Why is it that only MLs provide meaningful critiques of socialist states? Most Marxist divisions repeat the same shit that any liberal is familiar with - muh state capitalism, muh democracy, muh Trotsky. It's fucking useless and contributes nothing to the historical understanding of the proletarian movement. There's a pretty big difference between a LARPing tankie and an actual Marxist-Leninist, and the latter seem to know what they're talking about. Marxism is a philosophy of praxis, and if your special new ideology doesn't provide constructive analysis of socialist attempts it belongs in the bin.
I could be convinced otherwise but I just don't see a good alternative to MLism that is persuasive to adopt as praxis.
I am literally in the same position. it's sad bc I think Cold War propaganda has successful pushed ppl away from actually reading history let alone the concepts of Marxist Leninist theory.
Aaron Hill
I always find it funny when you read the typical bourgeois criticism of Marxism, they'll say that we are "economic determinists", we're dogmatic and ignore the various non-economic causes in history, and so on.
And then they continue seamlessly and claim that the Bolshevik revolution necessarily leads to Stalin's purges. If only Lenin was libertarian enough, things would have gone better from the start I guess. This is literally ideological determinism, and it's the standard tool for liberals to work with. Nothing achieved in the Soviet Union matters because it was always leading to atrocities.
It's transparent and retarded but it's entrenched ideologically, we have a hard situation to work with.
Charles Howard
Yes exactly then when you question their conclusion they just straw man you and call you a Stalinist. As if that's an insult.
It's transparent and retarded but it's entrenched ideologically, we have a hard situation to work with.
Yep, I even argued with some leftcoms that claim Marx and Engels true vision of communism/socialism was perverted by Lenin.
Nicholas Jackson
I'm personally an anarchist, but I think a lot of communists reject the USSR out-of-hand and don't look deeper into its history. They definitely accomplished some great shit, and I think a lot of people can't figure out how to be critical without spazzing out about MUH 300 TRILLION
Wyatt Flores
ML is a very 20th century ideology that doesn't make much sense in an age of de-industrialisation and overproduction. The state level focus is irrelevant in a world were the chains of production are increasingly disaggregated, where you can find the first world in the midst of the third and vice versa.
there is no ahistorical true vision of socialism. Even Marx made some tactical mistakes, ie. full proletarisation as a prerequisite for communism, fetishisation of the development of productive forces.
Jaxon Rodriguez
Obviously, but like Mao did you can build from ML theory. Since it is based on historical materialism.
tfw when you haven't read The critique of goth program. No one is saying Marx was perfect also. The only ppl saying that are leftcoms.
Joseph Foster
What's the ML critique of socialist states? They were revisionists and that's why it falled?
Tyler Roberts
Mao a shit. during the cultural revolution, attempts at worker self management were repressed and derided as examples of 'economistic revisionism' and energies directed towards witch hunts of 'capitalist roaders' 'monsters and freaks', with an emphasis on 'bourgeois consciousness' as an individual, psychological evil. the whole thing was a bureaucratic struggle for power that got out of control.
Ryan Stewart
Actually, that was always a doubt of his. In Capital vol. 2 he revisits this and says that communism starts the second the agrarian revolution has happened and value relations may then already be done away with and replaced with the communistic productive relations (he outright thought communism was possible in his own time!).
But you are indeed right, fellow leftcomflag: Marx, even though he BTFO almost all of his contemporaries, can still be wrong on certain things. For me this is on the matter of repressive consciousness and his determinism for party politics (the latter is very excusable: in his time this was still the best shot the workers' movement had and it inded proved to adopt this and were to many degrees successful).
Adrian Nguyen
Such a lovely thread. Very well done. Subscribed.
Parker Campbell
o rly?
Christian Smith
Not sure why you posted a picture of Hegel to go along with this post since MLs heavily revised most of the the interesting Hegelian positions out of Marx tbh. Also the ML model of socialism has failed repeatedly, so I'm not sure why you'd see it as the only persuasive praxis out there.
Ian James
This doesn't go against ML theory
Connor Green
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Hunter Parker
It does a little though, in TANS he criticizes Stalins economic plans for retaining wage/commmodity forms and private agri. more than socialist property relations really necessitated
Daniel Rodriguez
Im anarchist as fuck but im tired of other anarchists saying the socialist states from the past have been garbage authoritarian states, sectarianism is annoying as hell especially within leftcoms and ancoms
Joseph Davis
why the need to defend a state rather than the real movement towards communism? specially when the state gets in the way or abandons communism outright ie. China
Alexander Hall
The problem with these states was revisionism, fuck deng and fuck Khrushchev
Levi Watson
I think many MLs (ones I have encountered) all agree on this.
Kayden Lewis
I know exactly how you feel, OP.
Connor Anderson
The thought of Stalin (or Mao) doesn't constitute ML theory, they are plenty criticized within it. I guess if we tried to define it there would be many cries of "revisionism" but there are contemporary writers who expand on theory from this perspective. If you want to disassociate it from the textbook ideology of the Soviet Union you might just call it Leninism. Obviously a Marxism Leninist strategy today isn't the same, the whole point is a developing praxis.
Nathaniel Anderson
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Logan Rodriguez
food comes from industrial low labor intensity farming operations, clothing comes from Bangladeshi sweatshops. 21st century socialism will be less about industrialisation and more about democratic structures, insourcing, the reconstruction of local agriculture and the prevention of ecological catastrophe.
btw Industrial workers never comprised the majority of the population even in the most industrialised countries. the majority of modern workers are either service workers or precarious. Modern capitalism is less of a system for managing scarcity and more of a system for managing people.
You do realize that a socialist revolution leads to the whole world boycotting you and that autarchy and self-sustainability is immediately needed? The whole talk about "it's just going to be about democracy and gift economy dude" is just hippie crap.
Austin Perez
Sure. Unsure if correct, proletarian consciousness would be aimed at the material conditions which exist in rem. Doesn't that have more to do with the notion that desires can never be fullfilled? This sounds pretty Zizekian. I'm not sure if this applies to ML, giving the pioneer spirit and all that continued to exist well into the 50s in the USSR.
Brody Martinez
Which makes your "revolution" impossible. No country can be truly autarchic in this day and age.
Electoralism is the way.
Justin Collins
Wew I'm so gkad I have all that leftcom theory to help me immediately abolish commodity exchange!
John Parker
leftcoms are usually against electoralism. I think there is nothing wrong with embracing a diversity of tactics. You can contest elections while building parallel institutions, in fact both strategies could reinforce each other. there are great opportunities for a global decentralized communist movement that goes beyond the order of sovereign states.
Brandon Collins
I haven't shifted much from Volkisch Communism, although I take a lot of Libertarian thought (like old real Left-Libertarian, not new school idpol infested New Left shit, I mean real action oriented anarchist beliefs) the cringiest Western NazBol is still less cringey than a Western Ancomm by miles.
Easton Clark
wuts volkish communism, is it just communism + ethnostate/racialism?
Kayden Thomas
this is disgusting narodnik mentality
Adrian Reed
Which is why you do it step by step, and first elect hardline social-democrats to pave the way. Wouldn't happen in the West.
Kevin Perry
power is wielded through leverage, no elected govenment will ever function without shadowgov backbone exerting pressure/counterpressure
Alexander Barnes
Ancom here, find myself sliding towards tankier positions over time. Particularly given the level of surveillance and subversion today it is very easy to subvert democratic movements, I'm not fully there yet and I will still never believe in a fully centralised distributive system, but there is something to be said for a dedicated cadre leading the revolution and the more I read about porkies crimes throughout history the more I see why so many people, particularly those in the worst of circumstances have taken up ML or MLM.
Then on the other hand a former ML vet like Apo has dropped it so maybe it really has run its course.
The fetishism of the state by certain socialists, especially at a time where everyone in mainstream society seems to be fawning over the possibilities of non-state actors, is really anachronistic.
The 20th century has proven that seizing state power inevitably means the preservation of bourgeois structures of repression and autocracy will survive and prevent the independent organization and movement of the working people. The USSR repeatedly subverted or ignored independent workers' movements and attempts to advance towards communism, both to keep their geopolitical situation relative to the West stable, and the preserve the power and influence of those within the state bureaucracy. Furthermore, the constant threat of subversion and nuclear/conventional war by the capitalist powers prevents the natural development of state socialism, forcing militarism and authoritarian control to be adopted in order to survive.
If you're a modern M-L the best you can hope for is to create the next Hoxhaist Albania or DPRK. I see no realistic or desirable path towards recreating the socialist blocs of the 20th century, AND avoiding a cold/world war that would undoubtedly be catastrophic to the working people. The only way forward seems to be small-scale reformist and anarcho-communist movements on the fringes of capitalist society, which can hopefully be expanded and knitted together as future capitalist power fragments and recedes. If this doesn't sound particularly satisfying to you, well I'm sorry, I don't see the conditions for the great majority of the people to rise up and "seize the means" like what happened last century.
Nolan Johnson
I see MLs creating good criqicism, but I'm not too fond of their proposed solutions, which sound like euphemisms for the problems.
Joseph Perez
I used to be the same. Though I still have ancom tendencies. ML and MLM writing (even though a bit outdated) really highlight the general struggle of the poor and I see it as a good outline to move out of capitalism but obviously work on the flaws.
Jeremiah Jones
cause bordiga totally gave a shit about workers self management
