Why do left-wing parties never succeed in the developed world?

Okay, I know that user is unlikely to respond (too much time passed), but am I the only one who is confused by this?

… how does this even work?

What kind of insane logic is this?

If you admit that Soviets (i.e. violent revolution plus planned economy) were the cause of social changes in the West (Capitalists got scared of alternative), how does it follow from this that SocDem - who simply claimed those changes to be result of their peaceful efforts - are to be followed now?

You can't simultaneously claim Reformist approach to be impotent and defend Wolff - whose suggested course of action is Reformist - as the best choice.

If Bolshevik tactic works, then "hammer and sickle" and "the same terminology" are the way to go (unless you have something better, or at least something that wasn't tried over and over and over before - with negligible results).

Am I missing something here?

Incrementalism. Wolffism if implemented to its fullest extent would subvert or even destroy the political and economic power of the bourgeoisie and eliminate obstacles to a socialist revolution.

Expecting the masses to rise up in order to support the establishment of an authoritarian bureaucratic state based on a model known for fomenting corruption and shortages is pretty fucking stupid. You may not be aware, but most people take a pretty dim view of the USSR and its legacy. This is why leftist parties that cling to Stalin-era iconography are invariably marginalized and consigned to irrelevancy.

Furthermore, widespread cooperativization of the economy has not been tried before. The Bolshevik tactic, by which I assume you mean Stalinist incompetence, has, and it has produced only human misery and the ruining of communism's name.

He was talking about branding m8. You could literally be a revolutionary socialist of any stripe, all he's saying is don't use the iconography and imagery traditionally associated with communism, since it had a lot of negative connotations and baggage. Basically we need a rebranding.

Except it will not be implemented. SocDem had been trying peaceful reforms since 19th century. Even if - by some immense luck - it gets implemented, one Pinochet later Capitalists get everything back in (old) order.

You need Vanguard - capable of organized violence - to defend whatever gains you get. And then you need Planned Economy, but there is no point talking about it.

What are you talking about? Even Wolff admits that de jure kolkhozs were literally Communism (well, Socialist mode of production in ML discourse; but - like a good Anarchists/LeftCom - he doesn't differentiate). That's over half of Soviet economy during "Stalin's incompetence" being non-state cooperatives. If that's not "widespread" I don't know what is.

But if you are literally going to do traditional Communism, why bother? It's not like it will change anything - Communists are not liked because of their suggested policies, not because of red flag or Soviet symbols. No amount of rebranding will stop Capitalists from noticing your anti-Capitalist ideas - but it will divide Proletariat and make it more confused.

Honestly no amount of rebranding is going to stop the opposition from suggesting we want to recreate the USSR play by play. It really won't matter if you're a anarchist or a Luxemburgist. I actually think that actively trying to rebranding can be used to label us as being disingenuous at best and insidious at worst. I think embracing it will allow us to confront the issue head on which will allow us to control the narrative.

The problem isn't whether you have an organized vanguard or not. You could have a Wolffist vanguard or even an Anarchist vanguard. By which I mean a revolutionary armed group which is organized, not necessarily any specific M-L definition of vanguard. The problem is that nobody will support a Bolshevik vanguard because the decrepit symbolism of 20th century Soviet empire are poison to a movement's credibility and some degree of popular support is still necessary to even make advancements to defend in the first place. And we are not in civil war era Russia, in the present day we are facing off against fairly solid bourgeois states, not one of many factions fighting for turf in an open war. Bolshevik tactics were a product of their time, trying to transplant them as is to 21st-century first world nations is pure poppycock.

Even if we fail to bring about social change through a non-violent political campaign, it is important that we attempt this even if we fail, in order to demonstrate the lack of alternatives and push people towards violent struggle.

And I'm not talking about mandatory agricultural collectives, I'm talking about using state policy to develop a cooperative-based capitalist economy in preparation for transition to socialism. This has not been tried, and it is not the same as kolkhoz system.

How about not trying to recreate the USSR play by play, admitting that they did some things well and some things bad, discarding the terrible while adopting the good and building something else?

I'm not suggesting we recreate the Soviet Union. The point is regardless of what variety of socialist you are or whether you happen to use the hammer and sickle as your party insignia the capitalist opposition is going to label you a devout Stalinist who wants to kill millions of people. And even if you try to actively avoid using those symbols you'll just be labeled a secret commie who is trying to infiltrate respectable politics.

Honestly we may be able to use the "socialism is the government doing things" meme to our advantage. Divorcing socialism from the USSR specifically actually frees us in a way, and allows us to use the term to describe ourselves without immediately being saddled with the "hurr durr go back to Russia" bullshit. What we ought to do is just keep pushing socialist policies and ideas (co-ops, soviets, syndicates, etc.) while still calling ourselves socialists while dropping all the soviet imagery. This will basically allow us to push for actual socialism without the baggage.

Honesty if keeping dank commie imagery is more important to you than actually making inroads into capitalist society then you truly are a LARPer.

I forgot to add that the ignorance of what socialism actually means can work to our advantage. We can push for things like worker's councils and syndicates without the association with the USSR, because people don't have any idea how the USSR actually functioned. So basically as long as we aren't pushing centralized bureaucratic state control then we can push for socialism without the negative connotations.

We shouldn't be using misconceptions like big gubment at all. Once it's revealed to the people you're trying to court that your "totally not socialist" policies are in fact socialist they're going to feel duped and nobody likes being played. You'll be destroying the trust of the people and tanking your own movement.

I didn't say that we should shy away from the socialist label. I said we should take advantage of the current separation of the term socialism from the USSR. We can also push for workers councils and the like without immediate association with the USSR because people don't know that these insitutions existed in the USSR or how they operated. People simply associate the Soviet Union with authoritarian bureaucracy and centralized control. So as long as we don't push for that we can call ourselves socialists and support actual socialist policies/institutions without getting saddled with USSR baggage.

...

You keep ignoring both my point (and the other user's point - but he posted it again already).
> Communists are not liked because of their suggested policies, not because of red flag or Soviet symbols.

As long as you suggest Communism - under any name - it will still face the most rabid, the most concentrated, the most desperate resistance Capitalists can muster. It's not a question of "branding". It's a question of power - nobody is going to go "oh, it's not actually Communism, so it's okay", they will say "those fucks are trying to take my power away from me - they must die!"

It doesn't matter. The capitalists are going to label you a big C communist, regardless. You'll be subjected to propaganda the likes of which we haven't seen. Trying to play coy with the people isn't going to get you very far.

Oh, sorry, I misread. I don't think that's the case at all - you could very well put together a platform based on the principle of eliminating the contradictions of capitalism without actually making reference to 20th century movements. I think a lot of people are opposed to socialism because they see it as a branch of M-Lism, but it's possible to say 'no, it's entirely different from that and these are the reasons - we don't have bureaucrats and party officials in charge of every little thing, we don't say where you can go and where you can work,' and so on and so on (sniff) until it becomes clear that what we support isn't any of the things that people imagine when they hear socialism. I like to describe it as capitalism without the bad parts. If you can describe clearly where and why capitalism fails and how to fix that through policy, I think you might get a surprising number of people on-board.

And anyway, it's a moot point - don't something like half of all young people today support some form of socialism? (Even if they probably just mean social democracy.)

The bourgies will say that, yes. Most people aren't bourgies, and you must be living in profound delusion if you think that Mao and Stalin's legacies don't have anything to do with why ordinary people find hammers and sickles and socialist realist art distasteful in politics. The point about Wolff is that people can suggest socialist policy and gain support because they're not nostalgic larpers. But of course, to you, that's probably not socialist policy to begin with since it doesn't involve sending soft dissidents to gulag and mass requisitioning peasants' toothbrushes.

Also
>Communists are not liked because of their suggested policies, not because of red flag or Soviet symbols.

Proofs? """Communists""" aren't liked because they idolize shitty authoritarian regimes that failed to build socialism.

Of course there will still be propaganda hurled at us, but we aren't helping ourselves by wrapping ourselves in Soviet imagery. In fact we only make the propaganda more believable. We can at least make an effort to dispel the propaganda and help our public image by dispelling the imagery that has so much negative baggage.

So, you will be telling people one thing, but will be doing another?

You should've warned me that you are Blanquist.

Can you take your religion somewhere else?

No we'll be calling ourselves socialists and supporting socialism. The thing is that the word socialism isn't immediately associated with the USSR anymore, shown by the fact that normies think Sweden is socialist. Furthermore people don't associate actual socialist structures like worker's councils with the USSR anymore, since they don't know that these organizations existed within the USSR. So we can call ourselves socialists and push for socialism while at the same time shedding association with the Soviet Union. A lot of people's opposition to socialism comes from that association, so if we can get rid of it I think that that can help us.

Are you trolling me?

M8 we need to make people assess the validity of socialist ideas on their own merit, not based on their association with failed authoritarian regimes. If we want to do that we have to shed our association with those regimes. If you'd rather order a mosin and an ushanka from eBay and LARP than make progress then have fun with that.

As soon as you deviate from the DUDE SWEDEN LMAO soc dem policies like suggesting the abolition of private property those associations with the USSR are going to reveal themselves again. You're going to come off as disingenuous.

Except if they point to syndicates and worker's councils and call it socialism they are going to dispel the "socialism is le big gubmint" myth and shoot themselves in the foot. They would sweep away their own propaganda.

Most people don't know what communism is. Convincing the Western (especially Burgerstan) population that communism = 1984 was a big part of capitalist propaganda.

This is just too cringy to reply to.

Not really because you're a secret commie so of course you tell people that democratic workers councils are the goal but just like in Soviet Russia the real end goal is total domination of all life on the planet and toothbrush share programs.

I know. What's your point?

If a leftist group was able to combine drugs/party/freedom of thought with family/"order"/freedom of speech/discipline they would be unstoppable.

Go find any drum circle in the fucking world. I guarantee you everyone in that drum circle is fucking over somebody else in that drum circle. DJ Toadstool is banging Firebreather Marcus's hula hooping girlfriend StacE, Jarone the LSD dealer is actually selling everyone PCP, and all these people treat every dollar they have like it's one of their fucking kidneys.

I believe basically everything should be legal, but so that people can learn on their own. I want everyone to have the right to buy a bag of meth, but that doesn't mean they are supposed to get addicted and fuck up their whole life. I think pornography is a waste of fucking time. It's there is prey on the weak, and eventually it sabotages peoples desires to seek out real relationships. Obviously there are people who are just occasional whackers, but lets not beat around the bush here plenty of people have just accepted that they only get to watch sex through a screen. Does that mean you ban it? Fuck no.

I've drank multiple bottles of cough medicine at once, dropped lsd, ate mushrooms, snorted like a dozen ambien,etc, so I don't believe in limits. People trying to impose limits / ancient rules designed for retarded peasants on me is the same as torture. I've erased about 99.999% of the world from my mind because they are hopeless unevolved fucks, so those people have no right to tell me what the fuck to do.

I was once a "do whatever you want no matter what" faggots until everything caught up to me. It catches up to everyone. This basically happens to every single person who decided that society is fucked, started doing drugs, then said "FUCK IT! Eventually when my life went to shit I realized that if half the world wasn't out there strictly enforcing certain rules we'd be fucked.

I'll get to the fucking point - if you want anarchy you gotta do it responsibly. Literally every reasonable person no matter what school of thought/religion/path always comes to the conclusion that if they want to harmonize with everyone they need to not be a piece of shit. It's not hard to not be a piece of shit - don't lie, scam, cheat, steal, kill, murder, torture, intimidate, demean, ignore etc. If lefts don't learn to"act civilized" they are gonna fuck up drugs/freedom for everyone else. Everyone is fucked up. I'm not saying lefts are these horrible fucking people, but let's not beat around the bush alot of these people have no moral code whatsoever. Don't be like the right faggots - they view every human lower on the ladder than them as a tool they can use to enhance their lives.

Yeah, doesn't that damn dirty anarchist liberal know that revolutionary movements simply pop up out of the ground so long as adhere to century-old dogma strictly enough?

To suggest that people will be repulsed by communism implies they know what communism is in the first place.

But then who comes of as disingenuous? We'll be the ones saying we support something and doing that thing. They'll be the ones making wild accusations based on things we haven't done. Putting your money where your mouth is generally is more effective that wild baseless speculation and accusations of a hidden agenda without any evidence to back it up. What will actually make their accusations more believable is if we actively associate ourselves with the Soviet Union, since they can just point to that imagery and say "See they want the USSR back!".

How many times have you been told that you will still be the Ultimate Evil, and then you will lose support of people on top of it?

Independent press and unbiased media will protect your reputation.

I'm sorry for being rude, but what are you? 13?

it depends what you mean by left-wing party
do you mean
- a party meant to break apart the bourgeois imperialism currently operating from Wall Street, Washington and its army? in this case, we are left with the fact that the Empire has won the war against USSR, Yugoslavia and the Socialist Arab States.
- a party which is part of the circus of bourgeois democracy, and plays the revolutionary only to break the barriers of profit? just like Tony Blair's war and open immigration policy, that were only meant to destroy any proletarian resistance to the Empire. Tsipras is also a bought leftist.

Trotskyte agents are everywhere to be found as controlled opposition, because Wall Street likes their brand of leftism. Today most Communist parties have shown allegiance to trotskysm or the post-modern schools of thought.

We can resurrect this real left-wing by attack post-modernism from the left. What passes for left-wing in art schools are just codewords for the money-laundering scheme set up from New York. What passes for progress in gender relations is the destruction of the family cell through the denial of science. Unless we dare to denounce how the circus bourgeois are using the new left - reification of the whole humanity for their money-god - there won't be any future.

I understand that they will still hurl bullshit propaganda at us. All I'm suggesting is that this propaganda will be less effective is we don't actively associate ourselves with failed authoritarian quagmires.

Who's being naive now? We can't rely on media of any kind to accurately portray what we're about, and even if we could rely on independent media to support us it will be totally drowned out by MSM.

Didn't the Bolsheviks say "all power to the Soviets"?

And they also have the entire might of the 21st century media apparatus to make sure everyone knows you're a Bolshevik in disguise.

Most of the world's population operates off of the baseless speculation fed to them by the bourgeoisie.

Modern politics is known for it's hyperbole, especially about politics outside of the narrow spectrum that's regarded as the "norm". Right-wingers accusing your movement of trying to re-establish the USSR will be laughed off as more hyperbole and right-wing hysteria… unless your party actively embraces the USSR for some nonsensical reason.

I'm sorry for being rude, but what are you? 13?

If their propaganda is based on the idea that we're Bolsheviks and Stalinists then we should definitely not be helping them by actively using imagery associated with Bolsheviks and Stalinism. Some people will still think we're Stalinists if we drop the imagery sure, but not nearly as many.

With regards to "All power to soviets" the solution is simple: don't call them soviets. Politics is all about perception, if you refuse to use spin then you won't get anywhere.

Except all your policies are literally the basis of "failed authoritarian quagmires".

That was sarcasm, you autist. Did you even read my posts?

WHICH IS WHY IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW YOU CALL YOURSELF

You're beginning to understand that arguing with tankies is like arguing with a brick wall because they treat their ideology like a religion and like to fancy themselves hardened, seasoned revolutionaries because people back in the mid-20th century that had something resembling their ideology were. Then they reveal themselves to be more naive and ignorant about politics than anyone else.

You're right, brother, so long as we put the Holy Vissage of Saint Stalin on our banners, he will create a revolution for us from the heavens!

The fact that most people don't like the USSR and a return to it isn't going to win any converts doesn't matter. The Terracotta Revolutionary Army will simply rise from the earth so long as we remember to give Comrade Stalin all the glory!

You're trying to avoid the unavoidable. At some point your going to have to admit to the masses that you are a communist despite the fact that you've been saying you totally aren't. I just think it's a bad move to start your party/movement off with a lie through omission. All it's going to do is alienate people.

I mean this is an unknowable variable at this point in time but I honestly think you're underestimating how many people will buy into bourgeois propaganda.

I don't think he was talking about dropping the word "communism". He's talking about putting a distance between the modern movement and the USSR.

Because the populous are fat off the third world

...

You're like those Christians who think they can bring Jesus back by enacting all the vague prophesies in Revelations.

tanner is that you?

puts the larger system in greater danger to have a successful far left in the first world.

Those in power have more to lose from rev in the first world, those out of power have less to gain

This mostly. They can beat down revolutions in third world countries, but they'd have a lot more trouble dealing with it in their own back yard.

First world mentality.
First world cannot be revolutionary.

Why?

Either way, with all the immigrants (IRL - without Second World) First World is rapidly turning into Third World. It's not like there will be much difference in a decade or two.

t. Jason

If Spartakus was will… THEN WHO WAS PHONE?????

ftfy

Seriously. Fuck off. I feel like you're triggered by the mere presence of tankies and won't actually listen or consider Stalinstache's points. I'm not a ML, but he makes good points regardless that I feel don't even relate to his ideology and you're simply just bringing everything back to "hurr durr you lick Stalin's boot!" and "muh Soviet nostalgia." From what I'm reading, Stalinstache isn't advocating for the explicit usage of Bolshevik imagery. He's just saying that our opposition will notice our anti-capitalist ideals even with try to associate ourselves from Soviet aesthetics and nothing will really change is a good, solid point. You have done nothing but strawman and be butthurt from what I felt was an attempt at a honest discussion.

Because red flag guy was making a very common sense point: we should distance ourselves from the Soviet Union since they have a bad public image

This guy is just assdamaged because he wants to LARP as a Bolshevik. Yes, the right is going to accuse us of trying to bring the USSR back (which in their minds is 1984) when they realize we're anti-capitalist.

But the thing is, they do that for everyone. Tepid liberals like Obama are regularly called communists. Hell, right-wingers who simply aren't as right-wing as the speaker may be called commies. Fucking Sargon regularly gets accused of being a Marxist by the aut-right. It's kind of a big joke from all the crying wolf that goes on with red baiting.

It's just something that's going to be laughed off unless you go out of your way to associate yourself with the Soviet Union.

And the tankies aren't here for an "honest discussion". There here to spout dogma and call you an anarchist if you disagree.

There's a fucking crown on the uniform.

So I don't really understand this, who exactly is being so ass-blasted by connection to soviet iconography, baby boomers? Why distance ourselves from the history of the working class? Any honest discussion of a future revolutionary left will need to discuss the successes and failures of the Soviet state. If it's going to be ubiquitous, might as well take the propaganda and memeify it.

if you seriously gonna consider question of private property on the means of production, then the whole media machine is gonna attack you, and attack you *hard*
no one gives a shit about hammer and sickle by itself
everyone gives a shit about what policy hammer and sickle implies

Regardless of whether they attack you or not, why the fuck would it be a good idea to associate yourself with a regime popularly known for mass famine, gulags and violent political repression?

Yes, many people will oppose you regardless, but some people will be on the fence, and associating yourself with a failed 20th century that is despised not only by people influenced by Cold War runoff, but also leftists who despise the USSR for ideological reasons and people who were affected or have family members who were affected by Soviet repression and imperialism.

In exchange you get, uh, FUCKING NOTHING.

And only a delusional tankie would think associate the USSR, a repressive, authoritarian bureaucratic state with a history of political violence, with """the history of the working class.""" At that rate you may as well even appropriate the traditions of Pinochet for all the connections his regime had to the working class.

such epithets, much emotion

please, cut me some slack, I've listened to all of this from kindergarten

it's really simple, mate
once someone brings a point of common property on the means of production, he will be identified as good ol' red
no escaping

look at venezuela
and they don't even trying to get rid of private property

The idea isn't to avoid being labeled as a red, it's to avoid being labeled as a bunch of historical reenactors with a hard-on for Russian failure. It's just that simple.

lol, but you can't avoid it
USSR is a part of communist movement history, want some lefty it or not

SU is no more, but its spirit still haunts the left

Yes, you can avoid it. As outlined by this fellow
rightists have been accusing their opponents of being a bunch of Stalins for ages, to the point where nearly everyone is inured to it. On the other hand, if you call yourself BOLSHEVIK GULAG CREW and make Stalin's face into your party logo, people who might be inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt and appraise your policy proposals at face value will be massively turned off because NOBODY BUT YOU DUMBASSES AND A BUNCH OF RUSSIAN GRANDMAS AND REACTIONARY BYDLOS REMEMBERS THE USSR FONDLY.

You notice how Wolff is proposing policies that approach collectivization and would threaten the bourgies directly if implemented, and how he's gaining support even from moderates and otherwise conservatives? You notice how he isn't a fucking LARPer?

There's nothing wrong with liking the Red Army Choir and old propaganda posters, but making them the face of your contemporary leftist movement is political suicide.

And I don't want to hear this lame defeatist self-pitying shit like 'oh us poor persecuted lefties aren't going to get taken seriously anyway' because that's no justification for not doing your best possible effort regardless. Incidentally, that's all I've heard from you - it's not possible, let's not even try - probably because you don't even think we should distance ourselves from USSR because you're so invested in bolshevik LARP.

The USSR was the result of a communist social revolution. Distancing yourself from that is nothing less than a capitulation. You don't have to suck Stalin's dick to think the USSR had something worthwhile about it either. All this shrill denunciation hides a kind of terror about it, like it's some kind of ultimately determining factor for the future of the movement – endorsing the USSR means failure while denouncing or ignoring it means success. It's childish. It's also opportunistic to throw away the history of the movement for short-term political purposes; pointlessly, since people will hear the word communist or socialist and do the associating on their own. You may as well abandon the terminology too. At that stage why bother calling yourselves anything other than liberals.

Not him, but it appears you talking about me.

That's a funny way of putting "most of post-Soviet population".

That said, majority is "REACTIONARY BYDLOS", my dear Ultra-Anarchist LeftCom. Nobody, except completely delusional "True Socialists", actually believes in Communism in Our Time.

We can work 4 days a week, 4 hours a day. We can have UBI and direct democracy that would allow us to recall our representatives at any moment. We can have workplace democracy and proper quality control of consumer goods. We can have civil rights and good education. Self-respect and economic stability.

This is what we can get , this is what "bolshevik LARP" means now, and this is what "REACTIONARY BYDLOS" can and will fight for. Not "let's abolish the state in a non-hierarchical way and figure out the rest later". For this people will fight only with "likes" on Facebook.

Allende threatened bourgies, as did Rosa Luxemburg and many others. Look what it had gotten them into. Go for the kill or don't bother.

Also, Wolff's measures will not threaten anything, even if magically implemented - they are unsustainable, they ignore logic and basic Math.

I wouldn't be surprised if he'd gotten support from both Pinochet and Ayn Rand.

Seriously, what is wrong with you? Are you schizophrenic? Maybe you'll have Aryan Nation present their expert opinion on whether something is Marxist or not? At least pretend that he works with actual trade unions and actual Socialist organizations.

Wolff is ten times more LARPer than even Jason Unruhe - who is off the charts already.

Wolff is Cold War relic, part of anti-Soviet propaganda machine. This "Marxism" of Wolff was never even supposed to be practically implemented. It's an effort to create Marxism for hipsters, a theory that sounds very sophisticated, but does not threaten anything.

Literally, foam sword of Socialism.

Why would anyone? I.e. anyone actually Socialist.

Negative impact is negligible and irrelevant. We don't even have proper word for pirates - illegal distributors of commercial information - but it hardly hinders them to be called robbers and murderers. If we had The Bolshevik Bay instead, do you think it would've made everyone abandon torrents?

And our need to discuss and understand USSR is much more important than any hurt fееlings of nationalists and right-wingers. We will have to deal with the very same problems Bolsheviks dealt, should we take over the state. And we'll need public's input for this. And we can't have any meaningful input if we don't actually tell people anything. I'm not even going to discuss absolutely delusional belief that nobody will realize anything by themselves.

If anything is LARPing, it's pretending otherwise. This childish belief that everything was caused by Stalin's Paranoia, that there will be no corruption, no power abuse, no racism, no injustice, that every single problem will magically solve itself - OTHERWISE IT'S NOT REAL SOCIALISM - this is LARPing.

oh please fuck off. This is the reason why the modern left is actually the one in the fucking dustbin.

enjoy 5 more years of socdems until fascism arrives

wew

Because every "Communist" government in reality ended up with minority Ethnic Imperialists in charge.

And precisely why do you need to associate yourself with Stalin in order to achieve these things? As I recall, bolshevik LARPers never accomplished any of these things. I'll know who to call when I need a Youtube video made, though.

The fact that they were stamped out has to do with a number of historical factors that affected each of those situations - taking them out of historical context and presenting them as evidence for why non-Stalinism can never succeed is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

I don't know about you, but I'd take a movement that could convince Ayn Rand and Pinochet to support socialism over one that couldn't.

I don't give a shit over whether something is Marxist or not. I care about improving the material conditions of working people, not satisfying my craving for religious validation. What does this dogmatic insistence that our theory be pure accomplish? Oh, right, like all dogmatic religious thought, it conditions individuals to work against their interest and obey their betters. Only instead of feudal aristocracy or capitalist bourgeoisie, now we have Stalinist bureaucracy!

Notice how Wolff doesn't wear a uniform and pretend he's a 1910s Russian revolutionary? The only way you can make any of these arguments is by torturing the meaning of LARP into something else entirely so you can have an epig gomebag :DD.

Stalinist tankies are essentially the same as reactionary Hitlerists, except they have a little sprinkling of theory on top. They have the same psychological basis for their ideology, hearkening back to an idealized past that never actually existed, except instead of clean-cut blonde children marching in lockstep it's chiselled farm workers singing on the kolkhoz fields. And of course, why bother with any of this except in order to give you good fuzzy feelings as you return again and again to the safety blanket of this moldy, rotting iconography made up to cover up a diseased regime, like make-up on a corpse. You belong on Holla Forums, with the fashy LARPers. Go idolize the past and alienate the public with them.

The people who remember the USSR fondly usually don't do so because of some ideological conviction. They either use it as an object of Nationalist idolization (not surprising, given how Stalin's USSR was profoundly Nationalist) or just don't give a shit about the bad parts because the current neoliberal regime in Russia left them out in the cold and at least back then they had pensions and central heating. If we want something that's better than neoliberalism and stirs nationalist sentiment, why not fucking feudalism? It would probably work about the fucking same as Stalinism.

Here we have another similarity with Holla Forums. When you see something that goes against your ideology-infused world view, it's suddenly the work of a wide-ranging malevolent conspiracy. If something gains currency with the public, it's obviously a Jewi- or, errr, a CIA COINTELPRO FBI plant, because why else could this possibly be more popular than my sucking off Stalin's necrotic dingaling? Obviously it can't work, I mean it's not even True Socialism™! As for proofs? "Human nature! Don't you know economics? Communism can't work, lefty retards." Do you have even a single fact to back that up?

It's not about not talking about these things. It's essential to talk about these things.

What is retarded is idealizing the USSR and using it as your example of your ideal society. Is it so hard to say 'the USSR is not the sort of society that what we want and what they put into practice does not represent our principles'? Of course, it probably hurts dumb tankies feelings to say this just like it hurts Nazis' feelings to say that Hitler's Germany wasn't that great, because they don't care about accomplishing anything today, they care about preserving Nationalist spooks, because they're both cowards who need an ideological safety blanket to cope with reality.

This doesn't make any sense, can you please stop using terms without understanding what they mean?

Also, any fan of Wolff is neither a leftcom or an anarchist.

There are a few things Lenin did that could be endorsed (his campaigns against illiteracy for example, and his emphasis on equality between genders and races) - but there was no point where this "communist" revolution was a revolution of the working class - even when Lenin was establishing "socialism", he was putting down peasant movements left and right and able to denounce them as being part of "counterrevolutionary conspiracies". Look at Kronstadt and look at Mahkno. It was possible to redeem the USSR, to really give the power to the working class. To lift he ban on dissent - but instead we got Stalin. No matter which way you'd like to interpret the data, and no matter which way you'd like to justify it the USSR in the 1930's outpaces Franco and Czarist Russia in terms of suppression, by a longshot.
You aren't throwing the history of the movement away. The majority of the "history of the movement" is ==not good== - it doesn't paint the left in a good light. We should denounce the USSR, not deny it's existence like you're implying socialist poster is saying.

Except I was not talking about supporting Socialism. I was talking about supporting Wolff.

But it is telling that you are no longer capable of distinguishing between the two.

Nobody knows what they are, because Wolff wants to pander to everyone.

As a result no ideology will recognize those Frankensteins of Socialism as their own.

I'm glad the the USSR is dead.

Because they are mouthpieces of jewish ideas.

And you know how well jews have been received throughout the centuries.

Next purge is coming up again, too.
The golems are first to fall, of course.

That's the point.
You think Germany burned them without reason? It's a roach motel.
Bread and circuses and plausible deniability on "why it didn't work again", while you take the fall and the jews who dreamed it up retreat again.

As long as white man keeps a mindset of open borders they will be able to come back, after all.
Even if some of them get hurt or die, the parasitism and golemization is worth it.

Sucks to be on the left in the future, though.
I hope you seized the means of production of medical care and so so forth.

Put your flag on, faggot.

Don't tip it too often, you'll need the helmet more than I do.

...

Not even leftcoms would agree with that nonsense.

Nothing could paint the left in a good light, especially communists. Defending or denouncing the USSR – the bourgeoisie doesn't care. Have some backbone and give it some respect for what it achieved.

but USSR partly represents my principles.
That's the fucking point.

common property on the means of production, means state ownership of the means of production, bcs it's the lowest common denominator there is

production for use, means no commodity production for profit, means central economic planning ideally in natura

all else is irrelevant

and I know that SU was flawed, for fuck's sake
I know that profit still was an indicator of enterprise efficiency
but I also know that plan targets were the alpha and omega of the system
even after 60s reform gross output target (even in money terms) was all that really mattered
it's not like any particular enterprise could possibly go bunkrupt

and I know that material balance method was crude
and I know that optimal planning models were castles in the skies
but I also know that input-output models worked in natura

I know
I know it all mate

and when I defend SU, I defend those principles
my principles

I don't give a fuck about red stars, hammers, sickles, dead mustache man, proletariat, marx, etc.

only my principles

Cointelpro.

And how is that exactly? You're the ones gunning to get shot by the federal government in a few days, aren't you?

FTFY

Wrong verb tense, mate.

In exchange you get academic honesty and you are able to actually critique how people fueled by similar ideologies were successful or not.

victimsofcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/VOC-Report-101316.pdf

Look through these stats and realize that despite a culture of revisionist propaganda, a fair amount of millennials have positive opinions on communists and bolsheviks.

There's no point in throwing the history of leftist politics entirely out the window. The left needs to have an honest critique on the successes and failures of the USSR.

I'm not saying we can't have an honest critique of USSR, you ding-dongs. My concern is tactical, in the same vein as not making it a priority to purge our movements of intersectional gender violence before we can sort out issues of class. Relying on imagery and iconography reminiscent of USSR and Stalinism for your public face is a bad PR move, through and through.

All the arguments you've put against it (oh, it's just any marxist policy they hate, not this particular revisionist dictator's implementation; they'll associate you with stalin even if you expressly distance yourself from him and support entirely different policies :^); the only reason people dislike M-Ls (read: stalinists) is because of propaganda, there are no legitimate reasons to avoid supporting a stalinist programme other than propaganda) are either entirely unsubstantiated, absurd from the outset or profoundly delusional. Nationalism and cult of personality has no place in leftism.

And yet, you so proudly label them "anarchists" of one sort or another