>>2429259>I'm going to write a bit about the trend known broadly as left communism. It seems to me that left communism has now basically become this newest trend in opportunism. Back in the day, there were barely any left communists - there still aren’t many - but every now and then you see one. I’ve seen lots of opportunists retreat from their previous positions (whether they were anarchists, Trotskyists, or what-have-you) and switch to left communism. I suppose it is appealing to some people.Firstly you fail to define who you are targeting at all. Are you refering to the Italian Left? Dutch-German Left? Latter movements inspired by Left Communism - the groups that grew out of '68, etc?
You use the term "broadly" but the fact is these groups work off of entirely different models, they are entirely seperate currents. A criticism of one Left current need not be applicable to another, yet I understand why for a detractor of Marxism it would be convinient to paint them all with a single brushstroke.
For the sake of avoiding excessive confusion I'll presume you primarily refer to the most significant Left current, that is the Italian current, since you could have easily made a thread criticising Council Communists specifically if that is who you intended to critique.
Secondly you the proceed to accuse the Left Communists of being former members of other non-ML currents, as if Left Communism is by any means a new trend, and as if people hop from one ideology to the next depending on the direction of the winds.
You present the case as if ML-ism is the sole or predominant Marxist authority, and everyone else on the left has interchangeable ideologies that exist only to prevent MLs from achieving success, only to detract from you. This is just a subtly phrased, passive-aggresive and entirely baseless insult.
This opening is nothing more than an attempt to pre-empt the less intellegent readers to subconsciously accept the position that all non-MLs are all splitters, detractors of some supposed real socialism which only the Staliniods supposedly uphold.
>It’s basically an anti-Leninist trend and against any historical form of socialism - any kind that has ever existed. So what exactly is left communism? It is an anti-Marxist, revisionist trend that capitulates under the pressure of anti-communist propaganda. It’s not the only trend that does this, but that is its most characteristic feature.An anti-Leninist trend? Immediately, in the first line of real criticism you show you have not got the slightest clue as to what you refer to or as to what Left Communism is.
Left Communism is Leninist. The International Communist Party is Leninist. Bordiga was Leninist. To quote the man himself, he was "More Leninist than Lenin".
To call Left Communists anti-Leninsts proves you have not understood a single word of Left Commnunist theory, if you have read a single line of it.
To anyone reading this critically, not simply to nod and agree with the ML position without conscious thought - this is an immediate red flag that should show the rest of this post will be comedically full of falsehoods and lack of even the most rudementary understanding of the Left Communist position. It is akin to saying that the Nazis were anti-Hitler.
The fact that anyone, having read this, congratulated this critique shows the utter lack of thought so many on this site come with - "as long as I think someone agrees with me, I need not care if what they write nonsense or falsehoods" - please, stop acting like this! Think, damn it!
The OP claims the Communist Left opposes socialism. How so? where is the evidence? Of course, this is just another baseless insult from the ML.
Another baseless claim presented without evidence for mindless philosphical zombie Stalinists to lick up. This isn't a critique if you cannot defend your accusations, it is nothing but slander, but seemingly some people here are too dull witted to even consider requesting any evidence for your claims.
That presented without evidence can be rejected thusly. Indeed if your point is valid, why not present evidence?
The truth is in fact the opposite, that the MLs rejected Marxism as it was presented by Marx and Engels. The modern ML rejects socialism as Lenin attempted to implement it.
That sounds harsh to you? Well, unlike the OP there is clear evidence that what I say is true. The truth of this can be found in regards to two key tenets of Marxism which the MLs have thoroughly rejected, spat on, and burnt to the ground.
Firstly, in regards to the notion of commodity production and wage labour, or in more broad terms the Capitalist system of economic production.
The very opening lines to Capital, the beginning paragraphs are an explenation of the capitalist mode of production. In addition to Capital, Anti-Duhring also explains capitalist production.
I suggest you read both books, since clearly you have grasped little of the theory presented in either.
What happened with the NEP, and with Stalin's scrapping of the plans to end commodity production and wage labour? The end of the hope of the implementation of a socialist economy - Stalin ensured that the USSR would be a capitalist state with a capitalist model of production.
The USSR and other so-called socialist states operate what is definitionally a capitalist economy, as according to Capital, Wage Labour and Capital, etc.
Secondly, in regards to Internationalism. Marx was a firm internationalist. He spoke of this in his speech at the inaugural address of the First International. He wrote of internationalism in the Manifesto. This isn't just Trotskyism, this is the Marxist position, which Trotsky also correctly held to, as do all Left Communists.
The invention of SIOC is therefore against Marx, against communist theory, against communist practice. It is a modernisation and falsification of Marx, a smearing of shit over Marxist theory in order to justy Stalin's personal policy choices.
To reject the socialist mode of economic production and to reject internationalism is no less than to reject Marxism and socialism.
Therefore any state that holds to a capitalistic mode of production and wage labour, without intent to abolish these things, and which holds to SIOC can be said to be anti-Marxist and anti-socialist.
Therefore the only possible conclusion to reach is that the USSR abandoned socialism after the first 4 years of it's existence, and that states such as China and Vietnam are also capitalist states.
What the Left Communist does is to call out and reject the capitalist state that claims to be Marxist. The socialism you claim we oppose was never socialism at all, it was capitalist production, capitalist wage labour with no plans or intent to transition to a socialist economy.
You rape the notion of socialism every time you present the deceased corpse of your capitalist states and proclaim it to be what Marx and Lenin aspired to establish.
And indeed, the fact that the USSR died a death, and the ongoing economic direction of other MList states, proves the Left Communist right all the moreso. You vision not only abandons Marxism, the scarecrow it builds in its stead fails again and again.
Having understood the above, the fact you call us the ones who are revisionists and anti-Marxist is proven a sick inversion of the facts. An inversion you had no evidence for. Your ideology revised Marx until you achieved both capitalism and abject failure.
>Left communism likes to present itself as theoretically genuine Marxism. People who aren’t well-read theoretically or lack a firm grasp of Marxism’s core principles seem to fall for it. In reality, though, it’s just revisionism and a vulgar distortion of Marxist ideas - especially Marx’s message and the essence of Marxism. In particular, left communism is the most extreme defeatist trend in revisionism and opportunism. It sees literally all socialist revolutions and socialist countries as “not real socialism.” This includes all Marxist-Leninist countries, other socialist experiments, and even anarchism.Again this opens up with more baseless ad-hominen attacks, clearly a specialist of the Stalinist since he lacks the support of evidence to present for his accusations.
In this case it is particularly stupid since if there is one thing Left Communists are noted for, it is reading theory.
You begin by repeating your earlier point, that somehow Left Communists are revisionists, I have just addressed this inversion of the truth, in which you desecrate Marxism by claiming the revisionist ideas of support for commodity production, wage labour and SIOC is actually real Marxism.
The second part of this paragraph claims that Left Communists are theoretically incorrect on the basis that they don't hand you a sticker or a trophy calling all adventurist and capitalist projects Real Socialism(TM).
Sorry, but the criteria for achieving socialism isn't based on your emotions or what would make you feel good. It isn't waving a flag that happens to be red. It is adhering to socialist theory. Indeed there have been attempts at socialism, but no, your eternal commodity production and capitalist markets are still not socialism, by definition.
Playing along with this game of delusions presented by MLs and agreeing anything that calls itself socialist is so without examining their policies doesn't help the cause of the communist movement. It waters down the notion of what communism is about until it can be anything at all, which exactly what the OP and those of his position want.
And here we get to the very crux of the problem with Marxist-Leninists. to a great many them today socialism is not about theory inasmuch but about the aesthetic and emotional attatchment to certain progressive or anti-establishment causes. So long as they emotionally support a cause it then transforms into and becomes just and real socialism. And they get very abusive when you point this out this incredibly infantile outlook.
Indeed, when any bourgeois force against the current thing is clasifiable as Real Socialism(TM) and deserves (un)critical support, it's a wonder they don't consider ISIS to be socialists. Theory is irrelevant after all, just oppose the people we oppose and you're a socialist, because MLs are so revisionist that anything goes, even a fully capitalist state can be called socialist!
>Left communism has never had major historical or theoretical relevance. It is entirely isolated from real political action and only appeals to petty-bourgeois-minded opportunists. Some people - and by this, I mean left communists - might find that insulting, but it happens to be the case on purely theoretical grounds. These seemingly negative traits are actually left communism’s strength. Why? Because left communism is on a crusade against reality. It crusades against any socialism that has ever existed or will exist. Since left communists themselves have never had (and never will have) political relevance, their ideas will never become reality.Again this entirely false, the notion that Left Communist traditions are irrelevant, despite how much their theory is discussed, despite the fact you made this thread about them? You wouldn't need to make this point if there was any truth to it. Indeed there has never been a Left Communist state. Indeed many ideologies have not been put into practice. That is not a measure of relevence. Is Anarchism also irrelevant? Is Trotskyism?
You yourself admitted ours is a current growing, growing rapidly. There is good reason for that.
We then on your next point see another classical ML failing - the mixing up of the concepts of popularity and truth.
If something is popular it must be true, if it is unpopular it must be false. Ergo, if Left Communism is irrelevant it must be false. - This is clearly a totally infantile fallacy, the degree to which something is true has no correlation with how popular the idea is.
For many centuries mankind believed the Sun orbited the Earth. That did not make it so. And likewise, if a particular theoretical current is unpopular, that doesn't mean its claims are any more or less valid. The merit is on whether they are theoretically sound.
ML-ism, as a revisionist doctrine that supports a capitalistic economy and SIOC has been proven in reality to be unsuccessful, even though Left Communists correctly pointed out how far it had deviated from Marxism and socialism and that it was doomed to failured many decades earlier.
Your next point - this idea that we "crusade against reality" is a metaphor that we aren't given any explenation to, and is just a baseless insult so again can be dismissed.
From your post we can only learn that Stalinoids love throwing around random pointless insults it seems, which in my humble opinion is NOT a good substitute to theory.
You then repeat the point declaring Left Communists oppose existing socialism, to which I can only so many times repeat this Real Socialism(TM) doesn't exist. For the 100th time, if you have a capitalist economic system you are definitionally anti-socialist and anti-Marxist. We are opposed to capitalists pretending they are socialists and revising Marxism into supporting capitalist economics. That is the correct position to hold.
>Left communism relies on abstract theoretical arguments out of touch with reality - meaning none of its conclusions ever need to be proven. If left communism did become reality, it would implode. Left communists would attack it as “stalinoid.” Left communism doesn’t exist on its own terms; it only exists as a parasitical opposition to actual socialism. That’s the only role it has ever played, even historically - see, for a particular example, the Brest-Litovsk days.So the criticism here is that Left Communists understand and use theory. Which is apparently at odds with Marxism-Leninism. Here we both agree. The difference is that the conclusion I reach is that based on this, Left Communism is the more logical and coherent ideological approach.
To you apparently, theory is a disease, an abstraction to be disregarded. Which really explains a lot. - Recall how I stated that ML-ism is based on emotional desire to (un)critically support all revolutions and so-called progressivism regardless of whether such revolutions are entirely bourgeois, because to the Stalinoid all that matters is aesthetics and emotion, since they butchered Marxism into the inverse of itself? Exactly. Thanks for proving me right.
The next point is yet another ad-hominem attack, calling Left Communism parasitic. The fact that half this Stalinoid's points are just insults really should tell you a lot about the lack of theoretical support their position holds in the current era.
>You might ask: If left communism is so irrelevant, why talk about it? Precisely because it doesn’t exist as a movement in itself. It exists solely as opposition to actual socialism - a stance more parasitical than any other movement. Trotskyism may oppose Marxism-Leninism; anarchism may oppose state socialism. But at least they have independent substance. Left communism is nothing except opposition to existing socialism. Left communism and its variants constitute a revisionist trend characterized by capitulation to anti-communist propaganda and a total lack of real political activity. Its defining features are distrust of the masses, isolation, pessimism, and defeatism - demonstrating its thoroughly petty-bourgeois nature. It is the ideology of the petty-bourgeois opponent of really existing socialismLeft Communism is the current of the international proletariat. We adhere to Marx and to Lenin. It is not our fault if others deviate from the cause, falsify, modernise, reject Marx and embrace capitalism dressed in a red flag.
The real movement can never be destroyed because it is based in the immortal science of dialectical materialism, and regardless of how much you attempt to torture and twist the soul of communism, no matter how much damage you did to the cause with your projects of Soviet capitalism, in time the cause will recover.
A return to the correct theoretical framework was the only possibility after the disaster Stalinism put the real movement through. You have fooled the majority of self identifying socialists into believing wage labour and capitalism and anti-internationalism is all in fact a form of socialism. Theory be damned it seems.
But Marx's works are available to all today, and so it is only logical that in time the theory he put out would grow again.
If you care at all for achieving communism, then stand out of the way.
It's time to stop the infighting, the endless name calling, the defense of why such and such capitalist concept needed to be implemented under a ML state yet again and again, how billionaires are really communist, etc, admit you were wrong, and return to understanding what a socialist economy entails for a start.
Please start with reading basic theory. Not more Reddit, no more sloptubers. Read theory. You will thank me for it one day.