This is something I think about a lot actually. Even on the rez we ended up having a small struggle session about AES/revisionism but at least that was fruitful and everyone came away with better understanding of each others’ perspectives and some development of our own.

Online it’s very difficult to have productive struggle sessions and develop a coherent sense of unity because you’re interacting anonymously through text only, and so it’s easier to forget the person on the other side of the keyboard, or to simply retreat from a disagreement, or an entire community rather than challenge one’s own views.

Hexbear has had some small success on this because we cultivated a pretty tight knit community of people that care about one another genuinely as comrades regardless of our minor disagreements here and there.

That said I think both lemmygrad and hexbear are probably about as good as you’re going to find for this online and it’s just a process of calling out the worst takes and being patient when its clear someone is just misguided or misinformed, but still coming from a place of good faith.

aimixin on left unity

“Left unity” is pointless. If you have a total of 5 leftists in your country, it doesn’t matter if they all unify, they’re still powerless. People seem to have this delusion that if only Marxists and anarchists stopped fighting, they could come together in countries like the US and take power, but in reality, this is more likely to be the result.

It’s also completely backwards. No revolution has been carried out by only class conscious communists. Communists have to learn how to appeal to the masses, and the masses then have to support it. This is the problem, the highly class conscious communists will always be in small numbers, and will never have the numbers on their own, even if they all unify together.

Historically, the socialists and communists that come to power are rarely even the result of “unity”, but it’s always one specific section overtakes everyone else by storm. That’s because some organization figures out a way to rally the masses, and once you get the masses on your side, all other organizations get in line or get destroyed.

The problem is not lack of left unity, but lack of any organizations that have figured out a way to rally the masses. Nobody has figured out how to overcome all the anti-communist brainwashing and to have a message that appeals. It’s only been successful in colonized countries but not in the colonizer countries.

People who act like there’s some simple solution that we’re just all too stupid to see, like, “if we just all stopped fighting we’d win the revolution!” are not appreciating just how difficult the problem is. The reason communists have not succeeded in colonizer countries is not because they’re all missing something “so simple”, but because the problem is fucking hard, and they have a mountain to climb.

Leftists need to stop wearing their ideology like a team jersey. Marxism is not brand meant to be diluted into quickly digestible and perpetually recognizable symbols. Anarchism is not a hashtag to group posts with, nor does it boil down to the posts under that hashtag.

Notice how the language we use to label the Others is not language that’s useful for labeling actual movements. Why do both Marxists and anarchists in the online left claim the Zapatistas while the group itself embraces neither label? Because the labels, as we use them, are not useful for drawing distinctions about modern socialist movements. And it’s important to note that we don’t use the labels the same way that historical groups have. So if you are jumping to point out the number of ML parties responsible for socialist revolutions or how many people have been helped by anarchists organizing mutual aid, please finish reading.

The anarchist vs marxist divide in the online left is best viewed as an interpersonal struggle between brand elitists. There is often a fine line between what amounts to niche forum drama and what I would consider genuine attempts to build a leftist presence online amidst corporate platforms which are hostile to us. The way we use these words is very good at describing these interpersonal conflicts and their larger structural-cultural counterparts, the V I B E S of anarchists vs marxists. Am online anarchist and online ML can meet each other and instantly fall into distrust based on their respective labels, which are loudly displayed by easily recognizable symbols. This behavior may have once been recognizable as similar to warring clans, armies, or gangs (often differentiated by ). But in the context of the attention economy on the modern internet, you know what it is? Brand loyalty.

These are dynamics we need to be cognizant of and if we are going to use them, we must use them rather than be used by them. I think @Awoo@hexbear.net and company are doing a decent job of the kind of organized behavior I’m thinking of. Again, if you are someone who is critical of her or any of her associates, what is the first issue to come to mind? Is it an ideological difference which you’ve discussed at length with the intent of reaching a conclusion? Or did a Reddit mod that she co-mods with do some shithead thing on a subreddit you like? What are your priorities in your distaste for her and how does your current relationship with her, if any, differ from the sort of relationship two comrades who organize together would have? The bottom line is that ideological struggle is an internal mechanism, even when done at scale. It’s not that we’re unwilling or unable to struggle. It’s that the online left lacks a reason to struggle.

It is every socialist’s and anarchist’s duty to learn how to be less of an asshole to each other. Be an asshole to libs. Treat each other like comrades.

This includes when a socialist/anarchist is being an asshole to you. That’s the most difficult lesson to learn.

There’s an exception for when they’re being ridiculously reactionary towards others and making the space unsafe/unworkable, but IMO that’s the only reason. Like… kick out transphobes, patsocs, etc and please call them names. But some nerd is being a casual Western chauvinist? That’s a good opportunity to educate either them or the people around them rather than take the bait to have a much sillier fight.

“It’s strange to think about how we pretty much agree with Patsocs on more than almost any other tendency”

Kinda weird if true

I think most of the rev-left is in sync when they’re considering what they actually can influence. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that for the most part the Western left has been crushed or defanged or otherwise rendered insignificant. It’s hard enough to effect (affect?) any change within your own apartment building, let alone your street, let alone your borough, let alone your city, let alone your province, let alone your country- certainly there’s extremely little you can do to influence a different country on a continent that’s an ocean away.

As a leftist within the imperial core, whether you think there’s an ongoing Uyghur genocide or you think the CCP is giving them the best possible lives, you have the exact same amount of influence over their futures: absolutely none. I’m all for internationalism, but we need to be honest about where we are right now. You’ve got to think and act local before global action is anything other than a fantasy.

When it comes to issues effecting their municipalities, I think most ancoms and MLs would be in agreement. We can start infighting when we get actual power, until then all the slap-fights are ultimately just about aesthetics. Knock it off and actually do something to help the underclasses within your reach.

there is no western left

secterianism is highly ineffective , theoreticly we only ever get a problem after the revolution and thats also a easy Fix ,given that only one side is ideologly allowed to use statepower.

You could start by not banning people for having takes you think are slightly bad or whatever.