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'The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.' - Karl Marx
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Since June 2024, we have been building a communist encyclopedia, Revolupedia, to provide easily-understood explanations to Marxist theory and allow for further study.

Overtime, our project and community has expanded to maintain hundreds of articles, a library of texts from Marxist thinkers, and detailed quotations.

We welcome all communists to join our effort to build a revolutionary compendium, whether anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist or Maoist!

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https://revolupedia.net

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What would be a deconstruction of the Saul-to-Paul conversion trope?

I'm asking this, because I'm planning on making my grad school thesis the political use of political conversion memoirs and how the Saul-to-Paul trope is utilized in this context. The four political memoirs I'm using (all of them featuring the subject going from leftist to right-winger) are:

>Witness by Whittaker Chambers
>School of Darkness by Bella Dodd
>Radical Son by David Horowitz
>Unplanned by Abby Johnson

All of these memoirs conspicuously follow the exact same story arch: individual (usually presented as naive) gets involved with an "evil" organization (usually a left-wing political group), they rise up to the group's higher ranks due to the group manipulating them insecurities, they engage in unspeakable acts of evil as a high-ranking member of the group, they have a sudden break with said group, either leave voluntarily or are thrown out, then go on to have a right-wing religious conversion, feel incredibly guilt about what their "naive" self had done, and only ends up being redeemed through exposing or snitching on their former comrades. This trope, when used in a political context, is almost always used by the converts to show their superior authority in understanding politics. Many times they present their political conversions from far-left to far-right as a "good vs. evil" type thing.

My question is, how would this political conversion "Saul-to-Paul" narrative be deconstructed or subverted?

QRD on all the books:

"Witness" – Chambers was a fucked up guy, joined Communist Party USA and was part of its underground network, wife refused to abort their child which lead him down the path of religious conversion, claimed he understood the godlessness of communism so he quit, became a Christian, and then snitched on CPUSA during the 2nd Red Scare ("McCarthyism"). Book is highly melodramatic and presents a highly good-vs-evil Manichaean worldview. Chambers also blames intellectuals for propagating communism in America, heavily promotes Christianity as the only way to save the world from the communist menace, and is overall a sensationalist asshole.

"School of Darkness" – Bella Dodd was an Italian immigrant who longed to fit in with American society and culture, joined CPUSA in the mid 1930s, recruited a bunch of CPUSA-affiliated teachers into the Teachers Union in New York, worked her way up to become very successful in the Party, fell out with the Party soon after Earl Browder got purged, ended up leaving CPUSA and became a born-again Catholic after meeting with Fulton Sheen, Sheen then convinced her to snitch on the Party during McCarthyism as a form of "repentance". Basically, Dodd was desperately searching for validation her entire life. When communists didn't want her anyone she became Catholic and anti-communist and got validation from that crowd.

"Radical Son" – Horowitz grew up being raised by CPUSA-affiliated parents, was raised to believe in communism, became a big name activist in the 60s New Left, worked with the Black Panthers, then had a falling out with the Panthers, accused them of murdering a friend of his, had a complete falling out with leftist politics and embraced Reaganite conservatism in the 80s. Most of his memoir is about "growing up" and realizing the leftist beliefs his parents raised him with were "wrong". He also hates intellectuals and is highly self-righteous.

"Unplanned" – Abby Johnson worked at Planned Parenthood and became very successful at it. She became a clinic director. Then, one day she allegedly witnessed a fetus being aborted on an ultrasound and this destroyed her mentally. She became a staunch anti-abortion activist afterwards. A lot of details in her memoir have been scrutinized by her former coworkers. Her book doesn't have some great metaphysical discussion on the "evils of leftism" as the other three but it's a more contemporary conversion memoiPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Most of these stories are often aimless semi reformed degenerates or underachievers

There is also a specific libertarian brand of
>i was briefly a member of a trotskyist party and it felt a lot like a cult
<therefore all leftists are middle-class hipsters who can't think for themselves (unlike me bc i'm so smart and basic economics)
Here is something in this vein by Robert Anton Wilson:
>I found myself floating in a void of incertitude, a sensation that was unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable. I retreated back to robotism by electing to install a new Correct Answer Machine in my brain.
>This happened to be a Trotskyist Correct Answer Machine, provided by the International Socialist Youth Party. I picked this Machine, I think, because the alternative Correct Answer Machines then available were less “Papist” (authoritarian) and therefore less comfortable to my adolescent mind, still bent out of shape by the good nuns. (Why was I immune to Stalinism — an equally Papist secular religion? I think the answer was my youth. The only Stalinists left in the U.S. by the late ’40s were all middle-aged and “crystallized” as Gurdjieff would say. Those of us who were younger could clearly see that Stalinism was not much different from Hitlerism. The Trotskyist alternative allowed me to feel “radical” and modern, without becoming an idiot by denying the totalitarianism of the USSR, and it let me have a martyred redeemer again a I had in my Catholic childhood.)
>After about a year, the Trotskyist Correct Answer Machine began to seem a nuisance. I started to suspect that the Trotskyists were some secular clone of the Vatican, whether they knew it or not, and that the dogma of Papal infallibility was no whit more absurd than the Trotskyist submission to the Central Committee. I decided that I had left one dogmatic Church and joined another. I even suspected that if Trotsky had managed to hold on to power, he might have been as dictatorial as Stalin.
>Actually, what irritated me most about the Trots (and now seems most amusing) is that I already had some tendency toward individualism, or crankiness, or Heresy; I sometimes disputed the Party Line. This always resulted in my being denounced for “bourgeoisie tendencies.” That was irritating then and amusing now because I was actually the only member of that Trot cell who did not come from a middle-class bPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>24627
None of these examples were people who "briefly joined a Trot party".

Paul was both a Roman citizen of Greek and Jewish origin. Saul was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians. Paul was a Christian who preferred his Roman name since it means 'small'. There is nothing analogous I can think of in the political realm.


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I live in the third world, there is relative lawlessness in the country as the central authority is weak and there exist many bourgeois militias.

The left has been virtually dead for decades and all what the current "leftist" parties care about is electoralism.

Me and my comrades are looking to fill this vacuum and start a revolutionary movement that cares less about electoralism and more about winning the direct support of the people while pursuing revolutionary change. Having an armed wing is essential as we will no doubt be under attack by reactionary militias but we also want to be close to the people and win their support before beginning a full on armed struggle.

I personally have no experience with organising or the military. So I'm looking for resources that can aid me with this. Especially the financial aspect.

Please share as much as you can everything from movement building to cyber security, including the classics.

Thanks comrades
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>>22279
Are these strategically valid in the modern world though ?
I mean you have to fight against way different things when encountering a modern military tech, things that would be unfathomable back when these were written? something more modern perhaps ?

>>22281
yes. true. i don't have any.
the guerilla will always be outmatched in tech and weapons, and that doesn't matter. read them and you will understand.

Read up about insurgency and, more specifically as most militaries have manuals online for it, counter-insurgency and unconventional (or asymmetric) warfare.

Also consider the classics; Tsun Tzu and Cao Cao, Napoleon, Xenophon, that indian and arabic dude, Julius Caesar, von Clavowitz, etc.

>>22281
this is for the modern revolutionary millitary theorists to ponder.
i'd say the advent of 3d tech and communication, as well as ai has opened a new way for asymetric warfare.
as long as we don't fall for the meme of millitary traditionalism we will be fine.

IRA stuff https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/organ/ira/ira_green_book.htm


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hey, what the FUCK is the RCP (USA)'s deal?
I haven't heard much about it except of accusations of it being a "cult/cult of personality" centered around Bob Avakian, but people (SShitlibs and trotSS) also say that about Stalin and such so I do not know what the deal is.

>>24772
I went to a meeting, just a trotskyist circlejerk about how their great thinkers are always right describing how stupid the only successful communists are

>>24777
arent they maoists? the UK RCP are the trots

>>24778
I went to a canada one, didnt know the us had a slightly less shitty situation

They are a bona fide political cult. If you check out their website, this is very apparent. They wear shirts with Bob Avakian's face on them, quote him like scripture (refer to BAsics 4:16), and argue they have discovered a "New Communism" that is superior to every form that came before it.

Historically, the RCP oriented toward the most backward elements of the working-class (when the entire New Left made a turn to labor in the 1970s), joining with white racists in Boston to oppose bussing black children to white schools. They sided with the Gang of Four during the post-Mao period, conveniently discovering that China was now capitalist upon Mao's death. They were also historically viciously anti-LGBT, regarding this as bourgeois degeneracy. They have since changed this position.

In 2020, they called on their supporters to vote for Joe Biden to "stop fascism." During the first Trump years, they held demonstrations in support of FBI director James Comey when he was targeted by Trump, and crawled behind every lib resistance movement.

They pretty much tail liberals and scream about fascism all day nowadays.


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Hello, leftypol.
I'm pretty much a "politics n00b" (haven't read much about it, mostly some libertarian authors) that wants to have a better understanding of marxism and leftist thought in general.
Can someone here point to a North and give some advice on which works I should read before getting into this and list the essential works and the order they should be read?
Pic unrelated.

For just getting your feet wet, probably the Communist Manifesto
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
And the Principles of Communism
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

>>24787
Thank you, anon.

>>24786
sex with sumireko


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<Nearly all self-proclaimed Marxists are frauds who haven’t even read Marx, let alone understand him. They use the label Marxism, despite knowing nothing about it, as a pseudo-intellectual obfuscation for their liberal ideology.

To begin, what is Marxism?
>Marxism is not a theory of equality. It is not a diagnosis of injustice, nor is it a specific prescription of how to remedy society’s ills. Marxism is a method for acquiring knowledge about the laws governing the historical development of societies. Marxism thus regards itself as a type of science. Most people think of science as something purely descriptive.
<But the reason Marx’s contemporaries called him Prometheus is because he bequeathed a science that did not just describe reality, but participated in its development. This makes Marxism totally contrary to modern science.
>Modern science places knowledge above its object. To know, means to strip something naked to consciousness and turn it into a utility for the knowing subject. He who knows an object, can control, master, and alter an object. But the ‘object’ known by Marxism is none other than human society itself. And the paradox lies in the obvious fact that society is not just an object, but also a subject. Marxists (subjects) are themselves part of the very object they make knowable.
<To complicate matters further, Marx does not claim knowledge of society alone can transform society. Instead, he proves that society is already coming to know and transform itself materially in the form of the then growing proletarian class. Most people think Marx is ‘Promethean’ because he wanted his ideas popularized. But the REAL reason was because he had the courage of declaring the return of knowledge back to being itself, and human beings in particular. He created a science that ceased to be above its object.
>For Marx, the knowledge of historical laws arrived at by consciousness, was being reflected in history itself. Knowledge of humanity does not dominate humanity, but reveals that it was there, and part of it all along. “Communism is the riddle of history solved.”

Why the need for class consciousness?
<This is where people misunderPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
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>heidegger (nazi)
>DOOOGIN
epic theory, lad
Clearly the answer to a lack of Marx is an excess of contrary, inferior, reactionary thinkers. Btw, how many holes does a woman have?

>>20583
It’s clearly not supposed to be an ‘own,’ you debatebrained retard

https://www.youtube.com/live/ekpfH7EOpEc

Boomps on garbage like this are banworthy almost

If you are Marxism, then I am not a Marxist.


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Are there any rewritten versions of important theory works dumbed down for retards like me? I
18 posts and 2 image replies omitted.

>>24294
Honestly same. For me it's more not knowing where to start, and when there's volumes upon volumes of thick books covering every little niche part of the subject it's hard to know where to start

>>24694
Start with these: >>24296

Youre not a retard! Just start simple and develop your reading skills. I'd recommend starting with "The Principles of Communism" by Engels. It's an easy read

I tought asking someone for details is retarded

Try audio books. It's a slightly different way of processing words and it might be easier for you to understand. You also won't give up as soon because you don't actually have to read all da big woruds.


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Thread for History of Ancient China up until the end of the Chinese Empire
Discuss History, Mythology, Archeology, Socio-Economics, Politics and Culture of Ancient China. This includes Tibet, Korea and Mongolia.
Leftypedia >>3780 requires an article on Ancient China, all that is covered is the current People's Republic

Important Topics
>Mythology and Legends and their Modern Cultural Impacts
A society that arose at the beginning of human civilization, China's culture is enormous and diverse. Legends and mythology of China such as Fa Mulan and Journey to the West are just prominent examples of legends that influenced others across the globe. Recommend and discuss literature or myths on this.

>Eastern Philosophy, Culture and Religion
The East, especially China developed several unique religions and philosophies utterly separate from the primarily Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian philosophies of Western and Central Europe as well as the Middle East. The 3 primary Chinese philosophies are Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Discuss the merits of these.

>Military Conflicts and Everyday Life in Ancient China
Society in China developed on its own and so it had much different ways of life. China is also known for having massive conflicts, some of the first to have millions of men fight at a time. China is known for it's generals such as author of "The Art of War"* Sun Tzu, Han Xing and CaoCao.
*https://sites.ualberta.ca/~enoch/Readings/The_Art_Of_War.pdf

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.
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>>22079
>episode 2 (prehistory of china)
>recounts creation myth where nobles were molded carefully by hand first and then everyone else was made all together as a rush job
>implies or directly states throughout, in contradiction with now well-supported scientific consensus, that every "stage" of human evolution happened in China, independent of Africa, rather than various hominin species dispersing from Africa throughout human evolution
>implies our pre-hominin ape ancestors lived in China
>claims that Chinese people can trace their ancestry back 2 million years to hominins in China (Wushan "Man")
>says verbatim "Peking Man, ancestor of the Chinese"
>claims among the "ancestors of the Chinese" were the first people to use fire, before any other humans
>gives only a throwaway line at the end about this ancient line interbreeding with the out-of-Africa Homo sapiens who came later
Gotta be honest, I was not prepared for this level of pseudoscientific nationalist mythmaking for something produced this century by the Chinese government.

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>that one time a spanish habsburgo emperor wrote in his plan to conquer the chinese empire was to "fuck and outbreed them out of existence with our Spanish, Filipino and Japanese subjects"
>It was actually possible given that the Ming were incompetent and they got rekt by the Manchu with the last Ming emperor hanging himself because he got duped into executing their best general
Even the ~100 million population wouldn't be an issue given South America;
>Our new study clarifies the size of pre-Columbian populations and their impact on their environment. By combining all published estimates from populations throughout the Americas, we find a probable Indigenous population of 60 million in 1492.

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yeah its a little wild

>>22098
That's gonna be a yikes from me dog

Great!


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I'm charismatic and already communist, how can I help with what you're trying to do here? You all seem kind of frustrated in your interactions with each other. What needs to change?

What are you talking about? Explain please

>>24737
>You all seem kind of frustrated in your interactions with each other. What needs to change?
nothing, the point of a political imageboard is frustrating each other with different outlooks

>>24739
Does this lead to good results? Or is the hope that it creates the sort of people who bring good results?

>>24737
You know what? I stumbled upon this board when it was on 8chan back in 2016 - my god, it's already been a decade… - and I started posting in 2018. Every once in a while I took a break, sometimes even for months and I guess I missed out on some big drama and technical debacles a few times. But I've never, ever thought about meeting anyone or trying to organise anything in real life, really…
I'm glad you think of yourself as a charismatic person, though.


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So /edu/ this site is full of threads debunking standard chicken headed talking points but what are some legit criticisms of leftist thought?

I found this book Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson and his thesis runs as following. Marxism and European socialism, instead of being an ideology of the proletariat, was a petty bourgeois ideology born out of a ressentiment for the bourgeoisie and the belief that the proletariat could be better managed. Leftists falsely understood capitalism as a rationalizing force which would create a homogenous proletariat, while in truth capitalism exacerbates racial differences to manage pops more efficiently. Leftists mistake nationalism and racism as essentially reactionary, while in truth it has always played a huge and sometimes preponderant part in history.

Second Kolakowski's book Main Currents of Marxism makes two important claims. Terms like "materialism" and "dialectics" are not well defined leading to ambiguity and confusion. This is why Lenin and the Russian Marxists misinterpreted Marx's materialism as an ontology of matter. Second leftist materialism is determinstic and offers a telological history in which outcomes are predetermined. This undermines human creativity and autonomy and is why the Soviets and "actually existing socialism" became totalitarian in practice. The party led by masters of Marxist theory and technocrats can guide society through more and more bureaucratization cancelling out the need for democratic participation and subordinating individual agency to the needs of the bureaucracy itself. I believe the Maoists saw this and tried to break from it but China ended up producing the same results because even the red guards embraced the same interpretation of historical/dialectical materialism.

I want bring out Carl Schmitt here for all the leftcoms and anarchists. If you have a radically open society you can easily get invaded by an influx of new people. /pol/ stormfaggot colonization of online spaces proves that anarchic environments are highly vulnerable to this type of invasion or the emergence of extremism within. Anarchist societies would not have the means to resist these invaders. Probably why the Zapatistas are scrapping their communal autonomy model because of cartels moving into Chiapas and causing trouble. The anarchist army could resist an external military force. Its been done before. But an anarchist society is prone to collapse and reversal through inabiliPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
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>>24723
>Marx gives us a stage theory of history where human societies evolve from more simple modes of production to more complex ones like capitalism. This entire model is empirically false and it assumes there's some linear tech tree that all human societies must advance through.
No, that's just your misreading of Marx. There's a tendency that people reduce dialectics to the triad thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Well, I also think that there's a tendency that people reduce Marx's analysis of capitalist to the triad slavery-feudalism-capitalism. Looking back, everything does seem linear.

The message you should get from Marx is that capital is univeralizing and history during and after Marx proves this - capital is international, it spread with sword and fire of colonialism and imperialism. Where there is capital, there's a working class and vice versa. Capital reproduces the working class and the enslavement of the working class under capital. The working class has vested historic interest to overthrow this system. That's the big story.

In general I think you're arguing a Marx strawman. With some Twitter ML ghost that ratio'd you earlier in the week.

>>24727
I'm not talking about dialectics. I'm talking about historical materialism and his theories of historical development. Marx is a social evolutionist: all societies should eventually develop the same social and productive structures, regardless of how he thinks this development happens. This really could be a side thing to his whole critique of capitalism which mostly holds up even if its dated. You can accept some of Marx's ideas without being a Marxist and you don't have to believe in X or Y thing Marx said. Marxists try to clobber you into this dogmatism.

>>24724
That's why I say that free will is not the same as true freedom.

>>24729
thats dialectics

>>24729
>I'm not talking about dialectics
yeah congrats for not reading the post
>>24727
<there's a tendency that people reduce Marx's analysis of capitalist to the triad slavery-feudalism-capitalism. Looking back, everything does seem linear.
<The message you should get from Marx is that capital is univeralizing and history during and after Marx proves this - capital is international, it spread with sword and fire of colonialism and imperialism. Where there is capital, there's a working class and vice versa. Capital reproduces the working class and the enslavement of the working class under capital. The working class has vested historic interest to overthrow this system. That's the big story.


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