Communism is neither related to "Leftism" nor "Socialism", in fact these reformist movements are antithetical to Communism.
Before some illiterate dumbass takes this as lazy "sectarianism", this was the key issue the Communist International meant to settle. In fact the entire Comintern was born out of the contradiction between the revolutionary content of Marxism and reformist nature of leftism, the murder of German communists at the hands of their left-socialist "comrades" cemented this seemingly forever (clearly not)
>In this connection all those parties that wish to belong to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International). The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. The Communist International has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between the communist parties and the old official 'social-democratic' or 'socialist' parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler.
<Twenty-one Conditions, Comintern 1919
Going further back to Marx, this distinction was evident (hence the "communist" manifesto)
>in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.
<Preface to the 1872 German Edition
>But why were the terms later used exchangeably by the early days of Lenin?
Simply, they were not. By "social democrats" Lenin was strictly referring to the membership of the SPD and its analogous party in Russia who upheld the doctrine of Marx at the time until the German SPD broke away from it.
>But why did Marx and Engels approve of the name SPD in the first place (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands)?
They did not. Both explicitly called the name unscientific and should always be treated as such by the party:
>The dialectician Engels remained true to dialectics to the end of his days. Marx and I, he said, had a splendid, scientifically exact name for the party, but there was no real party, i.e., no mass proletarian party. Now (at the end of the 19th century) there was a real party, but its name was scientifically wrong. Never mind, it would "pass muster", so long as the party developed, so long as the scientific in accuracy of the name was not hidden from it and did not hinder its development on the right direction!
<The State and Revolution, Chapter 4
They were the ones to re-name the League of Just to the Communist League of that wasn't obvious enough.
>acktuly Marx, Engels and Lenin were wrong. Leftist unity (class collaboration) now!!111
Okay. Just don't name yourself after the movement they represented then.
This is more than enough evidence to convince any serious communist that still using terms such as "Leftist" and "Socialist" or to identify with organisations that do, after this split was officially settled for over a century, has nothing to do with communism. This is not even to touch on the popular front slogan which is laughably opportunist.
>At the moment, while the democratic petty bourgeois are everywhere oppressed, they preach to the proletariat general unity and reconciliation; they extend the hand of friendship, and seek to found a great opposition party which will embrace all shades of democratic opinion; that is, they seek to ensnare the workers in a party organization in which general social-democratic phrases prevail while their particular interests are kept hidden behind, and in which, for the sake of preserving the peace, the specific demands of the proletariat may not be presented. Such a unity would be to their advantage alone and to the complete disadvantage of the proletariat. The proletariat would lose all its hard-won independent position and be reduced once more to a mere appendage of official bourgeois democracy. This unity must therefore be resisted in the most decisive manner.
<Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, 1850
95 posts and 13 image replies omitted.>>2618526chronically online such as Marx, Lenin, and the founding members of the Comintern whose texts are cited
They were on-line to your fuck your mom
>>2618609I'm pretty sure it doesn't since I'm an ML, and even if I was a social democrat or an anarchist it still wouldn't.
>>2618870>In this connection all those parties that wish to belong to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International). The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. The Communist International has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between the communist parties and the old official 'social-democratic' or 'socialist' parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler.<Twenty-one Conditions, Comintern 1919
>I'm an MLMakes sense since regular socdems aren't as reactionary and anti-communist as you original;ly
>>2618925>Makes sense since regular socdems aren't as reactionary and anti-communist as you original;lyWhat have I said that's anti-communist?
bumping best thread in the history of the board
Based
Total succdem death
>>2631461You're the liberal I'm arguing with in the other thread btw
strength in numbers kill yourself
>>2631472we're all anons you retard
>>2631472What other thread?
>>2631482The one about dead AmeriKKKnSS being progressive (more or less)
>>2631483You aren't arguing in the other thread, you are just autistically screeching
>>2631485crying about dead prole-murdering petty bourgeois mercenaries is pretty autistic, nationalist cringe lord.
>>2631496>CryingHuh?
I want all bourgeois soldiers executed, not just american ones.
>>2631510I don't want war in Venezuela, I don't fancy the idea of the place being filles with mines, with farmer's kid losing a limb after stepping onto one, I don't want another refugee human crisis, I don't want taxdollars ro be spent on the MIC.
simple as.
>>2631512nice doge, faggot.
>>2631510posting twitter screen caps should be a bannable offence tbh
>>2631516>>2631517>ESL??? In my western amerifag military bootlicking shithole?Sorry for party rocking
>>2631521I'm ESL too faggot.
>>2631522The revolution inches closer with every dead americunt soldier
>>2611931For years we have head these threads "arguing" against using left-right. In the first iterations, OP even claimed that Marx and Engels
never used the term "left" lol
>>2631526Be serious now, do you unironically believe international capital is going to wither away once America collapses?
>>2631546delulu, capitalism will keep existing everywhere else in the world and will join forces to sabotage the US in case a proletariat revolution arises, capitalism must be exhausted.
>>2631546stop answering for me, retard.
Hair splitting and word games. Communism is the only leftist position.
>>2611371If commumism isnt left why is it called leftcom?
>>2631565Update: some guy on the internet said that communism is now far right.
I am sorry, I don't make the rules. Either somebody said something stupid on the internet or communism is far right, one of the two.
It is pretty sus that different nation states lay aside their differences when it comes to commies. To be a commies is to declare war against the whole world it seems.
>>2631565>youre doing word games<le one TRUE leftoidismXD
communism is about the proletariat alone anything else is anticommunist definitionally
>>2631552>>2631552Wrong. Capitalism dies with amerika. All freedom loving peoples, even capitalist ones, on this planet want to see amerika burn.
>>2632133>even capitalist ones, on this planet want to see amerika burnwow almost like countries compete with one another under capitalism
>>2611371Then why is it called leftcommunism.
>>2632121I thought it was about a classless society ?
>>2632396Why is that german drinking piss?
>>2632482Beer is worse than piss, drinking piss doesn’t destroy all your organs if it isn’t infected with chronic wasting disease, not even piss fetishists are physically addicted to drinking piss
>>2632546Go drink mushroom eating deer urine you weeduyghur.
i miss when this canned thread had the hilariously wrong assertion that neither marx nor engels ever even used the phrase "left" in the political sense of "left-wing".
i saw the anarchists do this too we should do it as well FUCK THE LEFT
>>2632561from engels' 1889 letter to gerson trier:
<If the proletariat is to be strong enough to win on the crucial day, it is essential – and Marx and I have been advocating this ever since 1847 – for it to constitute a party in its own right, distinct from and opposed to all the rest, one that is conscious of itself as a class party.<This does not mean, however, that the said party cannot occasionally make use of other parties for its own ends. Nor does it mean that it cannot temporarily support other parties in promoting measures which are either of immediate advantage to the proletariat or spell progress in the direction of economic development or political freedom. I would support anyone in Germany who genuinely fought for the abolition of primogeniture and other feudal relics, of bureaucracy, protective tariffs, and Anti – Socialist Law and restrictions on the right of assembly and of association. If our German Party of Progress or your Danish Venstre were genuine radical-bourgeois parties and not just a miserable bunch of windbags who creep into their holes at the first threat uttered by Bismarck or Estrup, I would by no means unreservedly reject any kind of temporary collaboration with them having a specific end in view.…
<In my opinion, therefore, you are wrong on when you elevate what is primarily a question of tactics to the level of a question of principle. And so far as I'm concerned, the only question that confronts us at the start is a tactical one. A tactical error, however, may in certain circumstances, lead to an infringement of principle.<And here, so far as I can judge, you are right in criticising the tactics of the Hovedbestyrelsen. For years the Danish *Left* has been acting out an undignified comedy of opposition, nor does it ever tire of demonstrating its own impotence to the world at large. It has long since missed the opportunity – if ever it had one – of avenging the infringement of the Constitution by force or arms; indeed, an ever increasing proportion of *the Left* would seem to be yearning for reconciliation with Estrup. A genuinely proletarian party could not, or so it seems to me, collaborate with a party of that kind without in the long run forfeiting its class character as a working men’s party. Hence, in so far as you stress the class character of the movement as arguing against this policy, I can only agree with you.generally for marx and engels the phrase "links/left" is employed to denote a parliamentary faction united by opposition to a society's ruling element. the degree to which they are "left" is proportional to how radically they oppose the ruling element. engels is using the term in this letter specifically to refer to the danish social democratic party because they represented at that time the element most radically opposed to the constitutional monarchy within the danish folketing in spite of the fact that they purged trier from the party for being too radical (i.e. further left).
>>2633294>Engles calls the left impotent reformist bourgeois parties that shouldn't be collaborated with outside of the progressive bourgeois struggle against feudal structures (that no longer exist in our age)>this somehow debunks OPOP should've cited this text since it only further supports their argument
>>2632559I still have my response saved, together with a snippet from OP. Enjoy! Mostly Engels. (Another person had something by Lenin, but I didn't save that.)
>Protip: not ONCE did Marx, Engels, Lenin, (etc.) called themselves >lefty< or "left" or "leftish" or what fucking ever. This is a documented fact, FYI. You can literally DL M/E/L (or Mao, Stalin, Hoxha, etc.) texts in total and ctrl+f your way through it (like I did), and it still remains a fact.Marx-Engels-Werke:
1.
<Endlich deckten wir den parlamentarischen Kretinismus (wie Marx es nannte) der verschiedenen sogenannten Nationalversammlungen auf. Diese Herren hatten sich alle Machtmittel entschlüpfen lassen, sie zum Teil freiwillig wieder den Regierungen überliefert. Neben neugestärkten, reaktionären Regierungen standen in Berlin wie in Frankfurt machtlose Versammlungen, die trotzdem sich einbildeten, ihre ohnmächtigen Beschlüsse würden die Welt aus den Angeln heben. Bis auf die äußerste Linke herrschte diese kretinhafte Selbsttäuschung. Wir riefen ihnen zu: ihr parlamentarischer Sieg werde zusammenfallen mit ihrer wirklichen Niederlage.Engels in MEW volume 21, page 21
2.
<Einen rechten und einen linken Flügel hat jede Partei, und daß der rechte Flügel der Sozialdemokratie kleinbürgerlicher Art ist, liegt in der Natur der Sache.Engels in MEW volume 22, page 84
3.
<Wenn dagegen die Bewegung wirklich national ist, werden unsere Leute dabei sein, ohne daß sie dazu aufgerufen werden brauchen, und unsere Teilnahme an einer solchen Bewegung versteht sich von selbst. Dann aber muß man sich darüber im klaren sein, und wir müssen es offen verkünden, daß wir als unabhängige Partei teilnehmen, für den Augenblick mit den Radikalen und Republikanern verbündet, aber völlig von ihnen unterschieden; daß wir uns im Falle eines Sieges keine Illusionen über das Resultat des Kampfes machen; daß ein solches Resultat, weit entfernt, uns zu befriedigen, für uns nur eine gewonnene Etappe, eine neue Operationsbasis für weitere Eroberungen sein wird; daß sich noch am Tage des Sieges unsere Wege trennen; daß wir von diesem Tage an der neuen Regierung gegenüber die neue Opposition bilden werden, keine reaktionäre, sondern eine fortschrittliche Opposition, eine Opposition der äußersten Linken, die zu neuen Eroberungen vorstoßen wird, über das gewonnene Terrain hinaus.Engels in MEW volume 22, page 442
4.
<Es ist falsch, daß die „Neue Rhein. Zeit." „sämtliche" Parlamentsmitglieder „angriff". Sie stand in der freundschaftlichsten Verbindung mit vielen Mitgliedern der äußersten Linken.Marx in MEW volume 30, page 508
5.
<Die fieberhafte Tätigkeit Bismarcks, die alles in Unordnung und aus den Fugen bringt, ohne das geringste Positive schaffen zu können, die die Steuerkraft des Philisters für nichts und wieder nichts bis aufs äußerste aussaugt, die heute dies und morgen das Gegenteil will und die den Philister, der so gern zu seinen Füßen schwanzwedeln möchte, mit Gewalt der Revolution in die Arme treibt - das ist unser stärkster Bundesgenosse; und daß Sie mir die dabei unvermeidliche Linksschiebung aus eigner Anschauung als tatsächlich bestätigen können, freut mich sehr.Engels in MEW volume 34, page 446
6.
<Darüber, daß es eines Tags zu einer Auseinandersetzung mit den bürgerlich gesinnten Elementen der Partei und zu einer Scheidung zwischen rechtem und linkem Flügel kommen wird, habe ich mir schon längst keine Illusion mehr gemacht und dies auch schon in dem handschriftlichen Aufsatz über den Jahrbuchsartikel gradezu als wünschenswert ausgesprochen (…) Haben sie sich erst als aparter rechter Flügel organisiert, so kann man mit ihnen von Fall zu Fall eine, soweit zulässig, gemeinsame Aktion verabreden, sogar Kartell mit ihnen schließen usw. Obwohl dies kaum nötig sein wird: die Trennung selbst wird sie in ihrer Ohnmacht bloßlegen. Sie haben weder Anhang in den Massen, noch Talente, noch Kenntnisse - sie haben nur Prätentionen, die aber dicke. Indes, das findet sich. Jedenfalls wird dadurch Klarheit in die Sachlage gebracht und wir von einem Element befreit, das gar nicht zu uns gehört (…) Wenn es zur Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Herren kommt und der linke Flügel der Partei Farbe bekennt, so gehn wir unter allen Umständen mit Euch und das aktiv und mit offnem Visier.Engels in MEW volume 35, pages 334–336
7.
<Politische Stagnation, d. h. zweck- und zielloser Kampf der offiziellen Parteien, wie jetzt, kann uns auf die Dauer nicht dienen. Wohl aber ein progressiver Kampf dieser Parteien mit allmählicher Linksschiebung des Schwerpunkts. Das ist, was jetzt in Frankreich geschieht, wo der politische Kampf sich wie immer in klassischer Form bewegt. Die einander folgenden Regierungen gehen immer mehr nach links, das Ministerium Clemenceau ist schon in Sicht; es wird nicht das äußerste bürgerliche sein. Mit jeder Verschiebung nach links fallen Konzessionen an die Arbeiter ab…Engels in MEW volume 36, page 160
8.
<Die Tätigkeit der Opportunisten (neben ihrer flagranten Korruption) treibt die öffentliche Meinung immer mehr nach links und zwingt zur Nominierung immer radikalerer Regierungen.Engels in MEW volume 37, page 47
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