someone also replied with this
>My grandparents are like that, they have photos of Abdel Nasser and his family in their living room, treating him like a Saint. But if you were to ask them anything about actual Arab nationalist philosophy, they wouldn't know. All my grandparents know is that things were better back then, my Granddad would be provided a job that supported his family and there wasn't any filth on the streets. To a large extent, things were indeed better back then and that's just how it is for most people, these people believe and worship the State and the Leader, they don't give a shit about Ideology. As long as it's not openly 'heretical' to the values of people, the masses will believe in it
>>2168085This is exactly how you end up with SocDems and Unions fighting for better slavery conditions rather than end to slavery
You know, because welfare state shit will inevitably get dismantled by capitalists with means (aporopriated surplus) and the incentive (MONEY) to dismantle it amd surprise surprise they do!
This is why educating the masses or at least politically active minority is imperative
>>2168336yeah, i've always wondered why communists are so insistent on being so moronically "principled",
gotta be duplicitous and opportunistic to win
like you can't really "work the masses" on the western left, if you simplify theory or speak in terms that a normie could understand, or opportunistically appeal to some religious or patriotic sentiment, other leftists will shout you down
i mean the soviets didn't shy away from orthodox christian imagery either; the "soviet idealist" style is literally just reskinned orthodox christian iconography. it's what the masses understood as their symbolic language
at first I was hoping that the patsocs were doing similar opportunism, but was later disappointed to find out that they're just retarded
>>2168349It's also possible what that opportunistic appeal to symbolic, relatively permanent, organic cultural "language" in the U.S. looks like is going to be much more "liberal." It's basically Bernie Sanders, as much as people hate that idea. It's not trying to mimic the style of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
I think they're trying to relate to MAGA boomers like the KRPF does to Russian boomers who spent a significant portion of their lives in the Soviet Union, like they're the same. They might actually be similar in some ways… but also not. You probably should not approach the former with the communist stuff, that's more of a job for a "front" that does not call itself communist. There's no way these people are going to listen to some kid (if you're in your twenties, you're a kid) telling them about communism and be like, okay, I'm sold. Impossible. Or putting yourself in an image with Lenin. That will look complete alien. But not in Russia. Also the KPRF is led by a boomer talking about how communists are the true patriots who don't need skyscrapers because they build people's elevators… and we don't forget who carries the weight.
>>2168357lol, that's kind of a funny contrast to my third world export oriented shithole
everybody knows that the president can't do shit about "the economy" or "the prices", nobody can do shit, we're simply at the mercy of strange, nebulous world-spanning phenomena outside our control
but everyone hates the local oligarchy
completely 0 political education or engagement, + a huge heaping of neoliberal nonsense from the 90s, yet the average person has a more realistic grasp reality than the average american
>>2168375>dressing normal>shitting on INSERT UNPOPULAR POLITICAL FIGURE HERESee, that's exactly the little things I am talking about. By looking normal you don't set off the immediate (not one of us) response which would make further influence attempts harder and by shitting on Trudeu you instantly built rapport AND created a common enemy you can rally againts. And lastly by being able to explain your position/proposals in simple language you built credibility as 'authority' they can look up to then they are lost and confused
Writing this analysis I am borrowing directly from Robert Cialdini's book I dropped
>>2168297This is the bitter reality I have had to accept working 5+ years as union org and 2+ years as municipal rep (socialists). In the West, at least, the overwhelming amount of people are more than fine with being exploited as long as things aren't "even worse". Loss aversion has completely overtaken the working people here.
>>2168336Doesn't work.
>>2168349The successful revolutionaries, in so far as we can even speak of them, were ruthless. Any sincere investigation of previous flash points will very quickly learn that brutalities ("excesses") are necessary.
To wit, one of the few good things Trotsky ever wrote: "It was in those spring days of the Revolution that we flattered ourselves in thinking we could have moral victory."
>>2168421maybe this is simply a consequence of coming from a middle class semi petty-bourg family that got proletarianized when I was a child, but I never understood the appeal of the petty "working class dream" of "fair wages for fair work", a "simple life" of family, hearth and recreational activities in free time
so far my whole life I've been trying to somehow "trick the system" into letting me enjoy "true freedom", in the sense of having the ability pursue work that is meaningful to me, rather than settling for "being treated well"
>>2168491what might this look like in the 21st century
cybercommunist hackers exploiting a 0-day on the Netflix server to show people epic tankie memes?
>>2168358>First picI genuinely can't tell what Horsey is trying to say with that. He's pretty liberal and seethed about Socialist Alternative IIRC.
That said, I broadly agree with you, though I'll say "American" is a term with some wide interpretations. I find it's better to play to a "type" that's familiar in America than purposely go for some "One Size Fits All" kinda patriotism. It leads to some fun contrasts, for example one of my friends thought that some higher ups in the CPUSA were like KGB agents or something, smacking you around and giving you orders, so they were really caught off guard and thought it was really sweet when I told them "Nah one of the heads of the party is basically just an Abuela, she's really nice." Me personally, I'm apparently a mirror of image of everyone's cousin, best friend, brother, grandson, etc. I don't think this is something that can really be "faked" though. If you're trying to do a boomer style patriotism and you're just in your 20s it'd be like, and forgive me for the crass metaphor, as silly as "wiggers" were as a subculture. Like you're obviously out of your element. You look silly. Instead, try to focus on what you already are (within the context of the American cultural landscape) and being the best version of that you can be.
Like, if you were trying to present two versions of "American Socialism" to people, and one is presented by a friendly white guy in a kind of semi-casual outfit, and the other is some dude dressed in all black and creating weird corporate style blocky logos combining the hammer and sickle with American iconography, I think people will just generally prefer the former over the latter. Or at the least it'll be more familiar to them then this culty kind of MAGAcom stuff.
I think there needs to be a kind of "immersion" in the culture, for lack of a better word. There shouldn't be some disconnect between ones politics and every aspect of their life, like you shouldn't seem to adopt an entirely new cultural lingo and aesthetic because of your political persuasion. Instead, surprise people by being the kind of guy who looks like he'll go to concerts or host BBQs.
>>2168336>Also lefties should get off their high horse and use patriotismreactionary in imperialist countries but makes sense in anti-colonial movements and post-colonial countries.
>religious communitiesrefuse to get over their spooks at crucial moments when materialism is needed.
>>2168075Sure, non communist state administrations get power and provide things for their citizens, but none other than the Communists do so while effectively and explicitly expanding participation universally to all citizens, in their democratic processes, to abolish class, to have every person on earth involved in the administration of the collective projects of human kind.
This is the entire point of the Mass Line. Yeah the masses have a mostly transactional relationship and basic interaction with the state/government (vanguard party, CCP etc) at this present stage, but your job as the vanguard party does not end when the war is over. You nurture and educate the masses regardless of race, nationality etc, to begin to take care of themselves, for them all to have a similar and accurate conceptualization of the world around them and their own participation in decisions with materials, goods, resources etc.
To get the masses to realize and act as if the world is one big ass Minecraft game where everyone has free access to all resource information and can have a real say in what humanity decides to do.
Fascist, monarchist, and liberal governments avoid these discussions with the masses like the plague. They all accept class as a natural and eternal phenomenon within human nature and therefore all of society forever on. They will usually avoid saying it outright, but when the opposite is proposed, their predictable patronizing replies deriding your aspirations unrealistic, reveal what they are too cowardly to admit directly.
Good guy with a gun, bad guy with a gun. Simple as.
>>2168297>>2168336This is why I believe that If Socialism ever comes to america, it will be under the leadership of some patsoc grifter like Maupin or Hinkle. Not maupin or hinkle themselves but someone inspired by them(maybe even part of their group) doing the same Christian patriotic socialist shtick.
Think of an American Mao Zedong, i.e. a half-read Charismatic Southerner
>>2168080>a big portion of old polish people that speak fond of People's Republic of Poland were either working in the administration or were farmers in good relations with the administration (although the latter varies wildly), and it's painfully obvious when you talk to them.And the other side of the coin of course are the people who were in good relations with the administration back then and because of that they were able to get rich during privatisation and now they are epic liberal-democrats or something
>>2168092Back then, people were attending so called "Evening Universities of Marxism-Leninism" because in order to get a degree or a higher-paying job you would have to pass a Marxism exam. People had to memorize all the dull things about dialectics and stuff, plus the teachers weren't very well-versed in the subject as well. This might be the reason why Marxism isn't taken very seriously by the people who are nostalgic of socialism.
>>2168075This.
All differing flavors of political styles, they all point to the same thing: some official group of dedicated individuals whose jobs is to make others lives stable
>>2168696Like I said, I think it'll look pretty "liberal" and might even call itself the Democratic Party. It'd be like Obama except he becomes a socialist instead of a liberal because things fell apart. But I also think that's just a funny image, like the "Joseph Stealin!" poster. I don't actually mean Biden wearing a generalissimo's uniform, but obviously a mass socialist party would include a large number of people who currently consider themselves liberals.
Mao Zedong for example was not originally a communist, he was reading works by Chinese reformers who advocated making China into a bourgeois Western capitalist country after the Boxer Rebellion. He'd tell Edgar Snow (the fellow-traveling American journalist), you know I was a democratic person much like yourself, not really sure how I became a communist, but things don't move according to the individual human will.
Here are some videos showing some ordinary rank-and-file party members in China. There are some "traditional" Chinese cultural aspects, or a certain "language" to them that I find interesting.
>>2169531Mao wasn't half-read, he read a lot. Soviet polemics after the split tried to insinuate he was backwards. He was from a peasant clan village though, and his dad was illiterate, the equivalent of a kulak, and wanted his son to read so he could help him out, and Mao wouldn't have left China until after they won (I think, when he traveled to the USSR, where he got bored and went back to China).
Mao contrasted to other Chinese communists called the "28 and 1/2 Bolsheviks" which sounds like a sitcom but that's actually what they were called, and had either studied in Russia or at Comintern-backed schools in China and deferred to Russians and their agents like Otto Braun. Mao read a lot of traditional Chinese philosophy and practically memorized "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" (which is about a group of outlaws who rebelled against the Liao dynasty).
One of his earliest mentors was the philosopher Yang Changj. It's said Yang's philosophy combined Kantian ethics, the British idealism of T.H. Green, the liberal tradition of Rousseau, Spencerian utilitarianism, and Confucian humanism (the concept of "ren" is all about benevolence, humaneness, and that human nature is fundamentally good). He was a reformer who swirled these ideas together so there was both "perpetual renewal of life" and Western liberal democratic ideas about rights. It was important to understand present reality but he also emphasized "strenuous action" as a path to self-realization.
At this stage in Mao's life, he was also becoming interested in anarchism and was introduced to Marxism via Li Dazhao. I think the first three socialist books he read was the Communist Manifesto (which was translated in 1919), a work by Karl Kautsky, and a now-obscure book from the 1890s called "A History of Socialism" or something like that (I can't remember the author's name, but he might've been British).
>>2194114>Mao Zedong for example was not originally a communist, he was reading works by Chinese reformers who advocated making China into a bourgeois Western capitalist country after the Boxer Rebellion. He'd tell Edgar Snow (the fellow-traveling American journalist), you know I was a democratic person much like yourself, not really sure how I became a communist, but things don't move according to the individual human will.I'm sure there's a specific term for this, maybe "circumstantial geographic loyalty" or something like that, where people, Military Personnel, and politicians side with whatever Government takes over their specific region and seems legitimate. The former Tsarist officers who fought for the Reds are a good example of this. While a small number joined them because they genuinely believed in the revolution, the overwhelming majority joined because the Communists were the new Government (at least in the regions they were in), and others were forcefully conscripted. They always had a Commissar in their campaign to discuss socialism. By the end of the civil war, these men had developed their own ideas of Communism, where it was again just a strong state, nationalism and the government helping the people.
>>2168075>For most people, these people believe and worship the State and the Leader, they don't give a shit about Ideology.
>As long as it's not openly 'heretical' to the values of peopleThese two are contradictions but they are both correct. The ideology has to "make sense" to the subconscious of the masses. If you push Satanism with Christian Characteristics, people will freak out because their lizard brain gets triggered. But if you push something that they are already comfortable with
>Hey, Communism is like Christianity but without the religious stuff!You can get things done.
This is exactly why MAGACommunism was such bullshit since for ameritards, communism is satanism. They could have just dickrode trump without communism and had more success. This is what caleb maupin is doing right now but sadly he has 0 charisma so it doesn't work. Now if he was nicky feuntes, this will work.
>>2179267who comes up with these flags?
there is no national caucus of polysexuals or pansexuals or anything like that
Does Judith Butler just doodle it on a whim?
>>2168292unimpeachable post award
nobody has objected in over a month award
>>2194267Then there's Brusilov, who was not fond of Communism but joined the Bolsheviks and encouraged other Tsarist officers and soldiers to fight them as well, for Mother Russia.
>At this critical historic point in the lie of out nation, we, your senior comrades in arms, appeal to your love of country and loyalty to it we call to you and ask you to forget all your injuries regardless of who inflicted them on you and where they were inflicted and enlist in the Red Amy voluntarily, eagerly, and with dedication at the front or in the rear. And wherever the government of Soviet Workers and Peasants of Russia might send you, serve not out of fear, but out of conscience, to defend our dear Russia, and with your honest service and not begrudging your life, do not allow Russia to be plundered since it might vanish forever. Then our descendants will rightfully curse us for not using our combat expertise and knowledge, for forgetting our dear Russian people, and ruining our Mother Russia out of selfîsh feelings of class struggle.Lenin confirmed that without these men, they would not have won the Civil War. That said, Brusilov had hoped the revolution would be taken over by a strongman ruler from within
>>2207703The usage of specialists in the military and other fields was why the Soviets had a system of commissars/ political officers to sniff out treason and act as a shield against betrayals. Setting up party officials alongside specialists professionalized the army and allowed them to function as a state in the transitional period.
It's super interesting how this strategy lines up with the dual power strategy employed by the Bolsheviks to set up a political base in the Soviets while participating in elections, only to eventually disavow the liberal government and draw on soviet council support. Similar to this early military strategy and early political strategy, western experts were employed beyond the war in industrial capacities as experts until the Soviets were able to develop their own talent. (The soviet union was a great place for german factory managers during the great depression)
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