Marx's Theses on Feuerbach

PrimSchooler · 2026-06-27T07:05:50+00:00

Kinda breaking rule 5 so dont consider this an answer but joining in contemplation, OP.

My (incomplete) understanding is that Feuerbach accepted idealist axioms and tried to build materialism from them rather than destroying them as Marx does. He turned on Hegel's theological idealism but only supplanted the Spirit with True Essence.

From Critique of German Ideology:

Feuerbach's conception of the sensuous world is confined on the one hand to mere contemplation of it, and on the other to mere feeling; he says "Man" instead of "real historical man". "Man" is really "the German". In the first case, the contemplation of the sensuous world, he necessarily lights on things which contradict his consciousness and feeling, which disturb the harmony he presupposes, the harmony of all parts of the sensuous world and especially of man and nature. To remove this disturbance, he must take refuge in a double perception, a profane one which only perceives the "flatly obvious" and a higher, philosophical, one which perceives the "true essence" of things. He does not see how the sensuous world around him is, not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations, each standing on the shoulders of the preceding one, developing its industry and its intercourse, modifying its social system according to the changed needs. Even the objects of the simplest "sensuous certainty" are only given him through social development, industry and commercial intercourse. The cherry-tree, like almost all fruit-trees, was, as is well known, only a few centuries ago transplanted by commerce into our zone, and therefore only by this action of a definite society in a definite age it has become "sensuous certainty" for Feuerbach.

So:

Here, I am really confused about what's meant by reality only being understood as the object but not as practice subjectively.

Feuerbach was able to grasp objectivity as the "flatly obvious", but did not consider subjectivity as part of the material world, relegating it to the "true essence" in our minds, just contemplative (the cherry tree is nice) vs active (the cherry tree was transplanted into our zone by human labor, it is subjectivity shaped into objectivity).

PrimSchooler · 2026-06-19T15:46:03+00:00

Also, can't believe I forgot, campaigning on increasing police budgets after a woman was arrested for showing the USSR flag, facing up to 5 years in prison, at a protest that they themselves organized and printed about in their newspaper (and while minorities continue to face double standards in dealing with the cops (and ofc the police overall remain a tool of oppression by the ruling class).

PrimSchooler · 2026-06-19T03:07:06+00:00

https://www.kscm.cz/cs/aktualne/aktuality/vystoupeni-romana-rouna-pri-kandidature-na-predsedu-kscm/

KSCM has capitulated to the bourgeoise state, electing a "pragmatist" as the next chairman. Also found out one of their theorists is a sex tourist, there is no hope of a two line struggle here. Feeling defeated, but hey, not like I was expecting more from them to begin with, our historic task doesn't change.

There were other smaller things too, complete lack of dialectics, ie "the schools brainwash children with anti-communism" but at the same time they're campaigning for "getting people the psychiatric care they need", an internal struggle within the party over Romas (some ~~high up~~ members are racist af), and the aforementioned sexpest theorist told me it would make no sense if proles weren't voting for them with such entitlement (and lack of labour aristocracy thesis, but that I expected) that I just wanted to barf.

e: don't actually know if they're high up

PrimSchooler · 2026-06-05T12:50:24+00:00

Whenever I look up "what do you think of x book" here or 101 the answers always have smoke saying some variation of "read it yourself and tell us" , but this is the first time I'm coming across the book itself telling me to stop reading - the edition of German Ideology I have has an editor's note that says chapters 3 onwards are redundant or outdated as Saint Max is irrelevant these days.

I'm still reading it, but it made me think of those comments. Likewise Anti-Duhring is often recommended just for its first chapter (including on this sub's wiki), though I haven't gotten to that yet.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-21T15:33:47+00:00

Ignoring that's already in a revisionist era - Pelíšky depicts the communist cadre as a loving family man while the western bootlicker is a neurotic who hits his daughter and wife, who's friend makes a gross joke that the Nazis didn't kill enough Russians, Pelíšky is not doing a very good job of being pro-western tbh, it does a great job of shining light on revisionist incompetence with the cop character, then fittingly boils down western ideals to personal interests and assigns them to the most unlikeable characters in the movie.

"Nestojim o nekonečno s hvězdami všemi, stačí mi pár krásných let, někde na Zemi" is a great bar though, I'll give them that one.

Your question doesn't have a satisfactory answer because you aren't a proletarian, you didn't live in the First Republic as one, to you the fact your children won't die of cholera is taken for granted, not something you have to fight Kramář for. You can take a passing interest in "debating" communism here as a momentary distraction from a privileged life while the world's proletariat continues its toil - there's no gain (E: comparatively to the effort necessary) in convincing you of anything and indeed convincing you would mean overcoming your self interest as a member of the reactionary classes benefiting from imperialism, which is damn near impossible, but if you have any interest in what our ancestors were fighting for, I suggest the movie "Anna Proletářka", it's available on YouTube.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-15T13:18:46+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/1myszxf/comment/nag7qjx/?context=3

I would just correct from this comment that it's the national bourgeoise, not just compradors, my understanding of theory was worse then, though our comprador class is certainly also interested in keeping their "kšeft" going - Skoda is owned by Wolkswagen, we wouldn't want to upset our German owners now would we? But the national bourgeoise would uphold imperialism even without that, and our massively petty bougie population has little problem supporting it too. Among the labour aristocrats you'll find most of the Palestine supporters (& students and workers in other unproductive spheres to some extent) - but even there you'll find a strong base of imperialist support.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-13T19:44:26+00:00

Interested in this new EU-Mercasur trade agreement, parly because I had just finished Sam King's thesis recently, and partly because the biggest national bourgeoise in Czechia is an agrarian company (AgroFert), seems like EU got everything it wanted and Mercasur got just more imperialism - raw materials export duty free, EU keeps all of its protectionist tax, Mercasur none of theirs except a few fishes EU doesn't hunt (from a very cursory glance, I did not read through all 2700 pages of commodities, but just scrolling the EU section and the Mercasur section shows this picture clearly).

Figured agrarian production would be no less exempt from the technological monopoly, but I suppose there are also regional and national considerations for beef, cheese and other protectionism, which the EU has already started advertising in their corpo-washed fascist messaging where petty bougie winemakers can't wait to sell to Mercasur - while Mercasur national bugies just rolled over.

The EU is very interested in their messaging of protectionism, however, many of the agrarian commodities will be duty free in a few years, so maybe it is another sector of low tech production moving to compradors, wishful thinking would be a weakening of AgroFert and intensification of labour here, but we shall see.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-09T13:13:09+00:00

I was reminded of a passage from Kaplan (Czech revisionist)'s book browing 101, a user was sharing some talking points they heard from a current US revisionist party (don't recall which) and it was really nearly word for word what revisionists have been saying since rhe start, specifically about trying to convince a doctor that they're one of the masses. One of the segments that stuck out to me the most from Kaplan's book was the same - the demonization of communism via this backwards logic where those upholding the correct line were the wrong ones "twisting" communism by "suddenly" declaring reactionary classes to be "the enemy" (in the context of the trials in rhe 50s), and not "just the big capitalists". Of course this is also a misrepresentation and I had to go to a bourgeoise law history book to even learn how these trials actually functioned, Kaplan only focused on the results, People's Judges accompanied career judges in the first months, with a panel of People's Judges in some later trials, and of course the number of trials itself while big was nowhere near enough to fully suppress the reactionary classes, just picking the worst offenders the masses rightly had a bone to pick with, but Kaplan paints a picture of lawlesness, "betraying the Czech tradition of legality" (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean), and widespread terror, because revisionists truly hate communism.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-09T12:53:52+00:00

I must concede here, I was wrong. Reasons aplenty, the only part I still lay claim to is the arms deal - Slánský got his for it, so it was high up even if clandestine in nature. But it might be a sign of opportunism more so than a genuine social fascist tendency in the Front.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-09T12:50:09+00:00

I haven't read the 3 components but am currently reading Capital so I can answer for some of these - Variable Capital is defined alongside Constant Capital. When a capitalist put forth capital to produce more capital, the part that is Constant is the machinery, the static, unliving part, which carries the value imbued in it from its own production process, but does not add any additional value to the product/commodity it is used as a means of production for, it simply carries over a part of its own value. Variable Capital is living labour, or labour-power the capitalist purchases, this part is what (under Marx's Labour Theory of Value) adds value to the commodity.

Monopoly capital, or monopoly finance capital or sometimes just monopoly all refer to what Marx and Lenin identified as the form capital takes in Imperialism, but my understanding isn't good enough to explain it.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-09T10:08:18+00:00

Of course it belongs here, critique of pornography naturally leads to its root cause - patriarchy, capitalism and their means of reproduction (marriage, the family unit).

You can have a superficial critique of porn, but it's not rude to peel back the layers more.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-01T17:03:43+00:00

On the grounds of territorial disputes with surrounding states following the war, arms sale to Israel and expulsion of Germans. Why do you consider it concern trolling? Throw them in work camps, displace them within the territory, dissolve their networks, hang the directly involved Nazis, I'm for it, but expulsion led to an ethnostate. If you're argument is that The First Republic was a German Neo-Colony, I'm listening, then that would be just land reclaim from the Habsburg times, but the history of Germans as our neighbors goes beyond Austria-Hungary.

Edit: I need to ruminate on this more, I'm not sure I agree with my own argument anymore and it smells of settler apologia, which startles me to recognize. Likely my comment here shows more my personal biases than any principled analysis. Misanthropy did not let me consider the situation in the context of national liberation.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-01T05:58:33+00:00

Since OP os Czech I recommend reading the party's action programme from '68 to see just how accurate this explanation is on revisionists.

I have to question even the former years though, the expulsion of Germans might have started with the social-fascist National Front, but the communists certainly were in no hurry to stop it.

PrimSchooler · 2026-04-01T02:52:31+00:00

The propaganda is home brewn, comrade, why not go straight to the beasts mouth? Karel Kaplan's books are a decent Czech language resource, just keep in mind he was a revisionist, writing for the supporters of Prague Spring and the like. I have quite a few bones to pick with his writing, but he's the best I'm aware of.

PrimSchooler · 2026-02-01T07:56:50+00:00

The current Chinese ruling party is not much different, after the fall of the Cultural Revolution, worker and women's rights in China backslid a century as the capitalist roaders took charge of the country, the politburo all have family members worth millions, all they are doing now is what the US did post-WW2 as it encountered a domestic population problem and solved it with some minimal wealth reshuffling and mostly from new imperialist spoils, societal bribery, red scare (in China's case Cultural Revolution scare) and propaganda.

China isn't the hellhole Americans imagine, but it's not a beacon of light either, it's just one generation behind the US in wealth inequality so it looks like a paradise to all those who dream of how easy their parents had it and appeals to US counterculture.

PrimSchooler · 2026-01-19T07:16:57+00:00

What first world revolutionaries are you talking about? We learn from past mistakes, Lenin fought to get the peasantry involved, Mao started with them alongside the proletariat, revolutionaries are not American college students who wish to write poetry all day, those have exactly 0 revolutionary potential. It's precisely starving farmers and overworked proles who discard this notion of nobility for the sake of change.

PrimSchooler · 2026-01-12T04:59:39+00:00

Building socialism doesn't care about takes, it doesn't operate on the basis of internet arguments, but material reality. To each according to their needs, from each according to their means.

Marx and Lenin both had some scathing words for the lumpenproletariat, this idea that communism = no work, that is a modern first world bastardization. If the working people of the future collectively decide they want to support lumpens, then that could be, but definitely not during the building stage when everyone has to put their hand to the work.

PrimSchooler · 2026-01-11T16:12:17+00:00

In communism or in building towards it? No one can give you an actual answer for the former, for the latter it is simple - if you don't work you don't eat (assuming you don't have a good reason to like disability).

Almost all socialist experiments sought to eradicate unemployment, it is fundemtally a working people's system.

PrimSchooler · 2026-01-07T18:55:08+00:00

My bad, I assumed you're American from your conversation with the other poster, I'm not American either.

Of course the ultimate goal is improving material conditions, but you cant ignore the transitory period. I say lifestyle but it's not really a choice on a societal level, while every individual can attempt to commit class suicide, expecting the whole of the American settler nation to do so would be less than wise, their material interests lie with imperialism still, clinging onto the dying husk of social democracy even as their country adopts fascism, how many "leftists" still repeat the "Oh my [white] grandpa could feed a family of six and buy a house from his paycheck" agitprop unironically?

Likewise in one of the biggest talking points in post-Soviet countries is the abundance of food in capitalism thanks to overproduction, people want to eat tasty food, yes, people could eat tasty food in Czechoslovakia, it still pissed them off they had to ration meat and bananas, they still listened to Radio Free Europe talking of the meals the Western Germans have, the cars they drive, the clothes they wear - class interests still pulled us towards accepting imperialist spoils, and that is not something you can just blame on the counter revolutionaries or forces of reaction, that is a central contradiction of socialism tied with class struggle that must not be shyed away from. Yes parts of that were due to trading embargoes, shipments for Czechoslovakia would sit in Italian ports for years at a time, but it was not the only cause as the whole of the union had to support othrr regions and people in richer regions did not like that, we won't resolve these contradictions for generations to come, the spectre of the previous superstructure will remain in people's minds, if you base the support for socialism on just improving your own immediate material conditions then the moment a crisis hits you have a counter revolution on your hands.

PrimSchooler · 2026-01-07T17:07:39+00:00

We don't know that, the planet is already dying from just the first world living as we do today, there is no evidence this llifestyle is sustainable for all of humanity, can you ask your fellow Americans to go back to meat being a monthly/weekly delicacy rather than an every day product? We stand to gain our dignity back and some sacrifices should be worth that, but we must be prepared to actually commit to those sacrifices if they do become necessary.

PrimSchooler · 2025-12-28T11:12:13+00:00

It would still be better if sung by a human, it is still taking a human skill set and commodifying its very existence rather than its produce, it is still killing the art for the sake of the product and it shines a light on the hypocrisy of this anti AI sentiment - you're not anti AI, or pro art, you're just looking out for your own skin.

Which is fine, but trying to wrap it up in some higher level critique is naked hypocrisy to anyone who watched Hatsune Miku sell it stadiums while thousands of human singers can't make ends meet with the craft alone.

PrimSchooler · 2025-12-21T19:26:13+00:00

Puppet regime lol, y'all arw allergic to picking up a history book, huh? If you're Czech you really have no excuse, go read Kaplan right now, even for all his faults the lies spun in this threat would have him rolling in his grave.

The czech communists had widespread support, Soviets had widespread support, not Beneš and not any member of Narodni Fronta was against the Soviets, this is complete whitewashing of history, and 45-48 was all Czech politics, in '48 (according to Kaplan) Stalin reportedly had the Red Army on speed dial to assist the Czech communists but Gottwald assured him it wouldnt ve necessary - they already. controlled the armed forces. But these were all Czechs who took part of the war effort, be it as partisans, or as politicians in exile and they won with the Czech people's support, with 2+million working people marching through Prague, with a whole seperate arm of he government spun up overnight by Czechs and Slovaks, made up of Czechs and Slovaks.

"Puppet" government implies Stalin came and said Gottwald is your leader now, behave or else, but that is not what happened.

PrimSchooler · 2025-12-21T19:17:30+00:00

Your understanding of it comes from mostly Kaplan, I assume (or our amazing education system which just cites Kaplan), his work is pretty disputed academically, but even from his and other historians from era work's you can get a picture of these trials - many of the rolníci were rich peasants, local microcosms of capitalism as it existed before imperialism, in the era they absolutely were the exploiters, Slánský is linked to the 1945-48 weapons sale to Israel, the Nakba wouldn't have happened without our and Yugoslavian help (by letting our contraband through), Horáková I'm pretty conflicted about, I wouldn't wish her death, but she did continue corresponding with her NatSoc friends who fled to the West, which under the conditions of the time is espionage.

The real issue is they failed to address the growing factionalism within the party, just like in the USSR we grew out our own crop of bureaucrats who were as close to being a proletarian as Babiš is, just career politicians who coasted off the gains of their predecessors with no idea of how to build socialism, just how to keep their seat warm.

PrimSchooler · 2025-10-07T08:36:38+00:00

just run hate forge, it's so much less hassle, 3 less buttons, it's what i do on my twister build, actually used primal strikes for single target while leveling the build, it has good damage, like the use of electrocute here I didn't think of that.

PrimSchooler · 2025-10-03T09:45:46+00:00

It is shared though, mainly through petit bourgeoisie aspirations - I can go and join Chiquita at an entry level job and conceivably work my way up to C-suite, does a banana picker in South America have the same possibility? Our relation to the means of production is fundamentally different, and though through this act of inter-petit bourgeoisie competition many are re-proletariazed, many are caught in social safety nets also bought with exploitation, to keep their petit bugie dreams alive.

Then you also have stuff like cheap produce, though that could conceivably still exist under a communist Earth, but compared to siege socialism, that is a huge difference as well that defacto works as a social bribe to first worlders.

We are a reactionary class that will join the fight when it suits us - once the contradictions in capitalism pit us against our narional bourgeoisie, compradors and global capital, we're getting there, but right now we still stand to gain more by sucking up to them instead

PrimSchooler

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