Why are leftcoms the only ones capable of offering a thoughtful and grounded critique of what's happening in Rojava...

I was just thinking about this today. Tankies on twitter and Holla Forums seem to hate Rojava, and yet a majority of the foreign fighters going over seas to aid in Rojava are all MLs and MLMs from Europe, Turkey, and even Syria. So why are "anti-revisionists" on this board so up in arms about Rojava?

Read further, you are just at the introduction and they argue why later.

Left communists reject most of the anarchist angles of critique in every case, and from the little anarchist commentary on Rojava I've read the point is always the fact that Rojava acts within a state-like power structure and so it's (for those anarchists at least) not worth supporting. Left communists don't seem to ignore utilizing the state (they are after all Marxists who do not shun proletarian dictatorship and see it as an inevitable necessity).

That text was okay but is now dated by almost 2 years. Older leftcom texts also exist like this one leftcom.org/en/articles/2014-10-30/in-rojava-people’s-war-is-not-class-war but are not articulated as well as the one I shared or Dauvé's.

None that I know of, and I search pretty far. However if you hang around on anarchist forums you will notice that there is a minority that oppose it because the state question or think that what little is claimed to be done to fight patriarchal norms is either not really happening or barely.

"Anarchists" doing pop-postmodern quips. Fucking cringeworthy.

Also, why are "anti-revisionists" so fucking ultraleft in general, even though their whole selling point is how pragmatic they are compared Leftcoms?

MLs appear split on Rojava. With a slight majority they seem to stand with Assad and against all other contestants and members of the civil war, then the second largest faction supports both Assad and the SDF (I don't if for them, if it were to come down to a choice between Assad and the Kurds which they would choose) and finally there are a few nutters who stand with the Levant.

If even Dauves retarded text is better than I really wonder what kind of brainfart this is.

Thats something endemic to the internet, people think this is just what is it, but the real leftist movent is much greater, complex and different.
I my country the ML party sends support (and sometimes fighters) to Rojava.
I understand the concerns of some Mls, and is true that US intervention, with YPG is worring, but until the moment they have not been used to confront Assad directly by the US and I don't think they will.
Here in letypol are always to the defensive, so both groups take extreme points wich make no sense, like saying that US imperialism is not bad (wich is really retarded in my opinion, say it to the millions of people dead around the world due to this).
Or saying that the kurds are literally Israel (when in reality they themselves have stated they don't want independence and will negotiate with Assad).

This. Supporting YPG and defending the Assad regime against Imperialist incursion are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.

The only people I've seen defend SDF are Trots. They seems reactionary as fuck tbh.

I'm a more tankie Leninist and support Rojava, the Syrian state is at best semi-succdem. Rojava is actually socialist, so I fully support Rojava.

Not that I think you're wrong, I've just seen a lot of Trots praise SDF.

I wonder if pisspig grandad ever posts on Holla Forums

He is an example of why MLs should support Rojava, he went to fight with them because as an ML he thought they were the socialist option.
But still is not as retarded as someones that say that US imprerialism is bretty good

i know what you mean OP. you don't have to agree with this text to say that their issues with rojava are actually well grounded and articulated. the only thing which annoys me though is like always leftcoms understate or ignore any positive impact it could have. i mean driving out ISIS is a good thing and any victory for the status of women there is worthwhile. you can see these things as desirable without deluding yourself that they are revolutionary is what i mean.

and my biggest fear for rojava is not that it will likely be far from being revolutionary and will fizzle out just like all the projected hopes the left had for the zapatistas, who are now disolved and working with neoliberal tactics. my real fear is that not even these basic gains will be met for the region and that rojava will have no positive impact overall in the long run (4-5 years in the future, if they are even still there).

This is why I'm worried about USA supporting them, once they are no longer a tool they will try to make them "workable" to the US so probably capitalist and neoliberal.
I think their best option will be after Raqqa making an agreement with the Baathist goverment.

Why are leftcoms always posting threads about how they are te only ones to truly see the truth?

"Leftcoms are the only ones to really read Marx"

"Only leftcoms understand that it's not the boss but the firm"

Is it because they are arrogant jerk offs who don't actually really care about organising the working class but just like masturbating to points of theory?

When was there a leftcom revolution? Never.

Leftcoms are the cushy university proffesors who never actually did squat for the working class

I take a big shit on leftcom utopianism. Rajava is about muh nationalism not about communist ideals.

Maybe if one of you could actually coherently describe what your believe it could be

Italian leftcoms helped build one of the largest communist parties in European history.

it became big after they left. pci was 100% affiliated with the third international.

...

There's no such thing as a 'leftcom' revolution. There is and always can be the Proletarian Revolution. Confining yourself to specific ideologies is idealism.

The PCd'I (founded by Bordiga) was already a part of the Comintern and Bordiga almost fully supported everything it decreed when Lenin supervised it. The PCd'I also had way more sway and things in its name than the PCI which superseded it.

wat

who the fuck ever said that though

No one has said this. Everyone agrees US imperialism is bad, the disagreement is whether supporting certain states opposed to US hegemony is good when those states are capitalist and shit.

You know nothing about the conditions and different movements inside Rojava do you?

why do leftcoms hate dialectics? i swear if leftcoms were a thing in the 1800's they would've bitched about national liberation movements. how can you have internationalism without having nations first?

I like Dauvé's article on Rojava. I still think it's worth supporting though, even if it's not socialist.

Can we keep the 'US-Rojava' discussion out of here? There are already threads about it. Instead, we should discuss whether there is an actual revolution or not.

Besides, that's not even the point. At the end of the article the national question is tackled in depth, BTW using a lot of direct citations from Lenin to show that there is a useful form of solving the national question for feature emancipatory endeavors and a useless one.

Reminder that randomly incerting this word or others like it (undialectical!, dialectically) is painfully cringeworthy when you don't know what they mean.

There are plenty of anarchists who are critical of aspects, they just dont autistically denounce it because of these issues.

As do I. I'm a rarity among Ultras that actually likes Rojava. However, we need to give critiques to where they're due and the base fact at the moment is that Rojava isn't a modern day Catalonia as some Narcs would claim

I know that it had its roots in National Liberation movements and is still affiliated with Nationalist groups in neighboring states. Admittedly Rojava (or, more technically, the 'Democratic Federation of North Syria') isn't as nationalist as many people believe, but they do still defend private property and capitalist social relations exist within it.

Agreed. so go look it up.

libcom.org/library/rojava-fraud-non-existent-social-revolution

I guess this isn't posted yet, it's pretty comprehensive.

There isn't. Discussion over.

Yes but inside of Rojava a propper socialist movement exists, mainly in the form of TEV-DEM, they also see the constitution very critical and aim to overcome capitalism as a whole, this wont be possible because of the circumstances but it is a socialist movement trying to go as far as possible. And thus they deserve our support.

Rojava is a society like every other society, its a society experiencing a cultural revolution that is trying to destroy the remnants of feudalism and defeat patriachy, and develop a kind of social capitalism thats less autocratic than the soviet one. But there are also radical movements that activly work at creating direct democratic communes that own their own means and cooperate with each other to produce as many goods as possible for use. This is not socialism but its a massivly important experiment that might help to take the jump into early stage socialism.

Its the same text op linked as a PDF…

marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/millenni/smith2.htm

That's the same article except the OP's one is better formatted and in PDF form straight from the original source.

Social Capitalism is still Capitalism, no matter how "ethical" it may be. And how can their Constitution be critical of Capitalism when under Article 41 they defend the right to property? As Dauve notes in the article above…

"Making a virtue of necessity, the PKK has ditched “class” and “party” references, and promotes self-management, co-operation, communalism (not communism), anti-productivism and gender. David Graeber was rejoicing over the fact that in Kurdistan people might now be reading Judith Butler. A spot-on remark. Deconstruction of the political subject (i.e. of the proletariat as an historical agent), prioritisation of identities, class replaced by gender… the PKK has doubtlessly swapped Marxism for postmodernism."

I never said that the constitution is critical of capitalism.
Bullshit. Dauve has no clue what he is talking about. Yes PKK is pomo af and DemConFed is a shitty ideology. Doesnt make the actual movement go away. If you want to shit on DemConFed do it all you want, its basically vague vulgar communalism with some bullshit added and abandoning the basis of it. But there are like 3 people on this board who have a decent idea on what is happening in Rojava and there is not a single of the usual screechers among them, and if you have no clue about Rojava how can you criticise the actual anticapitalist movement there?

Again, please explain to me how Rojava is in any way anti-Capitalist? Just because the Bourgeois class fled Rojava doesn't mean a new petty-bourgeois class hasn't arisen and capitalist relations still exist. I like Rojava (or the DFNS), it's certainly better than the other factions in the war, but can we stop with this bullshit about it being socialist or at least anti-capitalist?

Are you bad at reading? I never claimed that Rojava is socialist. I just claim that there is a sizable and influential socialist movement INSIDE Rojava(yes Rojava is not a single monolith with one political direction to the contrary of what everyone that hasnt a clue likes to claim)

when did this board turn into us all collectively sucking leftcoms' dicks? Good lord, I mean they have some good theory but can we like talk about anything else? I really miss when this board was just a 50/50 split between tankie-vs.-anarchist posts and retarded Holla Forums posts. It was so much more fun.

I'm even starting to like the blackfags and their spergy anti-leftcom posts

SUCH AS? If there is, they've done quite a crappy job at doing so.

Oh leftcoms with the magic of perfect conditions again.
I mentioned it… various organisations engaged in TEV-DEM who are the main force behind building up the communal system.

A large portion of industry is cooperitized and communes organize the distribution of capital and natural resources while providing basic necessities.

Just admit that you aren't interested in actual serious discussion and you are here only for le dank memes.

Short answer: yes

Ah yes, the serious leftcoms discussion of poorly edited bordiga memes, and calling everything social democracy.

Capitalist relations exist, but they are a minority, just as was the case with other non capitalist modes of production.

Ah yes the hugely successful Italian communist party that totally even came close to fighting fascism in their own country… Nope.

And why exactly isn't Rojava proletarian?

And if confining yourself to specific ideologies is idealism then why do you confine yourself to left wing ideologies?

See it's ALL just pretentious bollocks with you people

The authors characterization of the asayish as simple police is wildly inaccurate. They are under the direct control of local councils and not beholden to the larger political or military organizations.

I mean seriously do you see anarchists posting "why are anarchists the only ones who can critique the state?" Or ML's posting " why are ML's the only ones who can fight imperialism?" Cunt doesn't want to talk about Rojava, just wants to talk about how his snowflake ideology is just that much more special. And they do it all. the. time.

Imagine your name is John Doe and you spend your time going on forums anonymously posting "why does John Doe have such a big dick? Why does he make women cum harder than any other man?"

That is the level of posting OP is on.

It's because they pay each other's backs all the time and make posts saying shit like "only leftcoms have actually read Marx" and people are dumb enough to really believe that is true

Why is it that [Insert unsupported and controversial assumption]?

Not only do you not know that, even if it was true you're acting like people actually owning the MoP they use and receiving the full fruits of their labor is a bad thing.
Most major groups within Rojava have clearly said they're anti-capitalist and trying to work towards a socialist future. Right now the system is promoting and working towards a cooperative economy. Eventually the goal is to go beyond the market totally.

Seriously, read a book. You are embarrassing yourself.

Complete none argument.

How is "read a book" an answer to the point 1. The Italian communist party was largely ineffectual? 2. Why is Rojava not proletarian and 3. How is your own ideology any less of a confining ideology than any other?

Theres better articles on the workings and scale what's happening on the ground but I thought this was interesting, if a little over optimistic:

kurdishquestion.com/article/3950-rojava-039-s-economics-and-the-future-of-the-revolution

fpbp

Only leftcoms have never done shit and never will

Stopped reading there. Should be obvious why.

They exist literally everywhere. Wage labor and production for exchange on a world market exists, need I remind you.

There's no large scale industrial working class. Assad kept that region intentionally de-industrialized. This should be fact
Marxism isn't an ideology. Not sure what this means at all.
Hardly. A two-second glance at Rojava can see they clearly have wage labor and production for exchange.

Article 41 of the Constitution of the DFNS-Rojava

Co-ops don't mean shit if you're still extracting surplus value from yourself and your fellow workers. This should be self-explanatory.

Because you're a pedantic asshole. Would the means of production trigger you less?

we are talking about Rojava here, speficially, not the whole world.

Ah yes all that surplus extraction going to workers and into production of food and buildings.

…

If you can't see your own ideology you're just as bad as the neoliberals.

read zizek stupid

Please say "because it's a science"

Please

Also, nobody was denying the fact that private property still exists to a large extent in Rojava.

Doesn't explain how it isn't a proper proletarian revolution with the potential for such

...

their definition of private property here refers to what most people here would call personal property because they mean your possessions and tools/means of production you can work with as a single person on your own.

Yes. Rojava trades oil and other commodities on a world market to gain capital to re-invest in its own industry. It's capitalist.

I thought the point of Socialism was to abolish surplus value, not prolong it

So you're saying even if all of your internal functions are completely communised, if you trade stuff for stuff with other nations that makes you a capitalist?

not saying your wrong, but how? they´re embargoed from all sides and all the oil refineries were specifically built in the south of syria for the exact purpose of not giving the kurds the ability to export oil on their own and gain economic autonomy.

Yeah it's like calling the primitive communist societies that traded with Europeans capitalist

But their internal functions aren't completely 'communized' (whatever the hell that means). And even if it was, i.e. full coops, if you produce FOR EXCHANGE you are a CAPITALIST. Jesus Christ this is basic shit.

al-Hasakah governate (Jazira Canton's heartland) produced half of Syria's oil before the war. They've also gained control of the town of Sarrin, which is notable for it's grain silos. On top of that, they still have limited trade relations with the KRG and the Iraqi and Syrian governments. There's tons of ways for them to trade.

Basic goods are rationed out by the communes such as energy, food, water, ect.

And no, there's not "tons" of ways for them to trade, they have a large oil surplus because they cannot export enough or have the tools to refine it well.

Nobody said they were fully communised, it was a hypothetical but nice straw man.

Why do you think production for exchange is the only feature of capitalism? You are saying you can only ever have global communism basically and nothing else is even remotely close.

Pretty reductive and totally lacking nuance tbh

There was only one single successful revolution in the first place (the leninist one) which came about because Lenin sat in Switzerland for 4 years reading Hegel which enabled him to move beyond rigid social democracy and revitalize the communist movement. Theory and praxis are one and the same. You can't do one without the other. Hence your anti-intellectualism is entirely misplaced. It is the protests, revolts and revolutions that do not have a solid theoretical and empirical basis that become empty. The attack upon leftcoms that they "aren't doing anything" is as infantile as it can get, it just proves you blindly believe that all that it takes to change capitalism is a little bit of protest or organization, a little bit of "fuck G20 and globalisation", a little bit of anger rather than pointed and direct critique of society that enables us to see the cracks through which we can act in the first place. Leftcoms aren't doing anything because first of all a) too many communist are retarded (like you) and not interested in theory or critique, only in finding a way to express their anger b) we don't know yet how to achieve a successful revolution, that is what is attempted to be worked out in the first place. It is the impatient anarchists, the theoretically infantile MLs that are the most useless. It is them that will never show the way to anything new because they hinge on identitarian nonsense and self-important delusions of grandeur that through a bit of action anything could change.

Furthermore there is no contradiction between fighting for the improvement of people's lives and being a leftcom. Class struggle is appropriate; pointing out all the various ways capitalism makes the worker suffer always should directly translate into action and class struggle. Hence strikes, protests for less work and more wage are always appropriate. No leftcom sits in his armchair and talks about how "this isn't the real revolution ree!" and categorically denies support. Our purpose is to critique society, find weaknesses in it, which allow praxis to have that much more weight in it through enabling it to appeal to people's conscience and ability to self-reflect through the pointed critique. One can protest and organize, just do not pretend you know the solution to how we get to the new world. Improve people's lives but realize you are doing nothing but improving people's lives, not building the new.

Oh fuck off! The Russian revolution was real because soviets, you know worker councils, had actual power.

No anti pseudo intellectualism it's quite different.

Utterly pathetic statement displaying nothing but ignorance of what actually happened. The worker and soldier councils had the power but it was the Bolsheviks that guided them to the revolution.

All anti-intellectualism styles itself as such.

No, originally took issue with the OP "why do only leftcoms…." which obviously intellectually dishonest therefore being pseudo intellectual.

Oh yeah, that is true, I definitely agree OP is an idiot.

Duave is shit since he's never actually read Ocalan and therefore is completely unfamiliar with the theoretical background of DemCon. Here's a better critique
cooperativeeconomy.info/could-communal-economy-be-a-distinct-mode-of-production/

Leftcomms are pieces of revisionist bullshit

tl;dr:The "Communal Economy" system of Rojava is not socialist but is ideally primed to become socialist

The most optimistic view of that revolution is a socialist state that was infiltrated by revisionists and dismantled after 35 years. To say nothing of the dubious nature of socialism in the territory even under Lenin. It can't be argued the revolution was successful at overthrowing the bourgeoise, but in establishing socialism it failed like all the others.

Furthermore the success was primarily military as opposed to theoretical, a manlet studying Hegel from the armchair did not allow the Red army to defeat the whites with powers granted by Hegelian sorcery, but rather the Red army with some support from the Black army defeated the whites. The revolution came from the proletariat, Lenin merely utilized the power he found laying in the streets to paraphrase him. This isn't to say Lenin didn't have a great deal of influence on the revolution, but to give his scholarship credit for its success stinks of the great men obsession we find with tankies and nazis.