What leftwing tendency is most likely to succeed?

Which leftwing tendency is most likely to succeed in fomenting and winning a revolution and building a stable society afterwards?

Guess I should define success. By success I mean the best outcome for the most people. Interested to hear from both internationalists and the other ones.


Lets see if yous can go a few posts without descent into sectarian shitflinging

I am your semi-resident 4pol retard (hey Marxhead) and as such have basically no idea what I'm talking about. But IMO socialism would require a strong., borderline authoritarian government to ensure that people don't group together to exploit others

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism)
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm
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I kind of want to just sidestep the monumentally-useless question "what leftist tendency is most likely to succeed", but then again it kind of feeds into the main point I'm gonna make anyways.

There is no fucking way of answering your question without being an ideologue m8. Every single left-wing tendency has failed, and quibbling over which left-wing tendency didn't fail the hardest is the epitome of ideological retardation. At the end of the day, pretty much every leftist position you can come up with will be really hard to defend given its track record, and while there are a few points you can make (which IMO are insignificant) about how the historical conditions of a given revolution weren't just right, at the end of the day I don't see any way of answering that question because none of the tendencies are likely to succeed.

But that's my nihilist cop-out. I don't expect a proletarian-lead revolution to be possible in this world, at least how it is right now, but I also don't think that is a necessary condition for continuing to engage in struggles (or "strugglismo" as Aragorn! calls them) against the State and capital.

Trotskyism.

They are the only ones who organize. They are the only ones who understand the necessity of transitional demands.

I wasn't even going to bring up historical failures ITT. Just curious to see what leftypol considers the most practical and likely to succeed in the world as it is today.

I am starting to come round to your way of thinking, that capitalism it the root cause for most of the worlds problems.

The Holla Forums in me says nationalism is the best solution (a government that puts the nation before private interests of big business and will defend its people against big business by basically any means necessary). For the sake of being open minded I'm trying to see what lefty position I could stomach.

I think libertarian socialism/ancom would be too easy for a group to get together and start exploiting.

This is internationalism right? Like almost Stalinist in how shit would be done (central planning etc) but rejects country-based socialism?

Yes, internationalism is fundamental to Trotskyism. But Trotskyism is not reducible to internationalism; it has other key features to the theory.

The concept of central planning is not what makes Stalinism Stalinism. Trotskyism rejects the idea of socialism in one country, and is anti-Stalinist in that respect. But it is anti-Stalinist in many other ways too, to do with structures of bureaucracy etc. But yes, most Trots would advocate for a centrally planned economy.

Care to expand a little?

It's pretty complex, I can recommend you some reading maybe? From wikipedia for a brief summary: (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism)
"Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky identified himself as an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, and supported founding a vanguard party of the working-class, proletarian internationalism, and a dictatorship of the proletariat based on working-class self-emancipation and mass democracy. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism, as they oppose the idea of Socialism in One Country. Trotskyists also criticise the bureaucracy that developed in the USSR under Stalin."

Essentially, the fundamentals of Trotskyism rely on internationalism and democracy - proper democracy, that is structured so as not to form the bureaucratic crust of elites we saw under Stalin, and tactically/strategically they call for a "vanguard party" - that is, the forming of a Marxist Socialist party (not necessarily, but potentially, a political party that operates within existing capitalist democratic structures) in order to facilitate revolution. The vanguard party, in Trotskyism, should comprise the best and most advanced layers of the working class. What he means by "best" or "most advanced" is the most revolutionary; he is not interested in their formal education on paper etc, he is interested in their ability to understand the ideas of Marxism, of socialism, and to understand the necessity for and path to revolution.

Thanks.

Though I'm curious to know how this would work in practice.


With proper democracy and internationalism what stops one group deciding they want to do things differently?

Nothing is to stop them, really. It depends on what you mean by "doing things differently". Internationalism should not be understood as an antithesis to localism. Internationalism should be understood as a mutual co-operation of localities. In an international socialist world, there would still be different countries, different localities. In order for proper democracy to work, there must be democratic structures from the bottom-up, democratic decision making has to happen by communities, for communities. There can be differences between these communities, of course. There just will be, inevitably. People are very different, across the world. What makes it internationalist is the international economic co-operation; countries are working together for everyone, essentially, rather than competing to out-exploit and out-muscle each other as they do in capitalist international economy.

saged to prevent further retardedness

Got you. The problem I have with this is I don't see countries on the ascendancy accepting it.

So would Trotskyites accept socialism in one country as a stepping stone to internationalism?

Welp, almost made ten posts before the famous in-fighting.

Great argument m8.

Where exactly has it "failed" any more than any other socialist attempts have failed?

What do you mean by "on the ascendancy"? If you mean economically; that's why international capitalist crisis (like the one that's still happening, 2008 was the first shock, the next one is supposed to come this year) is necessary for international revolution.

Well yes in that we don't realistically expect every single country to become socialist at once. Socialism will have to occur in country by country. "Socialism in One Country" refers to a specific outlook, held by the Stalinist USSR, that attempting to build socialism outside of your own country/assisting socialist movements elsewhere was pointless, that socialism can be strengthened within one country, and that any new countries must be subsumed into the first. Internationalism understands that the socialist movement has to maintain international momentum to be successful; capitalism is international, so it must be fought internationally.

Yeah that's what I meant. Today's examples being China and India, to a lesser extent some African states and some in South America. It seems to me that the shocks to the system are really just a way of redistributing wealth from the current 'have' nations to the other nations. The richest motherfuckers on this planet are internationalist in that tehy have no allegiance to any state or nation. It's all too easy for them to just up and move should their situation look shaky. So while desire for change may rise in a few countries (Occupy was largely a first world movement) the targets of any such change set up shop in developing countries who'll protect them.


Thanks again.

Yes, you're right. Capital flees at the first hint of a tax rise, let alone revolution. That's why most revolutionary theorists would tell you have to expropriate their wealth, and arrest the wealthy who try to emigrate during revolution if they refuse to hand over their capital.

The 2008 crisis was eased in a way by the fact that China and Brazil's economies in particular remained growing, and kept world trade in balance. The next hit is likely to hit China this year, so say the stock markets, anyway. This would usually be fine - capitalism works in peaks and troughs, usually - if the rest of the world market could "back it up" as it were. But we're all still recovering from 2008. We don't have the money to buy loads of cheap Chinese crap anymore. It's a crisis of over-production.

As Marx predicted, the crises of capitalism get more and more acute, more and more frequent, and they find fewer and fewer solutions over time. There will be an ultimate crisis of capitalism, and it might be soon.

sadface.jpg

So which modern development are you suggesting to bring about revolution and sustain it afterwards?

One you've never heard of and wouldn't know if it would work if I explained it to you.

Even if I did explain it in detail and you and all your friends liked it, you'd have to pick up a weapon and fend off all the people who are going to lie about it and try to kill you for thinking too loud.

> Not reading Capital - still the best analysis of the history and tendencies of capitalism and painfully accurate in its analysis of what is to come

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You're retarded.
All of these ideas were presented before the dynamics of the internet and electronic technology changed the face of the earth.

I'm naming my baby seven, after you.

Go on. It's not like you've got anything better to do.

But the dynamics of the internet and electronic technology, while they have changed a lot about how our society works, have yet to change the fundamental economic fact that you get up and go to work for a wage, of which you have no democratic say in, and most of your work throughout the day does not pay your wage but the profits of a capitalist, and that capitalist elite still maintains control of the commanding heights of our economies and also of our political establishments.

So a lot of Marx is still relevant. Do some reading you nugget.

You could create a bunch of virtual jobs that serve no purpose and create a huge and controllable economy.

You're joshing me, right?

You could create a currency in each state and an 'over dollar' to give states more power over their own economy. You wouldn't have to adjust prices globally excluding for the overdollar which could be adjusted by an average and no one would give a shit unless you have to travel from state to state every day and it wouldn't be a political issue.

Do you even money bro?

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There are a lot of things that are possible now that weren't 100 years ago because there wasn't the computational power or the ability to keep it cohesive.

There are a lot of ideas that may benefit society that were thrown out 100 years ago.

Do not point out the irony in using 100 year old ideas.

Are they Stalinists with an edgy alt right twist or just secret nationalists trying to infiltrate left wing movements?

Yeah, of course, we can do all those things now.

The idea of those things, the fact that capitalist economic relations are a problem, a and why, and how capitalism works; the principles that would be involved in administering technologies like this, the political change that would be required to administer them, and the way in which such revolutionary activity would be met by the state, these are found in works like Marx's.

I'm not saying that reading Marx is all you need to do to understand how socialism could happen the 21st century - of course not! Things are different now, you're right. But reading Marx is certainly useful.

The former

Capitalism is pretty alive here at the bottom. It should probably be encouraged for a while while things work differently elsewhere.

wat?

Did two years' worth of Marxist studies in university.

All I got from it was how much of a hack the guy turned out to be.

Go on then.

Maoist Third Worldism. Only they can carry out revolution.

Sorry if that seemed curt, but it frankly felt like a waste of time. Much like trying to pull workably ideas from the Bible.

Please give an opinion on how you believe his ideas would work on today's world or any possible version of it.

You don't get to say "Read Marx" this time.

If you knew anything about Marx, you'd know he spent his time critiquing the bourgeois social relations of his time; he wasn't interested in speculating about the future; and that's what's foundational about his work. It's still relevant in the sense it is unmatched in laying bare the workings of bourgeois social relations; relations we still live under. There have been plenty of people who have expanded on his work and have articulated their own visions of how to create socialism and reach communism and what those terms actually mean, or should mean, in practice. If you've taken this course and come away from it thinking he's a hack, then what the fuck were they teaching you for two years? Or was the course one long attempt to discredit him and his ideas?

Even though the stalinist line was correct for the circumstances once the october revolution failed to successfully spread to europe in the same way that correct play a lost position in chess, weiqi etc is to do the best with what you have and hope for a blunder from your opponent this is the correct line for current circumstances

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/

Was this text ever referred to in your course?

No, it's merely unmatched in doing so from his viewpoint. No one is so blind as to fail to notice what he did - he's just the only with that particular viewpoint.

So? If your opinion on how this shit would work is to spout of crap that already crashed and burned several times, then you have no opinion.


And that's a problem, something that's struck me from the very start. I agree that we live under similar conditions, but to outright dismiss every factor that has risen over the years in order to apply an outdated mold is a disgusting lack of vision.


Professor rocked the Marx look like it was nobody's business, take what you will from that.

Yes.

Adam Smith was the first to realize what profit from the means of production was, but Marx was the first to theorize what that relation meant for society for a whole. Moreover, those who had theorized previously saw absolutely nothing wrong with this situation; Marx was the first to label it exploitative, in an empirical and logical critique. So to dismiss Marx on this ground, especially concerning the historical impact of his work, is simply ridiculous.

You're the one who's sole opinion is that Marx is a hack, and you've presented nothing to back that up other than this crap:
Who's done that? Adorno? Lenin? Zizek? Bullshit.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm

Was this chapter covered?

The latter. They want "Bolshevism without communism".

Anything other than Marxism-Leninism is pure nonsense and almost certainly doomed to failure. The only reason it isn't universally accepted among socialists is because of the pathetic lack of self-confidence within the left. Far to many concessions have been made to capitalism for no other reason than to distance ourselves from the USSR.

Pure autism.

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We don't need Marxist-Leninist autism.

The leftist revolution will be a Marxist Leninist revolution or it will be a failure. We can and will attest to that.

Hail Stalin; hero of the proletariat!

Ha! The ones who talk all day about the need of discipline, but are less organized than any anarchists.


Pffft. There is no way of fleeing from the land-value tax. You can expropriate intellectual property of firms that aren't even in your country. And arresting the wealthy is pointless. They don't have important things with them (you think one will try to smuggle out a factory hidden in the butt?), only the rights to things. And these rights will evaporate.

As autistic person I hereby volunter to full autism extraction. Im ready to die in this long and painfull process. If the class war succeds say my imaginary girlfriend: Fuo0ck U m8 cheese is sold. She will know what that means.

None of them, to paraphrase Debord "nothing is as harmful to the revolution as the revolutionary ideologies". Lenin succeeded because he was pragmatic, not a doctrinaire.


It will be these theoretically-inbreed faggots even less.

For some reason it always involves monopolizing the right to act against big business and devolves into protection of big business against people.

Also, Soviet Internationalism (as per Stalin) is a misnomer. At least in English.

One could understand it as a Globalism. I.e. destruction of local politics and local culture.

But that's what Soviets called Cosmopolitism (and they were against it). Internationalism is inter-Nationalism. I.e. co-existence of diverse Nations with their own culture and government.

Btw, this is why Russian Nationalists hate Communists - they allowed different ethnicities to develop within USSR, instead of forcibly converting everything to one culture, one language, one … Union.

Marxism is pragmatic by default, is it not?

I'd say it's the ideology of the ultimate pragmatism.

This straight "Autism" label bothers me more than it should.

%%WHY IS IT NOT CURVED?%%

If Marxism-Leninism was pragmatic it would not have a sectarian split over every little disagreement, and it would not have made Vanguardism, a theory Lenin explicitly said wasn't desirable outside of Russia, a necessity to join the Comintern.

Marxism, and Lenin where pragmatists. Marxism-Leninism as it has existed, and as it existed today, is a cult.

Take a look at Physics: it has much less leeway for sectarian splits, and yet we there are quite a lot of those.

That's a major oversimplification.

Marxism-Leninism is literally the only tendency that managed to win a revolution or a war. So yeah, until someone manages to come up with something better, we're stuck with it.

inb4 Leninism is a Stalinist invention, yeah yeah, whatever

Definitely not the Identitarian parts (Feminists, Queers, African-American Supremacists, Punks etc.), that's for sure.