The worst thing to happen in the left

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)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=uSmNTZgs-QM
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Bernie Sanders

The killing of the kronstadt sailors

the corn man

why

I'll see your Kronstadt and raise you one crushing of the German revolution.

Revisionism

maybe what you call 'idpol' is just genuine concern for vulnerable and marginalized folks

1: identity politics
2: Kruschev's revisionism
3: early death of Lenin
4: German, Romanian and Chinese reactionaries from the early 20th century

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.

Foucault being born

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.

Also, not the worst in impact but easily the most depressing: Spanish Civil War

Sectarian actions done by marxost leninist regimes against more libertarian ideologies and the CIA

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.

...

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.

nah

What the fuck is this /r/socialism shit? >>/gulag/ is thataway, lib.

So good thing that revolution did not succeed

the German revolution was a fucking farce led not by workers but by foreign bourgeoisie intelligentsia

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

Why'd you emphasize the succ?

The only possible revolution in the West would be a Nazbol revolution.

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.

If the superstructure shapes the base, why is it bad to ask that people stop using racial slurs?

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

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.

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.

a better question: what is it with the base that makes people say racial slurs? what is the material base of edgy chantard behaviour?

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.

Kim'ists/Castro'ists out

Dynasties are good. i.e. Kim, Assad. De-spook yourself.

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)?

Stirner would have fucking raped you for your subservience to strongmen.

Neo-Liberals
Granddad was M-L
Father was a pol-pot tier Autist
Kim is a Chinese "socialist"

youtube.com/watch?v=uSmNTZgs-QM

we lost this future FOR FUCKING PIZZA HUT

lmao

The Marx and Bakunin split.

...

congrats, you don't understand the function of a critique of political economy

Not an argument

lmao

long boy

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

America.

…weaponized against the also genuine economic concerns of the whole working class.

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

99% of the time criticism of 'idpol' (ugh) is just white dudes upset marginalised folks are finally getting treated as humans

the new left. fuck those hippie bastards

...

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.

Stop appropriating Native American culture you cunt.

Strongmen is a stupid spook for sissy anarchists, also, they would be MY strongmen.

Being this wrong.

t. butthurt liberal

Honestly this could be a right wing post and i couldn't have told you the difference

Lenin.

Itself.

The bolsheviks and by extension the Soviet union.

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.