PSA: Alternatives for the most popular lemmy.ml communities
For all your boycotting needs. I'm sure there's some mods caught in lemmy.ml's top 10 that are perfectly upstanding and reasonable people, my condolences for the cross-fire.
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 think it’s a bit hypocritical to wash the words of revolutionaries you claimed were good Marxists.
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.
It loses its revolutionary potential and becomes Idealism.
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.
Taking Cuba as our example, Marxism guided the revolution, and it hasn’t seemed to fail yet
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.
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?
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.
What would be a Marxist revolution in your eyes, if not a revolution against Imperialism by Marxists?
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.
Secondly, I truly don’t see what the purpose of advocating against change is for
[W]e can’t make the revolution on our own; nor would it be desirable to do so. Unless the whole of the country is behind it, together with all the interests, both actual and latent, of the people, the revolution will fail. And in the far from probable case that we achieved victory on our own, we should find ourselves in an absurdly untenable position: either because, by the very fact of imposing our will, commanding and constraining, we would cease to be anarchists and destroy the revolution by our authoritarianism; or because, on the contrary, we would retreat from the field, leaving others, with aims opposed to our own, to profit from our effort.
I know, I know, it's hard to get rid of the spooks. But that's what materialism looks like.
A worker state where the workers collectively own production is what Marx advocated for.
...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.
There was no competition, no M-C-M’ circuit resulting in accumulation among borgeois actors, no tendendcy for the rate of profit to fall.
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.
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.
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.
As for State Capitalism, Lenin
...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.
Please explain how there was competition, accumulation among bourgeois elements competing in markets, forcing prices lower and thus rates of profit, with private corporations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Someone is organizing any revolution, otherwise it just won’t happen.
History tells us otherwise. You might be confusing revolutions with coups.
The Worker’s Councils weren’t killed and forgotten, they were replaced.
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.