submissions
| Neil Young – Heart Of Gold Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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for me, Neil Young is looking for the place UTOPIA where everybody has a "heart of gold" which in a sense is utopian or could never be found and is nearly disillusioned hence "keep me seaching....and I'm getting old" repeated several times |
submissions
| Catch 22 – The Purge (1936) Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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this song is about the great purges in 1936 wherein stalin ordered the killing of all bolsheviks opposed to his policy numbering in thousands killed. of the original bolshevik leaders of the october revolution of 1917 only he and trotsky, the leader of left opposition were left, the latter was later killed by stalin's order in 1940 in mexico. the chorus refers to the eventual collapse of the soviet union as predicted by trotsky which would not happen unless the workers themselves took power away from the bureaucrats. |
submissions
| The Beatles – Revolution 1 Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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john lennon here wants to change the world for the better. Lennon as revealed in his latter songs when he gone solo went into socialism and Marxism. (Imagine, Working Class Hero, etc,) He gave support to then british trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party/Socialist Labor League. What John Lennon was denouncing (consciously or not)here in this song was Stalinism (antithesis to Marxism) and its variants like Maoism and Guevaraism. Marxists support progress (feudalism to capitalism to socialism) and abhor destruction and violence (Mao's "power comes from the barrel of the gun" "armed struggle"). Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power in the Russian revolution of 1917 without having to wage war and had supported war only to defend the revolution from invading armies. When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin usurped power by edging out Trotsky the one most likely to succeed the former and later had him killed and most Bolsheviks (The Great Purges of 1930s). Trotsky and his allies adhered to the Marxist principle that in order for socialism to succeed the revolution must be continued to other European countries (Marx's "'Workers of the World Unite", Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution") Trivia: Catch22 released an album entitled the same and all songs contained were all about Trotsky. What Stalin did was to accommodate to the capitalists which led to the defeat of the revolution in China (Kuomintang 1920s)and Spain (Civil War 1930s). From then on, most revolutions waged were adherence to Stalinism (China, Vietnam capitulated to capitalism, North Korea, Cuba remained isolationist stalinist state, France in 1968, Chile in 1973) Meanwhile, socialism had degenerated in Russia that actual power and privilege were held by Stalin and his bureaucrats in contrast to the socialism's dictum that power should be held by workers themselves (Lenin's "all power to the soviets" Luxembourg's "democracy to socialism is like oxygen to the human body"). Trotsky predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse and would return to capitalism/barbarism (in "Revoultion Betrayed") if the workers themselves would not take power from the stalinists. This actually occurred in 1990. John Lennon in one time or another had supported revolutionaries (Marxists or not). Due to this he was included in the dossiers of MI5 the intelligence arm of the British govt. until his brutal death in 1980. Read the lyrics of Working Class Hero, a great Lennon's class analysis. |
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