down the republic were attempting to reform the socialist system, not destroy it.
Krapfl, James. Revolution with a Human Face Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989–1992. Cornell University Press, 2017.
Scott Brown. “Prelude to a Divorce? The Prague Spring as Dress Rehearsal for Czechoslovakia’s ‘Velvet Divorce.’” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 10 (2008): 1783–1804.
Krishan Kumar (1992). The Revolutions of 1989: Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy. Theory and Society, 21(3), 309–356.
Paal Sigurd Hilde (1999). Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia. Europe-Asia Studies, 51(4), 647–665.
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