Of all the things to happen within the left (as opposed to external forces) what do you think has been the most destructive?
For the global left US imperialism is obviously the most destructive, but within the US (and to an extent the rest of the west) I think that the rise of socialism as an identity has been the most corrosive. Through this you see the rise of a cohort of professional activists, writers and other types of people who have their livelihoods tied to socialist activism and politics. People like these can insidiously shift attention and effort away from engagement with the working class to idpol and reformist/revisionist drivel, since it's harder to oppose this when it's being opposed by a highly-mobilized force that's nominally your ally (and therefore you risk alienating yourself by attacking them)
I'll see your Kronstadt and raise you one crushing of the German revolution.
Thomas Morris
Revisionism
Jeremiah Jackson
maybe what you call 'idpol' is just genuine concern for vulnerable and marginalized folks
Nathan Lopez
1: identity politics 2: Kruschev's revisionism 3: early death of Lenin 4: German, Romanian and Chinese reactionaries from the early 20th century
Gavin Rivera
The struggles of these identities are ultimately instances of class struggle. They've been shaped by economic forces and their solution is economic. Idpol is what you get when you lose track of that point.
Luke Peterson
Foucault being born
Benjamin Long
Probably the failure of revolution in Germany, which ultimately doomed any hope for socialist Europe. USSR gave communism a bad name, and it's mostly associated with totalitarian, genocidal and oppressive regime (which to small degree it was). What is really destructive to leftism right now is idpol and inability to break up with the past and create new model for socialist thought.
Evan King
Also, not the worst in impact but easily the most depressing: Spanish Civil War
Leo Morales
Sectarian actions done by marxost leninist regimes against more libertarian ideologies and the CIA
Asher Walker
Despite Rosa's personal views any German revolution that succeeded would leave the German revolutionaries in such a weakened state that they would have no choice but to fold to Moscow's orders if they wanted to continue to survive. Far from leading to the realization of communism it would merely mean the Sovietization of Germany much in the same way as East Germany after the war. Power would not be passed onto the working class. Rosa et al would be shoved out or demoted, possibly even killed later on.
Aiden Murphy
...
Nathaniel Walker
The assassination of Huey Long. If he won, we'd be kings. If he lost, we'd be kings because his supporters wouldn't stop. But because he was killed off before he could even make an attempt, we live as slaves. I'm not even American.
Jordan Gray
nah
Aiden Jenkins
What the fuck is this /r/socialism shit? >>/gulag/ is thataway, lib.
Juan Reed
So good thing that revolution did not succeed
Jack Torres
the German revolution was a fucking farce led not by workers but by foreign bourgeoisie intelligentsia
Connor Harris
eventually, Moscow would be forced to fold to the orders of the world revolution. Stalin's policy of socialism in one country and the brutal forced march industrialization was in great part a product of isolation
Kayden Martinez
Why'd you emphasize the succ?
Jose Sullivan
The only possible revolution in the West would be a Nazbol revolution.
Colton Fisher
Yes, but the issue is ignoring the reason for the marginalization. The issue being class. Idpol is commonly associated with addressing symptoms of the issue, but not the actual issue.
Josiah Wright
If the superstructure shapes the base, why is it bad to ask that people stop using racial slurs?
Joshua Perez
There is nothing wrong with that. Feel free to kick the shit out of anyone who does, but the problem is centering an entire movement around racism without recognizing that class warfare is the reason it exists, and when I refer to racism, Im specifically referring to non-overt racism. Not just running up to someone and calling them a random slur. That's not racism. That's just someone being an asshat and you can feel free to curb stomp them.
pic related
Gavin Hill
The worst thing by far was the acceptance of "minority groups". They've done far more harm to the left than any so called fascist.
Blake Bailey
That assumes that the Soviet Union would have gone down the same path. I would argue that with their western flank secure they would have been far less likely to accept the authoritarian measures like the ban on factions in the first place.
Jackson Lopez
a better question: what is it with the base that makes people say racial slurs? what is the material base of edgy chantard behaviour?
Cameron Parker
He destroyed socialism from the inside out. If Stalin's son never died, and if Stalin had established the Stalin dynasty, we would have FALC by now.
Lincoln Carter
Kim'ists/Castro'ists out
Juan Fisher
Dynasties are good. i.e. Kim, Assad. De-spook yourself.
Easton Cooper
Why do you see "socialist monarchy" as a contradiction? You don't think you can have a socialist economy with a hereditary succession of power (to prevent scum like Khrushchev or Deng from taking power)?
Dominic Kelly
Stirner would have fucking raped you for your subservience to strongmen.
Kevin Nelson
Neo-Liberals Granddad was M-L Father was a pol-pot tier Autist Kim is a Chinese "socialist"
congrats, you don't understand the function of a critique of political economy
Owen Miller
Not an argument
Nathaniel Hall
lmao
Josiah White
long boy
Dylan Brooks
You cannot replace a didactic organization of economic processes without a simultaneous and positive relational shift in the body politic which organizes the economy, as such. unless of course you fully believe that whatever the state organ calling itself "representative" of the """working people""" does is automatically, necessarily socialist :DDDD
Jacob Martin
America.
Daniel Perry
…weaponized against the also genuine economic concerns of the whole working class.
Samuel Johnson
i know that first pic's 4chan is from pol, but occupy had a lot of internal problems that i believe destroyed it from its very beginning, and identity politics isn't near the main reason the movement dwindled. the base of the movement was very much the anti free trade green party left of the 90's and early 2000s, and to have a core of your movement be rooted in pre 9/11 , dotcom bust, iraq war activism and try to have the same mindset in 2011 was a horrible foundation that i dare say doomed it from the start. Of course their would be strong opposition from the powers at be, but chomsky and zinn arent good footholds in really building a physical occupy movement, so the opposition was remarkably effective. however the ramifications of occupy and its failures will be interesting to see. we've already seen many prominent occupiers become nazis or alt light , nowhere near even a substantial minority, but still its alarming if even one person does this. But many are now what you'd call berniecrats or in psl. their is actually a sort of class consciousness that wast their in this same vein in 08-12
the crash that comes soon will be horrible, and i actually have hope, because the mainstream of american politics now has actual social democrats pushing back in ways that actually threaten another occupy from becoming a rudderless deflation
Hudson Perez
99% of the time criticism of 'idpol' (ugh) is just white dudes upset marginalised folks are finally getting treated as humans
Mason Adams
the new left. fuck those hippie bastards
Josiah Anderson
...
William Lewis
My argument is that only hereditary succession can ensure the state is representative of working people. This is proven by history. The Castros and the Kims are the only remaining socialist leaders.
Dylan Miller
Stop appropriating Native American culture you cunt.
Parker Hall
Strongmen is a stupid spook for sissy anarchists, also, they would be MY strongmen.
Being this wrong.
Daniel Cooper
t. butthurt liberal
Connor Richardson
Honestly this could be a right wing post and i couldn't have told you the difference
Julian Hall
Lenin.
Elijah Murphy
Itself.
Brandon Turner
The bolsheviks and by extension the Soviet union.
Michael Johnson
Liberalism. It's always been one of the biggest threat to socialism. Conservatives are easy enough to fight, because their oppression is obvious and blatant, with liberals it is subtle, invisible, it is oppression with a smiling face. Notice most of the actually successful socialist revolutions were all in deeply conservative nations.
Liberalism gives people an illusion of "equality" and enough consumerism to keep them distracted from true socialism.
Samuel Rogers
Leftism is inherently self destructive, so I'd go with leftism.
Cooper Peterson
Couldnt the movement have both?
Jonathan Cruz
99% of the time liberals are using words like "marginalized" on Holla Forums it's some Holla Forumsyp false flagger
I'd say the absolute worst thing that happened to the socialist struggle is undisputably the folding of the Second International parties to the national line. If they had been revolutionary and turned the first world war into a world civil war we would've had world communism by now. Or I'm wrong. It may be that the entire socialist movement is the history of blowing ones load too early. Large scale economic planning is hard without computers and they didn't have that when the socialist movement was at its strongest