It's very common for third-world socialist movements to involve local traditions. This is a great way to gain support for socialism, especially in a colonial context. Chiapas and Rojava are great examples of successful leftist insurgencies, but both have incorporated local ideology to the point of no longer being truly Marxist. Socialism is working in both these places, but so far removed from the Marxist tradition that there's a very real fear of the leadership of both places turning into social democrats.
However, there's a catch – once you start messing with socialism, it can easily become non-socialist. The most famous example is how Maoism under Deng shifted into "socialism with Chinese characteristics", a worthless combination of the worst aspects of Maoism and liberalism. In Korea, the incorporation of traditionalist thought (including racial supremacy) caused Marxism-Leninism to devolve into Juche, one of the most horrific ideologies ever conceived. Even Neoconservatism is arguably the synthesis of revolutionary Marxism with the American liberal framework.
How do you guys feel about syncretic socialism? Is revisionism acceptable in a post-colonial context? Can local traditions offer insight that Marx and Marxists cannot provide?
Revisionism is acceptable anywhere, Marx isn't some god who's word is sacred, you can change and modify whatever you want if you think it will be an improvement. Incorporating local ideas and traditions into Marxist thought is inevitable, just like people incorporated local beliefs into Christianity. The important thing is to just make sure that you don't lose sight of the socialist aspect of what you're trying to do.
Jaxon Evans
But it just takes a few bad ideas to turn "local modifications" into "post-colonial capitalism"
Eli Adams
award this guy a medal, what a profound argument.
What's the point of being truly marxist? The most important thing is to create autonomous decentralized zones with direct democracy, you can call it whatever you want, that's irrelevant. Since the Russian revolution, people have focused on that particular definition of revolution and ignored all former theory which was actually way more emancipatory and already criticized the problem inherit in bureaucracy and party systems.
Most revolutions of the 20th century were never remotely socialist just cliques trying to impose their rule over the people. China didn't degenerate at all since it was already a degenerated state controlled by a party clique which reproduced many of the forms of sociability from the imperial era. Reason why the famine of 1959-61 occurred.
I think we can make a good argument on how globalization is making culture homogeneous and highly atomistic which is a process that destroys social bonds of caring about ones neighbor and community. And obviously for us to have a communialist society we need a strong identity based on each community. So yes, we have to reshape the meaning of local traditions to fit the communist praxis.
Easton Brown
That's absurd. If you really think Tito and Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara were non-communist, why would they call themselves communists rather than going with the easier route of liberalism?
Ian Morales
i said most, not all.
Ho Chi Minh died before the war ended so we don't know what would've happened if he ruled a free Vietnam, Che got bored of the Cuban bureaucracy and gave up of political power for obvious reasons and Tito was ok for a marxist.
Colton Thompson
This sounds like the old reactionary "COMMUNISM IS JEWS CONTROLLING GENTILES!" bullshit.
Why do you think ineffective or brutal socialists were secret liberals, rather than sincerely passionate individuals who lacked the expertise or resolve to get the overwhelmingly difficult job done?
Benjamin Lewis
REEEEE SPOOOKS GET OUT
Jordan Cruz
Different countries having different material conditions needing different solutions and "call it chinese characteristics but its just capitalism" are two very different kinds of revisionism.
Asher Green
Rojava doesn't really follow Marxist thought in the first place
Alexander Wright
But they are socialist, and their socialism is descended from MLism
Carter Ramirez
I don't think so. Deng sincerely believed liberal Maoism was what China needed.
Jackson Stewart
yes, because private property totally doesn't exist in kurdish territory oh wait
Christopher Ortiz
They're socialism is descended from the bookchin school of anarchist thought. Apo pretty much abandoned ML as a failure.
Gavin Turner
Their*
Dominic King
Not all socialism is communism, ya dingus
Adam Fisher
I shiggy
Blake Butler
Property and socialism can absolutely coexist.
Jason Hughes
Private property =/= personal property
Ian Edwards
So Rojava is unquestionably socialist, then
Wyatt Perez
To my knowledge they have shop owners. Small time bourgeois that don't take part in the communes, which pretty much excludes them from political decision making. It's completely ridiculous to expect them to have instantaneous socialism/communism.
James Johnson
I'm implying that bureaucracy is inherently a system which centralizes power, since the party is a bureaucratic body by itself it can't be communistic. Most communist leaders are no dummies they read the theory they are very conscious of their actions, they, like any bourgeois politician, believe that a certain clique should govern a country and they fear the people and direct democracy, aka real democracy and why they opt for democratic centralism. Some just use communism as a way to appeal to the people since its ideas were very popular. In my country even neoliberals and social democrats used to call themelves marxists and posed with marx busts.
It's obvious that some people use politics to get in power and control others. Don't be naif, that has always happened in history and so called commies are no better than other professional politicians.
Landon Gutierrez
This
Joseph Davis
source?
Daniel Ward
can you give an example of socialist syncretism? Socialism with funny hats isn't any less socialist.
Marx is our hero. We owe him for giving us leftism. Not to follow his cultural values and practices is to disgrace communism.
Nolan Sanders
Stay classy Holla Forums
Ryder Ortiz
But Marxism as Marx wrote is already suited to the conditions of the European worker
dumb shit
Oliver Edwards
Marx (influenced by Hegel) was explicit in saying European culture and civilization was much more preferable to the Asiatic world.
Other than that, Marx did not talk about culture, for him it wasn't as important as materialism. For him sometimes culture is is just disguised ideology or the superstructure. He never said like Stirner that it was an illusion, the famous line "they do it, but they do not know why they do it", is just another testament to Marx drawing away from what is commonly accepted as socially, to a more sociological and philosophical idea of what a "society" is.
Michael Rodriguez
Apo describes Marxism as "economic reductionism". He sees the conflict as between ideological culture and material culture, with class as a component of this but not the entirety of it.
