#1
Post rating: +
David Bowie's "Kooks" (Hunky Dory, 1971) as a metaphor for the October Revolution



Will you stay in our lovers' story?
The story being the culmination of the historical dialectic
If you stay you won't be sorry 'cause we believe in you
The Marxist belief in the power of the proletariat as the revolutionary class in society
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
The risk of revolution depends upon how disciplined and class conscious the proletariat is
With a couple of kooks hung up on romancing
The kooks being Lenin and Trotsky, who had a close though tumultuous relationship

Will you stay in our lovers' story?
If you stay you won't be sorry 'cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks hung up on romancing

We bought a lot of things to keep you warm and dry
The Bolsheviks had devoted decades to the organisation of the most class conscious elements of the proletariat
And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry
An allusion to the 1905 and February Revolutions which preceded the October Revolution in Russia
I bought you a pair of shoes a trumpet you can blow and a book of rules
The Bolsheviks had agitated for better living conditions previously and had a stricter Party discipline than their contemporaries
On what to say to people when they pick on you
The Socialist-Revolutionaries, for example, believed that Russia must spend time in the phase of liberalism before moving to socialism, as the proletariat was less powerful than in other nations, which Bolsheviks rejected
'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty kookie too
The Leninist programme was one of radicalisation of the entire society

Will you stay in our lovers' story?
If you stay you won't be sorry 'cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks hung up on romancing

And if you ever have to go to school
School here being a simile for the bourgeois state and its accoutrements
Remember how they messed up this old fool
The creation of a classless society is contingent upon abolition of the State; the old society which produced the revolutionaries is "messed up" but the new one built by the proletariat would not be
Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads
The Bolsheviks took power in the midst of the Great War caused by bourgeois imperialism and one of their slogans, which they fulfilled, was for immediate peace
'Cause I'm not much cop at punching other people's dads
Russia had been devastated by this point
And if the homework brings you down
Refers to bureaucratisation of the new revolutionary state, which became the future base of power of the Bonapartist Stalin
Then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown
Refers to Lenin's preference for Trotsky over Stalin and his Bonapartism

Will you stay in our lovers' story?
If you stay you won't be sorry 'cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks hung up on romancing

Will you stay in our lovers' story?
If you stay you won't be sorry 'cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks hung up on romancing

Will you stay?

#2
Post rating: ~
Stalin, a bonapartist? bonaparte was a stalinist. Otherwise not bad. B+ keep up the good work
#3
Post rating: ~
are u calling david bowie a trot??