For me it has to be Malcom X, I’m not American, but I read his autobiography when I was young and it left a life long impression on me about justice and resiliency. He grew up in an extremely oppressive society, his dad was murdered and his mother was sent to the loony bin and he was clearly lost and traumatized. When he went to jail he was smart enough to be like what the hell, why am I here? Educating himself and channeling his energy into caring about others and justice transformed him into one of the most powerful and well respected leaders of his time.
He is often denigrated by Americans as violent and contrasted with King Jr. but by all accounts whenever he was in a position to project violence he chose de-escalation like during the Harlem riots and saved lives as there were people in the US in positions of military power who would have loved an excuse to do to them what they did to the indigenous across the entire country.
He was angry but principled and really set a template for me about how to be a leader and help me process my own anger and channel it into something more positive.
Thomas Sankara.
John Brown Fidel Castro Joseph Stalin
Enkidu. Dude was pivotal in providing companionship to the king that stopped, or at least slowed, his general rape and molestation of the lower classes.
Diogenes
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, “The Man Who Saved America.”, hands down. He single-handedly defeated a fascist overthrow of the U.S. government in 1933. AKA, the Devil Dog. He is not in history books because fascist are still in control.
John Stark, one of the rescuers of the Donner Party.
In Summit Valley the remaining rescuers discussed what to do and took a vote to save only two of the children in Starved Camp. That might have been all they could manage. The others would have to stay behind.
John Stark, above, could not abide that. That meant that nine people, mostly children, would die on the mountain, exposed to the elements down in a very deep hole in the snow. John Stark decided he would save all nine, “Already shouldering a backpack with provisions, blankets, and an axe, he picked up one or two of the smaller children, carried them a little ways, then went back for the others. Then he repeated the whole process again and again and again. To galvanize morale, he laughed and told the youngsters they were so light from months of mouse-sized rations that he could carry them all simultaneously, if only his back were broad enough.” Once they were out of the snow he would eat and rest he said, but not before. He saved all nine. That is extraordinary and that is heroism. It was also heroism he never got contemporary credit for.
That’s nuts. I’ve got to look up how far he carried them.
I recent did a snow hike with poor gear, intentionally, and boy gee is that an incredibly draining and slow exercise.
Harriet Tubman
Alan Turing. My government did him dirty.
Honestly it is embarrassing. Fucking over a literal hero because he is gay???
Yeah it’s crazy. Imagine the contribution he could have made to CompSci or Mathematics had he not been driven to suicide.
Churchill. Without him it’s not unlikely that the UK would’ve accepted Nazi Germany’s peace offer.
Neville Chamberlain originally did try appeasement with Hitler, yes, but he did declare war when peace talks broke down. He massively scaled up the armed forces before war broke as a signalled deterrent to Hitler.
Once it became entirely clear that the enemy could not be reasoned with, he stood down, having exhausted all the power he had to stop further escalation.
Churchill, in contrast, was an escalator. Perhaps what the country needed at the time, but so pig-headed that he wanted to keep the war going long after support from home had dried out.
Marquis de Lafayette
Fought in American revolution, key figure in French.
Born into aristocracy them said fuck that let’s go see what liberty is about. Tried his best even through events spun out of control. Always stuck up for the people despite his position.
Abolitionist. Tried to get Washington to free slaves as example, left Lafayette on read.
“If I had known that by fighting for America I was creating a nation of slaves, I would have never raised my sword.” - butchered to a certain degree but sentiment remains.
Guy was pretty neat, found himself in some of the most important events I’m history and stuck to his ideals his whole life. Admirable.
Heroes have a way of always disappointing. There’s people like Malcom X, John Brown or Thomas Paine who I’d say were the good guys of their time, but I really try not to lionise them beyond the flawed humans they were.
Lenin, architect of the first successful Socialist revolution and state.
What are your thoughts on lenin involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion and in the executions of anarchists?
Even if the ideals of the rebellion were founded in good intentions, fighting against the newborn Socialist State played into counter-revolutionary hands and aided the fascist White Army in the middle of a brutal civil war. The Anarchists placed ideals over material reality in this instance. It was also led by Petrichenko, who one year prior tried to join the White Army, and joined the White Army after the rebellion failed and the sailors turned on the rebellion.
Had it been a time of peace with no internal or external pressure and the same measures employed, my feelings would be different on the matter, but the facts are that the stated aims and the methods employed by the rebels were at direct contradiction in the middle of a civil war.
It’s not like Lenin hated Anarchists especially, Kropotkin was given a large State funeral and the largest rail station, Kropotkinskaya, was named after him. The Kronstadt Rebellion also factored in the transition between War Communism into the NEP.
I found this interesting read about Kropotkin funeral and Kropotkinskaya
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/allan-antliff-memorializing-kropotkin
Interesting to hear the Anarchist’s perspective, still doesn’t change my analysis. The Anarchists weren’t simply “true leftists” and the bolsheviks “fake leftists,” they disagreed entirely on Marxism vs Anarchism and as such some Anarchists decided to take up arms against the Communists. It’s a complicated situation, but it’s also important to note that many Anarchists joined the Bolsheviks, it wasn’t a case where 100% of Anarchists detested the Marxists.
If I were to be equally as disingenuous, I would ask you your feelings on Stepan Petrichenko, who tried to join the fascists and succeeded in joining the fascists after failing to overthrow the Communists during the Kronstadt Rebellion. I won’t, though, because that’s pointless. I suggest you read accounts from the Marxists as well as the Anarchists, the Marxists were not guilty of failing to be Anarchists because they never intended to be.
If I were to be equally as disingenuous, I would ask you your feelings on Stepan Petrichenko
I asked your thoughts on Lenin involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion and in the executions of anarchists, i didn’t claim Stepan Petrichenko to be my hero.
I answered. The vast amount that Lenin contributed to Marxist Theory and his vital role in creating the first Socialist State, which uplifted hundreds of millions of people and supported numerous anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements the world over, is absolutely worthy of praise. He managed to contribute meaningfully to Leftist theory and put it to practice.
The subset of Anarchists that decided to fight the world’s first Socialist State, rather than join the other Anarchists in supporting it, were certainly not innocent, as proven by high-profile leaders being aligned with the fascist White Army.
I just find it disingenuous that you use Lenin’s indirect involvement with suppressing a rebellion led by a fascist against a newborn Socialist state during the Civil War it was still solidifying its existence to be disingenuous. What was your purpose in asking? “Just asking questions?” If I am mistaken, please let me know.
The subset of Anarchists that decided to fight the world’s first Socialist State, rather than join the other Anarchists in supporting it, were certainly not innocent
Some of them were fighting against a government that engaged “anarchists” in this fashion: “the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery “liquidated” the whole organisation”
You claim Lenin to be your hero from history so i asked your thoughts on his involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion which was suppressed with blood. It’s the first example that came to my mind of one of his shady actions that i personally wouldn’t consider heroic.
deleted by creator
Marcus Aurelius and his reflections on stoicism.
