CLASS ANALYSIS

RAINER SHEA—The staggering selfishness that these petty tyrants showed when Stalin tried to make their resources available to a desperate populace-with many of the kulaks having burned their supplies rather than share it-is also ignored by bourgeois commentators who see the kulaks as victims. From a capitalist perspective, taking away someone’s means for exploiting the proletariat is a heinous crime, and the kulaks were only defending themselves.

ALVARO GARCIA LINERA—Over several weeks, the police had shown great incompetence and neglect of their duty to protect the ordinary people whom fascistic gangs threatened with beatings and persecution. But since last Friday — refusing to recognize their civilian command — many of these same police have shown an extraordinary capacity for attacking, detaining, torturing, and killing protesters from the popular classes. Of course, in the earlier [anti-Morales] protests, it had been a matter of reining in the children of the middle classes — and the police were supposedly powerless to react.

“Who said demonstrations are appeasing? Piñera seeks to shield the institutional and economic neoliberal model. He cracks down on [citizens] and keeps on legislating ​​​​​​​indoors accompanied by an ‘opposition’ which does not represent the ​​​​​​​protesting people. The request is clear: he must either call a constituent assembly or resign.” At the El Mercurio interview, the right-wing president very cautiously acknowledged that the Army and the Police had committed abuses against civilians.

PAUL MITCHELL—What it is, at heart, however, is a superficial, rose-tinted soap opera that adds up to a crude distortion of history. It is a far cry from the reality—profoundly, extensively and subtly criticised by many socialists and artists who lived during the period. The series reflects the protracted decline of drama production and culture generally, the turn away from any interest or engagement with great social problems and the conditions of wide layers of the population.

JASON MOORE—Humans, and human organizations, are obviously distinct from the environments in which they evolve; they are also products of those environments. This is why I’ve underscored the concept of environment-making as central to rethinking history (Moore 2015a): we make environments and the environments make us (Lewontin and Levins 1997). The web of life is obviously larger than any one species. It operates – if that is the right word – relatively independently of humans. (Just as capitalism operates relatively independently of any firm or empire or even class.)