Questions to ML's

What exactly does being a Marxist-Leninist entail? Marxism + vanguard party + democratic centralism + analysis of imperialism as the higest stage of capitalism? The thing is, I basically agree with ML on paper, and I find many of the critiques of it to be absolute shit, but I'm still hesitant to actually call myself an ML. Genuine democracy, individual rights, personal liberties, the freedom to criticise your government, and such values are really important to me, but they usually aren't considered to have been to strong points of previous ML states. If we use the USSR as an example, there are three different positions ML's could take:


Which position is most consistent with Marxism-Leninism? Which is most common among ML's?

Also, ML's are almost always labeled as being authoritarian (both by other leftists and by liberals). Do you reject that label, and in that case on what grounds? I know revolutions are inherently authoritarian, I've read that Engels quote, but I wouldn't say that I have an "authoritarian ideology".

I would really like to hear some thoughts on these sort of questions from an ML/MLM perspective. Non-ML's are obviously welcome to answer as well but no "lmao red fascists" shitposting or smug one-liners please.

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I got BTFO'd by a ML today so I'm vulnerable to a shift in ideology. Come at me while I'm down.

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While it varies by person to person, I would say ideologically it's just Marx+Lenin and ML gov is the vanguard party+ local gov.

When people call us authoritarians that is do to tankies witch are a loud illiterate minority.

I would recommend looking at this video that talks about democracy in the USSR.
youtu.be/Okz2YMW1AwY

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thanks y'all for bumping, love ya

Marxism-Leninism has nothing to do with Marx and very little with Lenin. A more accurate name would be Taylorism-Blanquism.

Not very helpful

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I wouldn't call myself an ML but I'm not entirely dismissive of the USSR based on ignorance and bourgeois propaganda, so that's a start.

Marxism-Leninism is Marxism + Leninism (vanguard party, democratic centralism, anti-imperialism, etc) + socialism in one country.

Most MLs will take either the first or second position. The third is mostly for edgemasters who don't actually know anything about Marxism but like the Soviet aesthetics. These are the ones that give ML a bad name.
A point can be made against "individual rights", because they are "negative liberties" and don't actually hold what they promise (e.g. freedom of movement for a homeless person), but generally, MLs don't want to do away with these rights, but rather expand them to become actually meaningful.

This depends on your stance on the question above, but generally every type of class dictatorship is inherently authoritarian.

why tho?

this is pretty much where I'm at too

worship of Stalin+not reading Marx and Lenin+LARPing+capitalism with a human face

Would this be ML?

...

Defending every capitalist state who rubs burgerland the wrong way from the frontlines of twitter, ineffectively organizing in a party with cantankerous grandpas or edgy kids, calling everyone else an undialetical liberal despite the most you push for is edgy social democracy, and occasionally larping as a sovietboo.

very nice contribution

Last time I bump this. I hope some tank- or hoxha flag poster can offer their perspective.

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This is just a stab in the dark here, but are you Enver Hoxha42069?

The three positions that you lay out are very succinct summations of possible positions but I'm honestly not sure it is as simple as all that. Or, I might say, that the answer is all three at the same time.

Naturally, I incline to the first position and I think that most of the time that the USSR was far-superior to its competitors at the time in terms of offering democracy in the real sense. Democracy, does after all mean rule by the people and to me that is socialism. However, because of the under-developed character of the Soviet Union, because of the World Wars, the Civil War etc. perhaps it wasn't as open or tolerant as people would've liked.

As perverse as this may sound, after Charlottesville, I think more people on the American Left are gaining an insight into the Bolshevik mindset. By this do I mean that they are becoming Bolsheviks? No, but rather with the murder of one of our comrades by a fascist and their terroristic intimidation towards the population at large we are perhaps starting to understand what the Bolsheviks went through, when hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of their comrades were killed in the Civil War and WWII by reactionaries.

I know that comparison sounds really hyperbolic and exaggerated but notice how the discourse has changed even here, no longer is it about whether unlimited free speech is good or bad or whether anti-fa is good, bad, or in-between but now things have shifted towards how to stop the fascists. Now, that actual fascists have came out into the open and drawn blood, to my eyes at least, it seems that the Left is becoming less wrapped up in the philosophical position of "killing the fascist in your head" as New Left and post-modern philosophy proposed and is now becoming focused on stopping the real fascist in the streets.

One criticism made by the Bordigists that I've never argued against is their position that Leninism is a democratic ideology. I mean its true, we're democrats, and in that sense I only disagree with their contention that we're bourgeois democrats or by adopting democratic forms we adopt bourgeois ideas or influences into the party.
Soviet law placed a pretty good emphasis on democratic and even individual rights but of course there was an exception reserved for counter-revolutionaries, not unlike the situation that the modern Left finds itself in as an essentially democratic outfit confronted with anti-democratic fascists.

First and second examples probably are the best descriptors of Bolshevik positions and the Soviet experience imo, really only edge-lords take up the third.

Probably the second one tbh Khrushchev's secret speech did a number on the vast majority of ML parties and certain ideologies like Maoism, Castro-Guevarism attempted to recapture the revolutionary energy of pre-Khrushchevite Leninism while mostly agreeing with it in practice. Bring up Stalin around a group of Maoists and your likely to hear "He was important but he made mistakes" what were the mistakes though? You're not likely to hear a solid answer except "he didn't trust the peasantry" followed by a host of Trotskyist criticisms.

Most communist parties have turned into social-democratic parties and so praising Stalin or highlighting his comments without "criticizing" Stalin when he's been reviled by the world bourgeoisie him is a recipe for disaster if you have social-democratic ambitions. A problem of Leninism is that some people come to think that democratic practice is the same as respecting bourgeois democracy, which isn't true.

Personally, I don't reject or embrace the authoritarian label, force/coercion is only a tool and nothing good can come from fetishizing either absolute freedom or absolute despotism. Only the working class can put an end to capitalism and of course it will have to use "authoritarian" ends but little good can come from rejecting the democratic principle or forcing everyone to get the same haircut, or forcing women to become part of a state-mandated gf project sorry Finish Soc Dem or crushing the bones of anyone who has a criticism that isn't popular or you'd rather not hear.

*highlighting his contributions

More like orthodox marxism, im pretty much like that too