(posted to the anarcho-marxist discussion list)

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Seattle <left-transparency@...>
To: anarcho-marxist@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, August 26, 2001 6:56 PM
Subject: [anarcho-marxist] Decentralized suppression of toxic
ideology


Hi everyone,

The pressure of other work makes it unclear whether I will have
the time to continue my participation in this list. I did wish
to respond, however, to a number of the comments that have been
made.

I would also like to draw attention to two themes which I believe
will prove to be important in the eventual rapprochement between
those militant activists who lean, respectively, toward marxism
and anarchism:

1) Why ignoring the laws of commodity production
is like trying to ignore the law of gravity

(ie: Why the various schemes for "alternative
currency syndicates" and "shadow economics"
can never pose a serious threat to bourgeois rule)

2) How "distributed authority" in a future workers'
state will suppress the _mass circulation_ of
bourgeois and reactionary views

(while allowing these views to circulate on
a small scale and be defeated in millions
and billions of individual encounters).

I will comment on the second of these themes in this email as
well as reply to some of the comments made here in the last week.
If time permits I will comment on the first theme above in the
near future.

----------------------------------------
theory, practice and the class struggle
----------------------------------------

Ted G asks:
> I'll start off by asking: who are the cutting-edge
> marxist writers nowadays (or in the last few decades)?
> What should I read?

Smoochiboochies replies (Aug 20):
> I am doing a subject at my local university called
> "Post-Marxist Critical Theory", which is essentially about
> 'western marxism'. Some names you might like to do a search
> on are Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, Max
> Horkheimer, Louis Althusser, Herbert Marcuse, Raymond
> Williams, Michelle Barrett, Jurgen Habermas and Slavoj
> Zizek among many others. But all these thinkers really draw
> on ideas developed by Marx in the Economic and Philosophic
> Manuscripts of 1844, and his unpublished work, The
> Grundrisse.
>
> Personally I think that most (though definitely not all)
> of these theorists display the tendency toward intellectual
> masturbation that is symptomatic of a theorist who isn't
> actually involved in any real struggle. The real
> 'neo-marxist' thinkers who are worth paying attention to
> are people like you and me, who are part of the grass-roots
> anti-capitalist movement developing around the world right
> now, and who spend a lot of their spare time posting their
> ideas on their websites and egroups like this one.

I very much agree. There is currently a very large amount of
material on the internet (growing all the time) that is either
(a) extremely profound and useful or (b) entirely worthless or
(c) somewhere in between. It is good that this material is
available. It is good that email discussion lists are sprouting
and making possible a quantity and quality of discussion that has
never before been practical. And it is good and useful to check
out (within realistic limits of our time) what is out there.

But we must keep in mind our responsibility to think for
ourselves. The task of liberating humanity will become possible
as hundreds of millions of people become conscious of certain
principles of extraordinary power. Note this: the power is in
the principles. Once hundreds of millions of people grasp these
principles then these principles become a _material force_ in the
world more powerful than the combined nuclear weapons of all the
imperialists.

So our task to do discover these principles of such immense
power. Some writers will understand and be able to describe
these principles better than others. But our task must be to
make these principles _our own_. We must understand these
principles ourselves. We need to be able to understand and
explain these principles with our own words (ie: not "XXX or YYY
said such and such", but "principle ZZZ would appear to apply in
this situation").

And, yes, this requires some experience or participation in the
class struggle because there is no other way to understand how
the world actually works. Without _practice_ it is impossible to
determine which principles conform to the laws of motion of
society--as opposed to what might conform to one's prejudices.

For example the main principle which Ted does not appear to grasp
is that society really is divided into classes; that these
classes consist of people who really do have different attitudes
at an extremely profound level; that these attitudes constitute
_class attitudes_ that are shaped (to an enormous degree) by
their social position and relationship (and the relation of their
family, friends, etc) to the processes which produce all social
wealth.

But it would be foolish for me to try to convince Ted of this
because this is something that Ted will be able to grasp as he
gains experience in actual struggles. Without this experience
anything I say would, essentially, be a waste of time. (I would
highly recommend Bertolucci's masterful movie "1900" which
explores this theme very skillfully [1]. If possible to get, the
Italian language version with English subtitles is preferable to
the English language version because a short but key scene was
cut in the latter.)

I think it is a really good thing that Ted is interested in
reading about Marxism and I would like to encourage this (my
suggestion: read anything by Marx _himself_ that holds your
attention) but want to make the point that theory and practice go
together.

----------------------------------------
Software summaries
----------------------------------------

Smoochiboochies continues:

> There is also a link somewhere in a recent posting to
> Chapter 1 of Harry Cleaver's "Reading 'Capital' Politically",
> which deals systematically with many of the western-marxist
> ideas developed by some of the people mentioned above.
> It is copied below:
> http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/rcp1.html

Well I took the step of printing it out. I suppose that's a
start. But at forty pages (plus ten pages of footnotes) it may
be awhile before I get to it. It would be useful if someone were
to summarize it in one or two pages (probably something that
would not be easy to do well). Therefore, as something of an
experiment, I used the "auto-summarize" function of Microsoft
Word (it actually has a good reputation for doing decent
summaries) to summarize the document in ten percent of its
original length. I have posted the result at:

http://leninism.org/stream/2001/rcp-summary.htm

Whether the summary is decent or not I do not know (maybe someone
who has read the original can read the ms-word summary and tell
us if it is useful). The summary works by selecting those
sentences that have the highest number of words that make the
document unique. The sentence selection tends to be good--but
sentences that were not contiguous in the original document
frequently follow one another in the summary because the
intervening sentences are gone. This can play havoc with a
logical argument.

Software summaries, of course, are not very reliable, but when
faced with reading forty or fifty pages of fairly dense material
of unproven value--they may give a reader a bit of the flavor of
the original.

> And finally, going off on my own tangent, I feel that there
> were many positive developments that took place during the
> Cultural Revolution in China that not many people know about.
> There seems to have been periods where worker, peasant and
> student militancy were directly encouraged by the state, and
> during these periods many Russian-style bureaucratic tendencies
> were totally reversed, and workers often had direct-democratic
> control over their workplaces, and the economy in general
> (though this lasted no more than 2-3 years, and no remnant of
> it remains today). Two recent Chinese theorists whom I have a
> lot of respect for, Deng-Yuan Hsu and Pao-Yu Ching, have a
> paper titled "Rethinking Socialism: What is Socialist
> Transition?" which argues among other things that
> state-ownership does not automatically entail socialism. They
> draw on the history of the Chinese revolution to make their
> argument, and the paper can be found at:
> http://www.marx2mao.org/Other/WIST.html

What is interesting is that so many people automatically assume
that state ownership _does_ equal socialism. Marx and Engels
ridiculed this. Lenin was clear on this also. State ownership
equals state capitalism. If it were true that state ownership
equaled socialism then the Post Office in the United States would
be a socialist institution ;-)

But this idea persists because it was heavily promoted during the
period that marxism was the state religion in Russia (and
currently in China).

I printed out "What is Socialist Transition?" also (forty pages!)
and similarly made a summary one tenth of the original length
which is posted (along with the same caveat as above) at:

http://leninism.org/stream/2001/wist-summary.htm

> Also, Charles Bettleheim makes similar arguments in his
> "Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organisation in China",
> at:
> http://www.marx2mao.org/Other/CRIOC74.html

Well I have not done the same with Bettleheim (yet). But if
anyone checks out the auto-summaries of WIST or RCP and likes
them I will be happy to do the same for Bettleheim.

----------------------------------------
The cultural revolution
----------------------------------------

As I understand it, the Cultural Revolution originated as a power
struggle that in desperation mobilized a great deal of mass
energy in the first year and a half or two years. The release of
mass energy was useful and necessary (despite the stupidities and
the fratricidal factional warfare unleashed) but was
insufficient, in the circumstances of the time, to generate
sufficient clarity or provide enough openings for the independent
political life of the working class.

The best analysis I have seen of the cultural revolution is
titled: "The rise and suppression of the 'ultra-left' in the
Chinese cultural revolution" and is posted at:

www.flash.net/~comvoice/20cChinaLeft.html

(I must at this point introduce a caveat concerning the source of
the article. I cannot claim to be unbiased inasmuch as the
author is a political opponent of mine. However my experience is
that the Communist Voice Organization, which created the article,
is headed by a highly skilled charlatan, Joseph Green. While
many of the articles written by the CVO are quite useful the
careful reader must _always_ be quite careful in reading any of
their articles. If it is claimed that person A holds the view
B--never believe it unless you see _proof_ beyond a quote torn
out of context.)

Anyhow, the article is based on a memoir of a red guard. I tried
to get the book on which the article is based (Liu Guokai, "A
Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution" Edited by Anita Chan.
M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1987) but it is out of print. Since the
article may be somewhat one-sided a contrasting point of view can
be found in William Hinton's famous "Hundred Day War" about the
struggle at Tsinghua University, possibly the most prestigious
University in China, which was the scene of violent factional
warfare in the spring and summer of 1968. Urged on in secret by
manipulators at the highest levels in the party, rival red guard
organizations used machine guns, rifles, Molotov cocktails,
homemade cannons and dynamite in an effort to win control of the
campus from one another. Fed up with this, the party organized a
mass intervention by the working class.

----------------------------------------
Any form imaginable
----------------------------------------

Ben -- Aug 15:
> I conclude, however, that we must soberly discuss matters
> from this perspective:
>
> How, in the context of modern conditions
> (ie: the internet and so forth),
> do we create a machine that can effectively suppress
> the former bourgeoisie but which cannot be used
> to suppress the independent political voice, life
> and activity of the working class?
>
> I have concluded that such a machine is possible. And
> necessary. As we develop an understanding of the principles
> that will guide this machine we will find ourselves
> attracting the best, the most serious, the most dedicated
> and the most militant activists.

Ted G -- Aug 20:
> I think most non-primitivist anarchists would agree that
> yes, a mechanism is necessary, however the nature of the
> mechanism is in dispute. The stereotype is that marxists
> want a State: a centralized machine, whereas anarchists
> desire a network: a decentralized machine.

Smoochiboochies replies (Aug 21):
> As most of us know, the Marxist definition of the state is
> that it is "a machine for the suppression of one class by
> another". Something that is rarely reflected upon about
> this definition however, is its theoretical *flexibility*.
> This definition is not based on the empirical *form* the
> state takes, or what empirically constitutes the state;
> it is solely concerned with the *function* the state
> performs, and which group/s of people it does this for.
> This is why someone like Gramsci was able to claim that
> the state encompasses "private institutions" normally
> associated with civil society, like churches, universities,
> etc, while others assert that the state is purely the
> centralised repressive apparatus of the state. Neither can
> turn to Marx for defense on this question, because his
> definition of the state has nothing whatsoever to do with
> the empirical form it happens [to] take in any given social
> formation.

Smoochiboochies is completely correct. The key word here is
_flexibility_. From the point of view of theory the machine can
take _any form imaginable_ so long as that form serves the class
interests of the proletariat.

Further, any serious investigation of the matter will show _both_
that:

(a) this machine of necessity assumed an extremely
harsh form in Soviet Russia in the 1920's because
of the extreme conditions of that time, and

(b) this machine will give the political rights
of speech and association to everyone (even to
the _enemies_ of the working class) in modern
conditions because the conditions of a modern
society (the internet and so forth) will require it.

Smoochiboochies continues:
> Consequently, there is nothing whatsoever about the
> Marxist definition of the state which dictates that
> it must take the form of a "centralized machine",
> and nothing which dictates that it cannot take
> the form of a "decentralized machine".

This is completely correct. It is the "cargo cult Leninists"
(and their social-democratic cousins who _want_ the definition of
a workers' state to be suitable only for people who have given
themselves lobotomies) who insist that a workers' state must have
the harsh features that were necessary in 1920's Soviet Russia.

So let's clear the table of these stupid prejudices and ask
ourselves the following question:

Will a workers' state in modern conditions
(ie: a modern economy, a working class majority,
modern infrastructure including the internet)
assume the form of a "centralized machine"
or a "decentralized machine"?

We need only ask the question clearly and the answer begins to
assemble itself: both. Any machine complex enough to serve the
interests of the working class in modern conditions will have
large amounts of both "centralized" and "decentralized" features.
Some aspects of this machine will best be served by a centralized
process (for example you would not want to have to switch from
driving on the right side of the road to the left side of the
road when leaving Seattle and entering Tacoma) while other
aspects will be decentralized. There is very little in marxist
theory that spells out which is which. Therefore we must use our
heads and _s_o_r_t_ _o_u_t_ _f_o_r_ _o_u_r_s_e_l_v_e_s_
(based on a study of conditions as they currently exist and are
likely to develop) what functions should be centralized and what
functions should be decentralized.

-------------------------------------------------
Decentralized suppression -- today and tomorrow
-------------------------------------------------

One good example of what must be _decentralized_ is the denial of
the right to speak your views. Currently, for example, there are
many dozens of email lists that are related, in one way or
another, to marxism. These lists are developing quite nicely and
some of them are turning out to be very useful. But sometimes
someone will act like a jerk, misrepresent the views of others
and waste everyone's time. Such a word-twisting time-waster may
find himself kicked off of one or two or three or four lists.
But he will be able to find other lists where he can speak. And
he will have the right to set up his own list. Now if the guy
fails to learn his lesson, fails to understand how to listen and
to treat others with respect--he will continue to be kicked off
of the larger and more serious lists and find himself restricted
to those lists characterized by the high-decibel accusations
thrown about by extreme sectarians and the passive-aggressive.

And that serves as an excellent model for how a modern workers'
state (something that has never existed) would deny people the
right to speak. There would be a very large number of
interactive channels that would be managed independently from one
another. If your views were bourgeois or reactionary (or simply
toxic or obnoxious) you would find your ability to express
yourself would eventually be restricted on one channel after
another. Eventually you would only be able to express your views
on the marginal channels with small audiences and small
influence. And the channels that _failed_ to restrict your right
to pollute public discussion--would find themselves losing
audience and mindshare in their competition with other channels.

The cargo-cult Leninists, of course, consider that there will
only be a single channel. If you are banned from that channel
and continue to try to express yourself the next step will be a
camp with a temperature of forty below zero. And this is
consistent with the cargo-cultist view that, under workers' rule,
everything in society is subservient to a single point of
control. This is actually more of a feudal view than a socialist
view.

Let's continue to focus our discussion on the sphere of media and
the expression of opinion. I consider this sphere to be one of
the most interesting because it concentrates all the
contradictions between the cargo-cultist view and the view which
is bound to emerge triumphant.

In the paragraphs above I have discussed the right to express
one's view on an interactive channel similar to that of an email
list. One of the important and distinguishing features of these
lists is that they require very few social resources. Once the
basic infrastructure is set up the marginal cost of letting
people set up a thousand lists is, essentially, zero. There are
few practical limits (in relation to infrastructure) to how many
discussion lists can be set up. The only basic limit is the time
and attention that people have to give them. And this brings us
to the next point.

----------------------------------------
High-ratio "push" media
----------------------------------------

There will be _another_ form of public media that will use
limited resources. Consider, for example, an ad on a billboard
or bus. Or the cover of a popular magazine. There is an
inherent limit to how many images, words or sound bites you can
_push_ at people to try to grab their attention. People only
have so much attention. There is a limit to how many surfaces
can be covered with animated images before people feel that their
personal space is being invaded. It is like you feel when you go
to a website and some obnoxious flashing ad is constantly
distracting you. Or when you are trying to think and some stupid
commercial or really bad song is blaring from someone's radio.

The examples above represent what is called "push" media. One of
the characteristics of "push" media is that they tend to have a
_high ratio_ between the human labor power involved in their
production and consumption (ie: a thousand hours of human labor
power may have been required to produce that 15 second commercial
for Taco Bell--yielding a ratio of nearly a quarter million to
one).

Push media consume significant social resources: both the labor
power required to create these media products and the
"consumption of attention" they burn up as they are listened to
or watched.

In present-day capitalist society it is the ruling class, the
bourgeoisie, which dominates push media. All the high-ratio
media products are saturated with the bourgeois ideology. This
does not mean they are all complete trash or have no redeeming
features. For example, I enjoy watching "Ally McBeal" even
though it promotes a vision of beauty largely based on anorexia.
And there are always exceptions of various kinds. Watching the
movie "Spartacus" [2] changed my entire life (the scene where
Crassus and Spartacus are addressing their respective armies and
telling them why they fight made a huge impression on my young
mind because for the first time I saw good vs. evil as having a
class dimension). But the exceptions are rare (compare
"Gladiator" to "Spartacus" to appreciate the banality of
bourgeois culture).

In present day bourgeois society you can promote any message you
like as a high-ratio "push" message as long as you have enough
dollars to back it up. Using dollars you can buy the services of
_wage slaves_ to produce, polish and promote your toxic message
so its looks slick and convincing.

But this will not be true when the working class runs everything.

In a modern state run by the working class, there will still be
wage slavery (ie: it will take a while, probably one or more
generations, for the working class to learn how to organize an
economy that does not make use of wage slaves--this is not a
simple matter [3]). The _conditions_ of wage slaves will improve
from what they are at present. And there will be a process by
which at one workplace after another the positions of those who
do the work will be transformed from slaves of the process of
production--to its masters. But this will not take place
overnite.

But the use of wage slaves to create high-ratio "push" media will
be _regulated_ by the workers' state. This will be necessary
because otherwise corporations or the wealthy or privileged
strata (which will not disappear overnite either) would be able
to make use of slave labor to _amplify_ the volume of obnoxious
voices and magnify the appeal of their toxic and unhealthy
ideology.

Hence the principle of "the separation of speech and property":
your free speech right extends only to your own voice--not to the
right to _pay_ someone to speak for you.

And, hence, the regulation of the media by the workers' state
takes place at the level of _m_o_n_e_y_. That which is created
by unpaid, _volunteer_ labor lies outside the jurisdiction of the
workers' state (roughly similar to how I have the right to say
what I want in my email, web sites or leaflets today) but media
products created by corporate money, or money from any privileged
strata--would be subject to state regulation.

----------------------------------------
Breaking the back of Rush Limbaugh
----------------------------------------

So if supporters of someone like Rush Limbaugh want to advertise
or promote his latest book of ravings--they will hit a brick
wall. If they try to _buy_ him time on a radio or TV show (or
whatever kind of channels will succeed these forms as the
internet becomes a mass medium) the workers' state will
_b_r_e_a_k_ _t_h_e_i_r_ _b_a_c_k_s_ (for example it could fine
them one thousand dollars for _each_ dollar they contributed to
an obnoxious media product). So someone like Rush and his
supporters would be limited to trying to create a "buzz" on the
non-commercial low-ratio channels where:

(a) their money would not help them,
(b) they would be on an equal footing with everyone else,
(c) they would be outnumbered a hundred to one,
(d) they would be defeated in innumerable individual
encounters with media militants looking for an
opportunity to gain a little recognition by smashing up
some obnoxious apology for the values of the privileged.

And _this_ kind of regulation (ie: the regulation by the workers'
state of those media products that are created by wage-slave
labor) will have some features of _centralized_ regulation. Why
centralized? Because there will be no practical way to impede
the flow of information anywhere in the world under modern
conditions. If a 60 second commercial spot promoting Rush's
obnoxiousness is created in one location--there will be no
practical way to prevent its circulation anywhere. Hence the
obvious "choke point" to attack it would be to prevent the flow
of money that creates it.

----------------------------------------
The bureaucrats fuck up
----------------------------------------

So imagine a scenario:

The Portland workers' administrative body authorizes (or in some
way gives approval to the flow of money to create) some media
product that turns out to be an obnoxious apology for bourgeois
values. In response hundreds (or thousands) of independent
workers' organizations thruout the country complain, create a
media storm of criticism, consider methods of retaliation against
the clueless Portland authorities who, in effect, authorized the
funding of an obnoxious media virus. There would be lots of
discussion, lots of passion would be unleashed, lots of people
would be involved and (at least in the scenario I have just
sketched) the Portland authority would either quickly apologize
and promise to be more careful in the future--or face instant
recall by outraged voters.

So what we see, in the scenario sketched above, is that the
Portland body who approved the media product is not really
completely independent of the opinion of the rest of society.
There is a certain amount of give and take, of course, and there
are bound to be innumerable shades of gray in the controversies
that erupt--but the various authorities that would regulate
wage-slave created media would be responsible both to the public
opinion of those who voted for them and to public opinion
everywhere else.

----------------------------------------
Enemy of the people ?
----------------------------------------

Ted G -- Aug 21:

> The argument of the anarchist is thus: what if
> I don't like these policies being passed?
> Do I then become an "enemy of the people"?

If you attempt to mobilize popular opinion against these policies
then it is possible that some people _will_ consider you to be an
"enemy of the people". And these people may not like you or be
polite to you.

But suppose that you are _right_ to oppose these policies?
Suppose these policies _do_ represent incompetence, hypocrisy or
corruption by administrative bodies of the workers' state. Then
(hopefully) you will "stick to your guns" (so to be speak) and
present your arguments clearly and calmly and work patiently to
win others over to the principles that are correct. And, in a
world in which ignorance is fading and consciousness is rising,
you may over time win a majority to your view. Of course it is
also possible that you will be won over to a view that you
initially opposed. Or neither may happen: you may remain in a
minority view and not change your thinking till your last breath.

And hasn't it always been so?

----------------------------------------
Consciousness and initiative
----------------------------------------

I will conclude with a comment by Smootchiboochies:

> the most important thing about a proletarian state
> is that its cultural and political structures encourage
> *direct action by the people themselves*,
> wherever they might face oppression in their daily lives.

Yes !!!!

There is really no way of expressing it better than
Smootchibootchies has done. Under bourgeois rule all the
thousand and one mechanisms of society are designed to keep the
masses ignorant, demoralized and passive. Under workers' rule
everything will be the opposite.

Sincerely and with revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 26.Aug.2001
http://Leninism.org
http://egroups.com/group/theorist/

<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
How will economics, politics and culture work
when the working class runs modern society?
http://struggle.net/proletarian-democracy
<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>

------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------

---[1]---

The movie "1900" (per the Internet Movie Database)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0074084

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Cast includes: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda,
Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster

Also Known As:
Nineteen Hundred (1977) (USA)
Novecento (1976) (Italy: alternative spelling)
1900 - Gewalt, Macht, Leidenschaft (1976) (Germany: part 1)
1900 - Kampf, Liebe, Hoffnung (1976) (Germany: part 2)
Runtime: Australia:248 / Germany:318 / Italy:318 / USA:245
Language: Italian

User Rating: 7.6/10 (1104 votes)

Summary: Fantastic historical movie

Historical movies often tend to have little content besides the
historical foundation they are built on. Yet this one here is
different. On the background of the Italian political systems
between 1900 and 1945 we both get a history lesson and see a
great human story. The film has a very international cast,
French, American, Italian etc. and its way of storytelling does
also not follow the specific traditions of a certain national
cinema. On the same day in 1900 two children are born on a
strictly aristocratic farm in the Italian province of Emilia
Romagna: One on the "slave's" side and one on the "master's"
side. They grow up together, but in two totally different worlds.
Yet somehow they become in a way friends. But the difference of
their class origin can never be overcome. The final clash starts,
when in 1945 after the Allied invasion Italy becomes democratic
and the old system is abolished. If you get the chance to see it,
go for it. It's over 4 hours long, but those four hours are a
very rewarding experience. 9 of 10 points!

Also of possible interest:
--------------------------
"The Making of '1900'", also known as: "Cinema According to
Bertolucci". In Italian (don't know if there are English
subtitles). Appears to include interviews with Robert De Niro
and Sterling Hayden. (1975)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0072694

---[2]---

Spartacus (1960)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0054331

Director:Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles
Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis

Howard Fast wrote his novel in 1950, while imprisoned for
refusing to provide names to the House Un-American Activities
Committee. Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay while blacklisted.
It was the open publication of his name as the screenwriter that
broke the blacklist.

**** Reviewer: John von K

The darkest historical epic. No dancing girls, no chariot races,
filmed in sombre browns and reds. Nominally directed by Kubrick
but Douglas, as a very 'hands on' producer was responsable for
the operatic sweep of the film. I was astonished when revisiting
the film in 1991 at the cinema at the bravery of the project-to
have the hero cry several times, once even out of self pity and
with a heart rending ending! The film has depth and weight, the
characters are well drawn. The performances are almost flawless,
Douglas managing as actor to create tension in each
scene-Olivier, not withstanding his eyerolling mannerisms is
perfectly cast. [...] Ironically, despite the downbeat tone of
the film it is impossible to watch it without being uplifted
through your tears of compassion. Unofficialy remade as
Braveheart...watch one after the other and you'll see the
similarities in mood, theme and even the battle choreography. ...

**** Reviewer: A viewer from Winston-Salem, NC United States

Long before Russell Crowe picked up his sword and battled corrupt
Roman emperors, Kirk Douglas showed him the way in "Spartacus".
This epic 1960 film still ranks as one of the best performances
in Douglas's distinguished career, and it marked his second
collaboration with famed director Stanley Kubrick. Even more than
"Gladiator", "Spartacus" is based on a real historical event
[...] Spartacus was a Roman slave in the first century AD who
became a gladiator for the Romans, but escaped and then formed an
enormous army (estimated at anywhere from 50,000 to 75,000) of
freed slaves and gladiators. For the next year this army, under
Spartacus's leadership, terrorized the Italian countryside, until
they were finally trapped and destroyed in battle with the still
powerful Roman Army. As an old-fashioned Hollywood epic,
"Spartacus" doesn't disappoint the viewer - there are epic battle
scenes, high drama, and some great acting by several Hollywood
legends. Interestingly, the film's producers felt that the
contrast between the slave-gladiators and their corrupt Roman
masters would be given greater contrast if they cast British
actors (Sir Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton) as
the leading Roman characters, and American actors as the slaves
(Douglas, Tony Curtis, Jean Simmons). All of the actors listed
above shine in this film - Olivier drips with menace and
hypocrisy as the great Roman General Crassus, who will stop at
nothing to crush the slave revolt and bring the entire Roman
Empire under his personal control. Laughton is delightful as
Gracchus, a fat and somewhat corrupt, but also clever and
freedom-loving, Roman Senator who loathes Crassus and tries
desperately to keep Crassus from becoming a dictator and
destroying the individual freedoms of the Roman Republic. He
fails, but nonetheless emerges as the sole Roman hero of the
movie. Peter Ustinov steals every scene as the bumbling and
craven owner of a gladiator training school who rescues Spartacus
from certain death and makes him into a gladiator ...

**** Reviewer: archmaker from Anaheim, CA United States

Well, call me a romantic but I still love this picture. Yes, it's
a bit dated in technique, and it was restrained in its depictions
of sex and violence and adult themes by the Hays office (the
official Hollywood censor board). And it has a bit of
Hollywoodness in its love story and presentation (music etc.),
but it also had heart and it strived to evoke a spirit of
rebellion and defiance of oppression that moved me way back when
and still does today. [...]

Stanley Kubrick replaced Anthony Mann after production began. He
had decried the film and script because it wasn't the one he
would have written, but I think he did a good job just bringing
this effort off and he was able to tone down or eliminate much of
the Hollywoodisms. The matter-of-factness of Varinia's having to
offer herself, the icily calm and detached way Olivier dispatches
Woody Strode like an animal, though he is unnerved by the meaning
of the attack. These are Kubrickian touches. [...]

Why I love Spartacus is: the great Gladiator school sequence; the
genuine warmth and relaxed sexiness of Douglas & Jean Simmons
(lovely & luscious)together; the depiction of Rome at its height
of power and the nice interplay between the corrupt but true
democrat Laughton and the haughty and superior Olivier, whose
lust for order and power is a far more sinister corruption; the
wonderfully flawed & human Ustinov and the affection and warmth
of his scenes with Laughton (much of which he wrote and they
worked out together); great battles; and finally, the haunting
image of the road to Rome decorated with the crucified remnants
of Spartacus's slave army.

This last is why I return to this movie again and again. When the
slaves lose, as they had to lose fighting against the awsome
power of Rome, and the defeated remaining men standup and claim
they are Spartacus knowing crucifixion will follow their gesture;
and, Spartacus too goes to the cross but swears to Crassus over
the dead body of Antoninus (Tony Curtis) "he'll be back and he'll
be thousands"....well, it gets the blood moving. I love defiance
in defeat.

also:
-----

Spartacus -- the book by Howard Fast
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743412826

I have read this and thought it even better than the movie.

Spartacus and the Slave Wars : A Brief History With Documents
(Bedford Series in History and Culture (Cloth))
Brent D. Shaw (Translator)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312237030/

** Book Description
In 72 B.C., in the heart of Rome's Mediterranean empire, a slave
named Spartacus ignited one of the most violent episodes of slave
resistance in the history of the Roman Empire-indeed in the world
annals of slavery. This volume organizes original translations of
80 Greek and Latin sources into topical chapters that look at the
daily lives of slaves trained as gladiators and those who labored
on farms in Italy and Sicily, including accounts of revolts that
preceded and anticipated that of Spartacus. In a carefully
crafted introductory essay, Shaw places Spartacus in the broader
context of first and second century B.C. Rome, Italy and Sicily
and explains why his story continues to be a popular symbol of
rebellion today. The volume also includes a glossary, chronology,
selected bibliography, three maps, an annotated list of ancient
writers, and questions for consideration.

** About the Author
Brent D. Shaw is Professor of Classical Studies and Chair of the
Graduate Group in Ancient History at the University of
Pennsylvania.

Spartacus and Slave Wars by Shaw
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312183100
A much cheaper ($14 vs. $45) paperback version of the above?

---[3]---

Please see: "The Self-Organizing Moneyless Economy" at:

http://Leninism.org/some

For a description of an economy that does not rely on wage
slavery.

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