/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2785058
Those colombian groups are run like businesses and mafias rather than revolutionary orgs, don't get me wrong for random peasants it's much more preferable to be under their thumb than the fascist paramilitaries but I wouldn't put much hope in them.

>>2785449
Naxal gangs were run exactly like that, it depends on Levi (extortion). Police, CRPF and politicians also used to get cut from this extortion money. The naxal cadre are more like employees but you can understand how poorly they were paid from the fact that normal naxal cadres are more than happy to hop on to a job which pays them INR 15k a month.

>>2784409
I’ve been saying this for over two years now, the Naxal movement was already dead or dying. But instead of engaging with that reality, you kept dismissing me as a defeatist. The point isn’t that revolution itself is dead, it’s that we can’t keep treating che's guerrilla warfare like some kind of sacred doctrine. That approach has been flawed and has led to the destruction of many leftist movements. At this point, I’m almost convinced it was even promoted by the CIA.

>>2784409
It's been over for the Naxalites for decades. The Indian government just put them out of their misery.

>its over for naxalites!!1!
we have this thread like every three months, why is it different this time

>>2785757
idk, europeans built several short-lived states in occupied palestine back then too
some things never change

>>2785728
the truth is, life is unfair, it doesn't care about you or anyone. it rewards some and punishes others for no reason.
life is absurd.
if life is absurd, and you succumb to nihilism, why not just kill yourself?
you need to view life from the perspective of "What keeps you alive" not "Why not just die", you must fight the absurdity of life with your rebellious absurdity.

>>2785771
Someone’s read their french

>>2785289
>I am scared im succumbing to Nihilism

sometimes it feels like humanity will never be chill and have communism because sociopaths will always conspire to give themselves any kind of relative advantage, escalation dominance, ability to exploit others, monopoly on violence, etc.

>>2785974
That's why you kill all sociopaths. Treat them like sapient malignant tumors.

>>2779214
Most leftcom critiques aren't that great, but the better ones come from councilcoms who advance labor time calculation as the lower stage of socialism. The problem with the USSR is that workers had no right of disposal to their product, and were thus still alienated from their labor and society. Likewise the wage relation, commodity production, etc. still existed, even if their forms were distorted by the presence of central planning. You can't advance to communism from here, that's the central problem, you'd have to have a second economic revolution to truly abolish these forms and replace them with labor time calculation or something more advanced. The only thing a Soviet-style system can do is degenerate back into capitalism, which is exactly what happened, facilitated by the intense alienation of Soviet society and the general falsification of Marxism in the east.
>>2779610
Way to completely miss the point. Leninism is the economics of Social Democracy taken to the extreme: a paternalistic party-state which provides for the people, ensures fair distribution of wages and commodities while bullshitting enough theory to make people think it's "socialism".

>>2780149
>also how does one country develop socialism in one country alone?
By eliminating their bourgeoisie in the main and beginning the process of socialist construction through the rational planning of the economy

>>2780264
>And you can always jump to any other mode of production.
This is anti-thetical to Marxist historical materialism. Why would a prior MoP be reverted to unless a catastrophic loss in productive means occurs? Means of Production are, alongside the expropriation of surplus, the defining characteristic of Modes of Production. Yes it's true that once a more advanced MoP emerges other societies at a much lower level of development can skip the intermediary stages due to transfer of technology and state formation, but this chart acts as if for example the reversion from a Socialist Economy to a Capitalist economy was a reversion to a historical MoP which isn't true, the existence of a "Socialist Economy" itself indicates that the Capitalist MoP still has elements in society that never went away. This chart then replaces "Feudal MoP" is "peasant economy", I guess so it can sandwich together 11th century Europe and ancient Sumer together as having the same MoP? You know that MoPs are characterized in part by the Means of Production right?

>>2780224
>It will be an unpopular view but: for the most part deregulation doesn't belong in the list of concessions rolled back. Deregulation is the one good idea neoliberals had. Generally speaking, it is good to just let people do things and it is bad to try to protect worker pay and conditions via rigid regulations that can't respond to changing conditions.
deregulation doesn't refer to merely to letting people "do what they want" but also the rolling back of workplace safety laws, food and drug regulations, environmental and waste disposal regulations, etc.

>>2780149
>Since when funds are surplus?
Because if you're going to have anything leftover after workers have accepted their compensation, there must necessarily be a surplus. This is exactly why Marx criticizes the notion of workers receiving "the undiminished proceeds of labour," since if every worker received their full output as compensation there would be nothing left for the purposes I mentioned.
>Workers state should focus on developing both their internal state and external revolutionary movements without unnecessary separation between them
The Soviets did exactly this though. Even when they were practicing "socialism in one country" they were still supporting communists abroad and of course set up communist governments in Eastern Europe after the war. You're taking the "one country" part too literally, it effectively just meant that the USSR would see to its own development and security first before turning its attention outward.
>>2780281
>The problem with the USSR is that workers had no right of disposal to their product, and were thus still alienated from their labor and society.
What would such a right look like in practice though? If production is subordinated to a central plan, then individual firms and their workers can't be deciding on their own how much to produce, according to what standards, where to distribute their products, etc.
>Likewise the wage relation, commodity production, etc. still existed
The existence of wages is debatable since I would argue that the Soviet system conformed to the criteria for renumeration laid out by Marx in Critique of the Gotha program, though of course they probably could have done more to replace money with something like labour vouchers. I would argue emphatically that commodity production was not generalized however, since goods were produced and distributed according to a common plan for use, not as articles of private exchange for profit seeking purposes.
>You can't advance to communism from here
I don't see why not. Why would a second revolution be necessary to replace Soviet money with labour time calculation?

>>2784743
Many communists forget what Engels wrote about the United States where workers have to have their revolutionary socialist party independent of the bourgeoisie without being co-opted by republicans, democrats or libertarians.

<The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the movement is always the organisation of the workers as an independent political party, no matter how, so long as it is a distinct workers' party. And this step has been taken, far more rapidly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first programme of this party is still confused and highly deficient, that it has set up the banner of Henry George, these are inevitable evils but also only transitory ones. The masses must have time and opportunity to develop and they can only have the opportunity when they have their own movement–no matter in what form so long as it is only their own movement–in which they are driven further by their own mistakes and learn wisdom by hurting themselves.

<Frederick Engels, “Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886”, Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge In Hoboken

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/letters/86_11_29.htm

Now with the quotes from Marx and Engels that it is necessary to remember:

<Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.

<Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 1850, Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

You’d need a framework for it to spread that quickly, it’s heavily divided among different nations currently.

Personally I’m thinking maybe France would have the best chance. The USA is up in the air.

>Reverse 1989
Doubt it. 1989 was a domino effect that at best wouldn't have been a socialist catastrophic if the USSR didn't kill itself in 1991. The Warsaw Pact countries could have remained neutral and not a part of NATO if the Soviet Union was around. For example Poland didn't join until 1999. At best Eastern Europe would have been ran by some Eurocommunist trying to balance East and West. What I am trying to say is that 1989 was unique and a black swan event. A reverse 1989 would be trying to find something even more out of the blue than a black swan

>>2785092
GREAT post.

>>2784743
You need a functioning communist party for a revolution to happen at the very least.

>>2672346
obligatory

>Maduro Is Gone, and the Purge Has Begun
>The successor to Venezuela’s captured President Nicolás Maduro is purging the people who kept him in power. -NEW YORK TIMES

U.S. Special Forces brought down President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela swiftly and publicly.

Now, the people who kept him in power are being purged gradually and inconspicuously. Some have been fired or detained, and others are anxiously looking over their shoulders, worried they might be next.

Oligarchs close to Mr. Maduro’s family have been snatched from their homes. His political allies have been summarily removed from their posts. His relatives have been sidelined from business deals and barred from media appearances.

The housecleaning is being carried out by Mr. Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is running the country under instructions from the Trump administration. The detentions and leadership purges have unfolded without public explanation, but often with the approval — and sometimes at the urging — of the White House, according to people close to Ms. Rodríguez’s government.

After Mr. Maduro was dragged off in January to a New York jail, Ms. Rodríguez presented herself as a reluctant and temporary stand-in for a fallen leader, denouncing his capture as an illegal attack on her country.

The overhaul of national leadership, combined with sweeping new laws and her alliance with President Trump, is reshaping Venezuela and its management of one of the planet’s largest oil reserves, just as the world grapples with the energy turmoil caused by war in the Middle East.

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>2785659
Part 2

Ms. Rodríguez’s caretaker post began hours after Mr. Maduro’s capture, on Jan. 3, with a fiery speech denouncing U.S. aggression. A week later, Ms. Rodríguez led a retinue of power brokers and Cuban officials to commemorate dozens of Cuban and Venezuelan servicemen who died in the American attack.

“We are not handing down a legacy of traitors and cowards,” Ms. Rodríguez said in a televised speech intended to project unity.

Most of those by her side that day have since been cast aside.

Mr. Maduro’s longest-serving minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, was fired as defense minister in March and later given a much less important post running agriculture. Mr. Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, and a son of Ms. Flores, Yosser Gavidia Flores, have been sidelined from lucrative business deals with the state, according to government insiders.

Mr. Maduro’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, was fired, given a consolation post, and then fired again. Camilla Fabri, Mr. Maduro’s immigration envoy, lost her post. Days later, her husband was detained.

And then there’s Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez. Since attending Ms. Rodríguez’s speech, he has watched his country’s decades-long alliance with Venezuela unravel in weeks.

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>2785660
Hugo chavez strongly hated delcy

Delcy is a sell out

>>2785634
Mao was China’s epstein, he fucked 12 year old red guards and gave them HPV

>>2785630
>if x, then
>I’m a proud reactionary
no need for unnecessary conditionals

>>2785628
It's not anti party or it would not be allowed to be published. The author is a professor in Beijing, are you saying the CPC allows anti party professors to freely disseminate anti party theory? The party allows for an open and scientific discussion and investigation of marxism, socialism and the stages thereof, within limits of course.

My critique of the image is that of course the real world doesn't fit so neatly into these little boxes with rigid and defined categories and traits, but overall it does a good job of illustrating how these phases could be considered

>>2785653
It is a conditional, why should anyone want to be a socialist if socialism has all the se anti human structures like money, capital, markets, and the firm?
>but deh winnin
For now, they’ll decline and that decline is already starting, people in China don’t want kids

>>2784767
This tbh, at least when you've seized state power your guy has something to boast about. Otherwise it's like uhhhhh our guy has like uhhhh really good ideas or smt

>>2785026
>the ACP is more akin to blackhammer than the avakian RCP
it's way more akin to lyndon larouche.

How the fuck is Avakian still alive?

We need to organise cagefight between Haz and Avakian

>>2744799
>>2744837
>>2785026
>>2785336
>>2785336
Not a single western leftist group has ever come close to the level of political recognition the ACP has achieved. Most of them have floundered in academia. Comparing Haz and Hinkle to those groups is an insult, they’re leading the revolution

Does Bookchin actually advance a political economy that does away with wages, commodities, private property, etc? Been a while since I read him but from what I remember he was mostly focused on the politics side of things, not economics.

>>2785113
You can't deal with bourgeoisie and capitalist relations single-handedly, it's impossible to achieve socialism in one country alone so otherwise we need proletarian party which can abolish bourgeoisie state and implement new worker's state (DoTP) and since there's still a class division and contradictions there's a need for state which has to suppress any bourgeoisie oppossition.

You can't achieve le communistic relations in one commune alone if you don't want to starve your people, and even if you do create le anarchist (state) commune then it's impossible for it to be in any way a communistic society because it still has to trade with external countries, produce commodities and even has remaining elements of petite-bourgeoisie, every example of anarchism did at best implement radical democracy petite-bourgeoisie state in small area.

Creating counter-hegemonies or other quasi-states which are suppossed to challenge bourgeoisie state, in reality it doesn't actually challenge it and even just conservates it by preventing any means of organising a proletariat in order to overthrow existing state of being.

>>2785450
>But modern anarchism has become too individualistic, trapped under a philosophy that doesn’t allow any sort of organized action as it is considered authoritarian.
Isn't that why Makhno and co split with other anarchists to found platformism?

>>2785450
>Their theory just says to wait for the right moment

This doesn't mean that communist parties aren't actively organising itself and expanding their influence or/and connections among proletariat.

Revolution isn't something that party can trigger at any moment but can lead it.

>Trotsky himself said that if WW2 didn’t trigger a revolutionary response by the workers, a new strategy must be found.

I think Trotsky was wrong, and even if he was right then what strategy we should adopt according to you?

>>2785512
You keep mention the class division as a reason for a proletarian state (which always becomes another bourgeoisie state) as needed. But history shows the elite always flees during a revolution (Cuba, Rojava, Venezuela, etc.). There are other ways to uphold a revolution that don’t involve a State, like Communalism (Rojava, Zapatistas, Makhnoschvina,etc.). Although I agree not being recognized as a State is problematic in the current situation. This has caused Rojava problems as it’s not a state, technically speaking
>>2785515
Yes. Makhno even exchanged letters with Malatesta arguing that anarchism was philosophically strong but organizationally weak. And this problem has plagued anarchism since its inception.
>>2785516
Isn’t that the one million dollar question? The way I see it we need to create a base for workers to rely on, so they are more willing to take risks (such as being fired for starting a syndicate, not having savings, etc.). This base is the community, communalism, solidarity among its members.

In order to protect the popular assemblies from State power, the syndicates threaten by striking. It’s a mutual support between communalism and syndicates, without the need if a vanguard party or authoritarianism.

The problem is it’s too ambitious and it’s technically an attrition war against the State

>>2784903
The only thing that changed the result was your answers, so you’re the inconsistent one.

>>2785479
True, but when I gave the test to friends I noticed that they would answer based on who they want to be rather than what they are actually like. That’s a potential problem for every test.

>>2781290
Why is this even allowed in /leftypol/ instead if si/b/eria?

>>2785429
That's ok.

>>2785390
I think there is quite a bit of value to be had in the original Jungian definition of the types but even then he mostly just focused on introvert/extrovert stuff.
Albeit being an introvert is less about being a loner and more about being subjective overall while an extrovert is someone who seeks to be objective.

>>2784869
tmk Bahrain has a large section of there proletarian class thats a shia underclass and permanent residents

Some others may have already mentioned these details but just to reiterate, almost all of those workers are South Asian or African manual labourers who are never treated as anything more (never given citizenship nor allowed to leave their jobs or those countries to go back home), so yeah even a hint of non-compliance or dissent amongst them would be met with absolute terror. NOt to mention the vast majority of them are uneducated men whose families rely on the money they send back, and given the lack of opportunities in their 3rd world home countries (along with the other factors), the lot of them haven't really got a bloody choice than just to work those 16 hour days. the fall of the juche is more likely in our lifetime than proletarian revolution in the gulf

>>2784881
bahrain had also large protests (and might still have) that needed to be suppressed by using kuwait troops lol

>>2784880
kek based

>>2784881
Eastern Saudi Arabia also has a large Shi'a community but we don't hear much about them.