. As long as our societies are influenced by class relations, states are going to exist for the foreseeable future.
IMO there’s a false dichotomy here that nearly everyone I’ve talked to falls into, that there are only two ways to move into the future, the “tankie” way (is there a non-offensive word that means what “tankie” means and isn’t specific to a tendency like “ML”?) and the anarchist way.
The tankie way is basically to unite the people, start a revolution to beat down capitalism, and form into a new authoritarian govt. but this time of the people. Somehow this new government is not going to become corrupted? And eventually no longer be needed and vanish?
The anarchist way is to unite the people, start a revolution to beat down capitalsm, and then… ???
I see fatal flaws in both of these paths that look obvious to me. To the tankies, a government not becoming corrupt? Talk about high fantasy. For the anarchists, what happens after? How to prevent warlords, or surviving capitalists from taking over again? It’s an incomplete plan at best.
My personal position is that cultural progress must come first. To tankies, you can’t force peace and harmony on hundreds of millions of people at once at the barrel of a gun. And to other anarchist, if you give millions of people who only know capitalism and exploitation sudden complete freedom as anarchist want would lead to chaos and destruction. Any attempts at revolution before the culture is ready for it will lead to protracted war, famine, etc.
So, why wait for a revolution to start building out of the ashes (which to be clear, a revolution of this scale would kill millions of people and cause massive permanent ecological damage, assuming a revolution like that could even happen in 2023 in the U.S., just the question of how to handle nuclear materials alone is daunting), we can work now to build the future from where we are now.
We can use any and all not-quite full on revolutionary tactics to weaken and destroy capitalism. (I’m not a pacifist btw, and not against all violence, I just think full-on revolution won’t work)
The fediverse will help us make much progress, being able to talk away from corporate censorship will have an effect I’m pretty sure.
Being a good example and helping people - so people start to see who is on their side
Teaching people, I’m working on starting local groups to teach people how to move away from Microsoft and how to join the fediverse.
Starting co-ops, free shops
Garage bars with free drinks/byob, weekly block parties with free food for anyone around
Organized community backyard farming
Sabotage MSM
Tons of other things
–> We need to get people to start not looking to the government for solutions and start looking to their communities by providing superior solutions. If our communist way is better, let’s demonstrate it.
Thanks for engaging but I still really don’t think you’ve fully grasp what Marxism-Leninism is. You’ve continued to mischaracterize and create strawmen out of what M-L movements aspire to do (forcing peace at the barrel of a gun??).
Yes, historically, Marxism-Leninist revolutions have relied on centralized vanguard parties, but ultimately each country where a revolution takes place, socialism will be built according to that country’s material conditions. There’s no reason why our strategies and tactics can’t adapt based on our particular situations, but we still take lessons from past attempts at building socialism. Marxism is not a dogma (although there are still those that treat it that way).
When we say a state is inevitible, it’s the recognition that a state will naturally arise as long as there are still class relations. To not acknowledge that is to ignore material reality. After a revolution, there will still be a bourgeoisie and they will still be needed to contribute to building the socialist project. People will still have cultural tendencies from the prior bourgeois dictatorship. Money will still be a thing. Imperialism will still exist. How do you secure the ground the working class has won through revolution (which is still what you’re talking about, whether you want to call it a “revolution” or not)? As long as the bourgeoisie exist, their interests will ultimately be opposed to the interests of the proletariat. How do you prevent a bourgeois dictatorship from seizing power again? You’re going to need to repress them by some means. You’re going to have to exclude them from decision-making bodies. What do you call that other than a state?
And class struggle doesn’t just end when socialists seize power. It continues. And it’s up to the masses to keep the new regime honest about it’s ideals. Of course there is always the chance a socialist government can become overrun with corruption. That is the entire lesson we’ve learned from the violent dissolution of the USSR. But that doesn’t mean we abandon the communist struggle. We learn, we recognize the internal and external forces at play, and we try to build on pre-existing theory so that we can better put it into practice.
but I still really don’t think you’ve fully grasp what Marxism-Leninism is
Quite possible, I’m willing to learn, but to be clear, grasping != agreeing.
You’re going to need to repress them by some means
Fully agree, I just don’t think the state is that mechanism. Non-state affiliated individuals could identify and neutralize threats to their communities and could coordinate without the need for authority. And I don’t think this happens in the form of a revolution.
When I say “forcing peace at the barrel of a gun”, what I mean is that (speaking of the U.S. here) there are way over 300 million people here that only know capitalism. Nearly all of those people think communism is untenable, and their minds are not going to be easy to change. If the revolution happens led by the what 10K maybe actual revolutionary communists in this country and all the boug are gone, you think those 300 million people are going to suddenly be on your side? How would you get them to join your new communistic system when they see you as the enemy except at the barrel of a gun.
The way ML people tend to speak it’s as if there are a small number of bourgeoisie people and millions of people will treat them as liberators or join the fight. Instead the media will demonize you, the poor people will be just as fucked as they always were and everyone else will see you as the ones who made their lives harder. Unless you can implement communism on a massive scale within a week, ML style revolution is a recipe for diaster.
Instead I think the solution is to prepare for communism now, build the future now without destroying the present. Start living as communistic a life as possible now and forming the structures that will be needed to support millions of hungry people. When millions of people can feed themselves without depending on the capitalist supply chains developed over decades then we can resist without famine and protracted war and the massive ecological damage we can’t tolerate that comes along with all war.
I’m suspicious of any person or group claiming “if we had the power things would be better”.
Massive successful cultural change takes time, lets start now instead of putting all our hopes on a revolution that who knows if it’s coming. That to me is like a smoker not bothering to make any improvements, because one day they’re going to quit and start going to the gym, but untl then lets just talk shit about other smokers.
Thx for your reply
IMO there’s a false dichotomy here that nearly everyone I’ve talked to falls into, that there are only two ways to move into the future, the “tankie” way (is there a non-offensive word that means what “tankie” means and isn’t specific to a tendency like “ML”?) and the anarchist way.
The tankie way is basically to unite the people, start a revolution to beat down capitalism, and form into a new authoritarian govt. but this time of the people. Somehow this new government is not going to become corrupted? And eventually no longer be needed and vanish?
The anarchist way is to unite the people, start a revolution to beat down capitalsm, and then… ???
I see fatal flaws in both of these paths that look obvious to me. To the tankies, a government not becoming corrupt? Talk about high fantasy. For the anarchists, what happens after? How to prevent warlords, or surviving capitalists from taking over again? It’s an incomplete plan at best.
My personal position is that cultural progress must come first. To tankies, you can’t force peace and harmony on hundreds of millions of people at once at the barrel of a gun. And to other anarchist, if you give millions of people who only know capitalism and exploitation sudden complete freedom as anarchist want would lead to chaos and destruction. Any attempts at revolution before the culture is ready for it will lead to protracted war, famine, etc.
So, why wait for a revolution to start building out of the ashes (which to be clear, a revolution of this scale would kill millions of people and cause massive permanent ecological damage, assuming a revolution like that could even happen in 2023 in the U.S., just the question of how to handle nuclear materials alone is daunting), we can work now to build the future from where we are now.
We can use any and all not-quite full on revolutionary tactics to weaken and destroy capitalism. (I’m not a pacifist btw, and not against all violence, I just think full-on revolution won’t work)
–> We need to get people to start not looking to the government for solutions and start looking to their communities by providing superior solutions. If our communist way is better, let’s demonstrate it.
Thanks for engaging but I still really don’t think you’ve fully grasp what Marxism-Leninism is. You’ve continued to mischaracterize and create strawmen out of what M-L movements aspire to do (forcing peace at the barrel of a gun??).
Yes, historically, Marxism-Leninist revolutions have relied on centralized vanguard parties, but ultimately each country where a revolution takes place, socialism will be built according to that country’s material conditions. There’s no reason why our strategies and tactics can’t adapt based on our particular situations, but we still take lessons from past attempts at building socialism. Marxism is not a dogma (although there are still those that treat it that way).
When we say a state is inevitible, it’s the recognition that a state will naturally arise as long as there are still class relations. To not acknowledge that is to ignore material reality. After a revolution, there will still be a bourgeoisie and they will still be needed to contribute to building the socialist project. People will still have cultural tendencies from the prior bourgeois dictatorship. Money will still be a thing. Imperialism will still exist. How do you secure the ground the working class has won through revolution (which is still what you’re talking about, whether you want to call it a “revolution” or not)? As long as the bourgeoisie exist, their interests will ultimately be opposed to the interests of the proletariat. How do you prevent a bourgeois dictatorship from seizing power again? You’re going to need to repress them by some means. You’re going to have to exclude them from decision-making bodies. What do you call that other than a state?
And class struggle doesn’t just end when socialists seize power. It continues. And it’s up to the masses to keep the new regime honest about it’s ideals. Of course there is always the chance a socialist government can become overrun with corruption. That is the entire lesson we’ve learned from the violent dissolution of the USSR. But that doesn’t mean we abandon the communist struggle. We learn, we recognize the internal and external forces at play, and we try to build on pre-existing theory so that we can better put it into practice.
Quite possible, I’m willing to learn, but to be clear, grasping != agreeing.
Fully agree, I just don’t think the state is that mechanism. Non-state affiliated individuals could identify and neutralize threats to their communities and could coordinate without the need for authority. And I don’t think this happens in the form of a revolution.
When I say “forcing peace at the barrel of a gun”, what I mean is that (speaking of the U.S. here) there are way over 300 million people here that only know capitalism. Nearly all of those people think communism is untenable, and their minds are not going to be easy to change. If the revolution happens led by the what 10K maybe actual revolutionary communists in this country and all the boug are gone, you think those 300 million people are going to suddenly be on your side? How would you get them to join your new communistic system when they see you as the enemy except at the barrel of a gun.
The way ML people tend to speak it’s as if there are a small number of bourgeoisie people and millions of people will treat them as liberators or join the fight. Instead the media will demonize you, the poor people will be just as fucked as they always were and everyone else will see you as the ones who made their lives harder. Unless you can implement communism on a massive scale within a week, ML style revolution is a recipe for diaster.
Instead I think the solution is to prepare for communism now, build the future now without destroying the present. Start living as communistic a life as possible now and forming the structures that will be needed to support millions of hungry people. When millions of people can feed themselves without depending on the capitalist supply chains developed over decades then we can resist without famine and protracted war and the massive ecological damage we can’t tolerate that comes along with all war.
I’m suspicious of any person or group claiming “if we had the power things would be better”.
Massive successful cultural change takes time, lets start now instead of putting all our hopes on a revolution that who knows if it’s coming. That to me is like a smoker not bothering to make any improvements, because one day they’re going to quit and start going to the gym, but untl then lets just talk shit about other smokers.