I wanted to suggest this movie after hearing a whole bunch of your other reactions and thinking you might be receptive to hearing more about the Historical Leftist movements and such. First of all, you don’t have to be a Marxist to be a leftist, but one also must know the length of the influence Marx had on social sciences and economics. Even the Germans who invented Social-Democracy were heavily influenced by Marx(a Republican sees this and automatically thinks - COMMUNISM! LOL) and his critics on Capitalism. Even authors who oppose Marx in academia recognize him as the greatest contribution in analyzing and critiquing mercantilist capitalism and further development into industrial capitalism.
I’m aware that in the US Marx was largely slandered and most people don’t even know anything about him and even less about his writings. This movie can be an invitation for you and anybody who’s interested to know more about international worker’s organizations and contribute to the worker’s struggle all around the world.
06:00 - These guys shown here were the so-called Young Hegelians, who were in essence, the left-wing of the hegelian dialectics back then. Most of these guys in this room would become the most famous and influential German thinkers of their day. The blonde guy who said was sick of Marx's arrogance was Bruno Bauer, who later would be a political opponent of him.
28:15 - These guys are Prodhon and Bakunin, probably the most influential anarchist thinkers of all time. Bakunin later became a political opponent of Marx as well. The modern rupture between the left is born between anarchists and communists and most of the discussions we have inside leftist parties are still very influenced by discussions related to the problems between anarchist-socialist-communist ideals who fight for protagonism in the mainstream leftist discourse.
32:18 - Feuerbach is one hell of a German philosopher. He wrote extensively about atheism and humanism and was a major influence on Marx and Engels.
36:57 - From the letters between Marx and Engels(we have access to a huge file of Marx's letters, especially with Engels), we know they communicated with each other in German, French and sometimes in English. So it was a beautiful easter egg they placed in this movie with Marx and Engels switching between French and German when talking together. French back then was the language most intellectuals and philosophers would use to talk to each other, more or less like English is today.
39:10 - You just described how the academia mindset of people actually works. Most of the time you're dealing with some asshole like uppity people, but you have to ignore that and look at people's actual work and judge them based on that.
45:00 - Yeah, man. Everytime someone says ignorance or lack of education is something positive, that should be a big red flag for everybody, but it's incredible how people can push these kinds of narratives(like anti-vaxxing) and still galvanize people.
47:30 - The major influences for Marx were the French utopian Socialists(Like Rousseau, for example), Hegelian Philosophy and then, the English Liberal Economists. Marx would later make a career of criticizing the capitalist liberal system, but not at all defaming the English Liberal authors, whose work he had most respect for.
49:46 - I say Unionize!
53:07 - The so-called Berlin Socialists were the Socialists who then had kind of a moralist and vague idea of a utopian society without greed, based on the christian virtues of charity and other stuff like that. Marx proposed a materialist approach, pointing that a change in the economic system that offered the workers the means of producing wealth was a more objective solution. I'm simplifying everything the best I can to fit a Patreon comment. One could spend all their life studying Marxian and Marxist socioeconomics and still have debates about stuff.
1:07:39 - Oh, yes. That's something the mainstream left has been having to deal with since the cold war. Even moderate reforms that favor the workers somehow are already interpreted as something "far-left". Even in countries like Mexico, France, Brazil, Spain, that have a long socialist tradition, we feel this heavily. Brazil has been leaning to the moderate right-wing ever since the military dictatorship left power. But what about Lula and the Workers Party long run in the Federal Government in Brazil? That's the thing. We had our chance in 2002, elected the president of the Worker's Party to be President, but the dude acted like a total moderate leftist, who was happy to make some reforms here and there that helped the workers, but far from achieving real change in the system. Sometimes I get the feeling Lula left the same bad taste in some people's mouth, like Obama did, in some regards. The man achieved a lot, but also betrayed many of the agenda that made his political history. But also, I’m someone who recognizes that real progress can be made through reforms. We have extensive historical examples of how reforms can make actual progress in the worker’s struggle. And especially in the current days we live where real Socialism is in its worst phase ever since 1850. China has their scumbag tendencies and can’t be trusted(like the US can’t be trusted, IMO), but they have undeniable advances getting rid of hunger and elevating standards of living in China, something I have the utmost respect for.
1:15:42 - Hah, that old German antisemitism. I'm also a descendant of converted Jews, like Marx, but in this case, Sephardi Portuguese Jews escaping the inquisition in Portugal. And the thing is, both in Portugal, Spain or their colonies, they had legislation that made clear that converted jews were not full citizens, but a subclass of people. I’m pretty sure my ancestors lived as “secret” full Christians, meaning they didn’t reveal their Jewish heritage, from the research I could make on this subject. They even had a legal name for Converted Jews in Spanish/Portuguese, the translation would be like New-Christian(Novo-Cristão).
1:21:52 - The man had a doctorate in the Berlin University, the best of their time, spoke multiple languages, was one of the biggest intellectuals at the time, but had terrible handwriting. This scene hits kinda hard for me in Brazil right now. Since Dilma was removed from office and this new situation took power, the government is cutting huge amounts of the public Universities(who are the major scientific force in Brazil) funds, which means the scientists, researchers and intellectuals in Brazil are literally having their grants, scholarships and funds all being cut since 2017. I had friends who had doctorate degrees, were highly specialized scientists having to go to the market to work menial jobs and sometimes even being rejected by the market for not having the required skill set some jobs have. It's not a blow to menial jobs, but your life kinda looks senseless after studying/researching for 15+ years and having to start again in a whole new job/career and earning minimum wage after so much work.
1:23:46 - He had four daughters in total, Laura was the second. Laura was like a major socialist activist of her day and was responsible for making many of Marx's letters available to the public.
1:46:20 - This is something Marxists have to keep making a point to the other leftist tendencies all over the globe. Many times people try to reduce what is being a leftist to a vague idea of being favorable to the poor and reject social sciences as a valid reference to solutions in the political system, which is crazy, since social sciences is a field that allows extensive scientific research. That idea from the guy in the League of the Justs is something present in unions and worker's associations to this day. "We don't need eggheads telling us what to do" kind of mentality, which I personally compare to anti-vaxxer people who just make a point in not believing in something proven beyond their capabilities of questioning.
2:10:18 - Marx and Engels were contemporary in the US Civil War, so they wrote extensively about it. You can take a look if you're interested.
If anyone is interested in reading more about Marx, Marxian economics or Marxism, I heavily recommend the: https://www.marxists.org/
Also, other contents that may be of interest for you and the public.
The Communist Manifesto, like shown in the movie. This was meant to be a small book to be given to workers at factories that would try to synthesize all Marx and Engels studies on economics, political economy, philosophy and their influences. It's considered to be the most important document in modern history, given its implications and historical events linked to it. It's easy reading and I dare to say even if you think you'll disagree, you'll find yourself agreeing with key points in there. Strongly recommend it to anyone, especially someone who's leftist and interested in knowing more about it.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
Marx's diverse writings and articles about the US Civil War, some of them published in US papers of the time.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/
History of Socialism in the US(US had a considerable base of socialists around WW1), also there's excellent material about the Black Panthers(who were of Socialist/Communist inspiration). Black Panthers seem to be so respected in the US, even by some moderate right-wingers. How do regular people see this Socialist influence on the Panthers in the US? I'm actually curious.
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/index.htm
The website is freaking huge and you could spend an entire lifetime of research in there, go from Bachelor Degree to Doctorate, everything 100% free.
That was a long ass comment, I tried to keep it short as much as I could, but there was much to be said.
