Eugen Leviné, assassinated on this day in 1919, was a German revolutionary communist who briefly led the Bavarian Council Republic, giving luxury apartments to the homeless and factories to the workers during his short reign in power.
Eugen Levine was born to wealthy Jewish parents in St Petersberg, Russia, and became exposed to radical politics after moving to Heidelberg, Germany at a young age. In 1905, Leviné returned to Russia to participate in the failed revolution of 1905 against the Tsar and was arrested and exiled to Siberia.
After World War I ended, Leviné joined the Communist Party of Germany and helped to create a socialist republic in Bavaria. Leviné eventually rose to power as the communists assumed control of the government.
He attempted to pass many reforms, such as giving the more luxurious flats to the homeless and giving workers control and ownership of factories. Leviné also planned reforms for the education system and to abolish paper money, but did not get the chance to complete either.
The German Army, assisted by the right-wing Freikorps paramilitary invaded and quickly conquered Munich on May 3rd, 1919. Leviné himself was arrested and shot by firing squad in Stadelheim Prison.
Ex-Soviet agent Whitaker Chambers cited Leviné as an inspirational figure, writing "During the Bavarian Council Republic in 1919, Leviné was the organiser of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets. When the Bavarian Council Republic was crushed, Leviné was captured and court-martialed. The court-martial told him: "You are under sentence of death." Leviné answered: 'We Communists are always under sentence of death.'"
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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
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Theory:
CW: liberal zionism, genocide apologia
https://www.vox.com/politics/414049/reading-books-decline-tiktok-oral-culture
I was reading this article, which is interesting but flawed, about how a group of thinkers believe that society is devolving from a literate culture back into an oral culture (and how that will spell the doom of Liberalism, and herald the return of tyrant kings). The author is ambivalent about that premise while maintaining that the overall decline in literacy is not good and probably a sign of bad things to come. I was even thinking of making a post out of it. But then I got to this bit:
Maybe it's just my personal hatred of the word 'illiberal', but I can't bring myself to engage more with the article, which kind of peters out at the end anyway. The author seems unclear where to point the blame for America's illiberal turn. Is it that nativist hicks are forcing the educated elite out of power? Is it that phones are bad? But what about these stats that indicate phones are good and made us woke about the gays? But how does that fit with the existence of Andrew Tate, the evil man who lives in the phone of every teenage boy? Socrates once condemned writing, so maybe if I say AI is bad somebody will think that makes me look a fucking idiot so I won't say that even though I believe it.
I really was thinking about how I suspect the idea that America was once shaped by an engaged and literate electorate (as was theorized earlier in the article) is misguided, that the US has long taken its cultural cues from the elites, that those elites were once well-educated people engaged in the project of Liberalism, and then once education became for the hoi polloi and Liberalism lost its moral standing to Socialism the elites gave up all pretense of giving a shit sometime around when JFK took one to the dome. I mean there's more to it than that because obviously the views of the masses have mattered and had an effect on things (largely in how the bourgeois respond to those views) but not in the orderly-and-learned-citizens-engaging-in-(non-disruptive)-civic-duty way I feel was implied early on in the article. You could also make an argument that the elites never gave a shit at all, that it was always a farce, that all this is business as usual and the only difference is that now even VOX writers can see that. But the whole thing ends on such a disappointing note and I've got better things to do with my time (I should have been asleep two hours ago), so I'm not going to think any more about this.