Adrian Cousins (adycousins)'s Public Profile in the Diigo Community

Member since Jul 12, 2009, follows 5 people, 0 public groups, 50 public bookmarks (51 total).

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Recent Bookmarks and Annotations

Brian Pearce: Building the Bolshevik Party (1960) on 2009-10-06
- Following the Congress, those delegates ‘who belonged to the late “Bolshevik” faction’, issued (May 1906), an appeal to the party membership in which they declared: ‘We must and shall fight ideologically against those decisions of the Congress which we regard as erroneous. But at the same time we declare that we are opposed to a split of any kind’. To work for another congress with a Bolshevik majority, Lenin and his associates formed a secret factional centre – what Zinoviev called ‘an organization which was doubly illegal: in relation to the Tsarist regime and in relation to the Mensheviks’. Those total party committees which had Bolshevik majorities sponsored a paper called Proletary, and the editorial board of this paper functioned as the leadership of the Bolshevik ‘double underground’.
Lenin: 1905/reorganisation of the Party on 2009-10-06
- t will be necessary
  in very many cases to start “from the beginning”, to prove
  to large sections of new Party comrades the importance of a consistent
  Social-Democratic programme, Social-Democratic tactics and organisation. We must
  not
  
  
  
  forget that so far we have had to deal too often only with revolutionaries
  coming from a particular social stratum, whereas now we shall have to deal
  with typical representatives of the masses. This change calls for a
  change not only in the methods of propaganda and agitation (a more popular
  style, ability to present a question, to explain the basic truths of
  socialism in the simplest, clearest and most convincing manner), but also
  in organisation.
- it is necessary for all comrades to devise new
  forms of organisation by their independent, creative joint efforts. It is
  impossible to lay down any predetermined standards for this, for we are working in an
  entirely new field: a knowledge of local conditions, and above all the
  initiative of all Party members must be brought into play. The new form
  of organisation, or rather the new form of the basic organisational nucleus of
  the workers’ party, must be definitely much broader than were the old
  circles. Apart from this, the new nucleus will most likely have to be a less
  rigid, more “free”, more “loose” (lose)
  organisation.
- 2 more annotations...
- - It is high time, furthermore, to take steps to establish local economic strong
    points, so to speak, for the workers’ Social-Democratic organisations—in
    the form of restaurants, tea-rooms, beer-halls, libraries, reading-rooms,
    shooting
    
    galleries,^[1]
    
    etc., etc., maintained by Party members.
  - Our
    task now is not so much to invent rules for organising
    
    
    
    on new lines, as to develop the most far-reaching and courageous work which
    will enable us at the Fourth Congress to sum up and set down the data obtained
    from the experience of the Party.
Lenin: 1905/reorg: I on 2009-10-06
- The working class is instinctively,
  spontaneously Social-Democratic,
Consumer Reports WebWatch Investigations: Web Credibility: How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility? on 2009-10-06
Education – FREE Education information | Encyclopedia.com: Find Education research on 2009-09-15
- The better access to education in urban areas is reflected in literacy statistics. The literacy rate among the urban population (over age nine) was roughly 21 percent in 1797 (29% of men, 12% of women); 40 percent in 1847 (50% of men, 28% of women); 58 percent in 1897; and 70 percent in 1917 (80% of men, 61% of women). In rural areas, the literacy rate was 6 percent in 1797 (6% of men, 5% of women); 12 percent in 1847 (16% of men, 9% of women); 26 percent in 1897; and 38 percent in 1917 (53% of men, 23% of women).
Lenin: Party Organisation and Party Literature on 2009-09-15
Lenin's What Is To Be Done?: The 'Plan' For an All-Russia Political Newspaper on 2009-09-15
- I continue to insist that we can start
  establishing real contacts only with the aid of a common
  newspaper, as the only regular, all-Russia enterprise, one which
  will summarise the results of the most diverse forms of activity
  and thereby stimulate people to march forward untiringly along
  all the innumerable paths leading to revolution, in the same way
  as all roads lead to Rome.
- If we do not want unity in name only,
  we must arrange for all local study circles immediately to
  assign, say, a fourth of their forces to active work for the
  common cause, and the newspaper will immediately convey to
  them^[9]
  
  ^[9]
  A reservation: that is, if a given study circle sympathises
  with the policy of the newspaper and considers it useful to
  become a collaborator, meaning by that, not only for literary
  collaboration, but for revolutionary collaboration
  generally. Note for Rabocheye Dyelo: Among
  revolutionaries who attach value to the cause and not to playing
  at democracy, who do not separate “sympathy” from the most
  active and lively participation, this reservation is taken for
  granted.—Lenin
  
  the general design, scope, and character of the cause; it will give
  them a precise indication of the most keenly felt shortcomings
  in the all-Russia activity, where agitation is lacking and
  contacts are weak, and it will point out which little wheels in
  the vast general mechanism a given study circle might repair or
  
  
  
  replace with better ones. A study circle that has not yet begun
  to work, but which is only just seeking activity, could then
  start, not like a craftsman in an isolated little workshop
  unaware of the earlier development in “industry” or of the
  general level of production methods prevailing in industry, but
  as a participant in an extensive enterprise that reflects the
  whole general revolutionary attack on the autocracy. The more
  perfect the finish of each little wheel and the larger the
  number of detail workers engaged in the common cause, the closer
  will our network become and the less will be the disorder in the
  ranks consequent on inevitable police, raids.
- 4 more annotations...
- - Those who make nation-wide political agitation the cornerstone
    of their programme, their tactics, and their organisational
    work, as Iskra does, stand the least risk of missing
    the revolution. The people who are now engaged throughout Russia
    in weaving the network of connections that spread from the
    all-Russia newspaper not only did not miss the spring events, but,
    on the contrary, gave us an opportunity to foretell them. Nor did
    they miss the demonstrations that were described in Iskra,
    Nos. 13 and 14; on the contrary, they took part in
    them, clearly realising that it was their duty to come to the aid
    of the spontaneously rising masses and, at the same time, through
    the medium of the newspaper, help all the comrades in Russia to
    inform themselves of the demonstrations and to make use of their
    gathered experience. And if they live they will not miss
    the revolution, which, first and foremost, will demand of us
    experience in agitation, ability to support (in a
    Social-Democratic manner) every protest, as well as direct the
    spontaneous movement, while safeguarding it from the mistakes of
    friends and the traps of enemies.
  - The organisation, which will
    form round this newspaper, the organisation of its
    collaborators (in the broad sense of the word, i.e., all
    those working for it), will be ready for
    
    
    
    everything, from
    upholding the honour, the prestige, and the continuity of the
    Party in periods of acute revolutionary “depression” to preparing
    for, appointing the time for, and carrying out the nation-wide
    armed uprising.
  - On the other hand, picture to yourselves a popular
    uprising. Probably everyone will now agree that we must think of
    this and prepare for it. But how? Surely the Central Committee
    cannot appoint agents to all localities for the purpose of
    preparing the uprising. Even if we had a Central Committee, it
    could achieve absolutely nothing by such appointments under
    present-day Russian conditions. But a network of agents^[13] that
    would form in the course of establishing and distributing the
    common newspaper would not have to “sit about and wait” for the
    call for an uprising, but could carry on the regular activity that
    would guarantee the highest probability of success in the event of
    
    
    
    an uprising. Such activity would strengthen our contacts with the
    broadest strata of the working masses and with all social strata
    that are discontented with the autocracy, which is of such
    importance for an uprising. Precisely such activity would serve to
    cultivate the ability to estimate correctly the general political
    situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper
    moment for an uprising. Precisely such activity would train all
    local organisations to respond simultaneously to the same
    political questions, incidents, and events that agitate the whole
    of Russia and to react to such “incidents” in the most vigorous,
    uniform, and expedient manner possible; for an uprising is in
    essence the most vigorous, most uniform, and most expedient
    “answer” of the entire people to the government.
  - Alas, alas! Again I have let slip that awful word “agents”,
    which jars so much on the democratic cars of the Martynovs! I
    wonder why this word did not offend the heroes of the seventies
    and yet off ends the amateurs of the nineties? I like the word,
    because it clearly and trenchantly indicates the common
    cause to which all the agents bend their thoughts and
    actions, and if I had to replace this word by another, the only
    word I might select would be the word “collaborator”, if it did
    not suggest a certain bookishness and vagueness. The thing we
    need is a military organisation of agents. However, the numerous
    Martynovs (particularly abroad), whose favourite pastime is
    “mutual grants of generalships to one another”, may instead of
    saying “passport agent” prefer to say, “Chief of the Special
    Department for Supplying Revolutionaries with
    Passports”. etc.—Lenin
YouTube - Das Kapital Volume 3 - Brendan Mcooney on 2009-09-14
YouTube - Annenberg Networks Network Theory Seminar: John Arquilla on 2009-09-13
Networks and Netwar: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy on 2009-09-13
- Criminal, terrorist and social activist organizations will be most effective if they develop networking capabilities that are attuned to the information age. Civil society organizations have been successful in using the Internet to disseminate information that furthers their ethics-based agendas, while "netwarriors" have used highly-interconnected organizational and communication networks for the purposes of war, crime or terror.