Articles

Stop the war in Ukraine!
"To stop the war is the primary task for all democratic left movements, regardless of their disagreement in various points of political agenda. So, we believe it is necessary to coordinate the efforts of all the opponents of the war in Ukraine, forming a massive and influential anti-war movement."
June 2014
Don’t Step on that Rake Again!
Editorial Board of "Sсepsis"
"Letting off steam and venting your frustrations at protests will not change your situation one bit. The bureaucrats and capitalists couldn't give a damn about your angry shouts on the street. They will not lower the exorbitant utility fees, they will not increase the paltry salaries and pensions, they will not resolve the housing problem, they will not reinstate free universal health care. We need to engage in concrete battles for very concrete things. The choice is this: class struggle or replacing one set of parasites with another. No other choice is available. The process whereby one realizes his or her interests and fights for them is not an instantaneous one. It is not just attending one or several protests. In our country the people have for too long stopped thinking and acting in line with their own interests. But this here is the only chance to actually change things for real. Do not let yourself step on the rake again!"
December 2011
World Revolution 2: the Return to a Global Revolutionary Strategy Based on the Experience of the 20th Century
Alexander Tarasov
"A socialist revolution, which can only be worldwide and which will not run in the same pattern common for the bourgeois and superetatist revolutions, is a matter of the distant future. However, our contemporaries will witness, and may join, antibourgeois revolutions. And, lastly, one should keep in mind that the future is open, and if this strategy is not implemented for any reason by the left, some other adversary of the First World can realize it, for example, Islamist radicals can, who today act as a force regionally resisting the Western imperialism but who, if the left continue to be passive, may become a global force"
December 2011
Ten Years of Shame: Arguments About Blame
Alexander Tarasov
The classical signs of degradation and decline deprive the intelligentsia of the 1990s of all prospects. Future historians will approach the 1990s as they did the 1890s in Russia or the 1780s in France: as "the putrefaction of a sated, parasitical society", the fin de siecle, "the growth of mysticism and immorality", "narcoticization", "heightened interest in and esthetization of illness and death", "decadence", "retreat into a world of illusion", and so on. The development of culture will, as it always has, proceed from sources beyond the mainstream of parasitical society — that is, from sources alien (or at least opposed) to the Western liberal postmodernist "culture". The "intelligentsia" of the 1990s has condemned itself to a future of oblivion and ridicule. And this serves it right.
January 2008
Open letter to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin from the Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
"We have watched with deepening concern the increasing clericalization of Russian society, the Church's infiltration of all areas of public life. The Constitution of the Russian Federation declares our country to be secular and separates the Church from the public education system. We address this letter to you as the holder of the highest office in this country and guarantor of the Constitutions basic principles."
January 2008
The Manifesto of the Journal "Scepsis"
Sergei Soloviev, Dmitry Subbotin
Our modern society is shot through with myths from ancient ideologies. Thus critique of rationalism is considered to be good form. This is done both by those who try to impose the myths "for the poor" (e.g., ancient trinity of "Orthodoxy Absolutism National ethos") and those who adhere to more "enlightened" post-modernist versions of irrationalism, according to which "anything goes". Only trained critical thinking, i.e. sceptical thinking, can hinder confusion and chaos and then only to a limited extent.
July 2007
Assaulting Solidarity - Privatizing Education
Noam Chomsky
There has been a general assault in the last 25 years on solidarity, democracy, social welfare, anything that interferes with private power, and there are many targets. One of the targets is undoubtedly the educational system.
May 2003
Sadly, an Honest Creationist
Richard Dawkins
Whatever the underlying explanation, this example suggests a fascinating, if pessimistic, conclusion about human psychology. It implies that there is no sensible limit to what the human mind is capable of believing, against any amount of contrary evidence.
May 2003
Darwin's dangerous disciple. An Interview With Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out.
May 2003
Mysticism
Bertrand Russell
I cannot admit any method of arriving at truth except that of science, but in the realm of the emotions I do not deny the value of the experiences which have given rise to religion. Through association with false beliefs, they have led to much evil as well as good; freed from this association, it may be hoped that the good alone will remain.
May 2003
What Is an agnostic?
Bertrand Russell
An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.
May 2003
Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?
Bertrand Russell
There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the Homeric God. I cannot prove that either the Christian God or the Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious consideration.
May 2003