SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

The Bourgeoisie
by Roque Dalton

Those who produce liquor
and then say it's not necessary to increase the salary
of the peasants
because they're going to spend it all on booze.

Those who speak with their families
exclusively in English
amidst Dubuffet paintings and Bohemian crystal
life-sife photographs
of mares brought back from Kentucky and Vienna
and charge us daily in sweat and blood
for their painful routine awakening
in this land of dirty Indians
so far from New York and Paris.

Those who've understood, that if one looks

Open Letter to Messieurs J. Richard, Jules Claretie, Rene Viviani, and other French Journalists
by Maxim Gorky

Dear Sirs,

I have acquainted myself with the Fountains of eloquence that gushed from your inkwells, prompted by my article on the loan granted by the government and financiers of France to Nicholas Romanov for the institution in Russia of bloody reprisals, courts-martial and every imaginable atrocity. I have acquainted myself with the objections you level at me and—I don’t congratulate you!

Risk Analysis
by Mario Benedetti

Every time a landowner
declares
they'll have to take
this property
over my dead body
he should keep in mind that
somebody just might
do it.

Liberation:

Risk Analysis - Mario Benedetti.pdf

This play (55pgs) by Bertolt Brecht is about the subservience of education to the demands and interests of the upper classes, using as a metaphor a german tutor to the nobility during the 1700's. And as the main character points out at the beginning of the play, just as previously tutors, teachers, and professors were subservient to the nobility, now they are subservient to the bourgeois, and on the whole make sure to teach what they want them to. It also shows how some students' opposition to the mainstream, and rebellion against authority, is easily overcome when they want a job as a teacher or professor: then they have no problem teaching what the ruling classes want them to and selling out. And if a teacher does rebel or go against the mainstream of things, the upper classes try to cut them down to size and make them miserable so that they submit and teach their students the crap that other teachers teach their students.

The Bureaucrats
by Roque Dalton

The bureaucrats swim in a stormy sea of boredom.

Behind their hideous yawns they're the first to murder tenderness
they end up with sick livers and die clutching the telephone
their yellow eyes pinned to the clock.

They have exquisite handwriting and buy themselves neckties
they suffer strokes when they find out that their daughters masturbate
they owe their tailor bill they're barflies
they read the Reader's Digest and Neruda's love poems
they attend the Italian opera they bless themselves

This play (59pg) by Maxim Gorky is an attack on hypocrisy, with the “Old Man” representing religious hypocrisy, and “Ivan Mastakov” representing bourgeoisie hypocrisy, although he is also quite hypocritical religiously. It also points out how scared the bourgeois is of scandals, and how much they are illogically bound to “appearances” and the way they are viewed in society. Notice, for instance, that Mastakov's religiosity and fake “generosity” is due more to his idiotic bourgeois superstitions and vanity than anything else, since he feels that he is living a lie, which he is, and that he needs to “atone” for this. But the very fact that he is ashamed of the thing he is hiding is itself idiotic, and says a lot about what kind of person he is, i.e. a typical bourgeois hypocrite who only turns to religion and charity for selfish reasons, and who is unreasonably afraid of his own shadow when it comes to the rest of bourgeois society.

This is a very short, one act play by Bertolt Brecht, and it is about prostitution. Brecht basically mocks and satirizes bourgeois hypocrisy in regards to prostitution, i.e., the bourgeoisie are the biggest public critics of prostitution, and use the most moralizing and idiotic arguments against it, while at the same time being the ones who ran/run brothels, and who have always been the main “clients” of prostitution. Of course we, as socialists, feminists, and decent fucking human beings, should be against prostitution, but NEVER should we use the same kind of moralizing (and most often religious bullshit is included) as the hypocritical bourgeoisie, nor should we EVER put ANY of the blame on the working women themselves, who are exploited brutally, and as is mentioned in this play, are often infected with sexually transmitted diseases by the pieces of shit who defile them. Anyway, enjoy the play comrades:

Liberation:

This short story by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is an excellent example of a piece of literature being used as a political tool to attack and criticize current events, and also the class motives behind the current events one is criticizing, and yet Achebe does NOT abandon his eloquence or turn this story into an uninteresting and shallow political work.

I found this short story of Gogol's almost by mistake, but it really is a very interesting story and it's subject is perfect for this blog. In it Gogol describes two types of artists: one type, by far the most prevalent, is that of the begging artists, artists who callously sell themselves to the bourgeois and the prevailing order in order to gain money and fame. The second type of artist, the type of artists this blog is focused on, have principles and stick to them. They do not seek fame, nor money, they are happy to be able to feed themselves and be given time to work on their art. They do not try to cosy up to the rotten bourgeois, instead they stick to their principles with no regard to those "artists" and "critics" who may think that their style or subject is not appropriate or suitable or "good" art.

Enjoy another short satirical sketch by Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek. This sketch criticizes charitable organizations, which more often work for profit (to be used for high salaries of it's employees) and to gain positive attention for their founders. And charity in the end is no solution, it will never get rid of poverty, imperialism, racism, sexism, or homophobia, only a socialist revolution will do that. Anyway, enjoy comrades:

Liberation:

Mr. Kauble's Donation - Jaroslav Hasek.pdf