I remember an article on the Meiji Restoration as a “bourgeois” revolution. It was a “very good” bad argument that illustrated the problem that capitalist development does not run a straight course. A bourgeois revolution is made above the heads of a small bourgeoisie and this illustrates Trotsky’s theory etc, etc... In other words they were very good at representing important historical problems with one track Marxism while claiming to solve those problems. 

But sometimes they did good historical work on the history of the communist movement and the USSR as well. 

MEIJI RESTORATION

Turning to Japan, the question of whether capitalist agriculture is a requirement for the advent of capitalism in general becomes even more problematic. Japanese Marxist scholarship has been the site of intense debates inspired by the Sweezy-Dobbs exchange. The Meiji restoration of the late 19th century is widely seen as the advent of the contemporary economic system, but there is scant evidence of bourgeois transformation of agriculture.

In "The Meiji Landlord: Good or Bad" (Journal of Asian Studies, May '59), R.P. Dore dates the controversy as arising in the 1930s, long before Dobbs, Sweezy and Brenner stepped into the ring. The Iwanami Symposium on the

Development of Japanese Capitalism, held in 1932, marks the starting point of a sustained effort to date the transformation of Japan from a feudal to a capitalist society. Especially problematic was the role of class relations in the countryside, which never went through the radical restructuring of Brenner's 16th century England.

Referring to Hirano Yoshitarö's "The Structure of Japanese Capitalism" Dore writes:

"Hirano's work contains a good deal of original research concerning the economic facts of the agrarian structure of the early Meiji, and the creation of a highly dependent class of tenant farmers. The landlords of Hirano, for example, preserved the semi-feudal social relations of the countryside which provided the necessary groundbase for the peculiarly distorted form of capitalism which developed in Japan. The high rents, maintained by semi-feudal extra-economic pressures, not only helped to preserve this semi-feudal base intact (by making capitalist agriculture unprofitable) they also contributed to the rapid process of primitive capital accumulation which accounted for the speed of industrial development. Thus the landlords were to blame for the two major special characteristics of Japanese capitalist development--its rapidity and its distorted nature."

Gosh, this is enough to make your head spin. Here we have a situation in which, according to one of the deans of Japanese Marxist scholarship, semi-feudal relations in the countryside served to accelerate Japanese capitalist development. Just the opposite of what Brenner alleges to be the secret of English hyper-capitalist success. Something doesn't add up here, does it?

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/origins/brenner_thesis.htm

On their historical work, they were deep into James P. Cannon, and published material on him and other Trotskyists they considered revolutionary at https://www.icl-fi.org/prl/index.html. From what I can gather, Bryan Palmer was a fellow traveler.

Andrew, you did not provide one quote from Lenin, one reference to anything from Lenin's writings or speeches, where Lenin outright "rejected and repudiated" any major point of Marxist wisdom.  Where can i find Lenin's "novel restatement of principles"? 

I am not going to play this childish game with you. You know exactly what the point is that I am making and you want to play what amounts to an inbred power game.

There was indeed an organized backlash to Donald Trump’s victory, but that took the form of the “#resistance,” which is hardly a Leftist movement. In fact, I would argue that this liberal “awakening” which occurred after Trump took office was controlled opposition that did far more harm than good to the progressive cause. Besides spreading the new McCarthyism of Russiagate, cheering on an utterly pointless impeachment proceeding, electing a bunch of ex-CIA officers to Congress, and catapulting a failed mayor of South Bend, Indiana to national stardom, what has this #resistance movement accomplished? The most significant thing to come out of it was the inaugural Women’s March in 2017, when the now famous photo was taken of a protester holding a sign that read “If Hillary was President We’d Be at Brunch.”

Have you read the articles about the 1619 Project at WSWS?

I have. They are garbage.

How the world’s greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by a virus, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders, causing damage that could last much longer than the coronavirus.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-fall-of-the-cdc?fbclid=IwAR09aulTa5DBIb6jwmT6eXZxHitxK2m9JtcnI2avuRnAOUJdhYVWSEWcgCM

The utopian ideal of globalization has imploded over the past decade. Rising demand in Western countries for greater state control over the economy reflects a range of grievances, from a chronic shortage of well-compensated work to a sense of national decline. In the United States, the dearth of domestic supply chains exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened alarm over the acute infrastructural weaknesses decades of outsourced production have created. Post-industrial society, rather than an advanced stage of shared affluence, is not only more unequal but fundamentally insecure. Rich but increasingly oligarchic countries are experiencing what we might call, following scholars of democratization, a dramatic “de-consolidation” of development.

GOP’s Sen. Sasse says Trump mistreats women, flirts with white supremacy and secretly mocks evangelicals
By Colby Itkowitz
Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2020 at 4:45 p.m. EDT

Sen. Ben Sasse eviscerated President Trump during a phone call with constituents in which the Nebraska Republican accused the president of cozying up to dictators, mistreating women, flirting with white supremacists and irresponsibly handling the coronavirus pandemic.

Sasse’s comments were disclosed by the Washington Examiner, which obtained an audio recording of the call, a campaign telephone townhall with Nebraska voters. Sasse’s spokesman verified that the reporting was accurate, but declined to answer more specific questions such as when the call happened.

During the call, a woman asked Sasse why he’s so hard on the president. The senator has been among the Republican lawmakers willing to criticize the president from time to time, but has mostly supported him and his policies.

But in the call, Sasse unleashed a torrent of criticisms at Trump.

“The way he kisses dictators’ butts. I mean, the way he ignores the Uighurs, our literal concentration camps in Xinjiang. Right now, he hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong-Kongers,” Sasse said.

“The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor,” Sasse continued. “The ways I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending; I’ve criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists.”

Trump refused to condemn white supremacists and militia members in presidential debate marked by disputes over race

This appears to be the most brutal assessment of the president from a sitting GOP lawmaker, echoing many of the charges against Trump from the left. While some Republicans who have left Congress and now speak out against Trump claim many of their ex-colleagues privately feel the same, no one has gone this far in denouncing the president.

A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sasse’s spokesman, James Wegmann, in confirming the authenticity of the call, defended his boss as being focused solely on the Senate races to ensure Republicans maintain the majority.

“I don’t know how many more times we can shout this: Even though the Beltway is obsessing exclusively about the presidential race, control of the Senate is ten times more important,” Wegmann said. “The fragile Senate seats that will determine whether Democrats nuke the Senate are the races Ben cares about, the races he’s working on, and the only races he’s talking about.”

Sasse said on the call that he fears Trump’s “stupid political obsessions” and “rage tweeting” will drive voters away.

Wegmann did not respond when asked if Sasse intends to vote for Trump next month.

Sasse is up for reelection this year, and is expected to easily win in his GOP-leaning state. The greater concern for Sasse was a serious primary challenge from the right in the spring. His opponent focused on Sasse’s previous critiques of Trump, which Sasse toned down as a result. Trump endorsed Sasse in September 2019.

The senator had admonished Trump early in 2016 when he was seeking the GOP nomination, saying he would vote for a third-party candidate. Earlier this year, however, Sasse voted to acquit Trump on two impeachment charges.

But relations between them have frayed lately. Sasse began criticizing the president again after handily winning his GOP primary. In August, Trump reacted strongly to Sasse’s objection to the president approving coronavirus relief aid by executive order.

“RINO Ben Sasse, who needed my support and endorsement in order to get the Republican nomination for Senate from the GREAT State of Nebraska, has, now that he’s got it (Thank you President T), gone rogue, again. This foolishness plays right into the hands of the Radical Left Dems!” Trump tweeted.

The senator also criticized the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic on the call. While he came to Trump’s “partial defense,” by accusing the news media of wanting to use the public health crisis against the president, he said Trump has mishandled it from the beginning.

“But the reality is that he careened from curb to curb. First, he ignored covid. And then he went into full economic shutdown mode,” Sasse said. “He was the one who said 10 to 14 days of shutdown would fix this. And that was always wrong. I mean, and so I don’t think the way he’s led through covid has been reasonable or responsible, or right.”

No need for a coup when you can retain power "legally".

Voting against Trump is not necessarily voting for Biden. It's the "lesser of evil" trap we are put in every four years. Though I don't always do it, sometimes voting Green instead, defeating the over-the-top brutal authoritarianism of Trump is the right thing to do tactically even as progressives organize to push and oppose him on issues vital to us.  At the same time, I found it interesting that the Socialist Party has united with the Greens in support of Howie Hawkins. Though, in my opinion, the timing is bad given the threat posed by the extreme-right, I am encouraged by this rare example of left unity.