Western socialist movements can only succeed if they abandon open adulation of the Dismal Three

Western socialist movements can only succeed if they abandon open adulation of the Dismal Three.

Prove me wrong.

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Adulation, yes. But you should be willing to learn from their mistakes. That means studying them closely.

Western socialists would do much better if they abandoned traditionally socialist imagery altogether.

this, unfortunately

Abandon Lenin keep the others.

the opposite is true

Mao - absolutely. Incompetent idiot

Stalin - yes, his name is synonymous with totalitarianism

Lenin - I'm undecided. I agree we need to move past 20th century division though

Agreed 100% Perhaps take a more critical view of some of the stuff of the other two said as well, but at least they were generally pretty great

lenin is the most important because he generally meant well so we oughtta learn from his mistakes. The other ones are the HRC of the communist party. Nobody fucking likes them but we keep defending them because people can't fucking let go.

Learn from Lenin

Erase the other two fucknuggets from the face of history

this. when liberals ask "how will you avoid becoming a cold war authoritarian hellhole?" or "what do you think of the atrocities that happened under these regimes" and you respond "lol muh gorillions XDXDXD I'm gonna put you in a gulag" how the fuck do you think they're gonna respond? The problem is that the only people for whom that sort of line has any appeal are autistic nutjobs and so commie orgs get so saturated with autistic nutjobs that the only people they can attract are yet more autistic nutjobs.

Commies can't be these fringe weirdos who have read up on all the party-friendly excuses for 20th century failures. We have to assimilate with normalfaggots.

or learn from them too

but the lesson is pretty short

Lenin started the whole bullshit

if it wasn't for him true socialism would have taken over the world by now, fuck him

well yeah but that's why we need to learn from him. He was patient zero for the disease that later grew into tankieism and ate the left from the inside. And I generally tend to think he meant well, he just fucked up. We need to learn from his mistakes to avoid them in the future.

In the long run socialism/communism will succeed due to changing material conditions.

The movement which succeeds will probably not be called socialism or communism though.

but mass awareness is also necessary. It's not enough for shit to go wrong. We have to know what to do beyond that. If anything, that's the biggest lesson we can take away from these assholes as well as the failed revolutions of germany and italy that gave way to fascism.

Was Lenin an asshole? I mean like he wasn't an insane tankie at the least, right?

When automation results in mass unemployment there will be no alternatives to communism. It will be completely obvious to people that they need to size and communize the means of production.

How will you be able to do that when the most important parts of automation won't be open sourced?

you sure about that? because right now, fascism is rising all around the world

also I doubt capitalists will allow full automation

I agree with all three because they have such ugly reputations throughout the western world, but only Stalin and Mao rightfully so. Lenin was pretty cool but created a monster by accident while trying to do good, while Stalin and Mao were murderous power hungry edge lords.

ITT: people committed against reading

Werent they all closer to state capitalists anyway?

Software security can't protect against hardware access.


The alternative is that the proletariat die out quietly. The end result is still communism, albeit one which most of us won't get to see.

Automation is profitable. Capitalism will pursue profit to the death.

no generally I don't think he was. He's the least bad of the three. But that's part of the problem. It's not enough to mean well. We have to learn from past failures because in many cases they thought like us that they could just mean well and everything would somehow work out.

As a side note, this is in part what I think is dangerous about the appeal of reformism and parliamentarianism in the left as well. People think "oh well we'll get a socialist elected and he won't be a scumbag like every other politician because he means well." Well, inherent to the system of parliamentarianism is the need to be a scumbag. You can't get ahead without sucking corporate dick and compromising on everything you believe in.


No. Mass revolution is complicated. Changing shit is complicated. It can't hurt to understand the failures of past projects.

Speaking of not reading as I understand it Mao never actually read Kapital

The people seizing the means of production 100 years ago would be different than doing it in an automated society. Those who were in factories actually had an idea of how the factory worked and could replicate the process. Simply seizing an automated means of production won't serve any purpose other than serving a luddite interest.

Get rid of all the symbols, the red flags, the hammer and sickles, the Internationale, even the words socialism and communism, everything.

but then wouldn't that mean we don't have money to buy things with?

what do you suggest, oh well-read one. Please point us to all the great literature which definitively proves that Mao/Stalin/Polpot/Castro/Hoxha/etc did nothing wrong

that's one of the contradictions of capitalism. Increasing amount of constant capital in proportion to variable capital. It's unsustainable, but profitable for the individual businessman to pursue in the short term.

What he meant was all profits in capitalism go to 0 in the long run, meaning capitalism would destroy itself by chasing increasingly vanishing profits.

Destroying the environment would mean there wouldn't be any humans left to sell things to, but capitalism doesn't worry about the future. Anything longer-term than a few years is ignored.

What did Castro do wrong?

lmao

nothing

Grew old.

t. Holla Forums

This is the kind of imagery we aught to use.

Why? You don't like Stalin? I think he did an amazing job. He killed people that simply can't live in society. Corruption people, greedy people. True sociopaths.
It's a shame the following USSR leaders didn't continue with his policies, otherwise corruption lovers like Gorbachev and Putin would have never used the communist party to climb the social ladder.

are there any non-shit ideologies left?

Mutualism. Probably the easiest to implement too. Too bad it lacks the alluring radicalism of the rest.

I see. I'm still learning so thanks

Lenin has interesting writings, but Lenin acted like a fucktard in real life. His war on the peasantry, AFTER they had won the civil war and consolidated power across Russia and Ukraine was just power tripping and a crime against humanity.

All of them are interesting figures. Mao especially before the GLF, but fuck me dead, they're from a period long divorced from where society is now.

It's always miffed me that Socialist theory seemingly died with Mao. Where is the Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin of the 21st century?

Syndicalism? Also Democratic Socialism isn't necessarily a sellout ideology.

Stalin please go.

Killed by French "marxist" thinkers.

I hate Foucault so fucking much

Calm down, it's just 2016. In the upcoming decades we're going to see people born after 2000 coming up with new theories that will save us from this shit

It's not really his fault. His research was legitimate. There was no way at the time to realize it would give birth to such monsters. It's like blaming Stalinism on Marx.

Sorry, I meant they were interesting from a historical perspective.

Mao to me is probably one of the most interesting Socialist figures, because of how actually successful and progressive he was until he went full batshit towards the late 50s.

What I mean by "Socialist theory died with Mao" is that there seemingly hasn't been a new mass socialist program designed for the masses since Maoism. Even all the "newer" programs seem to just be some adaption of Maoism or Trotsky.

Agree mostly apart from the Red Flags.

Red is a very powerful colour and there is nothing like seeing a mass crowd with bold red flags flying everywhere.

It's why leaders wear red ties. It's a powerful energetic colour.

why? they're internationally recognised symbols

the red flag especially

Not him, I'm the one that said red flag.

Hammer and sickle has too much baggage. I like the raised fist. or just plain red/black.

Why? BECAUSE they're internationally recognized symbols. They have too much negative baggage. Most people will instantly antagonize any message or movement associated with those symbols.

keep red flag*

I agree with that. The red flag is inextricably tied to socialism though.

Luxemburgism

This. I've already experienced indicators that Rosa Luxemburg is a great martyr and much better than the ones the left typically uses like Che, MLM and Stalin. Gets women and spooked people on board much quicker that she was a woman, and pacifists on board much quicker that she was a pacifist.

And I'm going to be one of them, hopefully

learn what anarchism actually is and then maybe you'll see why its serious

I hope so too

They can only succeed if they stop looking like a pathetic reenactment attempt.
There's nothing bad with the adulation on itself (I'm not a tankie myself but I think we can work with them) but there's a difference between that and:

This traits I found in Latin American communist parties, from the little I know about the UK this seems to be the case there as well but I could be wrong.
You also have to keep in mind your national situation, try to organize the left in Latin America without Cuban imagery.

BTW I agree 100% that we should get rid of Uncle Joe completely, only tankie autismos with 0 revolutionary potential find something good about him.

true. Rosa was great

that makes me cringe too

Hear me out, how about we get Stalin.. and go build a wall and let capitalism pay for it?

The West isn't sending their best! They're bringing war. They're bringing poverty. They're bankers.

Luxemburgism and Orthodox Leninism are the only vestiges of 20th century socialism that we can bring forward.

I'd like to think I've made some valuable ideological contributions to anarcho-syndicalism, just gotta get the word out.

Yeah. They should also stop calling themselves Socialist. They are embarrassing as fuck.

Yes. True Socialists might've won if not for Soviets.

There is always poverty, slavery, and war. And genocide, of course.

Is this your first day on Holla Forums?

Please, for the love of god, do it. Save the world for white children.

this in full force

Implying we don't IRL

I don't even know where to begin with an analysis this poor, never mind the fact that's it's not even remotely Marxist, but the same kind of "Great Man" theory spewed by Trots and Stalinists.

This Luxemburgism meme is the most empty and vapid form of flight from USSR guilt, it's trots not wanting to be associated with the trot memes, and figuring out having a female icon gives them tons of feminism cred.

It's pathetic.

A bit less strawmanning, please.

Then stop acting like one.

Lol you don't honestly think Luxemburgists are Trots do you? I don't really consider myself an anything-ist other than a leftist, a communist and an anarchist (I feel anything more specific has too much baggage) but even I know Luxemburg was nothing like Trotsky. You sound like a leftcom.

marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1912/05/12.htm

Keep lenin, his mistakes are important to analyze and he was a pretty good guy, Stalin and Mao were just run of the mill dictators who did nothing of value. The only good thing Mao did was call Kruschëv a revisionist.

leftcoms like luxemburg tho they just want to claim her as theirs.

Lenin was still responsible for a lot of deaths. A lot. The Russian revolution didn't fight itself. He's the less evil of the three, but normies that are somewhat knowledgeable about Lenin know this.

this. I like the hammer and sickle, I really do. It's aesthetically pleasing. But this is the communist youth group in my city, my god are they hitting levels of LARP unheard of.

I think I fucking hate all of them.

At best they'll stay out of the way during the revolution.

What ideology even are you?

"Trots" in the sense of being fond of Lenin but not wanting to be associated with the big bad USSR and Stalin.

Right… are you implying that she wasn't an orthodox Marxist or something? I'm honestly not sure what you're even referring to here? Her personality? Her vag?


No? She had didn't much in common with the KAPD, but quite a lot with Lenin (relatively ofc).

Canadian Communist Party?