Hello again, illiterate wannabe-leftcom nigger here. I have three questions:
Firstly, what does Bordiga mean when he refers to 'activism' and 'opportunism'? I've heard that many misinterpret his definitions of them.
Secondly, given that leftcoms are extremely sceptical (or so I'm told) regarding 'proletarian' forms of social democracy in addition to keynesian social democracy, a/the communist revolution must do away with all manifestations of capital and its relations. To my knowledge, various kinds of social democracy (from keynesian through leninist to anarchist) have been historically-shown to be progressive, often for decades on end. Can progressive forms of social democracy create the preconditions necessary for proletarian socialism to be built?
Thirdly (this may be related to the first), unless I am hopelessly wrong, the specifications set out by leftcoms are strict and this implies an extreme difficulty in establishing proletarian socialism. Many leftcoms frown upon the notion that trying to do so even in the mid-future is feasible let alone the near-future. Does immediate leftcom praxis really involve 'doing absolutely nothing whatsoever' as the bordigist memes say? If revolution now is pointless in establishing socialism, is reformism worth anything to the left?
I'm looking for answers here; it's annoying enough that I have to bump my own thread.
Nathaniel Hughes
bump for our leftcom friend
Jordan Barnes
Poorly read dolt here, but opportunists are people who will fuck your shit up when you need them not to for their own personal gain. This dawned on me when I realized economic planners shot down the plans for OGAS/the Soviet Internet because of their own self interest (that is, economic planners being replaced by machines they have to allow to be created was never going to happen).
t. didn't read Bordiga but realized what the Bordigamemers meant when going over history
Very drunk and poorly read but it seems you want at least one answer on the subject.
Nathaniel James
Bordiga is a waste of time.
Connor Russell
I can't read.
Logan Johnson
1.) Bordiga didn't like opportunists because they parasitically leech off of Liberals and Liberal parties, they draw revolutionaries further to the political center, bring Liberals into the movement, and force Marxism out of the realm of economy into the bulshit realm of politics and entryism. Bordiga didn't like activism for a lot of the same reasons many Marxists today reject "movementism" and "folk politics" when they criticize Occupy and BLM, the idea that all it takes to change society is to spill enough bodies into the street and have enough people yell at cops. libcom.org/library/activism-amadeo-bordiga
2.) The whole point of Communism is the complete negation of Capitalism, the State, and, eventually, the Proletariat itself, the goal isn't to manage Capitalism or to create Capitalism with a human face, and at the end of the day all Capitalism can do is reproduce more Capitalism, reforms are nice, and we should fight for them when we can, but they aren't a foundation for change, Western Europe had Keynesian Social Democracy for about 30 years, all it lead to was economic depression and a lamps into NeoLiberalism. The USSR had a Dictatorship of the Proletariat for 70 years, all it lead to was a stagnation so motionless that when the time came for the CIA to perform a coup they didn't even need the mask of an economic crisis, people were willing to overthrow the government just to see something happen for once. That's not Communism comrade, that's human failure.
3.) I wouldn't say the specifications are strict, they're just true to Marx's own theories, if the abolishing of private property, wage labor, and the value form is truly impossible, if the complete negation of the Proletariate and the sublation of Capitalism into Communism is truly impossible, then there simply is no reason to be a Socialist at all, because it means Liberals are right, we already exist in the end of history. And that would be pretty shitty fam.
Asher Parker
Well that really backfired didn't it.
Jaxson Wright
I don't think I'm the best read Leftcom on this board, but I hope this helps.
Jack King
HOW TO BE MASTER BOODEGA READER
STEP 1. NEVER LEAVE YOUR ARMCHAIR
STEP 2. DON'T FIGHT FASCISTS SINCE ACTIVISM IS FASCISM
STEP 3. DIE IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP SINCE BOURGEOISIE DEMOCRACY IS LITERALLY THE SAME AS FASCISM
CONGRATS, YOU HAVE LEVELED UP TO MASTER BOODEGAIST. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE AS YOUR PRIZE?
Blake Lee
But Bordiga did organize revolutionary unions to fight Fascists, quite literally, he just didn't form a United Front with Liberals because he wasn't a classcuck.
Eli Walker
How the fuck was the USSR the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Jonathan White
I wasn't worker lead necessarily, but the State did function on behalf of the Proletariat, admittedly a bastardization of Marx, but it is a DoTP in the roughest sense, DoTP doesn't inherently mean worker's democracy.
Brody Rivera
You are a waste of labour. You can join in some orgy; given your mentalities, it would most likely be you two pretending to be underage. For the record, I would like a video of your diseased genitalia falling off; I have friends who could do without their cash.
1.) This doesn't fully answer my question about what he meant by 'activism' and 'opportunism'; I don't wish to misrepresent his ideas when discussing the man's ideas.
Even though the source starts with Bordiga saying that the conditions for revolution must indeed by correct, presumably as detailed by Marx, I still can't understand what he means when he fires words at the "fanatics of activism".
2.) I know that communism and reformism have entirely different intents and methods with regards to change of society; I also recognise that the decidedly-centrist compromises of all social democrats have resulted in catastrophic failure; pic related is in fact my own creation. However, this does not negate the idea of constant reform. A reformist could argue: 'if it is easier to practice constant reform, why should it not be done?', though I believe that such constant reform is unstable and will most likely lead to the growth of bourgeois power as a result of their greed manifesting in their efforts to strip capital of its 'progressivist' cushioning system for the ends of political power.
3.) If the liberals are more correct than the marxists, what can be done to salvage marxist theory? A friend recently attended a series of lectures regarding 'new materialism' and classical marxist approaches to it; I don't know if this is simple revisionism but it could offer a solution.
It's almost as if the Soviet bureaucrats became their own disassociated elite, but it's okay because it was proletarian capitalism!
Christopher Sanders
YOU GUYS WILL JUMP THROUGH ANYTHING TO JUSTIFY YOUR HISTORICAL FAILURE.
A N Y T H I N G
THE BLOOD OF MILLIONS OF RUSSIANS, JEWS, AND OTHER EASTERN EUROPEANS IS ON YOUR HANDS, BUT THATS OK SINCE THEY WERE PROBABLY FASCISTS ANYWAY, RITE?
But if you're a Fascist why do you care if jews die?
Samuel Reyes
It does mean the proletariat controls society however. Governments today also "acts on behalf of their workers".
Joseph Barnes
FASCIST? DO NOT CONFUSE ME WITH A FASCIST YOU REVISIONIST DOG.
YOU ARE THE REAL FASCISTS, SINCE YOU ARE SO PERMITTING OF THEM IN YOUR LIFE.
YOU ARE FASCISTS BECAUSE IN YOUR AUTISTIC REFUSAL TO SIDE WITH THE LESSER EVIL YOU ACTUALLY GOT YOURSELF AND YOUR COMRADES KILLED.
YOU LET THE SCOURGE STOMP OVER YOUR BODIES BECAUSE, HAVING SAT IN YOUR FUCKING SOFAS FOR SO LONG, YOU BECAME UNABLE TO PERCEIVE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOVERNMENT THAT HAS TO AT LEAST PRETEND TO RESPECT THE LAW AND A GOVERNMENT THAT USES THE LAW AS A MEANS OF LOOTING THE PEOPLE FOR ITSELF.
SO KINDLY GO FUCK YOURSELF. ALL THE SOFA FORTS IN THE WORLD CAN'T SAVE YOU FROM YOUR IRREDEEMABLE HISTORICAL DEFEAT, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU TRY.
E A T S H I T A T
S H I T
David Watson
Found the Maoist shill. I'm not even necessarily against anti-imperialism as a measure to protect revolutionary forces.
