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First world leftists treat Marx as a bible, and are too inflammatory because they see communism as a brand. They should be more strategic, organise without the language of communism but pursuing actions that bring to the forefront class antagonism and capitalist contradictions.
Most first world leftists seem more into leftist aesthetics and moralistic vulgar Marxism than proper Marxism.
This is an important lesson for US leftists, too. We are so keen on saying the terminology and less keen on being able to speak to a person in their terms. So many people in the US are taught to react to socialism and communism negatively by instinct, but a lot of people will agree with the overall aims.
I firmly believe you also have to shape resistant minds by giving them steps they can embrace. Not everyone shares the same world view or class consciousness. It might be hard to get someone to go from A > C, but you might have success getting them from A > B > C. Honestly, it’s basically what the Alt Right did in a lot of spaces.
Reframing the spectrum in terms of concentration and distribution of power - private and state. Reframing economics in terms of productive v extractive forms of ownership. With a plurality of productive forms, with extractive forms being minimised = free and democratic society.
That‘s the modern day class unifier that gets around a century of propaganda and brainwashing. And it’s also impossible to attack. Get that idea to take hold in the public, and it will be even more powerful than the class consciousness that took hold of the public over a century ago
Marx was a critique of an extractive form of ownership, and wanted a productive form of ownership. Adam smith was also against extractive forms of ownership and in favour of a productive form. Same with Karl Popper. it’s the same with any writings concerned with freedom. Whether socialist, Liberal, or Conservative. But as it stands today, extractive ownership and the wealth/power it creates hides behind words like entrepreneurial, freedom, etc. it can’t hide with the above reframing.
This is very true. I was actually shocked how many people have become ideological high priests instead of systems diagnosticians. And then they use their identity of being theory-book thumping and "Marx said..." throwing to delegitimise other people who are actually analysing conditions of reality, updating theory and using those updates to inform strategy.
It's like a strange counter-culture thing going on since they don't believe in the prevailing ideology anymore and there isn't a pre-prepared systems realist alternative (systems change all the time), so closest thing is just to become a "communist" or "Marxist" or "Anarchist" or "left-com" and protect that ruthlessly through purity testing and moral panic.
the way i see it, we should see marx like evolutionary biologists see Darwin. he got the ball rolling and his words were/are extremely important, but he couldn’t have been right about everything
I feel like this is why Mamdani (not a socialist/communist, I know) was able to win. He has a history of doing the work and promised to do more of it in very direct words without appealing to Marx
The people are aware of (a lot of) the problems they face, they don't need books by dead Germans to tell them that. They need people who will bring solutions
For the overall political culture and Overton window - Mamdani is the crucial gateway drug towards getting this show on the road.
For the movement, he is a bitter pill for the sickly stupification of US American politics and when he succeeds on his own mandate, which he will, the machinery must be in place to capitalise on that success.
There are so many things that must happen but in short Mamdani’s project has to become an electoral case study to inform all people.
Not so different, at least, in my third world country. The left is fragmented in a lot of factions, full of dogmas, fighting each other more than the right. When I was a teenager, during the military dictatorship, it was common to hear that "the left only unites in jail". Sad to grow old and see that nothing changed.
Well, the theory is for us committed communists. Most people, however, are deeply indoctrinated against the language, same way they can believe themselves to be Christian despite not being so because they associate the language with being right.
In that sense, I think we communists from the third world usually don’t go full in Marxist in rhetoric, you just lie and tell people “actually, Adam smith supported free healthcare”, and they’ll eat it up.
Stating the obvious truth isn’t deceiving anyone. If anything, wrapping the truth in academic language and high principles comes across as condescending and inaccessible.
If you’re building a Union in a workplace where the word ‘union’ is controversial and unpopular, would you represent yourself as a union representative or would you spend a lot of time building workplace unity first so that when the moment comes, the word has no power for the reactionaries?
Likewise, the right uses communism as a word of power to divide. Would you not first build the base and the unity before helping the reaction use the words to isolate you?
I think leftists in the US (specifically the primarily online ones) have a long way to go before actually coming to understand how crucial this basic component of organizing is.
OG commenter nailed it, US leftists adopt radical politics like it’s a brand to crusade around on, and it is just generally repellent. This is why organizing US workers has fallen so far behind. Whatever specific theoretical tendency one might prescribe doesn’t even matter if there is no collective to put it into practice. I’d say it furthermore doesn’t matter if there is a collective but it is insular, sectarian, or preoccupied with appearing radical.
Normalise new language that is impossible to demonise and attack.
reframe the political spectrum in terms of power concentration and distribution. Both state and private.
Reframe the economics in terms of productive v extractive forms of ownership. The way to a free society is a plurality of productive forms of ownership, with extractive forms minimised and guarded against.
worker coops and such is a productive form of ownership. But this form can present economic issues over time if it’s the only form.
decentralised social/community ownership is a productive form of ownership. But this form can present issues over time if it’s the only form. Or if it’s only mixed with worker coops..
entrepreneurial ownership is a productive form of ownership - but this can present issues over time. It can turn extractive if it’s the only form of ownership in an economy, or if it’s in an economy dominated by extractive forms of ownership. In an economy with other forms of productive ownership such as the two above, it can’t exploit labour and it doesn’t turn extractive. The relationship between it and labour/society would be a mutually beneficial one.
ownership that doesn’t contribute to production but instead extracts rents from those who do is an extractive form of ownership. Extractive forms of ownership is the ownership that reduces freedom, and concentrates wealth and power in a society. To the point it eventually collapses.
A plurality of productive ownership forms is needed because they all have different driving motivations, and the strengths of each form prevent the weaknesses of the other. Thus plurality, along with minimisation of extractive forms increases and diversifies ownership and decision making in an economy, and thus spreads wealth and freedom. Ultimately, it prevents exploitation, and it prevents both private and state power concentrating.
Even though I don’t agree with the article’s analysts of Marxism in Latin America, it was an enthralling reading and very insightful, thank you for sharing.
Red-scare and other anti-socialism campaigns have made it much more difficult to organize with that specific language, but I don't think the language is necessary at first when you can talk about the same ideas (that do have support from a lot of people, at least in some form) in less inflammatory language
I don't think the revolutionary substance is in calling something a certain word
I mean it certainly can be. Lots of Lenin's writings against opportunists during his time was specifically because opportunists would use vaguer language that allowed wiggle room in their political program to be not revolutionary. Gotta know when and where this is the case, of course, but it certainly has precedent and isn't something to write off
I don't think this is really a problem unique to not using specific language. The Nazis used the label of socialism despite being very anti-socialism, to say the least
I think not using this kind of language and instead talking more directly about specific goals is the solution to having less wiggle room
This conversation is so devoid of theory that the mere mention of Lenin and how he handled the exact same situation, sends you into a frenzy and it's got all of you throwing out the most wild accusations without anything to base it off of.
You've lost the plot. Being scientific rather than dogmatic doesn't mean rejecting major contributors to the marxist analysis of modern society. Acknowledging that Lenin's contributions were entirely legitimate is no more 'dogmatic' than acknowledging the legitimacy of Einstein's relativity. They still apply today to the extent that the conditions analyzed have stayed the same until proven otherwise and even then will still be a closer approximation to the truth than a random gut feeling.
If you want to reject Lenin's thesis you have to provide the proof to back it up. You can't just make up things on the spot because it 'feels' right and pretend that makes you the scientific side.
Who said anything about rejecting Lenin’s theses? I said “he’s not a saint, Marxism is not religion “ in the context of treating Marxism as a doctrine in which terms are set in stone forever.
Obviously I don’t want to reject Lenin’s theses, which is why I appeal to pragmatism, which Lenin himself always said was crucial, didn’t Lenin call “left wing communism” an infantile disorder? Didn’t he combat relentlessly utopian communists. It’s precisely because I believe in Lenin theses that I treat him as a contributor to the international proletariat, not a saint or prophet or whatever.
You did when you responded to a comment appealing to Lenin's analysis of correct praxis and European opportunists as 'worship' instead of showing why you can dismiss it. Citing the most significant contributor on this subject isn't worship.
So we're not allowed to ever talk about his theories and his revolutionary work? Please do keep in mind that Lenin's revolutionary work was under the most oppressive regime in all of Europe at that time, Russia was also less developed than most third world countries are today, if we should turn to anyone on revolutionary praxis in third world countries, it should be Lenin.
Unfortunately most leftists are like this where im from. For example this persons party is by far the largest here in Canada. They're banned from some union pickets lines for hijacking the event and selling magazines, known for being very dogmatic (a women was SA'd in the organization in Canada here and they called her public accusation "idpol" for going public before they finished they're investigation) and in general it feels like leftism in the west is too petty, semantic, and dogmatic to succeed. Or worse then doomed to fail, seems to practice idpol/dogma/semantics, im not sure what to even call it (idc what you said it need to be in daddy lenins words or its not real communism) to the point of pushing people right, to the extent it almost feels intentional sometimes. It feels like leftist spaces or either too psyop'd or too full of idealistic "petty bourgeoisie" who have no perspective of the actual working class.
From the perspective of a non western leftist, what's your take on this being the norm? It's pushed me further from "left" spaces personally, it feels more productive to have conversations on individual issues with peers/community members than engage people from a leftist perspective because of this. Do you think it's worth trying to work within the western leftist framework today?
Edit: maybe leftist wasn't the best term but rather communist more specifically in hindsight, I was using them somewhat synonymously.
For example, our first left wing president was elected in our country and what he would do is downplay Marx, said he was totally wrong, cite Keyness as his model, but he would use certain phrases that made it obvious that he was very much committed to proletarian struggle.
I was working as a teacher at the time and what I would do, given that in my country the persecution and killing of leftist is a very common practice, is I would teach students about capitalism, the way it worked, and would prove to them that the right wing not only did not know capitalism, but that capitalism needed “saving” by the transfer of lands from the landlords to poor farmers and indigenous individuals, and you just claim this is for the sake of capital and people see the logic in it.
From my perspective, in the first world, and do correct me if I’m wrong, given the ideological power of the government, most leftists reject any Marxists that aren’t Marx, gramsci or Lenin, and are simply interested in proving their loyalty by market gestures (meaning, buying communist memorabilia and buying from local producers, very petit bourgeois as you mentioned), or just use Marxism to argue that either Marxism will just win out because it’s logically sound, or will say that nothing can be done until every single person is pure of heart and is a committed communist that buys “communist stuff” and thinks “communistically”.
It’s a term called vulgar Marxism that fell out of favor a bit, maybe it needs to be brought back. People in the first world from the outside just think communism is lingo and just complain in social media about “means of production” or “material conditions” without truly understanding these terms dialectically, in my opinion.
This is all just to add to your excellent analysis.
Leftists in the developed world live so well that they can afford to be doctrinaire and sectarian because there's no urgency for revolution like in the developing world.
Socialists in the developing world not only face more authoritarian states because these countries are favored by the imperial powers to maintain them as exporters of raw materials within the international labor system, but they also have to figure out how to develop a country lacking in productive capacity once they seize power. In this context, you use every method at your disposal to fight against inequality, backwardness, and poverty.
It's no surprise that anarchism and ultra-dogmatic Marxism have so little traction in the developing world.
You can't critique sectarianism while simultaneously shitting on anarchists broadly (most of whom organize with Marxists). Social anarchism is fairly widespread in Latin America, Kurdistan, and indigenous communities, despite never seeing institutional support like Marxist–Leninist groups did.
I’m from Australia, a country directly guilty of what you’re saying. I know what it’s like being aware of the reality of what you’re saying. ButI’m curious what it’s like being on the other side of this dynamic? I hate that everything I purchase and need to survive in my society has exploitation baked into its production line. But at the same time unless I go live in isolation away from civilisation, I don’t have a choice but to participate. But what’s it like for you? What feelings do you feel? How has this dynamic impacted your region and way of life? How has it shaped your worldview?
I don't agree with everything Sakai writes but he did a great job breaking this down. The bourgeois will allow an American assembly line that is unionized and pays a somewhat living wage when the majority of the production is mined and smelted in the third world with slaves.
I often see western leftists portraying everything socialists did in the 20th century as perfect or try to defend every single thing they did... We are just people and people aren't perfect. There were mistakes and we learn from them, it's okay to acknowledge them. Capitalism and western pressure was often to blame, but not always.
From China, lives currently in the US. So much of leftism here is virtue signalling and “my candidate needs to absolutely align with everything I believe in”. Y’all need to get a little more realpolitik in yourselves, and understand that politicians sometimes have to say certain things to appeal to a wider voter base, so they can at least get elected and get started doing things. I’ve seen so may people criticise Zohran for example for becoming mellow on his Israel position (because guess what, he doesn’t want any chance of being seriously labelled antisemitic) and I cringe so damn hard.
i agree with you. another leftist from the global south actually told me the opposite and that we (we, being imperial core leftists) need to be uncompromising on anti-imperialism no matter what, otherwise we don’t care about the global south. i still lean towards your position of course but the other redditor really did make me think.
I’m speaking mostly within an US context, and truly, it means fuck all what a politician says if they can’t get elected and actually get involved into decision making. Time and time again the leftists here seem to turn on any politician who mellows their position to make a real push for a position of real power, and in the end the mainline dem or hell republican gets elected, because the leftists are more concerned about maintaining their virtuous image rather than actually winning elections.
The criticism of Mamdani for not being performatively critical of Israel is absurd, because realistically, the mayor doesn’t actually deal with Israel at all. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t support the country, what more do you want him to do?
Let him spend his political capital on things he actually has the power to change.
Well my advice is with the weird obsession with being Moderates, leftist westerners are so obsessed with social democracy and treat it as the thing to solve all problems dispite it not addressesing the obvious core components and issues with capitalism in general
Even if that’s true, how it’s used in discourse and its meaning is what actually matters hence why it’s fading out of use bc ppl are becoming educated on its harms
I think they're saying "global south" is a bad term because it should encompass places like Australia and NZ since they're in the southern part of the globe. Yet they aren't ever what is being referred to when people say global south. So the term isn't accurate.
I don’t think those questions lead anywhere. There is no privileged region from which the world can be seen more clearly. I think all that remains for us is to study the scientific production that socialism has left us and to analyze the historical conjuncture. I don’t really understand why someone from the Third World, merely by virtue of living there, would be in a better position to understand the world or to give advice. Only those who have internalized Marxism, regardless of the region they come from, will be in a position to provide adequate answers.
well yeah but your lived experiences Defenitely do form your views and esp. Approach to a lot of things. Sure, a person learning the same things about Marxism, whether they live in France or the ivory coast, has learned the same information but how they put this into action and how they relate day to day actions to their ideology will ofc by affected by their environment.
I don’t think they’re deeply transparent, of course, that’s the issue with false consciousness.
But you said explicitly “I don’t really understand why someone from the third world merely by virtue of living there would be in a better position to understand the world or to give advice”
So you explicitly said that you don’t understand how someone from a different environment, in which the hold of bourgeois society isn’t as solid, would be in a better position to understand socialism. May I mention this was also the position many Marxists held against the Bolsheviks, and even though the glorious Bolshevik state collapsed, how crucial were they to the history of communism?
The mistake is to appeal to experience as a source of knowledge. Those who are in the best position to understand Marxism are proletarians all over the world. And although proletarians are indeed better disposed to understand Marxism, that does not mean that their situation in itself grants them a more advanced perspective.
Even in Third World countries, bourgeois and reformist ideology predominates among the middle classes and even among parts of the proletariat. To understand the world and to formulate our political action, we must turn to marxist theory. It is a mistake to think that communists in the Third World (and even more so, the “leftists”) will have a different perspective. Is there, after all, any vanguard communist party in the Third World? What kind of movement are you interested in emulate?
Incidentally, Marxism first took root in the working class of the imperialist world center, and in Russia it did so only once capitalist relations had developed, especially in the cities, where industry was concentrated. In the countryside, the peasantry held a more conservative outlook and, when it became politicized, it tended to adopt petty-bourgeois positions.
yall too fixated on marx and yall are too privileged to care about whether something is purely socialist or not, politics has always been annoyingly flexible and it's okay for things to not be so by the book, what's more important is A. winning and B. maintaing proletarian rule
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Not third world, but leftists in the west should be focused upon reframing things. The old ways have been sufficiently demonised and society is brainwashed to react against it.
The political spectrum needs reframing in terms of distribution of power. Concentrated state power at one end, and concentrated private power at the other. or both forms of concentration at one end and the most distributed power at the other. Either way, the optimum place to have a free society, absent of exploitation, is in the centre of both.
in economic terms, things should be reframed as productive forms of ownership v extractive forms of ownership. A free society needs a plurality of productive forms of ownership, with extractive forms minimised and guarded against.
That would look something like an economic foundation of 2 socialist productive forms of ownership - worker coops and such, along with decentralised community/social ownership.
That foundation would be mixed with other productive forms of ownership such as entrepreneurial. Or to put it another way, ownership that contributes to production.
Extractive forms of ownership would be minimised. Namely, ownership that doesn’t contribute to production but instead extracts rents from those who do.
This produces a post capitalist society where exploitation is removed from labour markets, profit before people is removed from society, and where wealth and power cannot concentrate in the hands of either the state or in private hands.
It defeats a century of brainwashing and propaganda. It’s impossible to attack they can’t demonise productive forms of ownership and they can’t sell a virtue of extractive forms of ownership.
It’s the modern day class unifier that cannot be countered. It unites working class, middle class, and small business owners against their common class enemy - big capital - extractive forms of ownership.
They struggled for a long time to come up with a counter to the class consciousness of Marx, and they’ll struggle for a long time to come up with a counter to this modern class consciousness. Get these ideas to take hold of the public mind, and it’s over for capitalism and it’s extractive nature hiding behind the productive ownership form that is entrepreneurial ownership
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First world leftists treat Marx as a bible, and are too inflammatory because they see communism as a brand. They should be more strategic, organise without the language of communism but pursuing actions that bring to the forefront class antagonism and capitalist contradictions.
Most first world leftists seem more into leftist aesthetics and moralistic vulgar Marxism than proper Marxism.
This is an important lesson for US leftists, too. We are so keen on saying the terminology and less keen on being able to speak to a person in their terms. So many people in the US are taught to react to socialism and communism negatively by instinct, but a lot of people will agree with the overall aims.
I firmly believe you also have to shape resistant minds by giving them steps they can embrace. Not everyone shares the same world view or class consciousness. It might be hard to get someone to go from A > C, but you might have success getting them from A > B > C. Honestly, it’s basically what the Alt Right did in a lot of spaces.
Reframing the spectrum in terms of concentration and distribution of power - private and state. Reframing economics in terms of productive v extractive forms of ownership. With a plurality of productive forms, with extractive forms being minimised = free and democratic society.
That‘s the modern day class unifier that gets around a century of propaganda and brainwashing. And it’s also impossible to attack. Get that idea to take hold in the public, and it will be even more powerful than the class consciousness that took hold of the public over a century ago
Marx was a critique of an extractive form of ownership, and wanted a productive form of ownership. Adam smith was also against extractive forms of ownership and in favour of a productive form. Same with Karl Popper. it’s the same with any writings concerned with freedom. Whether socialist, Liberal, or Conservative. But as it stands today, extractive ownership and the wealth/power it creates hides behind words like entrepreneurial, freedom, etc. it can’t hide with the above reframing.
This is very true. I was actually shocked how many people have become ideological high priests instead of systems diagnosticians. And then they use their identity of being theory-book thumping and "Marx said..." throwing to delegitimise other people who are actually analysing conditions of reality, updating theory and using those updates to inform strategy.
It's like a strange counter-culture thing going on since they don't believe in the prevailing ideology anymore and there isn't a pre-prepared systems realist alternative (systems change all the time), so closest thing is just to become a "communist" or "Marxist" or "Anarchist" or "left-com" and protect that ruthlessly through purity testing and moral panic.
the way i see it, we should see marx like evolutionary biologists see Darwin. he got the ball rolling and his words were/are extremely important, but he couldn’t have been right about everything
I feel like this is why Mamdani (not a socialist/communist, I know) was able to win. He has a history of doing the work and promised to do more of it in very direct words without appealing to Marx
The people are aware of (a lot of) the problems they face, they don't need books by dead Germans to tell them that. They need people who will bring solutions
YES MATE!
For the overall political culture and Overton window - Mamdani is the crucial gateway drug towards getting this show on the road.
For the movement, he is a bitter pill for the sickly stupification of US American politics and when he succeeds on his own mandate, which he will, the machinery must be in place to capitalise on that success.
There are so many things that must happen but in short Mamdani’s project has to become an electoral case study to inform all people.
Not so different, at least, in my third world country. The left is fragmented in a lot of factions, full of dogmas, fighting each other more than the right. When I was a teenager, during the military dictatorship, it was common to hear that "the left only unites in jail". Sad to grow old and see that nothing changed.
Do you not think there is value in normalizing the language? Also should socialist really be deceiving the masses we seek to represent and empower?
Well, the theory is for us committed communists. Most people, however, are deeply indoctrinated against the language, same way they can believe themselves to be Christian despite not being so because they associate the language with being right.
In that sense, I think we communists from the third world usually don’t go full in Marxist in rhetoric, you just lie and tell people “actually, Adam smith supported free healthcare”, and they’ll eat it up.
Stating the obvious truth isn’t deceiving anyone. If anything, wrapping the truth in academic language and high principles comes across as condescending and inaccessible.
I more meant that we should use words like socialist and communist. I'm not advocating we drone about dialectics to the masses.
The answer to that depends.
If you’re building a Union in a workplace where the word ‘union’ is controversial and unpopular, would you represent yourself as a union representative or would you spend a lot of time building workplace unity first so that when the moment comes, the word has no power for the reactionaries?
Likewise, the right uses communism as a word of power to divide. Would you not first build the base and the unity before helping the reaction use the words to isolate you?
I think leftists in the US (specifically the primarily online ones) have a long way to go before actually coming to understand how crucial this basic component of organizing is.
OG commenter nailed it, US leftists adopt radical politics like it’s a brand to crusade around on, and it is just generally repellent. This is why organizing US workers has fallen so far behind. Whatever specific theoretical tendency one might prescribe doesn’t even matter if there is no collective to put it into practice. I’d say it furthermore doesn’t matter if there is a collective but it is insular, sectarian, or preoccupied with appearing radical.
Normalise new language that is impossible to demonise and attack.
reframe the political spectrum in terms of power concentration and distribution. Both state and private.
Reframe the economics in terms of productive v extractive forms of ownership. The way to a free society is a plurality of productive forms of ownership, with extractive forms minimised and guarded against.
worker coops and such is a productive form of ownership. But this form can present economic issues over time if it’s the only form.
decentralised social/community ownership is a productive form of ownership. But this form can present issues over time if it’s the only form. Or if it’s only mixed with worker coops..
entrepreneurial ownership is a productive form of ownership - but this can present issues over time. It can turn extractive if it’s the only form of ownership in an economy, or if it’s in an economy dominated by extractive forms of ownership. In an economy with other forms of productive ownership such as the two above, it can’t exploit labour and it doesn’t turn extractive. The relationship between it and labour/society would be a mutually beneficial one.
ownership that doesn’t contribute to production but instead extracts rents from those who do is an extractive form of ownership. Extractive forms of ownership is the ownership that reduces freedom, and concentrates wealth and power in a society. To the point it eventually collapses.
A plurality of productive ownership forms is needed because they all have different driving motivations, and the strengths of each form prevent the weaknesses of the other. Thus plurality, along with minimisation of extractive forms increases and diversifies ownership and decision making in an economy, and thus spreads wealth and freedom. Ultimately, it prevents exploitation, and it prevents both private and state power concentrating.
there’s a great article on this for anyone interested
https://redsails.org/western-marxism-and-christianity/
Even though I don’t agree with the article’s analysts of Marxism in Latin America, it was an enthralling reading and very insightful, thank you for sharing.
Moralisim is pretty much the only political language the anglosphere speaks.
This really points out in how many socialists are too busy circlejerking about theory and not implementation (praxis).
Organizing without the language of communism goes directly against what Lenin stood for.
You're literally falling for the trap the content above you described... Why are you even in this thread if you're not willing to engage with it?
Because the revolutionary marxist has a duty to defend the ideas of revolutionary marxism.
Is one of the ideas "worship of Lenin" or can we go against his mortal words when necessary?
he never said to worship lenin, the point is to not let the revolutionary substance slip away from the movement, otherwise it becomes watered down.
Red-scare and other anti-socialism campaigns have made it much more difficult to organize with that specific language, but I don't think the language is necessary at first when you can talk about the same ideas (that do have support from a lot of people, at least in some form) in less inflammatory language
I don't think the revolutionary substance is in calling something a certain word
I mean it certainly can be. Lots of Lenin's writings against opportunists during his time was specifically because opportunists would use vaguer language that allowed wiggle room in their political program to be not revolutionary. Gotta know when and where this is the case, of course, but it certainly has precedent and isn't something to write off
Happy cake day!
I don't think this is really a problem unique to not using specific language. The Nazis used the label of socialism despite being very anti-socialism, to say the least
I think not using this kind of language and instead talking more directly about specific goals is the solution to having less wiggle room
When you talk about the same ideas, you must eventually talk about the successful examples of their practice.
This conversation is so devoid of theory that the mere mention of Lenin and how he handled the exact same situation, sends you into a frenzy and it's got all of you throwing out the most wild accusations without anything to base it off of.
Mate… Lenin is not a saint, communism is not a replacement for religion. If your commitment is to the memory of Lenin then…
You've lost the plot. Being scientific rather than dogmatic doesn't mean rejecting major contributors to the marxist analysis of modern society. Acknowledging that Lenin's contributions were entirely legitimate is no more 'dogmatic' than acknowledging the legitimacy of Einstein's relativity. They still apply today to the extent that the conditions analyzed have stayed the same until proven otherwise and even then will still be a closer approximation to the truth than a random gut feeling.
If you want to reject Lenin's thesis you have to provide the proof to back it up. You can't just make up things on the spot because it 'feels' right and pretend that makes you the scientific side.
Who said anything about rejecting Lenin’s theses? I said “he’s not a saint, Marxism is not religion “ in the context of treating Marxism as a doctrine in which terms are set in stone forever.
Obviously I don’t want to reject Lenin’s theses, which is why I appeal to pragmatism, which Lenin himself always said was crucial, didn’t Lenin call “left wing communism” an infantile disorder? Didn’t he combat relentlessly utopian communists. It’s precisely because I believe in Lenin theses that I treat him as a contributor to the international proletariat, not a saint or prophet or whatever.
You did when you responded to a comment appealing to Lenin's analysis of correct praxis and European opportunists as 'worship' instead of showing why you can dismiss it. Citing the most significant contributor on this subject isn't worship.
So we're not allowed to ever talk about his theories and his revolutionary work? Please do keep in mind that Lenin's revolutionary work was under the most oppressive regime in all of Europe at that time, Russia was also less developed than most third world countries are today, if we should turn to anyone on revolutionary praxis in third world countries, it should be Lenin.
Have it your way then
Unfortunately most leftists are like this where im from. For example this persons party is by far the largest here in Canada. They're banned from some union pickets lines for hijacking the event and selling magazines, known for being very dogmatic (a women was SA'd in the organization in Canada here and they called her public accusation "idpol" for going public before they finished they're investigation) and in general it feels like leftism in the west is too petty, semantic, and dogmatic to succeed. Or worse then doomed to fail, seems to practice idpol/dogma/semantics, im not sure what to even call it (idc what you said it need to be in daddy lenins words or its not real communism) to the point of pushing people right, to the extent it almost feels intentional sometimes. It feels like leftist spaces or either too psyop'd or too full of idealistic "petty bourgeoisie" who have no perspective of the actual working class. From the perspective of a non western leftist, what's your take on this being the norm? It's pushed me further from "left" spaces personally, it feels more productive to have conversations on individual issues with peers/community members than engage people from a leftist perspective because of this. Do you think it's worth trying to work within the western leftist framework today? Edit: maybe leftist wasn't the best term but rather communist more specifically in hindsight, I was using them somewhat synonymously.
I mean, I agree with everything you said.
For example, our first left wing president was elected in our country and what he would do is downplay Marx, said he was totally wrong, cite Keyness as his model, but he would use certain phrases that made it obvious that he was very much committed to proletarian struggle.
I was working as a teacher at the time and what I would do, given that in my country the persecution and killing of leftist is a very common practice, is I would teach students about capitalism, the way it worked, and would prove to them that the right wing not only did not know capitalism, but that capitalism needed “saving” by the transfer of lands from the landlords to poor farmers and indigenous individuals, and you just claim this is for the sake of capital and people see the logic in it.
From my perspective, in the first world, and do correct me if I’m wrong, given the ideological power of the government, most leftists reject any Marxists that aren’t Marx, gramsci or Lenin, and are simply interested in proving their loyalty by market gestures (meaning, buying communist memorabilia and buying from local producers, very petit bourgeois as you mentioned), or just use Marxism to argue that either Marxism will just win out because it’s logically sound, or will say that nothing can be done until every single person is pure of heart and is a committed communist that buys “communist stuff” and thinks “communistically”.
It’s a term called vulgar Marxism that fell out of favor a bit, maybe it needs to be brought back. People in the first world from the outside just think communism is lingo and just complain in social media about “means of production” or “material conditions” without truly understanding these terms dialectically, in my opinion.
This is all just to add to your excellent analysis.
Leftists in the developed world live so well that they can afford to be doctrinaire and sectarian because there's no urgency for revolution like in the developing world.
Socialists in the developing world not only face more authoritarian states because these countries are favored by the imperial powers to maintain them as exporters of raw materials within the international labor system, but they also have to figure out how to develop a country lacking in productive capacity once they seize power. In this context, you use every method at your disposal to fight against inequality, backwardness, and poverty.
It's no surprise that anarchism and ultra-dogmatic Marxism have so little traction in the developing world.
And then if they do take back power for themselves — now they have a countdown for when said Western power is going to come back with the military.
You can't critique sectarianism while simultaneously shitting on anarchists broadly (most of whom organize with Marxists). Social anarchism is fairly widespread in Latin America, Kurdistan, and indigenous communities, despite never seeing institutional support like Marxist–Leninist groups did.
Stop expecting unlimited resistance to forces designed to vaporize them.
The only way to dismantle empire is from the inside. It’s the first world leftists whose responsibility it is to dismantle empire.
Just be aware that your wealth is a product of our poverty.
I’m from Australia, a country directly guilty of what you’re saying. I know what it’s like being aware of the reality of what you’re saying. ButI’m curious what it’s like being on the other side of this dynamic? I hate that everything I purchase and need to survive in my society has exploitation baked into its production line. But at the same time unless I go live in isolation away from civilisation, I don’t have a choice but to participate. But what’s it like for you? What feelings do you feel? How has this dynamic impacted your region and way of life? How has it shaped your worldview?
I don't agree with everything Sakai writes but he did a great job breaking this down. The bourgeois will allow an American assembly line that is unionized and pays a somewhat living wage when the majority of the production is mined and smelted in the third world with slaves.
First world lefties are self force upon themselves
Third world lefties are more natural form due to past experiences of War, Poverty and Colonism
You guys are too removed from reality owing to privileges.
I often see western leftists portraying everything socialists did in the 20th century as perfect or try to defend every single thing they did... We are just people and people aren't perfect. There were mistakes and we learn from them, it's okay to acknowledge them. Capitalism and western pressure was often to blame, but not always.
From China, lives currently in the US. So much of leftism here is virtue signalling and “my candidate needs to absolutely align with everything I believe in”. Y’all need to get a little more realpolitik in yourselves, and understand that politicians sometimes have to say certain things to appeal to a wider voter base, so they can at least get elected and get started doing things. I’ve seen so may people criticise Zohran for example for becoming mellow on his Israel position (because guess what, he doesn’t want any chance of being seriously labelled antisemitic) and I cringe so damn hard.
i agree with you. another leftist from the global south actually told me the opposite and that we (we, being imperial core leftists) need to be uncompromising on anti-imperialism no matter what, otherwise we don’t care about the global south. i still lean towards your position of course but the other redditor really did make me think.
I’m speaking mostly within an US context, and truly, it means fuck all what a politician says if they can’t get elected and actually get involved into decision making. Time and time again the leftists here seem to turn on any politician who mellows their position to make a real push for a position of real power, and in the end the mainline dem or hell republican gets elected, because the leftists are more concerned about maintaining their virtuous image rather than actually winning elections.
The criticism of Mamdani for not being performatively critical of Israel is absurd, because realistically, the mayor doesn’t actually deal with Israel at all. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t support the country, what more do you want him to do?
Let him spend his political capital on things he actually has the power to change.
Well my advice is with the weird obsession with being Moderates, leftist westerners are so obsessed with social democracy and treat it as the thing to solve all problems dispite it not addressesing the obvious core components and issues with capitalism in general
Not a “third world” leftist but for starters saying third world is wrong to begin with lmfao I say global majority, some say global south
Moralistic tone-policing is a major problem among first world leftists
Third world literally a term created but the imperialist left to put themselves at the top of the hierarchy
Edit: i meant to write imperialist west
No. It's a Cold War term for states that weren't aligned with either side.
Even if that’s true, how it’s used in discourse and its meaning is what actually matters hence why it’s fading out of use bc ppl are becoming educated on its harms
I don't see how it harms anyone, but sure.
Global south still wrong though :// id rather be told im a third world so i can improve haha
Why is it wrong ? I'm asking out of curiosity
Well Australia new zealand issnt a third world is it
I'm talking about the terms "global south ". Not third world, that's irrelevant.
So you dont count aussies and new zealand as global south?
Third world ≠ global south, so ur just not gonna answer my question ? Third world is a cold war term, that's why it's irrelevant.
Because op question is “living in the west/imperial core” you wouldnt use global south would ya
I'm asking why you think the term "global south" is bad
I think they're saying "global south" is a bad term because it should encompass places like Australia and NZ since they're in the southern part of the globe. Yet they aren't ever what is being referred to when people say global south. So the term isn't accurate.
Yeh I just say global majority once I learned about that term like last year
I just say Global Majority.
correct, that’s what i meant
Why does it feel like the comments section got flooded by reformists?
Watch bad empanada. His analysis is as brutal as it is right. Protracted people's guerrilla is not only warranted, but needed
already do. he’s awesome
I don’t think those questions lead anywhere. There is no privileged region from which the world can be seen more clearly. I think all that remains for us is to study the scientific production that socialism has left us and to analyze the historical conjuncture. I don’t really understand why someone from the Third World, merely by virtue of living there, would be in a better position to understand the world or to give advice. Only those who have internalized Marxism, regardless of the region they come from, will be in a position to provide adequate answers.
well yeah but your lived experiences Defenitely do form your views and esp. Approach to a lot of things. Sure, a person learning the same things about Marxism, whether they live in France or the ivory coast, has learned the same information but how they put this into action and how they relate day to day actions to their ideology will ofc by affected by their environment.
they understand what living in the third world is like and can give an alternative perspective by virtue of their experience as it relates to leftism
Saying that you don’t see how different material conditions could open new perspectives and methods is deeply anti-Marxist.
i did not say that. but these material conditions are not directly transparent. if that was the case, science woudn't be necessary at all
I don’t think they’re deeply transparent, of course, that’s the issue with false consciousness.
But you said explicitly “I don’t really understand why someone from the third world merely by virtue of living there would be in a better position to understand the world or to give advice”
So you explicitly said that you don’t understand how someone from a different environment, in which the hold of bourgeois society isn’t as solid, would be in a better position to understand socialism. May I mention this was also the position many Marxists held against the Bolsheviks, and even though the glorious Bolshevik state collapsed, how crucial were they to the history of communism?
The mistake is to appeal to experience as a source of knowledge. Those who are in the best position to understand Marxism are proletarians all over the world. And although proletarians are indeed better disposed to understand Marxism, that does not mean that their situation in itself grants them a more advanced perspective.
Even in Third World countries, bourgeois and reformist ideology predominates among the middle classes and even among parts of the proletariat. To understand the world and to formulate our political action, we must turn to marxist theory. It is a mistake to think that communists in the Third World (and even more so, the “leftists”) will have a different perspective. Is there, after all, any vanguard communist party in the Third World? What kind of movement are you interested in emulate?
Incidentally, Marxism first took root in the working class of the imperialist world center, and in Russia it did so only once capitalist relations had developed, especially in the cities, where industry was concentrated. In the countryside, the peasantry held a more conservative outlook and, when it became politicized, it tended to adopt petty-bourgeois positions.
You’re very right for sure.
yall too fixated on marx and yall are too privileged to care about whether something is purely socialist or not, politics has always been annoyingly flexible and it's okay for things to not be so by the book, what's more important is A. winning and B. maintaing proletarian rule
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Not third world, but leftists in the west should be focused upon reframing things. The old ways have been sufficiently demonised and society is brainwashed to react against it.
The political spectrum needs reframing in terms of distribution of power. Concentrated state power at one end, and concentrated private power at the other. or both forms of concentration at one end and the most distributed power at the other. Either way, the optimum place to have a free society, absent of exploitation, is in the centre of both.
in economic terms, things should be reframed as productive forms of ownership v extractive forms of ownership. A free society needs a plurality of productive forms of ownership, with extractive forms minimised and guarded against.
That would look something like an economic foundation of 2 socialist productive forms of ownership - worker coops and such, along with decentralised community/social ownership.
That foundation would be mixed with other productive forms of ownership such as entrepreneurial. Or to put it another way, ownership that contributes to production.
Extractive forms of ownership would be minimised. Namely, ownership that doesn’t contribute to production but instead extracts rents from those who do.
This produces a post capitalist society where exploitation is removed from labour markets, profit before people is removed from society, and where wealth and power cannot concentrate in the hands of either the state or in private hands.
It defeats a century of brainwashing and propaganda. It’s impossible to attack they can’t demonise productive forms of ownership and they can’t sell a virtue of extractive forms of ownership.
It’s the modern day class unifier that cannot be countered. It unites working class, middle class, and small business owners against their common class enemy - big capital - extractive forms of ownership.
They struggled for a long time to come up with a counter to the class consciousness of Marx, and they’ll struggle for a long time to come up with a counter to this modern class consciousness. Get these ideas to take hold of the public mind, and it’s over for capitalism and it’s extractive nature hiding behind the productive ownership form that is entrepreneurial ownership