{"id":350,"date":"2006-08-13T05:55:49","date_gmt":"2006-08-12T19:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=350"},"modified":"2006-08-13T05:55:49","modified_gmt":"2006-08-12T19:55:49","slug":"revolutionaryleft-the-cult-of-che","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=350","title":{"rendered":"RevolutionaryLeft & The Cult of ‘Che’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RevolutionaryLeft.Com<\/a><\/strong> is an online forum, modestly described as being “one of the world’s largest leftist forum communities where over 4,000 leftists from around the world come to discuss politics, history, political theory, philosophy, music, literature, films and much more in over 500,000 posted discussions!” Actually, as of August 12, 2006, the forum has over 8,000 registered members.<\/p>\n

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But what the fuck is<\/em> it? Established in July 2001 by some German bloke called ‘Malte’, the site’s logo contains three images: the first, a hammer and sickle; the second, an antifa flag; and the third, a circle A. The forum itself is sponsored by another site: Che-Lives.Com<\/a><\/strong>, an online shrine to the long-dead authoritarian Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara<\/a><\/em>; while Che-Lives is in turn sponsored by another<\/em> site: theCHEstore.com<\/a><\/strong>…<\/p>\n

theCHEstore.com sells “the largest selection of Che Guevara short sleeve and long sleeve shirts, tank tops, club shirts, and hoodies for men, women, and children”; Che Guevara headwear — “baseball caps, trucker hats, beanies and toques, bucket hats, bandanas, and the famous Cuban-style berets with embroidered or metal star, just like the one [eeek!] Che Guevara used to wear”; Che Guevara lighters, key chains, pins, wall clocks, Cuban stamps, shooter glasses, postcards, wallets, textile posters, courier\/messenger bags and much, more more. (Or less… depending on your political perspective.)<\/p>\n

Why would a business dedicated to making money from a dead icon’s face sponsor a site dedicated to perpetuating his myth? A site that then, in turn, sponsors a forum which deliberately confuses anarchism with authoritarian rule and the perpetuation of personality cults?<\/p>\n

Hint<\/a>. Hint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

…with Castro\u2019s rise to power in 1959<\/a>[, a] great many anarchists, especially in Europe, were so desperate to see positive social change that they saw it where there was none — in Cuba, thanks in part to a skilled disinformation campaign by Castro\u2019s propaganda apparatus. Despite suppression of civil liberties, the prohibition of independent political activity, the government take-over of the unions, the militarization of the economy, the gradual impoverishment of the country (despite massive Soviet economic aid), the reemergence of a class system, the institution of a network of political spies in every neighborhood (the so-called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution<\/a><\/strong>), and the government-fostered personality cults which grew up around Fidel Castro and Ernesto (\u201cChe\u201d) Guevara, large and important sections of the world\u2019s anarchist movement supported Castro until well into the 1970s.<\/p>\n

That situation began to change in 1976 with publication of the respected American anarchist Sam Dolgoff<\/a>\u2019s The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective<\/a><\/em>. But even today some anarchists continue to be hoodwinked by the Castro regime\u2019s \u201crevolutionary\u201d rhetoric and the veneer of social welfare measures with which it covers its ruthless determination to cling to power at any price.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RevolutionaryLeft.Com is an online forum, modestly described as being “one of the world’s largest leftist forum communities where over 4,000 leftists from around the world come to discuss politics, history, political theory, philosophy, music, literature, films and much more in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natas","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AyE-5E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}