/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2420549
>I've had PSL members reach out to me directly to tell me that I should not speak ill of the party because it hurts the "movement".
sounds like cult behaviour lol

I remember they had a sexual harrasment problem a few years ago

>>2420549
Is this about the psycho that went out of her way after a bad breakup to paint the party as the problem and the author siding with her because everyone involved were friends covering for each other and some bullshit about "male coded violence"

>>2420549
Most of this feels like bullshit tbh. Just accusing them of being a cult because there is some level of internal discipline.

>>2420538
They're good at doing three things. The first is event planning (getting people to show up in the same place together). The second thing is marching (arriving in the same place together, and then walking to a new place). The third thing is promising free ponies. In conclusion: they are a Marxist-Leninist group

Best us commie party, tbh

>>2420549
>open pdf
>scroll through
<muh twitter posts
<muh squabbles
<muh """transphobia"""
You gotta do better, CIA.

Fact remains: PSL is the best commie party in the US, and glowuyghurs will target you for saying that.

>>2420557
Thanks for reminding us about your manufactured fake scandal, Mr. FBI

P$L (Party for $ettler Liberation) explicity DOES NOT SUPPORT the killings of zionist agents therefore the P$L is zionist.
>>2420591
Then even the best ameriKKKan party is still not good enough to be called Communist or even leftist.

>>2420603
>called Communist or even leftist
Thanks, Mr. CIA

>Are they like the DSA or are they actual revcoms?
People who say things like this never seem to be able to say what "actual revcoms" ought to be doing.

>>2420610
Projection. You are the CIA agent. The CIA runs every left* ameriKKKan zionist parties like your Party of $ettler Liberation. FBI agents like you infiltrate social chauvenist orgs like P$L and make them what they are.

>>2420549
Almost all of this sounds like the ravings of deranged bipolar wreckers to be honest. I’m exhausted just reading this. Bunch of broken people.

>>2420621
Thx, CIA

>>2420629
You are supposed to shit on Marxist parties based on what propaganda the CIA concocted. You are not doing well.

They are strictly legalist and therefore not a Marxist-Leninist party. Leninism is all about combining legal and illegal activities in order to maximize pressure on the state instead of subordinating yourself to the methods of struggle that the bourgeoisie finds acceptable.

Highly cringe line on imperialism but it's not like that is going to matter in the near future and they're still more serious than anything else going in America at the moment.

>>2420637
What makes you assume that they would broadcast their illegal operations as a part of the party? If you want to stay a legal party you wouldn't make it known you're doing illegal stuff?

>>2420637
This is technically correct, tho name a single communist party in the west that even dares to do illegal shit.

>>2420637
>They are strictly legalist and therefore not a Marxist-Leninist party
Correct. Here's a fun look into the life of MaoAnon: I was a member of PSL for 4 years and even helped build a branch from the ground-up. I had my disagreements with the Party from the start but felt at the time that what was most important was getting practical experience in an organization, and if it was as disciplined and democratic centralist as it claimed then disagreements could be worked out internally. This was an incorrect orientation that ultimately allowed the Party to expand into a new state off of my labor and the backs of other Black and Queer comrades while cloaking its blatant opportunism in the far more disciplined outlook of its local cadre. Hell, the Party core doesn't even call itself "Marxist-Leninist", it just lets its branch members call it that and neglects to correct them. The PSL is effectively a gigolo party — a party that is "whatever you want me to be, baby". They put on a song and dance of "militancy" but the moment they enter a white neighborhood or experience even the slightest state scrutiny they're little more than a warmed-over wing of the DSA.

When we had an opportunity to take the lead in a particular struggle in the state, PSL National yanked the chain back every time. We had a golden opportunity at one point to take the lead in the fight for trans rights in our entire state, planning something nobody else would dare do (but only lightly illegal, if at all), and at the last minute (less than 12 hours before!) the PSL informed us that under no circumstances was the action to be associated with PSL in any way. PSL completely undermined our ability to build organizational momentum and militancy and any potential for a campaign was lost. In the end we were all arrested, and PSL did nothing for its own "valued" organizers. Likewise, when election season rolled around we were directed to drop our plans to campaign around Palestine and other issues in order to run their presidential candidate "like we're going to win". What the hell is even that? "like we're going to win"? Bitch is the campaign building Party power or not? It's lining the pockets of the Party core's "professional organizers", that's for sure. I'm not sure it's actually building up the party in any meaningfully revolutionary way. This isn't even getting into their opportunism around the national question and complete inability to actually produce any meaningful analysis of the United States and the Communist Movement that isn't "why can't we all just get along, guys?"

>>2420879
>Black and Queer comrades

DSA level idpol detected

fed honeypot; next

>>2420879
sounds like the DSA is more to your liking with your focus on idpol bullshit

>>2420939
>>2420943
Idpol is based. Enemies of idbol are cringe.

>>2420627
What are they supposed to say? "Hey police, we support and enourage the killing of Israeli embassy staff, come arrest us please"

>>2420622
what's with revcoms overinsistence on being "scientific"? they're always going on about it

>>2420879
>We had a golden opportunity at one point to take the lead in the fight for trans rights in our entire state
Did you ever consider that that's an issue not worth getting arrested over? At least not for a worker's party.
>and at the last minute (less than 12 hours before!) the PSL informed us that under no circumstances was the action to be associated with PSL in any way
Why is that an issue exactly? They didn't say you couldn't do it, just that they didn't want the party officially associated with any illegal activity. Isn't this just basic opsec for a party that engages in any combination of legal and illegal activity? What are they supposed to do, claim responsibility for illegal actions?
>Likewise, when election season rolled around we were directed to drop our plans to campaign around Palestine and other issues in order to run their presidential candidate "like we're going to win".
Kinda sounds like you guys just wanted to focus on local issues without any consideration for the party's national strategy.

my PERSONAL experience – not internet hearsay or vibe based judgement of their social media presence

>sent member to my orgs public meetings under false pretenses, didnt say they were a PSL member (we do intra-org work and would have been open to working together) where they "subtly" tried to critique our strategy (turning everything into a shallow commentary on imperialism while we were discussing logistics of doing a joint tenants union/food drive event), obvious and sloppy attempt at entryism
>an org we DID cooperate with also reported entryism from PSL
>former member of PSL joined our org and talked about their demcent basically functioning like a cool kids clique of largely incompetent leaders engages in gossip and petty interpersonal drama (anecdotal to be completely fair so grain of salt
>TWICE that my org participated in demonstrations (including a george floyd protest in 2020 and nakba day protest in 2022) in which all participating orgs agreed to not use promotional materials four our own org or actively try to recruit, to show a united front behind the issue and only use generic red flags or issue centered banners etc. they agreed and then were the only participating org to completely ignore the agreement and actively pamphlet, fly banners, and recruit

these experiences have left me with a sense that PSL is not a trustworthy or serious organization. i will not dissuade people from joining beyond telling them my impression, it is still better to get organized than not and there are often not better options. likewise i am willing to work with them in the future but with greater caution and hard lines.

If that shooter was hot he would have much more support

>>2421611
>Did you ever consider that that's an issue not worth getting arrested over? At least not for a worker's party.
A key responsibility of a worker's party is highlighting the opportunism of liberal and revisionist elements misdirecting the working class. Your subjective disinterest in Queer people being able to survive, and the state directing public educators to root out and place Queer children in harmful situations, does not override the objective reality that this directly harms working class kids and parents (doubly true for workers of oppressed nations). There is no issue that the workers face where strategic use of illegal work cannot be beneficial.
>Why is that an issue exactly?
A few reasons. On the operational level, it created chaos at the last moment which we seriously didn't need. National had been informed of the action over a month in advance. They had countless opportunities to make this intervention in a way that wouldn't have had as negative an effect. Secondly, it damaged the branch's ability to position themselves as being in the lead of that struggle, and enabled liberal elements to position themselves as being aligned with the action. Instead of cutting through liberal idpol to concretely connect the law being passed to working class struggle, the political apparatus was able to erase the political and class character of the action entirely, and the legitimate anger of workers and the growing student movement was once again funneled into the DSA/nonprofit industrial complex. Maybe you're content with that while simultaneously allowing the exact same process to happen in trade union spaces (throwing rocks in glass houses) but we weren't.
>Isn't this just basic opsec for a party that engages in any combination of legal and illegal activity?
If you're interest is in tailism, sure. While there are absolutely times where illegal activity must remain disconnected from official party work (such as in the building of the people's army) there are also times where the Party must boldly demonstrate that it is not bound by the legalism of liberal and revisionist formations as one of many ways to highlight the real distinction between leadership and mis-leadership. This can have negative effects on things like electoral work, but have an overall positive strategic effect by winning the support of workers and exposing the opportunism of their class enemies. Remember that the goal isn't to be able to maneuver in the open, the goal is to win over the worker and establish a dictatorship of their class. If maintaining the ability to maneuver in the open interferes with that goal in any way, it has become a liability and you are reproducing Second Internationalist politics:
>The learned fools and the old women of the Second International, who had arrogantly and contemptuously turned up their noses at the abundance of “factions” in the Russian socialist movement and at the bitter struggle they were waging among themselves, were unable—when the war deprived them of their vaunted “legality” in all the advanced countries— to organise anything even approximating such a free (illegal) interchange of views and such a free (illegal) evolution of correct views as the Russian revolutionaries did in Switzerland and in a number of other countries. That was why both the avowed social-patriots and the “Kautskyites” of all countries proved to be the worst traitors to the proletariat. One of the principal reasons why Bolshevism was able to achieve victory in 1917–20 was that, since the end of 1914, it has been ruthlessly exposing the baseness and vileness of social-chauvinism and “Kautskyism”…
<From “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder
The Kautskyite revisionists supported linking legal and illegal work in words but not in deeds, just like you and the PSL. They prioritized maintaining their legal work and ability to maneuver in the open, and so when wartime made their legal "opposition" illegal, they folded immediately. They couldn't muster any open opposition to the war and instead openly betrayed the workers of the world when they needed leadership most.
>What are they supposed to do, claim responsibility for illegal actions?
In some instances, yes. What do you think a revolution is, legal work?
>Kinda sounds like you guys just wanted to focus on local issues without any consideration for the party's national strategy.
No, we wanted to maintain our work on national and international issues inline with the Party's previously-stated strategy rather than abandoning the concrete relationships with communities we'd made throughout the city, who were uninterested in the elections in the first place, in order to run an election campaign that fundamentally appealed to the petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy. We considered the Party's national strategy, and its strategic orientation in 2024 was dogmatic and revisionist (more than usual, at least). This dogmatism was evident in National's justification for the shift in strategy, which was premised on a dogmatic read of Lenin's writings about how Communists should orient themselves towards parliaments (though hardly an original one considering it's functionally identical to Browder's CPUSA). Lenin was in the main correct in his assessment, but a reality that is rarely analyzed is that the United States doesn't have a parliament. We cannot approach congressional and presidential elections the way the Communists of other nations can approach their bourgeois democracies. There are no coalitions or alliances to be made in Congress, and subsequently no coalitions or alliances that could place Communists in positions to wield legal power. This is not to say that there is no way for Communists to engage in elections in the US, but we must ask where we can actually wield concrete power and expose the limitations of that system. Losing national elections over and over and failing to enter government doesn't do this. For your average US worker it just falls into the readily available liberal explanation that "socialism isn't popular".

>>2420538
Let's first take three quotes from Marx and Engels about how communists should act during an election in a bourgeois democracy:

<Complete abstention from political action is impossible. The abstentionist press participates in politics every day. It is only a question of how one does it, and of what politics one engages in. For the rest, to us abstention is impossible. The working-class party functions as a political party in most countries by now, and it is not for us to ruin it by preaching abstention. Living experience, the political oppression of the existing governments compels the workers to occupy themselves with politics whether they like it or not, be it for political or for social goals. To preach abstention to them is to throw them into the embrace of bourgeois politics. The morning after the Paris Commune, which has made proletarian political action an order of the day, abstention is entirely out of the question.

<We want the abolition of classes. What is the means of achieving it? The only means is political domination of the proletariat. For all this, now that it is acknowledged by one and all, we are told not to meddle with politics. The abstentionists say they are revolutionaries, even revolutionaries par excellence. Yet revolution is a supreme political act and those who want revolution must also want the means of achieving it, that is, political action, which prepares the ground for revolution and provides the workers with the revolutionary training without which they are sure to become the dupes of the Favres and Pyats the morning after the battle. However, our politics must be working-class politics. The workers' party must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must be independent and have its goal and its own policy.

<The political freedoms, the right of assembly and association, and the freedom of the press — those are our weapons. Are we to sit back and abstain while somebody tries to rob us of them? It is said that a political act on our part implies that we accept the exiting state of affairs. On the contrary, so long as this state of affairs offers us the means of protesting against it, our use of these means does not signify that we recognise the prevailing order.

<Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "Apropos Of Working-Class Political Action".

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/09/21.htm

<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 , "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

<The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the movement is always the organization 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 quickly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first program 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 transient 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

With this information, you can now eliminate the DSA and ACP parties for failing to demonstrate independence from the bourgeois class and bourgeois parties. If the CPUSA fails to demonstrate independence from the bourgeois class and socialist solidarity with the workers of the world, becoming complacent in supporting Democrats, then this will be a mistake that must be corrected. Otherwise, they fail to demonstrate that they are revolutionary socialists for the supremacy of the proletariat. With this, the PSL party demonstrates its superiority over these other parties by conforming to what is acceptable to Marx and Engels.

>>2421705
>Your subjective disinterest in Queer people being able to survive, and the state directing public educators to root out and place Queer children in harmful situations, does not override the objective reality that this directly harms working class kids and parents
I am queer, and the fact is that virtually every successful socialist revolution took power without even acknowledging queer people at best, and being actively hostile to them at worst. I'm against the anti-queer policies of the American regime obviously, but the fact is that we're just not that important as a demographic. The revolution will not succeed or fail on the basis of our participation.
>On the operational level, it created chaos at the last moment which we seriously didn't need.
Fair enough.
>Secondly, it damaged the branch's ability to position themselves as being in the lead of that struggle
Assuming you're correct that doing this action would have successfully done this (instead of alienating itself by overshooting the level of militancy that the people you're trying to reach are prepared to accept), I'd again say that queer issues are simply not something that is worth attracting police attention over. At least for a communist party that is. Our priority should be advancing the worker's struggle, and queer issues are frankly tangential to this at best.
>This can have negative effects on things like electoral work
That's a huge understatement. Openly embracing and claiming responsibility for illegal actions could destroy the ability to operate openly at all. It could quickly lead to a terrorist or criminal organization label. In that situation the party would need to go underground and either abandon legal operation altogether, or else create a front organization that would not claim responsibility or affiliation with illegal actions anyways.
>but have an overall positive strategic effect by winning the support of workers and exposing the opportunism of their class enemies.
This assumes that the workers we're trying to reach will be inspired and galvanized by displays of militancy and illegalism, but I'm not at all convinced that this is the case currently. Revolutionary consciousness emerges from class consciousness, which emerges from trade union consciousness. Most American workers haven't even reached the first stage.
>The Kautskyite revisionists supported linking legal and illegal work in words but not in deeds, just like you and the PSL.
I'm not speaking against illegal actions as such, I' saying that if you're going to do them it is often necessary to have a degree of separation between the political and underground wings of an organization, such as with the IRA and Sein Fein. I don't think it's revisionism to do this.
>rather than abandoning the concrete relationships with communities we'd made throughout the city
Why does an electoral campaign mean abandoning these relationships? They last a few months at most. None of the groups you were working with could tolerate a few months of you guys being occupied with electoral work?
>in order to run an election campaign that fundamentally appealed to the petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy
Literally scores of millions of proles vote in every US presidential election. How do these only appeal to petty bourgeoisie and labour aristocracy?

>>2421810
You are correct to call out the lack of political independence of the DSA, ACP, and CPUSA, but ultimately you make a dogmatic argument with
>the PSL party demonstrates its superiority over these other parties by conforming to what is acceptable to Marx and Engels.
This is nonsense. Marx and Engels, alongside every other revolutionary leader, is only powerful insofar as their insights can be creatively applied to concrete conditions. Don't forget these same quotes were utilized not just for revolutionary purposes, but to defend the revisionism of Kautsky and others. On the flip side, abstention from electoral politics, when used intelligently, has produced positive results at certain moments in revolutionary history. "Freedom of the press" today has totally different relevance in that the press has undergone a process of monopolization in the period of imperialism. The bourgeois class and their states have a grip on the press that simply didn't exist in Marx's time, and the internet is not in a state where it can remedy that issue. "Freedom of the press" has become another fictitious "freedom" in imperialist society, like the "freedom" of a McDonalds worker to buy Twitter.

PSL has demonstrated a surge past CPUSA and DSA recently on the streets, but not in a way that genuinely breaks with their deviations. It's little more than a reiteration of the practice of the WWP under Sam Marcy's Trotskyism. "Empty militancy" as one comrade in the 70s put it. PSL is essentially what the CPUSA would be if it pretended to uphold the Black belt thesis again.

>>2421819
>I am queer
Good for you.
>the fact is that virtually every successful socialist revolution took power without even acknowledging queer people at best
>[Therefore] the revolution will not succeed or fail on the basis of our participation.
This is a form of normalcy bias — "since X hasn't occurred then it will never occur" — that again extends from dogmatism. I have not claimed that Queer people are the sole factor which will make or break revolution. Queer oppression, like racism, sexism, etc. is an expression of the class struggle in another form. Don't forget that in many of the revolutions you're thinking of, the ambivalence to hostility towards Queerness observed was a reflection of enduring class struggle within socialist society that, when not confronted, actively undermined the revolution. You also shouldn't ignore the reality that just about every serious revolutionary movement in the past 50 years has seen the active involvement of Queer people on the side of the revolution. The Communist Party of the Philippines, for example, married the first gay couple in the country's history and trans women fight in the revolutionary army. Serious interventions by revolutionaries the world-over (Anuradha Ghandy, James Boggs, Butch Lee/Red Rover) have created a wealth of scientific analysis of Queerness that simply doesn't support the assertion that it's inconsequential.
>instead of alienating itself by overshooting the level of militancy that the people you're trying to reach are prepared to accept
Like I said before, this was only questionably illegal. We had no plans to break any laws, but expected to be detained anyways (we were). This wasn't some adventurist blockade or shooting a CEO. Illegal activity isn't just beating folks up or tearing shit down. It can also be as simple as saying the wrong things in public, to marching in the street, to forming a Communist Party in the first place. During the formation of the Second International, representatives of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany had to send their representatives clandestinely or risk being removed from the Reichstag and made illegal. Our action was far less illegal and risked far less than that.
>Our priority should be advancing the worker's struggle, and queer issues are frankly tangential to this at best.
I would direct your attention again to the reality that Queer issues are an expression of the class struggle. If you can't even address the Queer struggle and other internal contradictions within the society you're trying to revolutionize, then you will not be able to move beyond where previous revolutions failed at the very least. Maybe you will take state power, but you'll see the same issues and meet the same fate.
>Openly embracing and claiming responsibility for illegal actions could destroy the ability to operate openly at all.
>create a front organization that would not claim responsibility or affiliation with illegal actions
You answered your own dilemma here. Having to go clandestine isn't nothing but it's also not what makes or breaks a revolution. Plenty of revolutions have survived extended periods of clandestinity. In fact, most had to. Continuing useful legal work is what front organizations and popular fronts exist to facilitate while the actual leadership of the movement maintains its militancy and deepens its clandestine work free from concerns of legal respectability. Being prepared for an immediate drop into clandestinity is something any serious Party must be prepared to do at any moment, not something that can be willfully triggered at-will, because you don't get to decide when clandestinity is necessary. Never forget what happened to the Communist Party of Indonesia.
>I'm not speaking against illegal actions as such
I know, that's why I said "in words but not in deeds".
>I'm saying that if you're going to do them it is often necessary to have a degree of separation between the political and underground wings of an organization
I never said it could never be useful to do this, but keeping politics in command means that the Party fundamentally must be aligned against the state for the Army to have the same orientation. At some point direct legal work by the Party must break down and at that point the Popular Front becomes key in that avenue while the main work was illegal from the start. This way the main work of the revolution is never disrupted, even in the face of inevitable state repression.
>None of the groups you were working with could tolerate a few months of you guys being occupied with electoral work?
Imperialism doesn't wait a few months for elections to be over. They saw in practice what PSL's priorities were, and its failure to at the very least link up these campaigns in a genuine way.
>Literally scores of millions of proles vote in every US presidential election.
The proletariat is by far the least engaged demographic in US elections, both due to a correct feeling of apathy towards them and the de facto and de jure restriction of voting rights on large sections of workers across the country. People may be more or less engaged for certain local positions, but people insisting that presidential elections today represent a meaningful gauge of popular support for revolution in the United States is about a century too late to the party and have waaaaay too low of ideological standards.

>>2422394
You're completely wrong because Kautsky was making excuses for the passivity of workers to reach conciliation in his state by failing to see that the state is an instrument created by the irreconcilability of the property-owning classes and the propertyless workers, which is created by private property in the formation of social classes. Therefore, the state is an instrument of one class to oppress another. You can read about this in the text "State and Revolution." Another error of Kautsky's is co-opting workers by not taking a firm stance against the imperialist finance capital of his bourgeois state, which, combined with the superstition of the reformist state, became a subtle justification for opportunism.

The position of Marx and Engels is also the position of the Bolsheviks and Lenin on how to act in a bourgeois democracy to politicize and polarize the working population in organizing against the propaganda of the hegemony of the capitalist ruling class. Even if there is a mass of workers who do not care about so-called "politics," all of this person's ideas are still stuck on what the capitalist class and its agents regurgitate in their propaganda as "common sense" for the masses. In addition, complacent and apathetic workers are still stuck with superstitions of the bourgeois state and therefore are not willing to abolish it because they still believe in lies that there is a pure or fair capitalism or naturalize all of this as if it were a meritocracy. This is why all faith in the bourgeois state must be broken with the propaganda of communists who will take this bourgeois state to its limit, decreasing the rate of profit of the capitalists, leading to a revolutionary crisis where the communist revolution can be initiated with the preparation of the workers to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat where the The proletariat must acquire its political domination to initiate the revolutionary terror of expropriations, occupations, collectivizations, and socializations to crush the capitalists, landowners, speculators, and all their counterrevolutionary agents, apologists for the bourgeois state who deny the supremacy of the proletariat, which will liberate the working classes, abolish private property, the anarchy of production, and the social classes of owners.

Let's begin by proving my point with two quotes from Lenin, beginning with how communists should act in a bourgeois democracy:

<Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?

<It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:

<“. . . All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected. . . .”

<This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?

<Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.

<Is parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”? That is quite a different matter. If that were true, the position of the “Lefts” would be a strong one. But it has to be proved by a most searching analysis, and the “Lefts” do not even know how to approach the matter. In the “Theses on Parliamentarianism”, published in the Bulletin of the Provisional Bureau in Amsterdam of the Communist International No. 1, February 1920, and obviously expressing the Dutch-Left or Left-Dutch strivings, the analysis, as we shall see, is also hopelessly poor.

<In the first place, contrary to the opinion of such outstanding political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the German “Lefts”, as we know, considered parliamentarianism “politically obsolete” even in January 1919. We know that the “Lefts” were mistaken. This fact alone utterly destroys, at a single stroke, the proposition that parliamentarianism is “politically obsolete”. It is for the “Lefts” to prove why their error, indisputable at that time, is no longer an error. They do not and cannot produce even a shred of proof. A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification—that is the hallmark of a serious party; that is how it should perform its duties, and how it should educate and train its class, and then the masses. By failing to fulfil this duty and give the utmost attention and consideration to the study of their patent error, the “Lefts” in Germany (and in Holland) have proved that they are not a party of a class, but a circle, not a party of the masses, but a group of intellectualists and of a few workers who ape the worst features of intellectualism.

<Second, in the same pamphlet of the Frankfurt group of “Lefts”, which we have already cited in detail, we read:

<“. . . The millions of workers who still follow the policy of the Centre [the Catholic ‘Centre’ Party] are counter-revolutionary. The rural proletarians provide the legions of counter-revolutionary troops.” (Page 3 of the pamphlet.)

<Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the “Lefts” is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that “parliamentarianism is politically obsolete”, when “millions” and “legions” of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright “counter-revolutionary”!? It is obvious that parliamentarianism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete. It is obvious that the “Lefts” in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality. That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make. In Russia—where, over a particularly long period and in particularly varied forms, the most brutal and savage yoke of tsarism produced revolutionaries of diverse shades, revolutionaries who displayed amazing devotion, enthusiasm, heroism and will power—in Russia we have observed this mistake of the revolutionaries at very close quarters; we have studied it very attentively and have a first-hand knowledge of it; that is why we can also see it especially clearly in others. Parliamentarianism is of course “politically obsolete” to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements).

<Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.

<Third, the “Left” Communists have a great deal to say in praise of us Bolsheviks. One sometimes feels like telling them to praise us less and to try to get a better knowledge of the Bolsheviks’ tactics. We took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Russian bourgeois parliament in September–November 1917. Were our tactics correct or not? If not, then this should be clearly stated and proved, for it is necessary in evolving the correct tactics for international communism. If they were correct, then certain conclusions must be drawn. Of course, there can be no question of placing conditions in Russia on a par with conditions in Western Europe. But as regards the particular question of the meaning of the concept that “parliamentarianism has become politically obsolete”, due account should be taken of our experience, for unless concrete experience is taken into account such concepts very easily turn into empty phrases. In September–November 1917, did we, the Russian Bolsheviks, not have more right than any Western Communists to consider that parliamentarianism was politically obsolete in Russia? Of course we did, for the point is not whether bourgeois parliaments have existed for a long time or a short time, but how far the masses of the working people are prepared (ideologically, politically and practically) to accept the Soviet system and to dissolve the bourgeois-democratic parliament (or allow it to be dissolved). It is an absolutely incontestable and fully established historical fact that, in September–November 1917, the urban working class and the soldiers and peasants of Russia were, because of a number of special conditions, exceptionally well prepared to accept the Soviet system and to disband the most democratic of bourgeois parliaments. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks did not boycott the Constituent Assembly, but took part in the elections both before and after the proletariat conquered political power. That these elections yielded exceedingly valuable (and to the proletariat, highly useful) political results has, I make bold to hope, been proved by me in the above-mentioned article, which analyses in detail the returns of the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Russia.

<The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”. To ignore this experience, while at the same time claiming affiliation to the Communist International, which must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics), means committing a gross error and actually abandoning internationalism in deed, while recognising it in word.

<Vladimir Lenin’s, 1920, “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm

>>2422394
Continuing what I've been saying:>>2424122

Now with a quote about the labor aristocracy:

<In a letter to Marx, dated October 7, 1858, Engels wrote: “…The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.” In a letter to Sorge, dated September 21, 1872, Engels informs him that Hales kicked up a big row in the Federal Council of the International and secured a vote of censure on Marx for saying that “the English labour leaders had sold themselves”. Marx wrote to Sorge on August 4, 1874: “As to the urban workers here [in England], it is a pity that the whole pack of leaders did not get into Parliament. This would be the surest way of getting rid of the whole lot.” In a letter to Marx, dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks about “those very worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by, the bourgeoisie.” In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: “You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.”

<On December 7, 1889, Engels wrote to Sorge: “The most repulsive thing here [in England] is the bourgeois ‘respectability’, which has grown deep into the bones of the workers…. Even Tom Mann, whom I regard as the best of the lot, is fond of mentioning that he will be lunching with the Lord Mayor. If one compares this with the French, one realises, what a revolution is good for, after all.”[10] In a letter, dated April 19, 1890: “But under the surface the movement [of the working class in England] is going on, is embracing ever wider sections and mostly just among the hitherto stagnant lowest [Engels’s italics] strata. The day is no longer far off when this mass will suddenly find itself, when it will dawn upon it that it itself is this colossal mass in motion.” On March 4, 1891: “The failure of the collapsed Dockers’ Union; the ‘old’ conservative trade unions, rich and therefore cowardly, remain lone on the field….” September 14, 1891: at the Newcastle Trade Union Congress the old unionists, opponents of the eight-hour day, were defeated “and the bourgeois papers recognise the defeat of the bourgeois labour party” (Engels’s italics throughout)….

<That these ideas, which were repeated by Engels over the course of decades, were so expressed by him publicly, in the press, is proved by his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1892. Here he speaks of an “aristocracy among the working class”, of a “privileged minority of the workers”, in contradistinction to the “great mass of working people”. “A small, privileged, protected minority” of the working class alone was “permanently benefited” by the privileged position of England in 1848–68, whereas “the great bulk of them experienced at best but a temporary improvement”…. “With the break-down of that [England’s industrial] monopoly, the English working class will lose that privileged position…” The members of the “new” unions, the unions of the unskilled workers, “had this immense advantage, that their minds were virgin soil, entirely free from the inherited ‘respectable’ bourgeois prejudices which hampered the brains of the better situated ‘old unionists’” …. “The so-called workers’ representatives” in England are people “who are forgiven their being members of the working class because they themselves would like to drown their quality of being workers in the ocean of their liberalism…”

[…]

<The bourgeoisie of an imperialist “Great” Power can economically bribe the upper strata of “its” workers by spending on this a hundred million or so francs a year, for its superprofits most likely amount to about a thousand million. And how this little sop is divided among the labour ministers, “labour representatives” (remember Engels’s splendid analysis of the term), labour members of War Industries Committees, labour officials, workers belonging to the narrow craft unions, office employees, etc., etc., is a secondary question.

[…]

<The last third of the nineteenth century saw the transition to the new, imperialist era. Finance capital not of one, but of several, though very few, Great Powers enjoys a monopoly. (In Japan and Russia the monopoly of military power, vast territories, or special facilities for robbing minority nationalities, China, etc., partly supplements, partly takes the place of, the monopoly of modern, up-to-date finance capital.) This difference explains why England’s monopoly position could remain unchallenged for decades. The monopoly of modern finance capital is being frantically challenged; the era of imperialist wars has begun. It was possible in those days to bribe and corrupt the working class of one country for decades. This is now improbable, if not impossible. But on the other hand, every imperialist “Great” Power can and does bribe smaller strata (than in England in 1848–68) of the “labour aristocracy”. Formerly a “bourgeois labour party”, to use Engels’s remarkably profound expression, could arise only in one country, because it alone enjoyed a monopoly, but, on the other hand, it could exist for a long time. Now a “bourgeois labour party” is inevitable and typical in all imperialist countries; but in view of the desperate struggle they are waging for the division of spoils it is improbable that such a party can prevail for long in a number of countries. For the trusts, the financial oligarchy, high prices, etc., while enabling the bribery of a handful in the top layers, are increasingly oppressing, crushing, ruining and torturing the mass of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat.

[…]

<On the economic basis referred to above, the political institutions of modern capitalism—press, parliament associations, congresses etc.—have created political privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic office employees and workers, corresponding to the economic privileges and sops. Lucrative and soft jobs in the government or on the war industries committees, in parliament and on diverse committees, on the editorial staffs of “respectable”, legally published newspapers or on the management councils of no less respectable and “bourgeois law-abiding” trade unions—this is the bait by which the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives and supporters of the “bourgeois labour parties”.

<One of the most common sophistries of Kautskyism is its reference to the “masses”. We do not want, they say, to break away from the masses and mass organisations! But just think how Engels put the question. In the nineteenth century the “mass organisations” of the English trade unions were on the side of the bourgeois labour party. Marx and Engels did not reconcile themselves to it on this ground; they exposed it. They did not forget, firstly, that the trade union organisations directly embraced a minority of the proletariat. In England then, as in Germany now, not more than one-fifth of the proletariat was organised. No one can seriously think it possible to organise the majority of the proletariat under capitalism. Secondly—and this is the main point—it is not so much a question of the size of an organisation, as of the real, objective significance of its policy: does its policy represent the masses, does it serve them, i.e., does it aim at their liberation from capitalism, or does it represent the interests of the minority, the minority’s reconciliation with capitalism? The latter was true of England in the nineteenth century, and it is true of Germany, etc., now.

<Engels draws a distinction between the “bourgeois labour party” of the old trade unions—the privileged minority—and the “lowest mass”, the real majority, and appeals to the latter, who are not infected by “bourgeois respectability”. This is the essence of Marxist tactics!

<Neither we nor anyone else can calculate precisely what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will be revealed only by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know for certain that the “defenders of the fatherland” in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.

<The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics.

<V.I. Lenin, “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm

Now the quotes to explain what capitalist imperialism is without your opportunistic moralism that denies the need for the supremacy of the proletariat as the basis for the other working classes to never act without what they have in common with the revolutionary class of the proletariat:

<But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up the main points, are nevertheless inadequate, since we have to deduce from them some especially important features of the phenomenon that has to be defined. And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all definitions in general, which can never embrace all the concatenations of a phenomenon in its full development, we must give a definition of imperialism that will include the following five of its basic features:

<(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital,” of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.

<Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916, VII. Imperialism as a Special Stage of capitalism.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htm

<6. Three Types of Countries in Relation to Self-Determination of Nations
<In this respect, countries must be divided into three main types:

<First, the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and the United States of America. In these countries the bourgeois, progressive, national movements came to an end long ago. Every one of these “great” nations oppresses other nations in the colonies and within its own country. The tasks of the proletariat of these ruling nations are the same as those of the proletariat in England in the nineteenth century in relation to Ireland.

<Secondly, Eastern Europe: Austria, the Balkans and particularly Russia. Here it was the twentieth century that particularly developed the bourgeois-democratic national movements and intensified the national struggle. The tasks of the proletariat in these countries—in regard to the consummation of their bourgeois-democratic reformation, as well as in regard to assisting the socialist revolution in other countries—cannot be achieved unless it champions the right of nations to self-determination. In this connection the most difficult but most important task is to merge the class struggle of the workers in the oppressing nations with the class struggle of the workers in the oppressed nations.

<Thirdly, the semi-colonial countries, like China, Persia, Turkey, and all the colonies, which have a combined population amounting to a billion. In these countries the bourgeois-democratic movements have either hardly begun, or are far from having been completed. Socialists must not only demand the unconditional and immediate liberation of the colonies without compensation—and this demand in its political expression signifies nothing more nor less than the recognition of the right to self-determination—but must render determined support to the more revolutionary elements in the bourgeois-democratic movements for national liberation in these countries and assist their rebellion—and if need be, their revolutionary war—against the imperialist powers that oppress them.

<V. I. Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, 1916

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jan/x01.htm#fwV22P151F01

<In short: a war between imperialist Great Powers (i.e., powers that oppress a whole number of nations and enmesh them in dependence on finance capital, etc.), or in alliance with the Great Powers, is an imperialist war. Such is the war of 1914–16. And in this war “defence of the fatherland” is a deception, an attempt to justify the war.

<A war against imperialist, i.e., oppressing, powers by oppressed (for example, colonial) nations is a genuine national war. It is possible today too. “Defence of the fatherland” in a war waged by an oppressed nation against a foreign oppressor is not a deception. Socialists are not opposed to “defence of the fatherland” in such a war.

<V. I. Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism, 1. The Marxist Attitude Towards War and “Defence of the Fatherland"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/1.htm#v23pp64h-029

<Advanced European (and American) capitalism has entered a new era of imperialism. Does it follow from that that only imperialist wars are now possible? Any such contention would be absurd. It would reveal inability to distinguish a given concrete phenomenon from the sum total of variegated phenomena possible in a given era.

<V. I. Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism, 2. “Our Understanding of the New Era”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/2.htm#v23pp64h-036

If you continue with this ignorance I will cite more quotes to prove my point again that it does not depend on any pity and sympathy for others but on recognizing the collective class interests of all workers in the world without exception to sabotage the imperialist capitalist hegemony to reduce the profit rate of the capitalists fighting together without accusing anyone of "privileges" and without holding resentment.