[lbo-talk] Re: theism, atheism and dont give a fuckism

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 1 14:15:37 PDT 2005


--- Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com> wrote: by Gilbert Achcar
>...Trotsky tirelessly defended the same principles.
In The Third International After Lenin (1928), in his polemic about alliances with the Chinese Kuomintang, he wrote the following lines particularly apt for the subject under discussion here: --

Incidentally, I am becoming convinced that Trotsky's most enduring legacy is getting English-speaking leftist cults to speak in bad literal translations of Russian phrases. E.g. "Soviet power," as in "Soviet power having been established, proletarian freedom reigned throughout the land" or whatever. This is a literal translation of "Sovetskaya vlast'." "Vlast'" means either "power" or "government," depending upon the context, but almost always means the latter. "Sovet" means "council" or "advice." Translating "Sovetskaya vlast'" as "Soviet power" is lame. What it really means is "government of councils."

Ditto this "Hands Off So-and-So!" stuff. It's a literal translation of "Ruki Proch' ot So-and-So!", which is a common Russian expression, as in the recent protests against educational reform in Latvia, when thousands of schoolkids were holding signs saying "Ruki Proch' ot Russkikh Shkol!", "Hand Off Russian Schools!" Maybe it's only me, but I think it sounds really silly in English. Trotskyists have no originality whatsoever.

Nu, zayats, pogodi!

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list