this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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This hate among leftists for each other is disturbing. The defense of Marxist-Leninism and Anarchism isn’t productive and only serves those in power. There’s a great possibility that socialism in America and the west will not look anything like socialism of the past or present. I encourage everyone to think of themselves as post- capitalist.
We don’t have a socialist movement in the West, we have an anti-capitalist movement. We need to show that socialism will work without examples from the past, or comparisons to China. We need to give people a framework for the future, not a dogmatic defense of the past.
The meme said nothing about anarchism. ML and anarchism aren't even remotely the same. And are highly incompatible. Thus no need to defend anarchism.
I agree that socialism in the west will likely look different. Which is all the more reason to not repeat the mistakes of leninism. Capitalism and Leninism both are well disproven outdated ideologies.
Anarchism and ML are both anti-capitalist. That was my concern. Climate change requires a post-capitalist future. Capitalism will not operate under a degrowth or sustainable economy. The debate about centralized versus decentralized states or autonomous regions will never happen without cooperation to dismantle capitalism.
Anarchism is more than anti-capitalist. That's an awful narrow and telling reduction of it. If you want to be extremely reductive in your characterization but still accurate. It would be better to say that anarchists are anti-central Authority and large governing structures. Including Marxist leninism and capitalism.
Nearly 100 years ago it may have been possible for naive anarchists to perceive marxist leninism as possible allies. But now nearly 100 years later. Looking back with the wisdom of history and hindsight. When your best outcome with regards to the sensibilities of anarchist is an asterisk in Cuba. And every other single Marxist leninist experiment being as bad or worse in many respects than the Imperial capitalists. How are Marxist Leninist allies of anarchists?
Which is the crux of my question? If an ideological group is opposed to central authority, and large governments, how can it hope to maintain organization in a large country?
I see Marxist-Leninists and Anarchists as allies in the struggle against capitalist accumulation that has fostered the crisis of climate change. Petty disagreements aside, should this not be the overarching goal?
People in the West don't dislike the tenets of socialism, per se. They dislike the autocratic implementation obsessively favored by MLs, which unfortunately represent most historical examples. This is what the tankies refuse to admit, because they are more obsessed with relitigating the cold war than realistic politics.
The sad thing is that there's like 100 years of revisionist theory which gets past a lot of this baggage, but again - the tankies despise it because it isn't their historical home team.
Then use reason and compassion to make them see the error of their ways. Insults and degradation will only make them defensive and dismiss any arguments, however sound.
You can't reason and compassion someone out of a position they didn't reason and compassion themselves into.
Insults > theory?
Letting fascism know it's not welcome in polite company goes a long way towards reducing transmission.
Tankies aren't leftists. MLs are all tankies.
What is a leftist?
Everyone I agree with, and no one I disagree with.
The word "leftist" doesn't really mean anything, and it never did. However, tankies have this stupid idea that they keep pushing called "Left Unity" that they use to infiltrate progressive, anarchist, and socialist spaces. So, I commonly say tankies aren't leftists because it destroys this narrative and pisses them off.