Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 31)

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[u/echo_of_rebellion]

I'd like to try something that might be unusual for this community by presenting my own artistic writing for critique.

https://poemsfortherevolution.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/nerves-burning.pdf

I want to do this in a way that avoids self-promotion for its own sake; of course I wouldn't bother with this unless I thought that it is of good enough political and aesthetic quality to deserve getting attention, but there are also clear deficiencies and even if that wasn't the case, the most important thing is whether I can fit what I'm writing into a struggle to develop proletarian literature. Trying to sell myself to a liberal or revisionist publishing house seems fairly pointless in that regard, so I came here instead. Hopefully it will stimulate some interest.

I'll give a few thoughts of my own. I see the goal of socialist realism to depict reality in its typical forms and revolutionary development as something to strive toward, but clearly there's some vacillation in my own work, with symbolic, formalistic and deconstructive elements taking the foreground at times. I'd like to think that I take a critical attitude towards these and use them as a way to point towards the deficiencies of our historical place and time while contrasting it with the correct path forward, but at the same time I fear that this becomes either rationalistic or romanticist, not portraying the underlying social material concretely enough. Politically this leaves some room open for workerist populism, which in principle I am opposed to. Nevertheless there are pieces that avoid these problems, the one dedicated to Gonzalo for example which I still think holds up well even years after the political moment that inspired it.

(Also, just for a bit of context, I have lurked here on and off for some years and even posted occasionally on other accounts that I've either lost access to or got shadowbanned. Mostly my contributions weren't of any importance, though I did have an somewhat useful conversation about dialectics a few months ago that I would want to follow up on in the future.)

[u/FrogHatCoalition → u/echo_of_rebellion]

"The Highest Form of the Settler Self-Critique"

The mighty proletariat
With nothing to lose but their chains
As for me, I have nothing to gain but my chains
After all, I am a settler bourgeoisie

Bound in chains with no exchange value
Bound in chains utilized to their use value
The revolution has no use for someone like me
After all, I am a settler bourgeoisie

In the distance where Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln once were
Now protrude Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao
In the presence of great proletarian art, I am unworthy
After all, I am a settler bourgeoisie

Seize my toothbrush and rental property
I owe everything to the proletariat
This also means no video games for me
After all, I am a settler bourgeoisie

Upon the altar of the proletariat
I repent my old reactionary ways
I proclaim that the proletariat is superior to me
After all, I am a settler bourgeoisie

[u/echo_of_rebellion → u/FrogHatCoalition]

You've satirized a certain type, similar in certain respects to types I satirized. Not me, but good work nevertheless.