Difference between revisions of "Leftist"
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The term '''Leftist''' refers to someone on the 'left' side of the [[political spectrum]]. Politics on the 'left' usually imply challenging the traditional system of a society, by people who believe their economic interests, or personal values, or political rights are not supported by the traditional ruling institutions. Of course, it is obvious that there is not just one dimension of political thought, so that people can unambiguously be classified as 'right' or 'left'. Nonetheless, the left/right description of the [[political spectrum theory]] still has wide currency. The word 'liberal' is often used in the US to mean 'leftist'. But this is inconsistent with the original meaning of the word [[liberal]]. | The term '''Leftist''' refers to someone on the 'left' side of the [[political spectrum]]. Politics on the 'left' usually imply challenging the traditional system of a society, by people who believe their economic interests, or personal values, or political rights are not supported by the traditional ruling institutions. Of course, it is obvious that there is not just one dimension of political thought, so that people can unambiguously be classified as 'right' or 'left'. Nonetheless, the left/right description of the [[political spectrum theory]] still has wide currency. The word 'liberal' is often used in the US to mean 'leftist'. But this is inconsistent with the original meaning of the word [[liberal]]. | ||
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| + | The word 'liberal' is often used in the US to mean 'leftist'. But this is inconsistent with the original meaning of the word [[liberal]]. | ||
==Conservative facts== | ==Conservative facts== | ||
Revision as of 04:35, May 11, 2007
The term Leftist refers to someone on the 'left' side of the political spectrum. Politics on the 'left' usually imply challenging the traditional system of a society, by people who believe their economic interests, or personal values, or political rights are not supported by the traditional ruling institutions. Of course, it is obvious that there is not just one dimension of political thought, so that people can unambiguously be classified as 'right' or 'left'. Nonetheless, the left/right description of the political spectrum theory still has wide currency. The word 'liberal' is often used in the US to mean 'leftist'. But this is inconsistent with the original meaning of the word liberal.
The word 'liberal' is often used in the US to mean 'leftist'. But this is inconsistent with the original meaning of the word liberal.
Conservative facts
During the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, the left attempted a dechristianization movement to replace the "reactionary" worship of God and replace it with the worship of national patriotism, or the Patrie. Many churches were closed and converted into Temples of Reason. [1]
Michael Bakunin critiqued prominent leftist theoritician Karl Marx in 1873 with these words,
- "..if the proletariat is to be the ruling class, over whom is it to rule? ...the peasant "rabble" who, as it is known, does not enjoy the sympathy of the Marxists who consider it to represent a lower level of culture, will probably be ruled by the factory proletariat of the cities. Or, if this problem is to be approached nationalistically, the Slavs will be placed in the same subordinate relationship to the victorious German proletariat in which the latter now stands to the German bourgeoisie." [2]
References
External links
- V. I. Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.