Rev Left Radio - Building a People's Art: Vietnam, Socialist Realism and Cultural Revolution

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Ruehl Muller joins Breht to discuss his upcoming book, put out by Iskra Books, titled "Building a People's Art: Selected Works of Trường Chinh and Tố Hữu". Together, they discuss Vietnamese Socialist Realism, Maoist China, Cultural Revolution, dialectics, the death drive, fascism in Germany and Israel, New Democracy, and much more! Find this book, stay up to date on all releases, get into contact with Ruehl, and so much here at www.iskrabooks.org Outro Song: "Opening Salvo" by Blue Scholars --------------------------------   Rev Left is and always will be 100% listener funded, you can support the show and get access to hundreds of bonus episode in our back catologue on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio   Follow Rev Left on Insta

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, we have on Rule Mueller to talk about building a people's art, a work that he's put together, a collection of essays by Chongqing and Tohue, basically on the cultural front of the Vietnamese Revolution, talking about socialist realism, the importance of cultural revolution, how it manifested in Vietnam, the influences from Mao and China, the influence of the concept of new democracy. We get into psychoanalysis, we get into Marxism, we talk a little Buddhism even. So just a really fascinating, wide-ranging conversation, but centered on the manifestation

of socialist realism, socialist realist art in Vietnam during their revolution and the role that it played in the broader cultural revolution of that of that country so just yeah wonderful wonderful conversation can't recommend it enough check it out and the wonderful thing about the book put out by the comrades over at Iskra

is that they have a free copy for those who can't afford it I recommend if you can't afford it of course supporting this work because one of the cool things about it is that there are over 90 pieces of art in the book itself that have never been

published before. So you get you get not only the book, not only the intellectual stimulation, the cultural theory, etc., but you also get over 90 pieces of first ever published socialist realist art, which I think is fascinating and was one of the most interesting things about the book and in my reading of it. So yeah, if you like what we do here at RevLeft Radio, I also want to let people know that you can join and support our Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash RevLeft Radio. It's a wonderful and deeply important way to support the show we are always have been and always will be 100% listener funded we never advertise we don't have any sponsors that's the nature of what we talk about

and what we cover here on rev left but if you like what we do and you want to support the show that's a great way to do it and in exchange not only do you get bonus episodes every month but you get access to now we've been doing this for over seven years you get access to over 300 bonus episodes in our back catalog so if if you're a fan of the show. If you think $5 a month is worth the support, you also get that in exchange, and we deeply appreciate it. It really goes to support me and producer David's families. Both of us have children. These are hard times. We work really hard on this podcast, and people that get anything out of it and have the disposable income. I know times are tough that you could set

aside $5 a month. It goes a long way, and we really appreciate it. All right, without further ado, here's my conversation with Rule on his book, Building of People's Art. Enjoy it. Okay. Hey, everyone. Thank you for having me. It's like a really full opportunity to be here with you guys. And to talk about this stuff. My name is Ruhlmuller. I mean, as you can hear from the horrendous accent, I'm from South Africa. But I live between China and Vietnam, which makes life quite interesting. I am a senior lecturer at the Institute for Creativity and Innovation, which is at Sherman University in China. And my research tends to focus on the contemporary African and Southeast Asian domestication

or socialist realism in the plastic arts. Well, yeah, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure and an honor to have you on. The book we're going to be talking about building a people's art was really fascinating. I really am appreciative to be able to have read it. Our mutual friend, I believe, Henry, my old co-host from Gorilla History, is the one that helped set this episode up. So shout out to Henry.

Appreciate you. But yeah, let's go ahead and get into it. And, you know, the first question, whenever I'm interviewing an author about any book, assuming that a large chunk of the audience have not, you know, really heard about it is just to help us orient to the book itself. So with that in mind, can you tell us a bit about the book overall and why you wanted to put together a book on this topic in particular? So obviously with my background in the arts, the art has always fascinated me and being my real introduction into anything revolutionally. And I think for most people, it's the

say, I think people are generally attracted towards an aesthetic first and then they come to learn. Because you can gather a lot, you know, visuals say a whole lot more than that words take to. And so whenever I've approached these, these revolutionary spaces, I've always done it first or from an aesthetic perspective. And when it comes to Vietnam, we especially in English we have a lot of historical and political documents but not much in the way of the aesthetics of those politics and the in that history and I thought that there really was a lack in that regard especially amongst the English speaking audience I mean like if you think about it I honestly don't know what what there is in English other than you know how to me I think

that that's the only text that have escaped Vietnam in any other language. So it was really important for me as well to bring these other figures, you know, who were of almost of as equal importance in like their respective fields and to let their voices be heard as well. Absolutely. Now, before we move on, I'm just kind of curious on a personal note. You have many many travels in the area, many travels to Vietnam. I believe you're in Vietnam right now. Can you talk a little bit about your personal time in the country of Vietnam and maybe something that you find interesting or unique about it, knowing that most of the people

in the audience will not have been able to have visited Vietnam? Yeah, I've lived here for about four years now. I only very recently moved to China for the position with the university. but I still tend to live between. It's the one benefit of, you know, neighboring countries and false trades is it makes life quite manageable in that regard. In terms of living in Vietnam, so originally from South Africa, it's funny to say, but the similarities between my country and Vietnam

are way more than you would actually. expect, especially on a people level. So while obviously the culture is very different, and language is very different, and food is very different, and the weather is equally horrific. But on a social level amongst people, amongst sense of humor, amongst way people you take, it's very similar to South Africa. And I really did fall in love with it. So when I came here initially, it was all Also, I was a departmental head for an arts department at a university. And I went for that and then started falling love with Vietnam, not expecting to fall in love with it. But yeah, now, Vietnam really is a long-term plan for me. Wonderful. Yeah, maybe one day in the future I'll be able to visit.

That's a part of the world. I've never even been close to, but I'm certainly interested in, draw a lot of inspiration from in my personal life, from the political as well as the spiritual and philosophical traditions of that of Southeast Asian in general. So, yeah, really beautiful place and really cool that you are in a place where you can travel between Vietnam and China pretty freely. All right, well, let's go ahead and get more into the book itself. For those who may not know, I'm sure most people in my audience are at least somewhat familiar with the concept. But if you could help us just make sure we all understand what is socialist realism and what was the context in

which it began to manifest in a culturally distinct way within Vietnam? Yeah, that is the question. What is socialist realism? I mean, this is the entirety of my research as I try and figure this out for myself. We have a bit of a problem for when it comes to how we categorized art movements. Some will be categorized based on their geographic location. They came out of Paris. Some depends on the dates between this date and this date. Some on the artists themselves.

Some depend on the techniques that were used, the forms, but there's no real consistent way to define an art movement. And I think socialist realism is perhaps the worst of the lot in that regard. The way that I have tried to understand it is not so much as an art movement based on any specific technique or time area, but rather something that functions as almost like a frame of reference, a socialist frame of reference, where

to create socialist art, right? You need a socialist artist. To create something socialist, you need to be a socialist. Pretty logical. But there's a second layer there. Because in order to appreciate that art, the viewer themselves needs to understand it. They need to be able to comprehend what they're seeing.

You know, a painting of, a slave master beating a slave is going to be interpreted completely differently by the master, by the slave. And I mean, a fascist looking at an thing like that might be evoked by the power of the slave master, whereas the socialist would obviously see the social justice.

And so it's not so much about the artwork itself as it is about the viewer. And in order for the viewer to recognize the socialist element of the work, they themselves need to be socialist. So in a weird way, it's the production of socialists through their viewership, for lack of a better word, where it's, where socialist isn't about producing socialist artworks. It's about producing socialist viewers. And I think that that way of thinking about it has kind of helped me. But again, there really is no straightforward definition.

I mean, for most of us, if we talk about socialist realism, we tend to think about the Soviet style, you know, the really classical 1990, I suppose, when did it really kick off, 1950s, 90s, 60s style. I mean, for someone in China, they would, for thinking about socialism, they'd be more drawn to what Mao called revolutionally romanticism. So like the images of the cultural revolution, where everyone's very happy, very strong, very red, that kind of thing. So it really is different for everyone.

I mean, for Mozambique, I don't think anyone really knows this, that even Mozambique had a small little attempt at socialist realism. through wood carvings, absolutely fantastic, incredible styles, but completely different from what was happening in the Soviet Union and China and in Korea, in Vietnam, in Lao. So it's hard to categorize socialist realism as an art movement based on, you know, the artist or the time period or the techniques, because it all just varies way too much. So I think, at least for me, it's better understood as this socialist frame of reference where the aim is not to produce socialist art, but to produce socialist viewers, if that makes sense.

Absolutely, yeah, I think that's a really interesting, nuanced way to think about the art movement of socialist realism. And really beautiful, too, because it's sort of this dialectical relationship between the work itself and the viewer that makes it, part of that movement. And we know whether we're talking about socialist realism as an art movement. We're talking about socialism itself. They do have a tendency to obviously bloom differently depending on the cultural soil in which they're sprouting from. And so you do get these interesting differences when a society turns in that direction begins, you know, producing political activity in line with socialism and also often creates cultural productions of various sorts in line with socialism and it's going to take the sort of unique um the unique aspects of

that culture and its history and it's going to sort of be infused in the art itself even though the art movement isn't particular to any one given culture or history so i think that's that's really you know kind of beautiful um but can you tell us a little bit more about how it came to be a movement within vietnam itself obviously i'm i'm sure it's associated with the revolution in vietnam but can you talk a bit about that um yeah so it's socialist Socialist realism, its path into Vietnam, came via China. And it's obviously, as you've just said, you know, it really does adapt everywhere that status grows. I think Stalin, surprisingly, he wasn't very creative when it came to the arts.

I know people are going to comment before that. But he was actually quite profound when he essentially quite profound when he essentially put forward that that socialist realism should be national in form and socialist in content where basically it should encompass the existing, you know, practices when it comes to art making of the place that it's growing and the content should be solutions. We can basically just think of form as language. You know, if you're trying to imbue socialist content onto someone, the best way to do it is to do it in their language. You know, I'm not going to be able to convince you of anything if I speak Vietnamese or Chinese or Sahoy or language that you're not familiar with. So it's the same with the art route,

where that in order to put forward the socialist content, It needed to be understood. And in order for it to be understood, it needed to be in a visual language, susceptible to the people. So socialist realism made its way into Vietnam through China, specifically. We can say this with a bit of confidence,

because with Chongqing being one of the pioneers of trying to establish a cultural, You can see a lot of the influence from Mao, much more so than you see from the Soviet doctors. The interesting thing is that, now this is something that comes a lot more after this. But as we know, the relationship between Vietnam and China has always been a bit of a difficult one. You know, there's the running joke that it's the 2,000-year beef. And I mean, it really is that lot. What I will say, though, I always feel I have to defend this point,

is that while the relationship is not perfect by any means, it is the best now than perhaps it's ever been. So when we look at the beef between China and Vietnam, people are quick to say, you know, look how they don't get along. But this is the bestest Bs in the last thousand odd years. So there really is at least some positivity in that. But anyway, what happened was these talks of art and socialist realism and the creation of culture, basically.

It was essentially the buildup to the ideas that, would come to inform the cultural revolution. These ideas came down over the border. But it makes sense, you know, with Vietnam's vicinity and the local connection. But what happened is afterwards, as the relationship between Vietnam and China deteriorated again, it got very bad again, and culminating in Cambodia and the invites. Chinese invasion and all that. But at that point, there was this need to go back, essentially, in Vietnam, and basically correct, for lack of a better word, the level of Chinese influence in the arts.

So a lot of the texts, a whole bunch in the book itself, were originally, essentially, essentially, scratch of any pro-Chinese sentiment or anything that that made it seem as if the Vietnamese were overly influenced by the Chinese. And this was to establish some sense or, you know, sovereignty of authenticity, that Vietnamese socialism wasn't just a copycat of what was happening over the border. The thing that that was missed was that, sure, came over the border. but it was already evolving in a completely unique way within the country, and it was understood in a unique way. And I mean, this is where I would go so far as to say

that it was perhaps even an improved form of what had originally come over the border. So there was essentially no need to try and go back and, you know, cut the symbolical court because what was growing in Vietnam was already entirely unique and like I say, perhaps better than, or it is not better, but more successful than what was happening over the border. And this came primarily in the Vietnamese interpretations

of the terms that Mao used in these talks about art and that. Yeah, fascinating stuff, and we're definitely going to get into more of that here in a second. I just want to remind listeners that the full title of the book is Building a People's Art, selected works of Chongqing and Tohue, and so those are the two artists that you really focus on. You have this wonderful, in-depth introduction to the text, and then the rest of the text is like a not exactly alternating, but a mix of both of their theoretical essays on art and the role that it plays, and, you know, a socialist movement, etc.

So with that in mind and knowing that the book is focused on these two theoreticians, can you talk a little bit more about who they were as historical figures and why their writings are the primary focus of your text? And you can sort of take them one by one if you'd like. So obviously as the need for a cultural front was became more apparent and everything grew, there were a whole wide variety of artists. I mean, there there are, God, perhaps even hundreds, I would say, who all contribute.

But the reason that I chose Junching and to you as well specifically is they were really successful in essentially codify what this cultural front, this cultural policy, the socialist realism, albeit that, was trying to encompass. And I think basically through there, you have a much more secede, understand. So let me talk a little bit about this all kind of relation. I'll give it like a bit of a biography on them and then feed into how it manifests in these. these texts because like you said it's interspersed with with these two but it really the way that the book has been laid out is chronologically where he and you can kind of see how each one

builds on the one before it and i think that that's really important so chum ching was his original name was Gang Suanuku and he took on the student in Chongqing a whole bunch of students but the one that really was Chungche which means Long March inspired by Miles Long March So he was born

in Hattelian village in the north which is I think east of Hanoi near the Delta in the region there. And his family was quite renowned in the village for having strong Confucian roots. His grandfather was a Confucian intellectual who worked under the emperor. And this was passed on to his father as well, who was like a renowned scholar in his own right. And also a bit of an early rebel.

he was involved in a movement called the Tonka Free School movement, which also led to his arrest. So even, so Chongqing's family life was already very much set up in the forms of intellectualism, but also a sense of rebellion. And he, he learned Chinese from South at that time, essentially the language amongst intellectuals was Chunno. which is a form of Chinese. So he was able to learn this from his father, which means he was able to have access to a rather large body of knowledge

that the average village personal pheasant did not have access to. He was also, he attended, I think it was called Hengchung. I might be wrong, Tang Chung. but it was the first French-run schools for Vietnamese because obviously at this time, Vietnam was a French colony. And he attended the school and took a real interest in the French Revolution rules more than anyone else. And this interest led him to join a anti-colonial student movement,

which obviously got him in a whole heap of shit. and he was expelled and borderline arrested. So he later moved to Hanoi to complete his education at a college there where after graduating he worked for a publishing house. And it was through this publishing house that he joined the Central Propaganda Committee in around 1930. And this was really his real introduction into party. affairs. So you can also see that he also came into it from a creative standpoint, you know, coming in through the publishing house, through the propaganda. It was very much a cultural

standpoint where he entered the department as well. And again, in 1930, just soon after joining the propaganda committee, he was arrested by the French secret certain. He was caught trying to meet a member of the French Communist boy. And, yeah, he was arrested, and he was imprisoned at Huala, which is the infamous prison, the one that was later called Hanoi Hilton during the American War. He was imprisoned there and beaten and tortured. But really held his crowd. He didn't disclose any information.

or anything like this. And this garnered him a lot of respect. And in prison, he basically established and led a communist movement while writing extensively on all sorts of things, culture, or poetry, or Marxism, Leninism. And this is really where I think he began to find himself, for lack of a better one, to establish his position in the story.

struggle. And then, yeah, he was released, I think, six years later, so in 1936. And this was a really crazy time. So this was, was obviously during the Second World War now. And the French were just going all off on the Communist Party in Southeast Asia, basically arresting and assassinating as many as they could. And they were doing a fairly good job of it. And if there weren't many left in terms of leadership positions. And at this time, Chongqing basically not had to, for lack of a better word,

serve as general secretary because there was just no one else. And he conducted a whole bunch of missions and was very successful. And this is where his inner party, popularity really skyrocketed. And then in 1941, he was efficient,

elected as the Secretary General and Head of Department of Propaganda and Training. And so what happened was that around this point in time, the relationship between France and Japan, who were the two colonizers of Vietnam at the time, this was where the Second World War was coming through this catastrophic and they really became this almost this wrestling

this wrestling match between France and Japan for control of Indochina at the time and they basically attempted to wage this battle between colonizer versus colonizer through culture

where they appealed to Vietnamese culture and it became really a cultural war from both sides. So it was during this time that Hōshinin actually recognized the need for some sort of cultural initiative as well to take hold in the tussle between these two colonial powers for domination. And he basically called a small meeting together, you know, in like the backwaters of Hanoi. where they need it to discuss the potential of a cultural front. That is essentially the cultural prong of the bitmeng,

and to establish some sort of cultural policy. And that's where Chum Ching put together the outline, which is one of the first texts in the book. Now, the outline is quite funny because it's essentially the starting stages or what would be the cultural policy. But as I'm sure you saw, it really is just these super laconic bullet points. I think it was actually just menace of the meeting that were put down. And it really is these completely open-ended sentences, you know, like we need socialist realism.

But it doesn't really expect what that is or why. but nonetheless it was the first steps in the creation of something and then yeah after that the Tung Ting managed to codify this work into a speech what it's called Marxism and Vietnamese culture and that really is the much more detailed unpacking of these original elements from the outline.

And finally, there was this actual, you know, blueprint that could actually be put into action now, not just open-ended sentences. And because of this, it was essentially put on to the Vietnamese artists and was struck as almost like a decree to follow. And, I mean, you know, creative people. they really don't like being told what to do irrespective of their politics. So

it caused a lot of what would be the word dissension, I guess. That's not so bad but a lot of annoyance amongst the artists of the top. As well as a lot of confusion because they still didn't fully understand

what was expected of it. So it was I think a year or two later there was something called the debates that were held at Vithbach which was the headquarters where

basically sought to answer and clarify all these concerns and problems that the artists were having at the time and that's really where he cemented his role as someone in this whole culture front because he

was essentially before that not really known as much more than a poet a very good poet who was called like the great social socialist poet but a poet nonetheless but this was really where he

showed that he had the potential to take on a leadership role within a cultural front as well I mean he had an interesting backstory as well so he started writing poetry super, super young as a kid. He joined the party at 19, I think, and almost immediately after joining, he was arrested by the

French, and like Junching, he was imprisoned and tortured. But he managed to escape sometime around 1942, where he rejoined the party and became chairman, I believe chairman of the Huea insurrection committee, which was after the August Revolution and then he he later served as the secretary of the party committee but he led the Department of Propaganda and Training as well as the art and literature department basically overseeing all the literature and art affairs that were happening in VIPAA and then obviously himself became deputy secretary general of the Vietnam Arts and Culture Association in I think 48th

the Vietnamese Art and Cultural Association, basically being the cultural triangle, the fifth man. So you can see how their stories basically builds on what was originally this really scarce outline or not entirely tangible points and how each step of the way they were able to codify it better and add on and more succinctly explain what was. needed. And I think that's that's the quite a nice thing of the book is as you read more and more and more, it starts beginning to make much more sense rather than everything just being

upfront. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the chronological nature of the essays and their formatting definitely leads to that sort of sense that, as you said, of a building upon the previous thing and sort of working through the details as you go, which is fascinating. And so is the concept of, you know, the culture and cultural production as a legitimate terrain of struggle. You know, these vying colonial imperialist powers trying to do that same thing. And then Vietnam from the bottom up, the revolutionary forces decide that this is a really important cultural front to have to fight on and have to work that out in real time and put culture as a part of the national liberation struggle I think is really fascinating and, of course, important because for people who are

interested in revolution who are interested in building a better world, this notion of a cultural revolution and the cultural terrain as a front of struggle, I think remains incredibly, incredibly important. So now that we have some idea about the background of the people featured in the book and some of the historical background of how this entire movement came to be, let's talk a little bit more about the specifics. So in On New Democracy, Mao argued a new democracy encompassed a new culture, with three aspects emphasized, national, scientific, and mass culture. Ching and Hugh extended these three principles into their unique cultural historical context to guide their Vietnamese socialist realism, namely Vietnamization, scientification, and massification.

So let's take these one by one and kind of explain them and talk about how they influenced Vietnamese socialist realism theory and practice. First, can you kind of explain what Vietnamization is? Yeah. So this is definitely the most difficult one. As you can see, so these were the three principles that were laid out by Chung-Chic that would basically designate what Vietnamese socialist realism is. These three principles, it wasn't like a this one and-or kind of relationship. He called them three links of a chain, where

that they all depended on each other. It was either all or nothing, basically. And you can see how Vietnamization, scientification, and massification come from exactly like you said, Mao's new democracy where he emphasized national scientific and mass culture. I suppose just to briefly explain

the new democracy part. I think most listeners will already know. But it's kind of like a Marxist centralism that sought to fight against Western representative parliamentary democracy because it viewed it as almost like an instrument for fostering bourgeoisie, basically, to take through the manufacturing of consent. And I mean, looking at your politics now, I think he was right there. Absolutely. It's spot on. But I mean, sorry, just on that note, I read today that this is the first, that your election now that Biden is out, blessing.

This is the first time since the 70s that there isn't a Biden, Clinton, or Bush in the election. Yeah, sickening, sickening. But anyway, but I suppose the more important. thing with this new democracy idea, was that it also opposed, or not really opposed, but was contrary to Marx's prediction that capitalism would follow independence from a colonial power. Mao basically thought that it was possible to jump straight into socialism by establishing a unfortunate but necessary like coalition

basically that encompassed the proletariat and the peasantry but also the pefi bourgeoisie and the national bourgeois and then this this whole group under the leadership of the working class could oppose the ruling order

and that every colonial semi-colonial country would follow this path and so obviously you can see why that was the path that Vietnam went for because it really fitted their semi-colonial country at the time.

But yeah, so all those three principles, Fiatanization, scientific and massification, the most complicated one, I think, is definitely Vietnamization. And this is very much

like semantic. So the term that Tung Ching uses Zanthav it's not really a direct translation

of national it is used in Vietnamese to translate national and when these speeches and these talks are translated that is the term that is used and I've seen it sometimes translated as

as patriotism, but it can basically mean race, it can mean nation, ethnicity. It's a very open-ended term, but I think that that is particularly where its power lies. And the reason why I wait for it as Vietnamization, other than race, nation, ethnicity, or whatever, else is because too translated as those would almost embedded within the cannibalist economy where it exists outside that. So Wallace Dean puts it really well where he says that race stems from the axial division of labour, where capital is created by the creation of unequal differentiations of human value. Nation is going to step up from there, which, you know, from the political superstructure of this historical system,

where capital can accumulate by creating unequal differentiations of sovereignty. And then ethnicity stems from the creation of household structures. where capital accumulates through, like, the maintenance of large components or non-wage labor. So to translate that that term as one of these, almost immediately embeds it within the capitalist economy when it exists outside of that, if that makes sense. So that's why I went for Vietnamization. And again, it doesn't mean Vietnam in the sense of when ascertaining what is Vietnamese. Let me give give them back an example.

So if we say Vietnameseness or we can even say Americanness, if we talk about Americanness, it's really the point of interest is that. than this in that word. The essence of what makes something American. If we describe something, if I ask you what makes, what is American, it's very much a positive word where you can say, this is American, this is American, this is American.

Hamburgers are American. No, eagles are American. Guns are American. But by doing it this reverse way, looking at the miss is it's almost a negative where we can say, okay, this is not American. This is not American. This is not American. And basically, by negating, we can work towards what that is.

So it's a much more successful way of getting to that. and yeah that stems from from the Maoist ideology or what I'm jokingly called the the Maoist hegelian dialectic so just to piss off the Maoists and the Italians in one foul swoop so what what I meant by that is Mao became disillusioned by the oversimplication of hairlism, the Marxist

haggial dialectic, you know, or thesis, antithesis, synthesis, where it, we saw it as being essentially facetized into just, you know, you have this, and then you have its opposite, and then they come together some sort of love chart.

And, and I mean, I can understand why it became this as a means to try and like you know like scientifically separated from Hegel's idealism and stuff but I mean it was never really

that it was always a whole lot more more complicated but essentially to to solve this Mao put forward this idea that how does he say that one divides into

two rather than two merging into one So for Marx-Hagel, two merge into one, you know, you've got thesis and patithesis, bam, together that makes sense. But for Mao, that merging into two is basically a desire to go back to the one. Because you haven't experienced it to the fullest, it's this desire to go back to the fullest. it's this desire to go back to the original under the guise of synthesis. So if you have, for example, in this diluted view of the Higayan dialect, you have a group of people and then you have a settler colony

and the happy alternative is a two-state solution. Now, that true state solution, is not really a solution? It's essentially a desire to return to the previous negation, but under the guise of so for Mao, it was this idea that everything should be in contradiction, where something, when something's affront something else, its negation basically gives the definition of the other. I'm doing a terrible job of explain, but I think we get there. So basically, with the Vietnamization aspect,

there was this need to try and find what makes something Vietnamese, but under all this baggage of this colonial cultural heritage, So rather than saying, this is Vietnamese or this is Vietnamese, there needed to be this process of taking away that which isn't. And this process of taking away that which isn't became really a very philosophical endeavor, even if it never really manifested that way. but into this almost death drive realm where everyone had to become to it, whether like subconscious of it, I mean, sorry, whether conscious of it or not, aware that for any revolution to be successful, it would have to revolutionize starting presuppositions.

You know, if we want to go against capital, sure we can let's do it but we need to be cognizant of the fact that we came up with this idea whilst living under the capitalist framework so whether even if we're successful it's it's the the revolution itself hasn't been taken to its ultimate extreme that it needs that it needs to essentially eat its own children in order to to be fully there And, I mean, you didn't see how this was experimented with during the Cultural Revolution in China, which was the destruction that we saw. And that destruction never really manifested as much in Vietnam.

There were instances of it. But it was a lot more of a personal internal destruction, this investigation into what I like to. Jesus as the death truck, as the vehicle. But this idea that any revolution needs to embrace the void at the end in order to be successful. A nice way of visualizing that, I think, is there was a book. I can't remember the author's name now, yes, it means an author, but the book is called The Sympathizer. I think they've turned it into like a series now as well. But in the book, I mean, the book is about like the education council.

It's not exactly useful. It's fine, but it's not exactly truthful. But there is a very interesting aspect where I think he is grasping on something that is actually correct, where it's the famous Ho Chi Minh slogan that nothing. is more precious independence and freedom. When you visit Vietnam soon, hopefully, you will see that everything. It's probably the most infamous slower. But he takes this really profound take on the slowly.

So when we read this phrase, you know, nothing is more important than independence and freedom. We tend to read it from the position of the independence and the freedom being the space. So basically we read it as saying, you know, independence and freedom are the most important thing. But that's not the idea for the sky. And that it's the nothing that should be the focus. That nothing, as in nothingness, is more important than individual. dependence and freedom. And I think there's something really profound and quite beautiful in this observation of this threat. I thought another example is you could say that, you know,

we have freedom. But in order for us to have freedom, it means that unfreedom must exist. And if unfreedom exists, how can freedom exist? At this point, we can say that that we are uncaged. But we could only say that because such a thing as a cage exists, how do we get to that next stage, that next level where the cage doesn't exist? That was this embrace basically of the void that was encouraged in dehumanization. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. No, like it's sort of a transcendence of the duality embedded. So if you're fighting for freedom, that means there's a state of unfreedom that is present that needs to be fought against. And to rise above that duality and its totality is sort of the thoroughgoing revolution that's necessary for the revolution to go all the way, right? Instead of continuing to exist in that area of like we're still dueling between freedom and unfreedom. We want that question to be fully resolved so we can transcend that duality. altogether. Exactly. It's this idea of peeling away the layers or of who we think we are until we get to the nothingness at the bottom because that's essentially who we are. So rather

than adding layers and think this is what Vietnam is, Vietnam is this kind of food. Vietnam is this color. Vietnam is this kind of where it's peeling back all these definitions. to see basically what is at the core, with the knowledge of that core be now. So this, in a way, kind of leads to the second principle, which is scientific. Really quick, though, so a rule. Before you move on, I'm just wondering what you think about, what you were just mentioning of peeling back what's not Vietnam, as opposed to trying to add on what is. I wonder if there's a Buddhist influence there

because so much of Buddhist practice is this, it's not trying to add an element. It's trying to strip away the illusion of, in this case, like the sense of self, for example. So in Buddhism, it's like you want to peel back the layers of who you think you are to get to the radiant emptiness at the core of your true being. And I don't know if there's,

any direct influence or if you have any thoughts on that at all, but it does seem to have some influence in the dialectic mentioned here where there's a stripping away of everything that's not truly Vietnamese to reveal at the end of the stripping away the core of what remains. I don't know if there's, if you have any thoughts on that. Well, absolutely, absolutely. The thing that's interesting with Marxism in the Vietnamese, me's context, is that we tend to see, especially Western leftists, tend to have this idea of Marxism or communism or whatever, being this system, you know, this guideline that can be imposed upon a people and then solve all their earthly problems. But I think in the context

or Vietnam and definitely laugh. It takes on another dimension where it's not a system, it's a very arrogant way or if we're looking at it as the system

that's being imposed on that people follow. I think Marxism here it is a relatively successful way of articulating this

this shared internal matrix that has already existed prior to this Western definition of it. And this obviously, like you said, manifests completely in Buddhism, especially in the region, you know, the Buddhist Sangyan, I think it's called. And we can see these similarities emerge because they really are. just a way of articulating something. And I think that that's something that they articulate is the thing, you know, that was sought for in all this peeling away. It was to try and get to that deep, deep-seated call that all these, these things, be it

it's socialism, being Buddhism, that successfully articulated this thing that that was there. Yeah, I like that idea of, it's not like you're importing this foreign ideology of Marxism and imposing it on people, you're stripping away the layers of colonialism and domination

to reveal the already shared communal, internal orientation of the Vietnamese people that has always been there, but has been actually covered up from, you know, the introduction of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, etc. That's a very, yeah, it's a very sort of counterintuitive way of thinking about Marxism compared to how we often think about it in the West.

As you said, this additive thing, this, if it's not imposed, it's this sort of system that is adhered to and sort of layered over society. So it's just a sort of completely opposite way of thinking about the emergence of that communist sort of, you know, that communist foundation as already being, already being there in our shared culture and our shared nature. Yeah, it's almost like like art itself. It's this tangible means of visualizing, articulating an idea that has always been there, but that we don't have the words to essentially say.

I love that. Fascinating. All right. Well, if you're ready, we can move on to scientification. So, scientifically is, obviously leads on from this. It doesn't have much to do with science, interesting. I suppose it focuses more on this idea of that things should be realistic. real, actually not realistic, but real, in the sense that they should not be driven by

what we can call fantasy. So, I mean, we know how our brains work, or at least we think we know how our brains work. We're like a computer, you know, there's not really enough space to store all the details of every daily interaction, every second of our lives. So basically, we just log, you know, the important stuff, and then the gaps in between are basically filled out with something that's virtual, essentially. There's so many cool experiments, you know, that highlight this kind of thing, like the the double, I mean, the split brain experiments and all that. But essentially, you know, we only log important details,

and the in-between data is filled with virtual. It's not like a steady stream of consciousness. That's a dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot virtual, dot virtual, dot virtual. And so with modernism, when we've been talking about the arts now, what the modernist art is, that's like abstract art, that kind of stuff.

Modernists kind of had on a similar, you know, had a similar idea to what I was saying earlier, where they felt that they didn't have the language to say some of the stuff that they wanted to say. So they would use the fore. Their focus was not on content, but on foreball.

So if you look at abstract art, if you look at a big abstract art painting, you know, you don't know what it's about because there's no content. It's about the form that matters. So where socialist realism, the primary aim is the primary focus is on the content. With modernism, it's almost the opposite. The primary focus is on the fore. Because the modernists believe that they didn't have, the means to say what they wanted to say with language alone.

You know, they needed to show it through the thought. I mean, that's a really profound, noble gesture. But I, so there's a wonderful excerpt from Freud. I think it's in his writing on dreams, but where he has a case study of a patient and the patient's got this recurring dream of when he was a kid and he was like on holiday or something and he went to the wrong hotel room I think but basically he opens the door and there there's a bunch of naked women

you know this is this is Freud there this kid opens the door and there's a bunch of naked woman. And he says, you know, then he says, there's like a gap. I can't remember. Something's missing. And then the next thing, there's a man in the room and the man beats him and keeps him out. And he comes to Freud and he says, what the fuck is this dream about? You know, why do I keep having this dream?

And the really fun and interesting thing here is that Freud takes note of the fall of the dream. So where he says, you know, that there's this gap. something that's missing in the dream. It's not that there's this gap in the content. It's something he's missing. It's the thing that's missing is the phallus that he saw.

When he saw these naked women for the first time, he saw them and he saw that they didn't have a penis, and that was the, you know, the form for lack of a better word. But even though it's repressed in the content, he says, oh, there's a gap, something is missing. It's come back in the form itself. So the content is always there. You can't delete the content.

It just reemerges in the form in Southway. And this was the best type of the modernists for lack of a better word, where they focused on form thinking that, okay, I don't have the ability to say what I want to say in context. I will do it through the form. But all they ended up doing was saying that which they didn't even know that they knew, if that makes sense. They ended up putting forward their repressed fantasies. And the problem with putting forward your once repressed fantasies is that the element of fantasy, especially repressed fantasy, is primarily the drive for fascism.

if we if we look at at fascism especially all fascist revolutions the the emotionally evoking thing that they build upon that informs them of is always the repressed fantasy started the virtual element of our reality which is why fascism always ends up devolving into the most ridiculous outcomes, like the idea or the mystical Jew, you know, and all these absolutely weird things, because it is essentially grounded on this fantasy element. So Jun-Ting, in some way or another, recognized this. And he wasn't so eloquent in it, but you could definitely see that this was the direction that he was going where he denounced fantasy. He would say, you know, don't show or write anything that could be interpreted in another way. And this was really the framework for scientification, was this emphasis on reality above fantasy.

And you can see how this Vietnamese interpretation as well. is very unique from the similar principles that were happening in Soviet Union, for example, where the principle was on typicality, where, you know, typical situations have to be depicted. It should show something that's realistic. But there was something a lot more psychoanalytical almost happening on the Vietnamese front, in this idea of scientification and repressed fantasy. Yeah, I find that super, super interesting.

Psychoanalysis is not something I'm by any means an expert on, but something I've always been interested in. Many thoughts are coming up. One thought is how the CIA helped fund the modern art movement as part of a propaganda war during the Cold War, which is an interesting element people can look into if they're interested in that. I visited Vienna a couple years ago,

and I actually got to visit the home and office of Sigmund Freud, where him and his family lived and where he worked up until the Nazi invasion, where obviously being Jewish in Vienna became a real problem, and they had to flee their home. And so I've always had a longstanding interest in Freud and in that historical movement and in psychoanalysis and getting to actually be in his home and in his office where he would do these talk therapy,

sessions and stuff with his clients. I just find that very fascinating. But your point about fascism, I think, is this sort of fantasy that is sort of coming out. It's sort of irrational on purpose. It's an irrationalism. It's more of an emotional state than it is a set of policies, which is one reason why you say it sort of always ends an absurdity, but also it just always ends. Right? There's no permanent fascist state. It doesn't have staying power, which I think is an interesting element about fascism historically. But what I always found is kind of ironic is here in the United States, a big phrase from the far right over the last several years is, you know, this phrase of fuck your feelings, right? This sort of like, it's this idea is like who cares how you feel, you know, you're you want your rights and you feel like you're being microaggressed or whatever.

Fuck your feelings. And I always found that incredibly ironic because the entire movement around Trump, around the, around the. the far right in the United States is so is so feeling oriented it's not logical it's not rational it doesn't have bedrock principles from which you're operating and analyzing the world it is such and so clearly on a sort of an emotional reaction to the things going on around you that you know them sort of accusing their opponent of being in their feelings and not being logical is sort of an ironic um projection that I always thought was it was amusing so I don't know Yeah, exactly. It's like you say, there's no permanent fascist state because its aim is a repressed fantasy. Its aim is essentially something that's not real. So its end goal can never be achievable. I mean, I suppose the, or for me at least, the best example of this is how towards the end of the Second World War, I think, in 1944.

when the Nazis were really up against the wall. Instead of using their trains to transport medicine and weapons, which would have probably given them, you know, as a whole bunch of back kick and some benefit, they chose to use the trains for transporting Jews. It's this auto-teleic self-destruction. Because essentially that's what a fantasy is. It's auto-tile self-destruction. So it always becomes that.

And you can always see fantasy emerging in fascist aspects. I mean, if we look at current situations, you know, this idea of Hamas is another irrational fantasy where this child was a Hamas. You know, this pregnant woman was a hamis, this dog was a hamis, this building was a hummus. it's this irrational fantasy that that basically becomes an ending of itself. Yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to say absolutely correct. And, you know, if we take those two streams of thought and bring them together, Israel is this fascist state and it's spiraling further and further into overt fascism. And fascist states don't have staying power. Therefore, it is very logical to think that by this irrational lashing out, this, this brutality it's inflicting

on the Palestinians, this sort of irrational, hysterical state that Israel is in. I think it is a portent that Israel does not have staying power. Israel is not going to be around in 75, 100 years. It might not be around in 20 years. And the more that it tries to impose its will on the Palestinians and on the world, the less likely it is to survive long-term. Yeah, this notion that Israel is attacking Gaza to, you know, to defend itself, to make its own state safe is not true. The attack on Gaza is the final outcome in itself. Israel will destroy itself to destroy itself to destroy.

Gaza because that is the goal. The destruction of Gaza or the Palestinians as a whole is the final goal. That is the aim. It's not the protection of the of the Israeli state. It's that destruction. It's this octahili self-destruction through fantasy. Just as the Nazis destroyed themselves through their attempt to destroy the Jews. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Fascinating stuff absolutely um all right well do you want to move on do you want to move on to massification i find this conversation wonderful we could stick around and talk about this stuff um every single one of these things for for many hours it feels like but uh if you'd like to move on let's do it yeah well i mean just just talking about precious fantasy we can talk about apartheid as well and i can piss off all my

my people back oh it was good but okay let's move on to massification um so massification is quite interesting. Massification was mainly codified and put forward in its entirety by Tohue. So Chongqing, we could say, was the founder, I guess, of the Vietnamese conception of Fiatimization and Scientification, but Taui Hu gets the credit for massification. Now, massification comes from Mao's decree that artists had to basically embed themselves with the peasantry. This itself comes from, I believe, his talks at Yan, which were quite interesting as well. So they were really some of the first cultural policy put forward by Mao.

his talks. And what they really should be read as I think at least is more than some policymaking initiative on cultural

a almost like a disciplinary hearing of the artists at the time. So at the time, the Chinese artists in the struggle have become very disillusioned. They were, yeah, it was a very seemingly hopeless point. And they were becoming disillusioned with basically just regurgitating what they saw as meaning this propaganda.

And this mouse talks was essentially to discipline these artists where he basically told them to to start embedding themselves with the masses. But it was almost like being demoted from teacher to student. So where these artists were originally conceived of as, you know, teachers of the masses through their propaganda and their cultural work, they were now downgraded into students as punishment for their disillusion. And this idea of embedding the masses, sorry, embedding the artists with the masses carried over into Vietnam. But again, it took on a much more unique home-brewed form where, so if we look at the criticism sessions that took place in China where artists and writers and writers and

whatever, basically spoke to the masses and got criticism about the works, which they could then rectify, you know, to ensure that it was a work that appealed to the majority rather than some elite minority. But these criticism sessions became almost ritualized in the sense where they just became like showy depictions of loyalty. loyalty to the struggle and while there was method in that in the Chinese context it took on a very different form

in the Vietnamese context where rather than the artists being demoted from teacher of the masses to student of the masses it kind of did both those things as one at once teacher and student where by the artistists showing their work to the masses, the masses were able to, this is in Vietnam,

the masses were able to criticize themselves through the work. So the work was always a depiction of them, of everyday life, or for lack of a better term, typical life. But the masses, rather than using it as like a loyalty ritual, they basically used these opportunities to criticize themselves through the work. So the work essentially acted as a mirror where the artist could understand what was needed and rectify the work for future and understand the masses better. but it also allowed the masses to see their own shortcomings

and acknowledge these shortcomings in a space that didn't you know make them feel disillusioned it didn't come as a personal attack on themselves they were able to still have some sense of authority their own authority while criticizing or their own backwards elements that existed know all the old cultural and traditional problems that continue to plague all of us, I guess. And so, yeah, so it was a very, even though it manifested in the same way with these criticism sessions, with artists showing their work to the masses and getting the mass's response and then correcting the work, it in Vietnam it was much more successful in the sense that the masses utilize this opportunity

to basically do some self-investigation as well yeah really interesting stuff so let me go ahead and summarize those three points in very brief terms and let me know if I more or less get it get it right the Vietnamization is as you were talking about a sort of stripping away of everything that's not Vietnamese in order to reveal the core of Vietnamese society. Scientification is not necessarily the scientific method in the sense that we think about it today, although it sort of is adjacent to it in that it is sort of advocating for a realist, concrete, sober-minded analysis of the world as it actually is, not giving into fantasies or letting our desires trick us into thinking something different.

So it's like sort of hard-nosed and realist in that way. and then the massification is this dialectical relationship between the artists and the masses themselves where they can sort of work together as equals to interrogate one another and themselves in the process. Is that more or less a decent summary of the three aspects? Yes, yes, exactly. And like I said earlier with this idea of socialist realism, that it shouldn't really be seen as the production of socialist art and more as the production of socialist viewers, that's where this massification element came in. This was the bodymaking part of it.

What is the point of socialist realism if it doesn't have the socialist viewer? And this was the production of the viewer. I love that. Love that. All right. Well, let's go ahead and move on. And it would be impossible for us to address every essay in this book. I highly recommend people, if you're at all interested in this subject, go get your hands on it.

check it out. Not only will you get all the essays, but again, as we've mentioned, you'll get beautiful art that's embedded in the book itself, which was a nice little sort of treat as well as the intellectual stimulation that the book itself produced. But maybe as a way to just help people be more introduced to the essays in the book themselves, maybe you can pick one from each author that you find particularly interesting or worthwhile and just sort of sum up what they're talking about just to give us a sense of of the the theoretical work inside the text itself yeah so so the essay is actually they cover from 1936 all the way until 1968 i believe and then there is the addition another essay at the end from i think there's some point in the 80s 1983 i believe

which it would be the 40th anniversary of when the outline that we spoke about was created. So the outline was, is obviously the first thing that that informs a cultural policy. The first essay in the book is on culture and education by Trimtig. And that's basically where in 1936, and that's basically where he starts thinking about the need for a cultural revolution. But this doesn't really, you can see this is the start of that. thinking, but it doesn't really take shape until the necessity essentially arises in 1943 when the outline is written. So the outline is, you know, the seed, all of everything.

So despite being, I think, like three pages and just a bunch of points, it really is the seed that everything grows from. But I would say that in terms of Chongqing, Marxism and Vietnamese culture, which came in 1948, would be the best edition. Because that was the first codifying and systemizing of the outline. And really, where the groundwork started being on a much more practice-based practical shape now. rather than just being a, we should do this for this idea kind of thing. And then directly after that, ironically, To use building a people's art, which is where the book gets the same from,

because I really loved that term, building a people's art, where he then takes it a step further to basically entrench the need for this socialist realism to function amongst, the masses as well. So I think between those two, everything is the best covered. But it really is quite an interesting journey in chronological order. Because I mean, when you start, it's, you know, the enemy is the French colonizers, you know, and then we have Japanese colonizers.

And then as we go on, suddenly, It's the Americans, but the policy still holds strong. And I mean, the last essay from 1983, the aggressors are the Chinese. So even though we've got all these different enemies, for like of a better word, the policy itself is still functional and remains almost unchanged and still doing exactly what it needs to do, you know, showing how successful it it really is well at the end of your wonderful

introduction you say the following and this is a bit of a long quote and it harkens back to what we were talking about earlier in the discussion but just to lay it all out there and give you a chance to sort of talk about your conclusion the quote is quote the formal ugliness of abstraction is now in danger of reaching its limitations abstraction is no longer some obscuring agent to be employed

but underdeveloped capitalism that which constructs the very material social processes. The communist project seems more unattainable now than ever before. Our very dreams are appropriated by the capitalist order. It would appear that the post-socialist capitulation to capitalism, at least in the cases of Vietnam, China, Laosch, and Cuba, comes not from pre-revolution residues, which so haunted the Red Guards, but precisely from the aftermath of the revolutions themselves. After all, how are we meant to revolutionize a system whose very premise is one of continual self-revolutionizing. Therefore, for those of us outside the so-called imperial core, the task at hand is to reappropriate our desires. Of course, you go on, and I didn't

want to read the full last three paragraphs, but I found it very interesting, very stimulating, and I was wondering if you can sort of elaborate on what you're saying here and just sort of summarize your conclusion in the introduction. So, yeah, it's, I mean, we can all recognize that the socialist realism is a dying medium. I mean, outside of Vietnam, Laos and North Korea, I guess, it really doesn't exist. I mean, there is an interesting resurgence happening in sub-Saharan Africa, but in its true, true fall, these really are the last bastions. of it and even so it's fading away here

and I can understand why it's not because the principles of socialism are fading ways though I can talk about that another time but that there is this

idea that is very much as quite profoundly informed by Adorno where that art should be ugly, for lack of a better word. This was Adorno's defense of ugliness or of modernism, in that if art is ugly, it basically evades the economy of utility.

It can't be used for commercial ends or political ends. so adorn already was a strong proponent of the unduly modernist art i mean i i was reading the other day that an artist forgive me um took a shit in a can and i mean you yeah you you can't really use a can of shit commercially or politically so i i can understand it the problem is is that in this late stage capitalist thing we find ourselves in is that we're getting to the point where we can if shit might very well be utilized where the

we don't have something to replace capitalism in a sense that if we find a way to create a successful cultural revolution and we get rid of all the culture that that can support and inform capitalism. It really will ultimately be unsuccessful in the sense that there is no system more revolutionary

than capitalism. I mean, revolutionary in the sense of, you know, like violent upheaval within status quo, kind of thing. Capitalism constantly self-revolutionizes itself. I mean, yeah, I used this example before, but you guys are very likely about to have your first black female president. That's revolutionary. But capitalism has this ability to take on seemingly

completely contradictory and opposite that aesthetics and utilize them for itself. You know, in the same breadth, capitalism can say black lives matter, but equally be okay with chopping off the hands of Congolese miners. Right. It's, it's, and I mean, every, every pride months, we see how, just how the visual aspect of capitalism is willing to grab

to anything it can to support itself, you know, with some of the most horrific corporations in the world, suddenly pretending to care about human rights. And so for Adorno, he's belief that if we encourage this defiant, ugly art, capitalism won't be able to utilize it. While that might have been the case before, I don't know if that is the case anymore. Capitalism has really proved it is capable of utilizing anything you can get its hands on.

And so I think in that regard, that's where socialist realism actually becomes important again. because like what was said, socialist realism creates socialists before it creates art. Any art we create will ultimately be used by capitalism. There is no estate. But the creation of socialists is the antidote to, you know, the never-ending self-revolutionizing of capitalism. what I was trying to say earlier as well

when I got sidetracked was that this idea that the post-socialist capitulation to capitalism not coming from pre-revolution residues but from the aftermath is that so often we find ourselves in these instances where we have these successful socialist revolutions but there is nothing to, once the capitalist visual order and cultural order has been eliminated,

there's nothing to replace it. So it harkens back then. We start putting it back. I mean, we can use the rise of Confucianism in China and Vietnam, in Korea as well, I guess, as an example of that. I mean, I think the French Revolution was probably a really good example of that as well. Or we can get rid of the existing order. But if we have nothing to replace it with in terms of human culture,

we inevitably will regress back to what we had before in some shape or form. So we need a something to have in place for when that revolution, you know, happens. And I think that this is the two-fold thing as well, where there is a different relationship needed between those of us, you know, in the so-called imperial core and those outsiders where those, within, obviously their task is to, you know, full socialism. It is the revolution, is the struggle. But for those outside it, it's almost an encouragement to critique this post-revolutionary system,

to make sure that it doesn't regress back into what came before it. You know, so it's, I won't say country name, I don't want to get myself in trouble, but for those insights, you know, the imperial call the West, that they should defend communist country X. But for those of us who live in communist country X, we need to critique communist country X to ensure that a new culture can be built. Because if it's left empty and with capitalism's ability to do self-revolution, us. We're just going to regress straight back into before, which we see happening essentially

everywhere. Yeah, I think that's incredibly insightful and thought-provoking, and that delineation between what those in the Imperial Corps' task is and those outside the Imperial Corps, or in these ostensibly socialist states or these attempts at socialism, because socialism is a transitionary state towards communism, so it's going to take many different forms, it's going to be at different levels of development, and you're still existing within a capitalist imperialist global order, which also adds another layer of difficulty, and then you're attacked and undermined by capitalist countries very often. So there's a lot of things to work on, and then, yeah, that constant threat of backward sliding or bringing those elements forward in a revolutionary guise

when they're actually playing very much into the system that we're trying to overcome, I think, is certainly important and the point about capitalism being in a continual state of self-revolutionizing its chameleon-like nature is precisely what makes it so adaptable and what makes it so hard to displace you know it can it can be conservative it can be reactionary it can be fascistic it can also you know completely absorb identity politics and become rainbow capitalism imperialism and that's what i think you know like a figure like kamala harris sort of represents is this idea of, you know, we can be like an inclusive capitalist imperialist, brutal empire. You know, we can have, you know, trans people sending, you know, drone strikes to the Middle East.

We could have, you know, black women overseeing the most brutal empire in human history. And that's somehow a victory or a win. So it's, it's chameleon-like nature, its adaptability. And it's its ability to kind of sneak in where you think you're overcoming it and appropriate. and commodify, that is precisely one of its core strengths. And we definitely have to take that seriously if our goal is ultimately to put it into the dustbin of history. So I really appreciate your thoughts. I really appreciate the book. The book, again, is called Building a People's Art, Selected Works of Chung Ching and Tohue. And rule, before we let you go, can you please let listeners know where they can find the book

online? And then, yeah, the art itself might be difficult to find. but maybe you could touch on that as well. Yeah, so the book will be released on the 2nd of September is the AIM, which is quite nice because that coincides with Vietnam's National Day. So that's always been the goal. So hopefully we can stick that, and it will be released via Iskrab Books. So there will probably be a pre-ordered, Nick Sue. So please, go pre-order it, buy it, read it.

But if you can't buy it, it should be available free as well, just to make sure that everyone gets it. This actually, if I could just touch on that quickly, was a bit of a challenge in making a book like this. So, like, I talk a little bit about this in the, you know, the preparer's notes for it. But when I started putting this together, the reader that I had in mind was, not so much, you know, like a fart connoisseur, but actual organizers and activists, especially on creative fronts, to learn from this set of principles

that have worked so well here. But at the same time, the more that I researched and I worked here, I realized that despite, there be such a significantly large body of work that has survived all these conflicts and just the time and you know the general weather surprisingly it's they they don't really have as much foreign you know grounding as as as russian and chinese socialist realism does so it's really hard to find the Vietnamese works, I mean, outside of the more contemporary propaganda

poster kind of. So I really wanted to include these works as well. But with the same idea that I didn't want to do the thing of doing an analysis of these works, you know, writing about the forms and the techniques and what this artist meant. I didn't think that that was my place in office. And I don't really have the authority to say what this artist meant with this work at this form of time. So as you will see in the book, I don't actually, I reference a few of this, but I don't ever touch on them beyond that. I don't do the whole typical art critic compare and contrasting kind of thing also. I rather, what I've tried to do was rather let them essentially speak for themselves in, you know, interspersed

through throughout the text. And so obviously their inclusion is super important because how can you talk about these works of art without actually showing them? But obviously they're material concerns there's well because printing these images as the best quality becomes quite. So that's why I'm really happy working with Iskra and having the opportunity to release the book full free as well for those who may not be able to afford it but would like to read it or need it. Yeah, because the majority, there's about,

there's almost 100 artworks and the majority of them, 90-something, are all, printed for the first time here. And like, like you said, to find the art is a little bit more challenging. So getting the art itself was a collaboration with an organization called Witness Collection, who were absolutely fantastic in the whole process

of putting this together. I mean, they scanned and touched up thousands. of these works and we ended up narrowing it down to like 500 and then from that down to the 100 that are in the book so it really was a

long time-consuming process so they have all these works this organization I think they have a archive in Malaysia if I'm not mistaken so it is

possible to see these works in person, if you can contact them, head to the archive in Malaysia, take a look. But if not, you at least should be able to see if you in this book, hopefully. Yeah, if you buy the book, you get a free plane ticket to Malaysia. I'm just kidding. But yeah, that's wonderful in the fact that over 90 of these works of art are published for the first time in this book is just another huge reason why anybody even slightly interested in this stuff, should definitely reach out, support the work, support you and check

out the art and Iskra. I've worked with them. They're a wonderful sort of, their wonderful publishing house and they've worked with the guerrilla history as well. I can't say enough good things about them, so go support them in general. Before I let you go, though, is there any, is there any, do you have a personal social media presence or anything for people who might want to follow you, your work or reach out to you? I know it's really pathetic, but I actually don't. That's correct. That's not pathetic at all. It's admirable. Yeah, I don't have much social media pros, unfortunately.

No, yeah, I totally respect that. All right, my friend. Well, thank you so much for the book. Thank you so much for coming on and being generous with your time and your knowledge. I find the book fascinating. I love this conversation. You're welcome back anytime on Rev. And yeah, just thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for others. It's really cool.

Yeah, now. Now, it's the opening. Salvo. We're post-scoped of people like Muhammad and Malvo. A sample of the battle we waged against an animal made to snuff us out like the wick of a candle. And all the youth dressed in camo, we're ready to handle. And no, this war was not scripted. Can't change the channel. We can't cancel in all subscriptions. This is the last issue. When the casket clothes can't take the cash with you. No post-mortem residuals. We individuals who, indivisible, become the most invincible. But that is not the issue at hand. We demand a simple right

to question y'all people where the fuck is freedom at it's all we ask but instead we get our asses assassinated fast if they catch you talking trash if the first shall be laughed it's time to repair black clouds sky falling put a hand in the air yeah my people building monuments to weather the flood i'm a leave how i came screaming covered in blood died once born twice both times we knuckled up alongside the people we're gonna struggle with love and my people building monuments to weather the flood i'm a leave how i came screaming covered in blood died one Born twice, both times we knuckled up Alongside of people we gonna struggle with love

So struggle with love Struggle with love Now this here's for those who choose fights Whose fruits might never not ripen Until after they life It's not right how they martyr our leaders And target our children Disrespect of sisters and wonder why we militant

Leaks to my third world equivalent Even if I can't fight beside you I write what I can to get our famine Of the lands to understand your pain Because your beef is mine And we've won in the same and I know about this privilege But if you're from where I'm from

Then you know what bigger burden comes with it And that's what I carry when you see me on a hustle I'm talking as a walking document of our struggle Cosamas hold me down And remember that I love you With a Johnny hold your head up If they ever take me from you And please tell them that I try

Don't cry because no matter where you are A struggle's nearby And our people build a monuments to weather the flood I'm a leave how I came screaming covered in blood Died once born twice Both times we knuckled up Alongside the people we gonna struggle with love And my people build the monuments to weather the flood

I believe how I came screaming covered in blood Died once or twice both times we knuckled up Alongside of people we gonna struggle with love So struggle with love struggle with love Right now I want to thank God for being me My soul won't rest until the colony is free 1896 revolution incomplete Silence is defeat my solution is to speak

Reserate the legacy of martyrs obviously Beach. Time to choose a side is the mighty verse to meek. My big brother Free brought the word from the east where the bullet in the middle of the belly of the beast. Thank you.