this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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What Marxists get the "not a tankie" pass? Marx and Engels both called themselves authoritarian.
Council communists, definitely, functionally that's the same as Syndicalism. Some Trotski and Tito fans. A lot of Cubans, over there authoritarianism seems to be more and more a habit than principle.
So nobody that has actually succeeded in putting theory to practice in hundreds of years, got it.
Don't you think it might be that you're predisposed to not liking any AES countries at all because it's easier to denounce real attempts for not being "authentic enough" than it is to truthfully acknowledge what went right and what went wrong in them?
I'm actually quite positive when it comes to Cuba, and Vietnam might follow suit. The rest range from falling to capitalism to falling to fascism.
Anyhow this wasn't about the success or failure of "AES" countries but making clear that not all Marxists are tankies.
The Marxists you called not Tankies were the ones that haven't done much, except Cuba. Cuba would probably count as Tankie to you though because Che was a Stalinist and Castro has stated that China post-Deng is Socialist.
That's the thing, judging countries not by their purity to Socialism but by how they stand against Imperialism and for their own people is how they should be judged. China absolutely isn't a shining beacon, but it's less Capitalist and far less Imperialist than the US, for example, yet people love to say we should support Biden over Trump while denouncing China more than the US.
That's what I am referring to.
Che was highly critical of Stalin's authoritarianism and cult of personality. The, you know, defining factors of Stalinism in modern parlance.
And I have no idea why you're bringing up the US or how it's relevant to anything, are you American or something they love to do that, all self-important.
With regards to imperialism: Do you know how I earned my permaban from lemmygrad? As a, quote, "NATO propagandist"? By telling them that Russian imperialism evil. I don't even like NATO, short of it being a vehicle to keep the US somewhat on a leash. The month ban from !worldnews@lemmy.ml was for pointing out that Ukraine does not in fact lay claims to Russian territory Ukraine describes as "Historically Ukrainian-speaking". Because they don't. As the article that OP there linked said itself.
As are many. He still openly supported Stalin and read Stalin:
“In the so called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Series of things that are very good.” -Che Guevara
I think it's a bit hypocritical to wash the words of revolutionaries you claimed were good Marxists. Of course he was critical of Stalin, everyone is. He banned homosexuality, was generally a brutal person, and ended up building a cult of personality that partially helped lead to the collapse of the USSR. Che still supported him.
The comparison to America was because people can easily find nuance within liberalism but only accept the purest and most righteous of Socialism, even if it ends up never existing. It loses its revolutionary potential and becomes Idealism.
As for your bans, I don't really have the full picture. Based on what you have claimed and that alone, I believe they went too far, but I would also like to see it from the mod's perspectives.
I never said "Che was one of the good ones". I called Cuba promising (as in: On its way to proper democratic socialism) and I called Council Communist essentially Anarchists.
If you want me to say something positive about Marx we'd have to talk labour theory of value or such.
See from the anarchist POV most Marxist-type socialisms are idealism, down to mostly two factors: a) no means/ends unity, making failure inevitable, and b) trying to foresee the future. We, at our current level of understanding of human nature and society, influenced by various material factors holding us back in terms of even imagination, cannot possibly craft plans that would be appropriate for our grandchildren: The revolution must necessarily be gradual because that's the only way that our descendants get to put us up against the wall for being counter-revolutionary. Without those things there cannot be theory of revolution that's actually material.
Alright, fair enough. You express support for the direction Cuba looks to be going down, not the figures and movements that allowed that to happen, got it. It's more consistent with your other views, at least.
As for your last statement, I really don't think it makes any real sense. Taking Cuba as our example, Marxism guided the revolution, and it hasn't seemed to fail yet, and in your own words looks to be going down a promising path. Is this not what you are hoping for, or is it a freak accident?
Secondly, if Anarchism is an ever-evolving theory that hasn't really seen any large-scale results, would it not make sense to concede that Anarchism can play a valuable role outside of Revolutionary change while Marxists actually change the whole of society? It seems Marxists have a far better track record in changing the Mode of Production, while Anarchists do a lot of good charity work that is also valuable.
The Cuban revolution was not a Marxist one, it was a war of independence and once Batista was toppled and Castro got to make hour-long speeches at the UN, the USSR wasn't his first choice of ally, but the US. The revolutionaries were generally lefties, yes, but far from unified Stalin-admirers. They absolutely would've gone with a vaguely socdem "between New Deal and Europe" like thing with the US as an ally: Workers' rights, unions, yes expropriate the slavers but that doesn't mean we can't have capital in the country. The US wanted to have none of it, just having lost its colony, I mean think of the United Fruit and Bacardi campaign contributions.
As such, when Cuba adopted Marxism-Leninism as a prerequisite of being an USSR ally they adopted it with Cuban characteristics. On their own terms, generally from first principles, without a forge-welded vanguard at its core.
There's parallels of that in Vietnam, of course, also a war of independence.
No, it wouldn't. Because a priori there's no reason to believe that a proper revolution is materially possible when you insist on going for "large-scale results" (whatever that's supposed to mean), and a posteriori there's neither. See means/ends unity. Materialism doesn't care about your impatience. To quote Adorno: Actionism is the anti-intellectualism of the left.
And, no, MLM states didn't change the mode of production: State capitalism is still capitalism. Again, Yugoslavia would've been a better example. Sometimes I do wonder how the world would look like now had Stalin sent another assassin and then Tito his single one.
Castro and the other revolutionaries were Marxist-Leninists. What would be a Marxist revolution in your eyes, if not a revolution against Imperialism by Marxists? Marxism isn't a static dogma, but a tool to be applied to material conditions. Of course it would have Cuban characteristics, that's the point of Marxism.
Secondly, I truly don't see what the purpose of advocating against change is for, is that just a way to say that Anarchists don't actually need to make consistent progress as long as they continue to perform mutual aid and help people? Sounds great for a charity, but not for liberating the workers.
The USSR was Socialist, this is silly. A worker state where the workers collectively own production is what Marx advocated for. There were numerous struggles and problems with the USSR, but being Capitalist is not one of them. There was no competition, no M-C-M' circuit resulting in accumulation among borgeois actors, no tendendcy for the rate of profit to fall. You can argue against the effectiveness of the USSR without saying it was actually Capitalist, the mode of production was entirely different from Tsarist Russia.
The usual way they happened were a) a vanguard capturing a spontaneous revolution, followed by brutal authoritarianism, or b) a coup of some sort by a vanguard, also with brutal authoritarianism.
Me neither. Why do you think I'm doing that? Have some Malatesta in the context of how anarchism is necessarily gradualist:
I know, I know, it's hard to get rid of the spooks. But that's what materialism looks like.
...so Lenin lied when he spoke about the system being state captalist, not communist, and now somehow capitalism was "really existing socialism"? It's a bunch of rhetorical smoke grenades to obscure the fact that power moved from the nobility to the nomenklatura.
No, there was the exact same thing just with corruption.
So because Castro and the gang weren't brutal authoritarians, they weren't Marxists? This is getting sillier.
As for your quote from Malatesta, believe it or not, is the Marxist-Leninist stance. The most radical among the Anarchists are a sort of Vanguard. All a Vanguard is is a group of radicals that are helping organize the revolution, at the forefront.
If you're trying to say that everyone should be equal in terms of theory, in terms of purpose, spontaneously before a revolution is possible, then this is pure Idealism.
As for State Capitalism, Lenin was purely referring to the NEP, and had this to say: "The whole question is who will take the lead. We must face this issue squarely—who will come out on top? Either the capitalists succeed in organising first—in which case they will drive out the Communists and that will be the end of it. Or the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove capable of keeping a proper rein on those gentlemen, the capitalists, so as to direct capitalism along state channels and to create a capitalism that will be subordinate to the state and serve the state." State Capitalism was not meant to describe the whole of the USSR.
Please explain how there was competition, accumulation among bourgeois elements competing in markets, forcing prices lower and thus rates of profit, with private corporations. This is silly.
Noone's organising the revolution. We're organising society such when the revolution happens it won't be hijacked by vanguard fucks attempting, yet again, to take power from the people. Also, in the mean time, chocolate pudding.
...conveniently forgot to mention that he was crushing worker's councils with that move. He was taking absolutely nothing from capitalists, he took it from the workers.
The way in which influence and backrubs were traded mirrors capitalism, which shouldn't be too surprising because capitalism is essentially legalised corruption.
I would just like to digress by pointing out that I found your discussion interesting and that .world defederating .ml would kill potential future ones like it. It also seems to me that rejecting ML impulses, say by disassociating the .ml and .world users, would not contribute to organising society in a way that would allow for the revolution you speak of.
MLs do not go away by ignoring them. One of their main tenets, which they are to be admired for, is precisely their obstinancy to making themselves heard. If I understood you correctly as a proponent of a solution that is yet to be evolved, why reject the input of MLs? I am personally curious about learning more about anarchism, that is if the theory is not so weak it would but all be destroyed by the breath of a ML.
I'm on lemm.ee... and I never said anything about defederating, I think that'd be silly. The whole post was about making it easy and convenient for users from all over to not be subjected to lemmy.ml mod policies.
If this conversation was on grad, it'd have been silenced ages ago... in fact it wouldn't even have started as I'm banned there so gradists can't see me. It may or may not have survived on lemmy.ml.
The theory is absolutely deep, though I can see how it might seem otherwise when all you ever see is people writing short essays about specific things or aspects, we have quite little of that "big, grand, theory" stuff going on. That said though, Anark recently made a synthesis of pretty much all cornerstones out there, video (there's three parts) and script.
Oh, as to "why reject them": Because it's like talking to a TV that makes up shit on the spot. Because they've killed off multiple revolutions, often while allying with fascists. People defending that line of thought are generally one of two things, and that is naive to the actual history and experience of revolutionary movements at large, or they're assclowns who just want power. Anarchists very much try not to be naive and want noone to have power over nobody so that's some rather crass incompatibility, there.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
video
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Someone is organizing any revolution, otherwise it just won't happen.
The Soviets formed the basis of the Democratic process of the Soviet Union. The Worker's Councils weren't killed and forgotten, they were replaced.
It's cool if you want to deviate from Marx's analysis of Capitalism and go for a vibes-based approach, but people who take Marx seriously can plainly see that even if the USSR was flawed, it was Socialist.
History tells us otherwise. You might be confusing revolutions with coups.
In the beginning of the Russian revolution, they had power. Come the Bolsheviks and they ceased to have power, they became mere propaganda appendices of the party.
The USSR was most of all one thing: The continuation of Russian imperialism with a new coat of paint.
It does not. Revolution occurs without prompting, yes, but there will always be a group of the most radical within the larger group, the group taking the majority of the action.
As for the Workers Councils, yes, they were replaced with the Union system.
As for Imperialism, I absolutely agree that it was expansionist, and follows the Liberal definition of Imperialism. This isn't good! However, if you're focusing on Lenin's definition, Castro had this to say: "if the USSR was imperialist then where are it's private monopolies? Where is its participation in multi-national corporations? What industries, what mines, what petroleum deposits does it own in the underdeveloped world? What worker is exploited in Asia, Africa or Latin America by Soviet capital?"
The reason most Marxists accept Lenin's definition of Imperialism as a sort of bourgeois/proletarian relation at international scale, is because countries in the Global South can't become Socialist until they throw off the thumb of Imperialism, and Imperialist countries won't become Socialist until they stop being Imperialist.
Again, liberal meaning of Imperialist? Yes, absolutely. Expansionist? Yes, absolutely. Marxist definition of Imperialism? Eh, closer to no than yes.
The USSR absolutely wasn't perfect, it was highly flawed, just as we should expect the first major Marxist state in history to be. We can learn from what worked and what didn't.
That certainly wasn't the Bolsheviks in Russia. They weren't the sailors of Kronstadt, they weren't the workers in the factories.
If the Mongol empire was imperialist, then where are its private monopolies?
Are you saying that before capitalism, there could not possibly have been empires, or imperialism? If that's the case, then, again, that's rhetorical slight of hand, serving nothing but the confusion of the masses instead of their radicalisation.
...also just as an aside much of Russia is absolutely underdeveloped, and yes that's where the natural resources are.
Oh and by golly did Anarchists learn from it. For one, that you should never turn your back to a Marxist-Leninist.
The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party, yes. Among the entire revolution, they were among the most radical. In any revolution, there will be a group that is the most radical and moving the most, even if they don't formalize it. Do you expect everyone to be an Anarchist before the revolution?
As for the Imperialism bit, you're being even more dishonest than usual, haha. I explicitly said that it was expansionist and Imperialist in the liberal sense of the word. That doesn't mean wrong! This is silly, the rest of your paragraphs are nailing down on a point I never made.
As for the jab about Anarchists, Marxists can't trust Anarchists either, infighting is always a 2 way street among leftists. You may be interested in reading this meeting between Lenin and Kropotkin. Kropotkin criticizes Lenin, and Lenin criticizes back, it's a really interesting meeting and neither makes themselves a fool IMO.
"radical" in what sense? As in "fuck over everyone who brought about the February revolution, do a coup in October and call it a revolution?"
...yep, Anarchists back then hadn't yet understood that there's no way around power getting to ML's heads. Maybe not individually but structurally it's going to happen one way or the other. I do acknowledge that Lenin said that under no circumstances must Stalin be allowed to be his successor -- he still became his successor. That's why centralisation of power is inherently counter-revolutionary. Power corrupts, and power attracts the already corrupted. What you're left with is a mess.
No, as in the ones pushing the revolution the hardest, and typically the ones with the strongest level of understanding of leftist organizational theory, be it Marxist or Anarchist or even whatever else.
You're free to make that critique, I would just hope that you can actually make concessions just like Marxists do when it comes to unifying theory and practice.
I already made that critique: If your means employ authoritarianism and domination, then your ends will never be a classless society, for you are fuelling the very beast of domination and oppression. Giving it another coat of paint or another justification does not change its character. It's like saying "but my anger is righteous!" instead of realising that anger is always blind, unproductive, irrational, self-destructive to the individual and society. You're much better off taking a step back, take breaths until you've collected yourself, and then start to strategise with a cool head.
It's why I gave (dunno if in this conversation but definitely in this thread) Council Communists the non-tankie pass. I think they're a bit uptight, just like Syndicalists, but whatever that I can deal with.
By your definition all states are authoritarian, it doesn't matter if I want a democratic state or not, that's authoritarian in the eyes of an Anarchist.
Council Communists get a pass because they are relegated purely to academia and never to praxis, seemingly.
The anarchist definition of state is a very different one from the Marxist and also from the dictionary one ("people, organisation, territory"). You can usually freely replace "state" in Anarchist texts with "hierarchical power". I myself don't like and don't use the anarchist definition as there's better terms it's just unnecessary confusion. Has its historical reasons, but we're usually not ones to pray to ashes instead of passing on the fire so why should we be doing it there.
And, sorry, but no, it isn't Anarchists who are couping liberal democracies. That'd be Bolsheviks.
Council communists would have a better track record if they realised that they are Syndicalists, which have plenty a track record. Until that happens, it'll continue to be methadone therapy for recovering MLs.