Consciousness

How Do revolutionary Marxists orientate towards the Working class?

Other urls found in this thread:

fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/
jacobinmag.com/2016/05/white-workers-bernie-sanders-clinton-primary-racism/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

By debating for hours about the theory in their local marxist study group.

Marxist activists and intellectuals need to wear overalls. This was the historical error that led to our lack of appeal among the working class.

Behold:
Left-wing of capital Exhibit A

...

He has a point, you know.

Most people with the time on their hands, the inclination, and the educational level to read Marx are not members of the Working Class, strictly speaking. They might be about to become members of the Working Class (like students) and I'm sure some members of the Working Class do engage in Marxist theory, but clearly the majority do not. Thus the question of orientation is a valid and fair one.

Realistically, though, the poster still makes a fair point. Particularly for those comrades that will be part of the Working Class soon (like students, or NEETs who will eventually not be NEETs) - they will soon be able to start from the Working Class. To revolutionize other workers around them.

My point wasn't about the class background of the individuals spouting theory, but the theory itself.

Marxism is the working class doctrine, the idea of instilling/educating it into them from on high is anti-marxist social democratic nonsense which has been nothing but the the ideology of state functionaries and the petty bourgeoisie, especially to combat the real working class movement (communism).

In that case I agree. But there can still be a necessity to make clear their own doctrine to themselves, if that makes sense. Marxism is the condensed experience of the working class struggle, the ideas of Marxism are within the working class already, but clearly they are not conscious yet. That is something that the theorist can provide. All Marx ever aimed to do was to provide a mirror to the working class of their own activity under capitalism, because if they could see and understand their own actions they would of course understand that socialism was the only solution. Explaining their own activity to them, in this way, explaining what capitalism is and how it works, is still necessary.

They don't.

Obviously their understanding of the works of Marx and other intellectuals offers a superior understanding of the workers plight than anything the workers themselves would know, so it's in the best interests of everyone that the revolutionary class bludgeons the working class into accepting their leadership

I agree for the most part, I would just be careful of any idea that theorists are permanently above the working class in terms of understanding. As the working class' movement (communism) develops and consciousness emerges from the class asserting itself by engaging in practical activity, the working class can very quickly reach levels of clarity, practically and theoretically, far beyond the most well read and theoretically advanced intellectuals.

The vanguard isn't necessarily the same organization(s) or individuals throughout the entire process, nor are they separate from the working class movement as a whole, they are the most concentrated expressions of it. The vanguard might be this group over here one day and another the next.
The vanguard is the tool of the class, not the other way around, nor is it separate from the class movement as a whole.
(I must make sure here that it is understood that when I say "vanguard" I am not using it in the Leninist sense)


i kek'd
'specially at the distinguishing of " revolutionary class" from "working class"

...

shit, i honestly thought you were being sarcastic

Important post.

Except you're using it exactly in the Leninist sense, as the preservers of the idea of revolution.

You're just not using it the Marxist-Leninist (and to some extent Trotskyist) sense, i.e. a psuedo-Marxist version of the Calvinist elect.

That is not the Trotskyist sense

Getting dangerously close to fascist territory in this thread.

Bolshevism is proto-fascism.

...

I love how if you use the prefix "proto" you can imply something is something without having to prove that it is :^)

Yeah, the prefix "proto" can be used as kind of a proto-demonstration.

Where is this webm from? I've seen it here posted for quite a few times but no one knew where it came from.

I really, really wish I could agree.

Mussolini was highly inspired by Lenin and Bolshevism. Fascism had syndicalist roots, but it was really bolshevism that molded it into what it is today.

This is why anarchists will never accomplish anything.

You mean, apart from holding back proletariat to proto-bourgeois ideologies, and thus delaying the revolution?

you fucking moron ideologue. you think using big words makes you clever ? a 90-year old with alzheimers disease has better critical thought than you.

What word don't you understand? Feel free to ask.

What meant as an answer to

I may have alzheimer after all.

a 6 hour 6 part documentary on the Spanish civil war. You can find it on Youtube.

One of Mussolini greatest inspirations was Lenin. Literally the founder of the Fascist movement.

This is why we hate you

Am I on the new hit TV show "You've been Sheng-wu-lien'd"?


The ideas of Lenin =/= Leninist
Although what I am saying doesn't fit Lenin's ideas either

I don't mean anything to do with "professional revolutionaries" (neither by what that was actually understood to mean at the time [in russian of course] or by the "Lenin"ist bastardization of it])


Care to explain what you think the Trotskyist sense is?

I've yet to hear a Trot that doesn't give credence to the all-important "leaders".
"The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat…
"The turn is now to the proletariat, i.e., chiefly to its revolutionary vanguard. The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership."

Left-wing of capital exhibit B (fresh OC) related

Yes how do college students and thier smug professors relate to us idiotic working plebs. Good example of why communism is dead, it's not just the ideas, it's the people trying to sell them too.

FTFY

Recognizing the necessity for revolutionary leadership is not equal to conceiving of that leadership as existing outside of or separately to the working class

correct, but by "the necessity for revolutionary leadership" you mean "the ignorant masses are helpless without the self-appointed vanguard" (presumably including yourself)

Someone doing a materialist analysis doesn't give two shits how you "conceive of yourself".

The leadership is not above the class, it is a tool of the class. By "the necessity of leaders" so-called Leninists mean necessity of their dictatorship over the impotent stupid masses.

I don't have any problem with leaders, I have a problem with substitutionism, which is the core of "Lenin"ism. The workers make their own leaders, as you say the leaders are not separate from the class, but the leaders are not a replacement for the class, they can only guide the class, at no time are the workers the subjects of those leaders, they have no duty to "follow".

"The task of establishing socialism is one for the working class as a whole. It is a task which cannot be delegated, not even to the class conscious vanguard"

yeah but counter-revolutionaries always borrow ideas, strategies, and rhetoric from the Left. That isn't even anything new in the history of modern conservatism as Corey Robin showed in his book The Reactionary Mind. This won't seem like a charitable comparison to some but imo being afraid of Leninism because the Nazis took some ideas from it is like being afraid of Darwinism for the same reason.
I wouldn't say that anarchists are just neoliberals in disguise, even though the neo-liberals appropriated a great deal of anarchist ideals and rhetoric while building on the ultra-individualism of various counter-cultural movements like rock, punk rock, mainstream feminism etc.


You might have not noticed that the user you replied to was referring to the Left in general, and not specifically to tankies. In this case, I think the user is mistaken bc many more workers have been to college than in the past, so its not like an elite thing that workers are expected to have no say in.

But I think if you looked around outside of leftypol or a few spots on leddit, you'd see that most of the Left is hyper-individualist e.g. anarchist, idpol, left communism.

The irony is people think telling the masses "we don't need leaders" is going to make them love you but really it makes the de facto leadership of the movement less accountable to criticism from the people. Which is probably where people get the idea that the Left is a bunch of unserious college students and professors who talk non-sense tbh


wew, why don't you just call yourself an anarchist instead? So if a few reactionary workers or disgruntled petit-bourgeois calling themselves workers decide to go against the popular demands of elected leadership that's somehow fair for everyone?

The working class in the west are coal miners, rednecks, blue collar folk who work with their hands,their jobs are being outsourced overseas and their people are being destroyed through mass immigration, if they speak out against this the Marxists accuses them of racism.
The working class loves guns, and religion, and traditional family values.
The Marxists wants to outlaw guns, despises religion (unless you are a poor rapeugee Islamist) , and wants to destroy all tradition in the name of "progress".

The Marxist is a west coast, or east coast ivy league educated elitist who lives in a bubble of perpetual leftism and never had to deal with actually having to work or starve.

The lower class barely graduated high school.

The lower class has been tossed into the gutter, mocked, made to feel less than, while the leftist elitist gleefully awaits their destruction through demographic change

Is it any wonder they vote trump?

All trump did was listen to them and say get in the car faggot we are going to make america great again.

Well all "Leninists" in that sense are either Trotskyists or Marxist-Leninist before engaging with Lenin, they already know what to read before they read it.


The only real Leninists in a proper, critical sense would have been Western Marxists like György Lukacs, or modern re-interpreters like Negri or Zizek.


I'm honestly not sure if that image is supposed to be pro or anti-Lenin.


This is actually something which I've been given a some thought lately, maybe it's better to really have an system where the power relationship intentionally blatant, rather than one where it's hidden under a idea of consensus.

I remember a critique of the Occupy movement was precisely this, a few voices was running the show (or rather, allowing it to stagnate - not that it had much potential to begin with) but the lack of any formal system hid this from most participants.

Never mind the fact that workers are actually voting for Bernie, and Trump has actually higher support amongst said college elitists (who thinks the working class are lazy and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps). fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/

Try harder.

I was there fam, and that's exactly how it was. I didn't know anything about politics before I got there like most people, but there were people there running the show and not calling themselves leaders while being exactly that in reality.

That's part of why certain weird ideas other than besides idpol madness(like white men talking last) gained currency because we allegedly all had the same amount of say, but they still feared that white men might impost a de facto hierarchy in the organization rather than accepting the reality of the power relationship that already existed.


You might appreciate this article: jacobinmag.com/2016/05/white-workers-bernie-sanders-clinton-primary-racism/

lol , no one is voting for bernie, he still hasnt even beaten shillary because he is a beta jew.
The left in the west is severely out of touch with what the real lower class actually values

Weird, a large number of coal miners in West Virginia voted for Bernie and according shillary supporters they were all wacist for doing so.

You might have not noticed but "FTFY" implies I'm CHANGING something they said.
"The Left in general" is precisely the problem, I was making a joke.

Oh, I see, just the ones that ones who haven't been to college.

DAE left communism is "hyper-individualist"?
Might want to actually read some leftcoms, bud.

I didn't say that…

That democracy fetishism tho

The problem here is one of the left vs communism.

Communists don't care if they are leaders. but we don't shape our ideology around being or becoming them. Unlike the left, which has its goal becoming leader of "the people" or "the masses" at any cost.