/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2290636
Lenin was a chancer in every sense of the word, a complete opportunist. He literally said that he wouldn't live to see the revolution weeks before it happened.

The Bolsheviks were brutal thugs and mass murderers and Lenin was making shit up as he was going along. The methods he took sowed the seeds for Stalin's brutal reign and the ultimate end of the USSR after years of bureaucratic ineptitude.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks are condemned by history, especially from 1992 onwards.

bait used to be believable

>>2290660
>a complete opportunist
I would argue that this was necessary, all previous attempts at revolution in the world had failed. You needed a man who was willing to be pragmatic, for better or for worse.

>>2290662
This is not bait, I am just a pessimistic and pragmatic Socialist from Pakistan who has no time for naive delusions

>>2290636
you misunderstand 'marxist historiography' in that case.
These were not known pre-requisites for the success of the Bolsheviks.
The Bolsheviks tailored their actions, propaganda, and strategies in a way which exploit these happenings.
for example:
>The liberals giving the Bolsheviks(among other parties) guns to help stop the Army from overthrowing the provisional government.
Well, the Bolsheviks were popular within the army. The soviets had workers and soldiers. If the army went ahead and overthrew the provisional government, the Bolsheviks would use their influence within the soviet of soldiers. The liberals chose to arm the Bolsheviks directly, even better.

>>2290703
>pessimist
>pragmatic
choose one
A Bolshevik cannot be pessimist
But a Bolshevik is the supreme pragmatist

>>2290660
you are a moron
Lenin was a genius who could do real-time analysis and strategise accordingly.
You idealist morons have a fossilised 'analysis' which is nothing more than regurgitating big words which can only impress academics and nothing more.

>>2290726
If you are a third world socialist, you would also be like this. In my country, All the Communist are now a pro-CCP political faction and we are counting on our country to lose its sovereignty completely to China.

>>2290636
>random chances and the decisions of a handful of individuals
all those were direct consequences of material reality and decisions made to respond to this reality that most people wouldve made. Bolcheviks were also very competent and dedicated and did all the right crucial choices. None of this was "random", some of it was unpredictable and yet they still reacted well and managed to seize complete victory from an incredible clusterfuck.
In fact, if you look at many communist victories, they often faced incredible odds and yet skill, dedication and the ability to act with pragmatism and focusing on material reality rather than on spooks gave them the win. The long march, the russian civil war, the cuban revolution, thats not simple luck, clawing out the win in those conditions demand above all dedicated and competent cadres.

>>2290752
There is a factor of luck as well as the skills and talents of individuals. If Lenin had not been a pragmatic man, the Bolsheviks would have lost. You also overlook the fact that the vast majority of Communist revolutions in Europe failed because they were too ideological, unpragmatic and lacked any kind of military plan.

>>2290689
there is a difference between opportunism and pragmatism. lenin wrote a lot about it

>>2290660
And you want bourgeois peace (even more brutal wars, in spite of not being labeled "regimes"), DOTP or bust uygha

America didn't enter ww1 by "random chance." Britain and France were on the hook for millions of dollars worth of loans that would have gone unpaid if they'd lost, for one.

>>2290660
>He literally said that he wouldn't live to see the revolution weeks before it happened.
Sauce? Not because I doubt it, but because that's hilarious and I want to have it up my sleeve.

Lenin was very clearly a pragmatist who seized opportunities they saw, and I don't see a problem with that.
>and Lenin was making shit up as he was going along
Ah right, they should have been taking guidance from…………………….. uh…

>Lenin and the Bolsheviks are condemned by history,
HAHAHAHA

>>2290869
>there is a difference between opportunism and pragmatism
Can someone QRD this? I'm in the middle of two other books so don't just link to something longer than a pravda article.

>>2290636
The details are how they are because of larger trends of history. These moments you list are not mere moments unmoored from history and causality. They are symptoms of greater trends. To some degree there are variations in how history might play out, but our struggle is on the timeline of centuries not election cycles.

>>2290660
This is true and it's based.

You have to be an opportunist to follow the flow of history. Making it up as you go along is necessary because history doesn't follow a script. It's called scientific socialism for a reason. You have to figure it out in practice. This revelation is what made Marx into a materialist. Lenin had all sorts of high minded ideals but they were ill suited for the revolution he fought so he abandoned them, which was absolutely necessary.

The Bolshies had to be mass murdering thugs (a good thing when you have a mass of reactionaries or fascists opposing you) to secure their proto-socialist state (sorry Makhno you were right about the long arc of history but not this historical moment). The Russian empire wasn't in a condition suitable for socialism let alone anarchism and the revolution it got was the best it could get without international revolution happening elsewhere at the same time.

If Stalin had been softer, the Nazis would have won the eastern front. That's more a case of being right by accident than anything, but that still makes it the right answer. Would that the USSR made a pact with Satan and made themselves literal demons so they could have laid waste to the Nazis and other bourgeois forces of Europe and made the continent red. Stalin setting the stage for the USSR to decay is preferable to the Nazis winning.

Moreover, the USSR was bound to fail from its very inception because it was built on shaky foundations. A True (Soviet) Socialism could not have won the Russian civil war which makes its superiority a moot point. Thereafter, the USSR remained under siege for its whole existence. Even its ashes remain besieged. It was a lost cause from the start, but even as a dying star they managed to accomplish plenty for the workers of the world and they deserve their place in history as one of the righteous first steps of toward communism.

The mistake is to treat them as a template rather than an early fluke where some element of communism won out for a while. This goes for all actually existing socialism, of all stripes.

>>2290636
No it’s not random chance, the tsar was going to be overthrown regardless. Just because the events that took place look some butterfly effect it wasn’t. If it wasn’t Lenin it would be somebody else and we would be discussing if they had toast or not that morning created the outcome. The outcome was certain to happen the moment Nicholas was crowned king, the outcome could been manifested by any series of people or events but the longer the monarchy reigned the more certain the follow outcome I.E their overthrow.

I've been looking at it like this.

>>2291282
>OPPORTUNISM [Marxist-Leninist senses]
>1. The political line and activity of an individual, group of people, or a political party who, though claiming that they are revolutionaries working to overthrow capitalism, in reality only work for some of the short-term interests of the proletariat in achieving reforms. In other words, in its most common usage, opportunism pretty much means the same thing as reformism.
>2. A type of revisionism within MLM parties, whose essence is well summed up by Lenin in the following quotations:

>“The idea of class collaboration is opportunism’s main feature….
>“Opportunism means sacrificing the fundamental interests of the masses to the temporary interests of an insignificant minority of the workers or, in other words, an alliance between a section of the workers and the bourgeoisie, directed against the mass of the proletariat.” —V. I. Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International”, section VII, (May-June 1915), LCW 15.

>“The opportunist does not betray his party, he does not act as a traitor, he does not desert it. He continues to serve it sincerely and zealously. But his typical and characteristic trait is that he yields to the mood of the moment, he is unable to resist what is fashionable, he is politically short-sighted and spineless. Opportunism means sacrificing the permanent and essential interests of the party to the momentary, transient and minor interests.” —V. I. Lenin, “The Russian Radical is Wise After the Event” (Oct. 18, 1906), LCW 11:239.

>“Once again [Alexander] Parvus’ apt observation that it is difficult to catch an opportunist with a formula [or mutually agreed-upon political statement] has been proved correct. An opportunist will readily put his name to any formula and as readily abandon it, because opportunism means precisely a lack of definite and firm principles.” —V. I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done? (Feb. 1902), Appendix, LCW 5:525.

>“Opportunism does not extend recognition of the class struggle to the cardinal point, to the period of transition from capitalism to communism, of the overthrow and the complete abolition of the bourgeoisie.” —V. I. Lenin, “The State and Revolution” (Aug.-Sept. 1917), chapter II, section 3; LCW 25:412.

>“Opportunism is our principal enemy. Opportunism in the upper ranks of the working-class movement is not proletarian socialism, but bourgeois socialism. Practice has shown that persons active in the working-class movement who adhere to the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves.” —V. I. Lenin, “Report on the International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International”, delivered at the Second Congress of the Communist International, July 19, 1920.

https://www.massline.org/Dictionary/O.htm#opportunism

See also: LENIN—On Opportunism and its Roots in the Labor Movement
https://www.massline.org/Dictionary/LE.htm#Lenin_on_opportunism

also also "No Compromises?" from lwc:aid
>Many sophists (being unusually or excessively “experienced” politicians) reason exactly in the same way as the British leaders of opportunism mentioned by Comrade Lansbury: “If the Bolsheviks are permitted a certain compromise, why should we not be permitted any kind of compromise?" […]Naïve and quite inexperienced people imagine that the permissibility of compromise in general is sufficient to obliterate any distinction between opportunism, against which we are waging, and must wage, an unremitting struggle, and revolutionary Marxism, or communism. But if such people do not yet know that in nature and in society all distinctions are fluid and up to a certain point conventional, nothing can help them but lengthy training, education, enlightenment, and political and everyday experience. In the practical questions that arise in the politics of any particular or specific historical moment, it is important to single out those which display the principal type of intolerable and treacherous compromises, such as embody an opportunism that is fatal to the revolutionary class[…]defence of direct or indirect alliances with the bourgeoisie of one’s own country against the revolutionary proletariat and the “Soviet” movement, and defence of bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentarianism against “Soviet power” became the principal manifestations of those intolerable and treacherous compromises, whose sum total constituted an opportunism fatal to the revolutionary proletariat and its cause.
etc
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch08.htm

Pragmatism is also a philosophy but I think here its less specific and refers more to recognizing that the specific conditions of a given situation may require different strategies and tactics, and not a dogmatic adherence to some kind of static list. Pragmatism, practical, practice, what actions you take to achieve the goals. Revolutionary tactical flexibility, temporary strategic comprimises. Reformists and tailists are two types of opportunism, like people who make their whole platform raising wages, especially for labor aristocrats under imperialism, without emphasizing class or making it clear it is just a first step, advocating for more of a share instead of abolishing exploitation, or supporting racist unions just because it appeals to the masses, while also undermining class solidarity and revolution. Basically jumping onto whatever the hot new topic is just because the workers like it. Today this might be something like endorsing "anti-woke" without explaining to the masses that low risk slop that appeals to the lowest common denominator is inherent to monopoly production and that getting rid of the "bad capitalists" means you just reset the cycle and end up in the same place.

>>2290636
>history is so random and chaotic bro
>historical materialism is "WHEN LE NO INDIVIDUAL"
stfu

>>2290660
what a bunch of absolute chads honestly

one of the most important qualities of a revolutionary is ruthlesness otherwise you end up being dropped from helicopters

>>2290984
And yet Wilson still didn't want to join, until the Zimmerman Telegram became public

>>2290740
>Communist
> pro-CCP
choose one

>>2290636
You are not a socialist. You reject dialectical materialism—the only true science, the proletariat’s scientific world-view, discovered by the greatest scientist of all time, Karl Marx. By denying historical materialism—the extension of dialectical materialism into social phenomena and itself humankind's greatest scientific achievement—you thereby reject dialectical materialism itself: the scientific method and worldview of the proletariat, the only truly scientific methodology, logic, epistemology, etc.

>>2291517
Wrong. If you don't support the CPC, the vnlanguard of Communism, then you are anti-Communist.

>>2291521
>>2291520
You are vermin, leave this website.

>>2291524
Are you such sad obsessed jobless liberal that you stalk user on anonymous imageboard? is it hardline marxism that makes you angry

>>2291517
Again we don't have time for delusions and irrelevant writings that only cater to intellectuals, we have to deal with the reality of our country and the world
>>2291520
Good think I'm not a Marxist, I'm a Socialist

>>2291320
What about the fact that every other revolution in Europe failed and the old Bolsheviks were easily outmaneuvered by Stalin and his gang of thugs?

>>2291526
I am more of a communist than you ever will be, you are utterly worthless, and no i am not stalking you, you are stalking me.

>>2291521
>>2291528
>the vnlanguard of Communism
how? they literally do nothing to advance communism neither in china nor abroad none of the parties that suck up to china get any significant chineses suppor either you just humilliate yourself for free you are the opposite of lenin and the bolsheviks

>>2291532
yeah but they wave a red flag so that basically means they're actually communist vanguards or something

>>2291533
oh and they stablish imperialis- I mean develop productive forces in the 3rd world wich is totally not a capitalist strategy to slow down the tendency of the rate of profit to fall

>>2291532
>>2291533
>>2291535
Wrong. You are anti-Communist. The Communist Party of China is world supreme Communist Party. Communism in China exists as a result of the conscious creative activity of the working people, led, by the Communist Party of China, armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism. The Communist Party of China and the Socialist State base their economic policy on the material laws of socialism, such as the law of planned and proportional development or the law securing of the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society, through the continuous expansion and perfection of socialist production on the basis of the highest techniques. The Communist Party and Socialist State based themselves on Deng's propositions China has everything necessary and adequate for the complete construction of socialism, and that the technical and economic backwardess of China could be completely overcome under the dictatorship of the proletariat. History has fully confirmed the truth of Deng's propositions.

>>2291555
Get a job.

>>2290636
None of the individual decisions matter in the face of class composition. It's so insignificant whether or not Germany attacks through Belgium or Switzerland when German working class is striking (or not) and destroying Germany's ability to wage offensive war

Specific justification under which Germany, Britain, France have occupied Soviet cities - Odessa, Vladivostok, Baltic states - don't matter, there's always a one excuse or another, what matters is if proletariat of those countries was sabotaging war effort or not.

>>2291520
based and true

>>2291532
>they literally do nothing to advance communism neither in china
???
>totally not a capitalist strategy to slow down the tendency of the rate of profit to fall
?????
but that speeds it up.

>>2291586
building more productive forces produces more goods, increasing the rate of profit exponentially for chinese firms

>>2290636
Hey, this is a solid breakdown of how many contingent events and individual decisions shaped the Bolshevik victory. You’re right to emphasize that history isn’t just a blank slate and that random factors and key moments made a big difference.

That said, if you want to dig deeper into why those conditions even came about, why the system was ripe for such upheaval in the first place, I’d recommend checking out Louis Althusser’s Marxist structuralism. Unlike views that focus heavily on individual decisions or surface events, Althusser helps us see how deep structural contradictions within capitalism and the state create the conditions that make certain outcomes possible or even likely.

For example, WWI and the collapse of the Tsarist regime weren’t just random happenstances or decisions by a few leaders, they were the result of long-term systemic pressures like imperialist rivalries, class antagonisms, and ideological state apparatuses shaping how people think and act. Althusser’s framework helps explain how what might look like “random chances” are actually shaped and limited by these underlying social structures.

So, while the specific decisions by Nicholas II or Kerensky mattered, they took place within a system whose contradictions were pushing toward crisis and revolution. Using Althusser’s approach might help you combine your clear sense of contingency with a deeper understanding of the structural forces behind it all.

>>2291532
>>2291533
Xi Jingling pretty much stated they'll export ML Communist framework when they have complete domination of a country

>>2291596
i'd like to see a source although it sounds like something they'd certainly do

>>2291562
>It's so insignificant whether or not Germany attacks through Belgium or Switzerland when German working class is striking (or not) and destroying Germany's ability to wage offensive war
This retardation of Military reality is precisely why the communists failed everywhere. Germany Invading Belgium changed every aspect of the War, Technology and the conditions of the working class.

>>2291587
Thats exactly the opposite of how it works. Increasing productive forces increases constant capital compared to variable capital which means the rate of profit goes down.

>>2291587
Rather than extending capitalism it actually sharpens the contradictions of class conflict. Industrialized nations were able to break the rise in wages away from the corresponding rise in productivity by outsourcing jobs. They could have just lowered wages on their own but they wouldn't risk it because of union organizing, which has correspondingly gone down as a result, and it was easier to just find someone willing to work for less. Moving overseas was a double, killing unions and getting cheaper labor. But if every country is developed it is no longer profitable to outsource jobs, those people wont work for less anymore, those jobs will get unionized and their will be an increase in labor struggles, and maybe some of those jobs will even move back, and then those people will demand unions and higher pay too. And that higher pay will cut into the already low profits even more.

So you've actually just given a good example of how China advances communism abroad. Great work comrade!

>>2291596
>>2291598
>>2291598
The Chinese Communist Party has already provided US$40 million to build the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Kibaha, named after Tanzania’s revered founding father, which opened in 2022. Beijing also supported the refurbishment of the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology in Zimbabwe – the political training school of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front – that was completed last year.
In a report published by the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies on July 29, Nantulya said China seemed to be following the model it used in Ghana, where it has provided successive ruling parties with political leadership training since 2018.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has escalated its training of African party and government officials as part of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “new model of party-to-party relations,” particularly in the Global South. An indication of this renewed emphasis is the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School. Launched in 2022, the Nyerere School trains ruling party members from the Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa (FLMSA) coalition—Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

China has built or supported African party schools going back to the 1960s. However, the Nyerere School is the first to be modeled after the CCP Central Party School, which trains China’s top cadres and leaders. It is also the first of its kind to cater to multiple African political parties. This school parallels the China-Africa Institute, a continental CCP initiative to train African party and government leaders. The Institute, which started in 2019, is based within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa.

CCP-supported governance and party training also occurs at the national level as illustrated by the refurbishment of the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party school, completed in 2023.

On February 22, 2022, the inaugural class of the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Kibaha, Tanzania, listened intently to a message from Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader spoke of “Great Changes Unseen in a Century” (bainian weiyou de da bianju; 百年未有 的大变局) and the “urgent need for China and African countries to strengthen solidarity, common development, and exchange of Chinese experience and mutual understanding in governance.”

Named after Tanzania’s revered founding father, this School is a joint project of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and six Southern African ruling liberation movements: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), the South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) of Namibia, Tanzania’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, or Revolutionary Party), South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), and the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

These parties are part of the Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa (FLMSA) coalition, which analyzes geostrategic trends, domestic and global challenges to their rule, and plans to provide one another support. FLMSA is an incarnation of the Frontline States (FLS) alliance—a grouping of Southern African countries that gave sanctuary to guerillas fighting colonialism and apartheid. The FLMSA, in turn, is the nucleus of the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The School underscores China’s approach to playing the long game to building influence.

China has been an ideological and military supporter of the six liberation movements and is now the sole external partner of FLMSA. China also provides more professional military education (PME) opportunities to SADC than other African regions. The Nyerere Leadership School reinforces this strategic partnership. It enables the six FLMSA parties to lay plans more systematically using training, educational, residential, and sporting facilities gifted to them by the CCP’s Central Party School in Beijing



very bad not good not communist no pls stop

>>2291609
It is logical that they are cautious, the Chinese leaders are terrified of what happened in the Soviet Union and do not want to get involved in Afghanistan or Vietnam. this form of nudging is now what they are prepared to do.

>>2291602
only once everyone has caught up and you have no competitive advantage anymore though

>>2291596
>2 more weeks bro
lenin would have had you hanged btw

>>2291587
>>2291602
both of these claims are correct one at the beginning and eventually the other one thats why it's a delay tactic

>>2292284
>both of these claims are correct one at the beginning and eventually the other one
I dont think that is correct. More goods does not increase rate of profit, but it can increase market share for an individual. But individual share of absolute profit does not change or reverse the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in total and does nothing to delay the contradictions capitalism. Again it actually increases them.

The share of total appropriation of surplus value towards a communist state further puts strain on non-communists, as private individuals they are reliant on profit, while a state is not.

>>2290660
Lenin was an incredibly pragmatic and realistic man. He was prepared to work with the Germans to return to Russia through the Eastern front, he was prepared to negotiate in Brest-Litovsk and why he used nationalist movements to promote the spread of Marxism-Leninism.

>>2290660
Surprisingly good post.

All this was not the result of the material progress of history, it was random chance, it was either an arbitrary choice or based on choices and personal opinions of individuals.