I'm about to become a ML

ML is an ideology born out of the failure of the world revolution of 1917-21

good

this is true, a big part of my hesitation to dive into ML ideology is my hesitation to offer complete defense of "anti imperialist" states, which are often just run by right wing despots who don't bend to the will of the US, as well as my disagreements with actions taken by ML states

and honestly…I couldn't say for sure. I know my root interest that led me to marxism and socialism was the believe that people should be in control of their society, and that wasn't possible without control of the MoP. I've filled in a lot of it since then.

Google Bookchin

*blocks your path*

why would practicality ever be a bad thing?

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'practicality' and bureaucratic power can easily become ends in themselves, usually at the expense of the people.

Die

Lol this demonstrates such a fantastic non-reading of his work it's hilarious

Bookchin's theory is basically socdem with more democracy. He's not a real anarchist or even a leftist. The main himself was a huge opportunist and careerist piece of shit who used anti-marxist and anti-soviet sentiment in the west to promote himself. Even Chomsky didn't do that (all that much.)

Bookchin's theory is basically Kropotkin contextualised within the city and a critical appropriation of Marx's materialist conception of history. There's nothing succdem about it

Chomsky is an opportunist moron too, but not as badly as Bookchin with his blatant anticommunism.

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Lets not derail the thread kids

the only good marxist theorists post lenin have been leftcoms or at least anti stalinists. muh socialism in one country was a mistake, indirectly responsible for third worldism and idpol.

ROSA

DO IT. BECOME ML ITS THE BEST
-aesthetic as fuck
-real world history and applicability
-even theory by stalin/mao etc is both practical and expands dialectics i.e. mao's on contradiction
-post-ML theory like althusser, montag, cockshott, etc.
-You can stop using the incredibly weak and retarded not true socialism line, and hit rightist in debates about the positive parts of the USSR which really will catch them off guard.

Marxism Leninism is literally the most successful left wing tendency in history, at one point like 40% of the worlds population, literally BILLIONS of people were under governments following this philosophy, were they all just too dumb to follow muh true obscure leftist philosophy?
No. The reason ML took over so many counties is because its correct, or at least, has been the closest to being correct out of any of the leftist philosophies.

ONE OF US!
ONE OF US!
ONE OF US!

capitalism confirmed superior

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Obviously socialism in one country is reality. In the future everything will be communist and in the present everything is capitalist. Obviously in between there will be a transitional period where some countries are socialist and some are not. And the ones that arent will try to overthrow the ones that are, so you need a state and socialism in one or ideally multiple countries to prevent that. unless you think 100% of the world is going to rebel at once. Is Rojava 'socialism in one country'? because i don't see them going to europe, latin america, north america, and africa and rebelling there ha, those stalinists /lel.
pic related, you need to read more

well to be fair I think anyone should defend the USSR's achievements instead of going to the "not real socialism" argument, its incredibly weak and makes you look stupid.

Capitalism WAS superior to the previous feudal system, thats why it replaced it.
However socialism will supercede it. saying, well socialism isnt as popular as capitalism, so capitalism is better? Well I could go back to 1550 and say liberal democracy isnt as popular as monarchy therefore monarchy is better. However ML has gotten closer to overthrowing capitalism than any other movement, therefore instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater we should refine and improve it. if you had a newish car and it had some mechanical problems so you had to temporarily go back to using your old one, would you say, oh shit that new car broke down, i guess we need to torch it and buy another brand new one? no that would be retarded you would simply fix your new car.

tell that to muke

Yeah, I didn't watch the debate, but I saw TFB's thoughts video and he mentioned that.

Pretty wild BadMouse was the better team member than Muke

explain that meme

it comes from a video where muke debunks that asian guys rant about communism, in it he said hyperbowl instead of hyperbole and batko turned it into a meme on leftist twitter/YT

I honestly think you have to be incredibly stupid or a fetishish for aesthetics and authority to be an ML nowadays. When people make strawmen about Leftists saying "All the past examples have ended in failure, but Communism will work THIS time, I swear" they're actually referring to MLs and they're not even fucking strawmanning. Literally every single fucking ML state has ended in despotism, state capitalism, a new ruling class, and eventual [collapse] or liberalization, or in the case of NK, a literal fucking red monarchy. And their very best they were just social democracies at the barrel of a gun, usually without the democracy. Cuba is the last genuine ML state, and they're just Socdems with a nationalized economy heading towards liberalization. To look at those endless examples in the 20th century and think "you know, THIS time it'll be different" has to be some kind of symptom of brain damage.

Even if you want structure and tight organization, you don't need to be an ML for that. There's even an Anarchist tendency for those things.

Every single system ends in something, thats not an argument history.
Also your downplaying the positive aspects of ML thats what Parenti called leftist anti communism. Next you'll be linking me dennis prager videos on the evils of communism. USSR turned a backwards and agrarian country into a modern industrial nuclear superpower that defeated the Nazis in WW2, and invented manned and unmanned spaceflight. Not to mention providing free education, housing, healthcare, and full employment to their citizens all while providing a standard of living war better than the capitalist third world, spreading their ideology across the globe, and while in a constant battle with american global hegemony.
ML only had problems because it was the only ideology to be implemented in so many different places, whilst alternatives never even got to that stage. The argument is basically, well our ideology never had those problems, because it failed before it could even be tested in reality! we win!

Millions, Billions even of people around the globe of every skin color, religion, race, continent from Africa, to South America, to the middle east, to asia and SEA followed a form of marxism to the point where like half the globe was under ML. But you ask us to turn our backs on all those millions and their struggles, tribulations, and triumphs, against capitalist, colonialism, and oppression, because you, some probably middle class guy sitting in an armchair in the first world, know better with your special snowflake 3 tier obscurantist ideology that has never been tested in reality.
Thats because this time we actually have learned from the mistakes of the past and many MLs now advocate direct democracy, and cybernetic planning. see pic

lmao this is more accurate of you. You uncritically accept all the anti-communist propaganda about former socialist states, but somehow want to convince people that your special snowflake type of socialism won't have any of the same problems. Do you seriously think you're gonna convince anyone by saying "all examples of socialism have been totalitarian hellholes but it won't be like that with my kind of socialism"? ML's instead point to all the achievements and good sides of socialist states and try to explain what material conditions might have lead to the problems they experienced.

Also, being ML doesn't necessarily mean you want to copy paste the USSR onto 21th century USA, obviously.

Tankies every single time.

So your argument is that USSR was effective at capitalist modernization, perhaps even more so than the traditional capitalist states in the west? What does this have to do with the questions of liberation and radical transformation of social life that communism hopes to address? In the 70 years it has existed, it has been a greater failure for the left than the two months of the Paris commune or the short-lasting revolts of '68.

I'm sure the peasants turned wage-slaves were glad to know nuclear power was supplying the electricity to the machines they toiled on.
Along with the rest of the Allies.
Those were German scientists who did the same under the Capitalist West.
Truly this Social Democracy with guns is the final stage of Communism.
I'm not advocating for my ideology, I'm saying that ML is a fundamentally broken one.
The quantity of people who believe something does not give it validity, especially when the majority of those people probably never read Marx or any other significant theory, and were likely only ML because that was the ideology of the superpower they were closest with.
I've asked no such thing. Their struggle is an important one, but if they succeed and they implement a state based upon their ideology, it will lead to what every other one has.
Now are you going to tell me to read Settlers and check my muh privilege?
Just like they advocated for all power to the Soviets previously? I'm sure this time when the people vote against the desires of the Party, they won't reengage in their paranoid, paternalistic thinking.
A dictatorship is still a dictatorship even when it has a more efficient economy.

I don't recall bringing up the Holodomer or the 10 million gulag deaths. You can't refute facts about ML states by calling it propaganda.
You don't even know my ideology. Nor are we arguing about my ideology, and it's possible effectiveness is irrelevant to ML's proven failure.
I never said all examples of Socialism were ML, not that ML states were Socialist, and ironically they did a pretty good job at destroying any attempts that were.
The only achievement I care about is whether the workers controlled the means of production, and additionally whether production for exchange was abolished, and no ML state has achieved either of those. If I want Social Democracy, I'll go to Sweden, and if I want an industrial superpower, I'll go to China.
Yet they never once bother to look at their own actions inspired by their own ideology.

If anything I think the SU proves what Marx said in the manifesto correct, that by abolishing feudal property, capitalism radically transformed society, and that we can expect the same by abolishing capitalist property. The various states within the SU were generally feudal or retarded capitalist (retarded in development I mean), and in some cases transitioned directly from these social forms into advanced industrial economies. Studying those transitions would be very valuable for the Left I believe.

read hoxha tbh
marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/toc.htm

Achieving economic development goals which could have been accomplished by any capitalist power is irrelevant. There's nothing "practical" about Marxism-Leninism, it's an anachronistic theory using political and economic organizations that were developed a century ago and are thoroughly outdated or irrelevant today. But more importantly, the entire history of the 20th century has shown two things crystal clear: one, that ML states cannot actualize global revolution, that by directly confronting capitalist nation-states they provoke a profound geopolitical reaction that strengthens global capital, while putting socialist states on a permanent defensive, militaristic footing, with the threat of invasion, subversion and nuclear annihilation hanging over their heads. And two, that ML states have had a relentless tendency towards opportunism and revisionism, either in reaction to the geopolitical consequences of my first point or simply out of incompetence or "pragmatism." This lead each one of the 20th century ML states down the path of rigid bureaucracy, militarism, secrecy and repression, abandoning Marxist theory and ultimately succumbing to capitalist "reforms" or collapsing entirely. MLs will never get us to communism, they're too busy capitulating to global capital or repressing their own people so they don't hop the walls to buy blue jeans and Coca Cola.

To all Marxist-Leninists: please explain how you'll win the second Cold War against a massively globalized, mechanized and computerized global capital. Please explain how you'll bring global revolution without causing a massive conventional or nuclear war that will annihilate the global proletariat. Please explain how you will maintain ideological adherence to the tenets of Marx and to the ideals of communism while depoliticizing governance and centralizing all power in a single party of unaccountable bureaucrats. Please explain how you'll counter the decades of Western propaganda spooking the world by saying "actually yeah, gulags and invading other countries is good though." I'm sure this will be easy, after all you're so "pragmatic" and have so many good examples of "actually existing socialism" that were so successful 70 years ago!

Or maybe you can admit that aside from LARPing and internet shitposting, Marxism-Leninism has no place in the current and future socialist struggle, and will not for a very long time.

Anarchkiddies every single time

Read.

A socialist ML state would theoretically have nothing to lose by crashing the stock market for example, or otherwise sabotaging the internet that advanced financial markets depend on. Considering the delicacy of the financial market even in the best of conditions, a dedicated attack on the digital systems that those markets rely on could have truly catastrophic consequences. When you have legions of computer banks making trillions of trades per minute, even a minuscule disruption could potentially bring the whole thing crashing down, and subsequently bringing to a screeching halt the economies those capitalist states require to function.

I don't particularly support ML, but I don't think it's entirely useless either.

Except anarchists never make that argument, whereas tankies do all the time.

try reading a book instead

holy shit you dont understand anything lol

Its pretty damn arrogant to think you have all the answers and you're smarter than all those millions of people who tried to implement socialism and """failed"""

link a pdf you asshole,

JUST

Well when you describe it like that, how the fuck can any socialism win? ML probably has the best chance in that scenario, other ideologies have eben less

Do It, become one.

"I don't know how the USSR worked but i'll hate it anyway"

If the global capitalist system was stable and USA's hegemony as dominant as it was in the 1990s, then there wouldn't be any chance of socialism. However, capitalism is an inherently unstable and contradictory system, US power will continue to wane and climate change/resource shortages will royally fuck up the established economic and geopolitical order in the coming decades. I premise my support for more communalist/councilist/libertarian socialist alternatives on the assumption that we're heading for a period of significant crisis and instability, and therefore the best chance at socialism is the formation of dual economic and political power structures within existing nation-states, or creating movements like Rojava in areas where state power has receded or collapsed. It's not a very satisfying strategy for anyone who wants to see a global revolutionary change, but IMO it's the most realistic goal for achieving communism while keeping the movement real and in the hands of the working people.

My point is that ML may be good in theory, and it is important to read from what they accomplished, but they clearly hit a brick wall in the 20th century by trying to directly oppose capitalist nation-states. Trying to restart what they attempted post-WWI just doesn't seem prudent or achievable at all.

pls no

Read Marx.

Wage labor didn't exist in the USSR you fucking retard.
So you want socialism without any social security systems, without education and without women's liberation? That's gonna be pretty hard to sell.
Well aren't you in a comfortable decision, you lash out in a ridiculously unsound way but yet shroud yourself in mystery because you can't be arsed to respond to criticism yourself. How can anybody dare to apply to same scrutiny to your methods!
So you are an actual utopian who thinks every factory worker has to read Das Kapital.
Yeah behold the glorious facts brought forward by Robert Conquest and the Black Book of Communism.
Both existed in the USSR.
Then bring it to the table, what would you have done?

That wasn't my point. Your point was a ridiculous strawmen and I can make the same stupid assumption about Anarchists. Don't be a dick and nobody is going to be a dick to you.

most of those American liberals were originally maoist LARPers in groups like the SDS. idpol mannerisms are eerily similar to what went on inside maoist groupuscles. muh privilege theory is based on the assumption all whites were part of the labor aristocracy and all minorities were colonised people waging struggles of national liberation, of course, liberals quickly forgot about the revolution part but kept the system of morally differentiated identity categories.

socialism in one country was made up by Stalin to justify one party rule after the failure of the internationalist world revolution.

most MLs are crudely fetishistic and fixated on the past. They are more concerned with this vague notion of authenticity, of being the true and only representatives of the oppressed workers of the third world than with actually understanding capitalism and providing an alternative. ML is a brand name, a seal of authenticity rather than a coherent program or ideology. most of what they call 'Leninism' is actually stalinism. historical ML states eventually fell victim to productivism and many of them outright turned capitalist. Even the soviet union seemed more focused on accumulating mountains of commodities rather than on abolishing the commodity form. Mao and Stalin brutally repressed proletarians who got in the way of state 'practicality'.

The left should be focused on the future not on soviet nostalgia or on the romanticising of third world guerrillas that have long decayed into narco gangs.

taking control of a state and 'de linking' it from the world economy isn't such a good idea when the order of nation states is itself in decline. Rather than dogmatically sticking to 100 year old tactics, leftists should take advantage of changing conditions, new forms of communication and the globalised reality of capitalism. The centralised authoritarian party is a relic of the 20th century. and it was Worker's and Soldiers councils, not the party, that led the revolutions of 1917-21 in Russia germany and central europe. The bureaucrats merely took power away from the councils under the guise of 'practicality'. ML's fixation on laying claim to a tradition of authenticity only serves to obscure theory and tactics, that are all that really matters in the end

READ LENIN

BadMouse didn't talk for most of it but at the end he absolutely destroyed Sargon and Agent. It's funny how even BadMouse can look good in comparison to a band of youtube pseuds.

Internationalists have been saying this for decades. You cannot fight capitalism on a global level. It is far too organized and powerful there. You have to organize on the margins of a society and then conquer it.

I don't think badmouse is bad honestly

Fun Fact: Marx and Engels thought revolution was likely to start in the most industrialised countries and spread on from there.

remind me, what happened to historical ML states? the USSR was only an insurgent threat to the capitalist state order until 1924, when Stalin replaced the original Soviet ideal of world revolution for muh socialism in one country, a completely non marxist and even non leninist ideal. Just after the sino soviet split, China was already pursuing a pact with the US and against the USSR. so much for conquering the capitalist world. In both China and the USSR, the party state suppressed actual worker attempts at self organisation. The USSR collapsed and China degenerated into authoritarian one party state capitalism.

The closest the 21st century has gotten to Lenin is someone like Chavez, ie. authoritarian nationalist social democrat allied with the military and sections of the national bourgeoisie. The truth is, capitalism is organised and powerful at all levels. Also, the so called 'third world' is far from an homogeneous mass of the oppressed waiting for a vanguard to come along. The 'third world' is much like the 'first world' just poorer. some 'third world' countries, in southeast asia and latin america still have room to grow, which makes a leninist takeover unlikely. India is actually being taken over by hindu nationalist fascists atm, Also stfu with your imperatives: 'you cannot', 'you have to'. If Lenin had paid attention to the common sense imperatives of his time, the bolshevik revolution wouldn't have happened. Instead we should be asking questions. 'how do we fight capitalism in a global level?'. praxis is made in the present tense. we have to do what hasn't been done before.

PDF is 22 MB, can't upload here.

weird how Stalin presided over the massive expansion of the USSR and its allies

t. american

then a link to where you can find it on the internet

media.8ch.net/freedu/src/1422607489730.pdf
marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1924/lenin/index.htm

Read some Lenin.

at what cost? imo the left opposition was right