/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

This is why there will never be a revolution in the US or Europe. The surveillance systems and repressive apparatuses are too extensive. Revolution inherently requires an unstable stable. Besides, the working class on the imperial core are comparatively better off and has too much to lose. Third-worldists are right. True revolutions happen in the peripheries, not the core.

>>2678321
I don't think the takeaway is "be a useless fatalist" I think it's that you should learn from historical experience and make an underground party that's more than adventurist larp, even if it's legal to make a liberal NGO with red flags. The third world in the modern day either way is filled with "liberal democracies" like India so this trap has much broader implications than purely first world shit.

>>2678324
Like seriously, can third worldists please identify the major third world communist revolutions in the 21st century? Pink tide social democracy, isolated guerillas, and CIA color revolutions don't count.

>>2678330
China. Vietnam. North Korea. Cuba. Venezuela. Nicaragua. Eritreia. etc…

>>2678344
The Chinese Revolution happened in 2007? Holy shit! What does Mao think about Trump shitting himself on live TV?

The problem is clearly just as applicable to the third world. Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Argentina, all show no signs of being imminently swept away by the red tide of Marx and Lenin. There's clearly a structural barrier, and it might be that liberal democracy is a very tough nut to crack due to the irresistible pull of parliamentary cretinism. Best outcomes in the third world in the 21st century in socialism arising in new countries is just some socdem party winning an election and then occasionally slightly hardening themselves against the CIA.

>>2678330
Does the Nepalese Civil War count?

>>2678358
In most third-world countries our police and surveillance systems are extremely underfunded and underdeveloped. Conviction rates are low and many crimes go unpunished due to lack of proper investigations. Whereas in a place like the US increasingly people live in a 1984-type surveilance panopticon where hardcore revolutionary groups get busted by feds without anyone even noticing. It's a lot easier and more feasible to have a radicalized underground movement that can topple a government in the third-world in general.

>>2678363
It was a glowie anti-communist orange revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgZXwXIVZTk

>>2678366
That's the 2025 Gen Z Protest not the 2000s Civil War. I only asked because the various Maoist and ML groups formed a parliamentary republic after the Civil War.

>>2678364
It's a fair point to be sure. A revolution probably would be easier in the third world. But it also seems like in the third world, the age of peasant guerillas toppling the state is feeling a bit dated. The world is increasingly urbanized, full formed capitalist, with a liberal political character even for the third world. That forces us to turn to successful instances of predominantly urban communist revolutions, like Lenin, and the picture one immediately gets from reviewing the history of how that succeeded is that the RSDLP was underground, illegal, and conspiratorial, and not an above ground legally sanctioned party. First worlders probably grasp the need for underground conspiratorial tactics without idiotic adventurism even less, so this line of criticism is focused mainly on them.

>>2678370
I also assume this place is heavily Westerner given how popular the usapol and related threads are. People should organize where they are even if it's not perfect.

>>2678317
Looking at how the US communists acted at their height prior to the red scare also proves all of this. They had extensive organizations, from militant unions to armed workers to mutual aid societies to communist colleges - all above ground and never willing to cross the line of denying the state's legitimacy and fighting for their own state. Not even a single failed attempt. And then when the government decided to crack down they just took it and most of their connection to the working class was dissolved, leaving them to take all kinds of slander and become incredibly unpopular. Though it probably also has to be taken into account that the US has probably never had amazing conditions for revolution. While we had an extremely oppressed proletariat, they were divided by race, and large portions of the country were agricultural, but not as landless peasants, rather landed settlers. So long as there was the ability to bribe so much of white america there wasn't a real chance at revolution.

Now that we're getting to a point where revolution might be possible, we're saddled with the baggage of parties that have no real desire to conduct revolution and revolutionary theory that has no clue how to deal with a strong state. The leninist insurrection model of revolution relies heavily on spontaneity of class conscious workers, which is only helpful when the state is already on the brink of military collapse and where the worker and peasant origin draftee army can be swayed to the side of a revolutionary surge that momentarily has momentum and popularity. The maoist model is based on a state already in civil war, with the dominant aspect being a regular army armed and aided by a neighboring country that has to deal with the contradictions that arise from violently taking control of villages, in a rural feudal country. The US model of revolution needs to learn from both of these but it won't be able to blindly mimic any model. Communists for the large part have been content to not address this question at all, vaguely supporting the leninist model (since it requires the least planning and risk - in their minds at least, since they don't even follow the real methods of the bolsheviks but instead a sanitized version that only focuses on unions and spontaneous armed struggle and ignores the preparation of the red guard and the deep neighborhood ties that the bolsheviks had).

>>2678366
Of course the most smug firstie is the most ignorant firstie.

>>2678317
Some thing we'll need to focus on uniquely in the US:
- divorcing the working class from the bourgeoisie by boycotting bourgeois news, entertainment, and social media (and replacing it with out own news, recreation clubs, neighborhood social events, socialist owned social media, etc.)
- active counterinsurgency style suppression of terrorist white christian nationalists that will be increasingly mobilized if we begin being successful against open authorities like cops and the military (which would require creating our own pervasive intelligence apparatus)
- tunnels and underground facilities to counter surveillance and US air superiority

Structure of revolutionary organizations:
>communist center (exclusive to ideological communists, for the purpose of studying social conditions, strategizing revolution, and developing policy to further our goals)
<revolutionary organization (armed militants and activists. Carrying out strategy and policy of communist center. Engaged in all practical activities, which are too myriad to list here. No ideological requirement in order to harness people's desire to do something with least friction possible)
>fronts (all times/places where people come together and socialize. The purpose of activity in these is to identify advanced, intermediate, and backwards, recruit the advanced, educate the intermediate, exert pressure for the campaign to divorce our class from the bourgeoisie, and engage in mass line and preliminary social investigation. Fronts should be opened and pushed ideally until they cover 100% of the working class population)

Other considerations:
- grow armed capacity in proportion to popular logistical support and avoid any confrontation until we can engage with initiative at a constant tempo; be prepared that once fighting is commenced we'll have to transition to more demands on supporters and discipline of armed forces, e.g. housing them in a single neighborhood that can be surveilled by us so we they be picked off individually by raids, fortification of safehouses, tunnels connecting them
- armed struggle will mainly be urban guerrilla warfare until very late in the struggle
- consolidate wins by annihilating the most backwards within the working class; moving from human to technological surveillance; creating deeply buried (>100 ft underground) facilities for producing arms, sheltering civilians, etc. along with expanding system of tunnels; take over all critical infrastructure (e.g. water treatment); expropriate banks; expropriate landlords; set up industry that competes with monopolized production for fast income and jobs alleviation (e.g. pharmaceutical); replace school curricula; ensure worker/union protections and vigorously promote and organize for mass unionization; disarm all enemies; expand recruiting for armed organ, and split it into local militias and more regularized army; overtake satellite towns and rural areas' armed enforcers and consolidate in the same way

>>2678324
The issue is that all of the more moderate leftists get drawn towards the neutered legal parties, unlike in Tsarist Russia where repression of all forms of leftism forced them to join underground movements. And of course the vast majority of people are moderates and not radicals, or else being a radical wouldn't be radical.

So the "democratic" system is a very effective way of sapping real vanguard parties of popular support, and a communist party by its nature needs the people's support. And of course there's also that modern digital surveillance is orders of magnitude better than the Tsar's surveillance was, which greatly helps 3 letter agencies in dismantling threats. I honestly think the only way is to do things that accelerate the collapse of the state, both economic and social. In the event of a collapse the state surveillance apparatus will stop operating, and the stable, secure society with treats will break down, making people a lot more receptive to the idea of a new system better than the old one that they just saw fail.

>>2678321
On the contrary I think America, along with Spain, Greece, and france are the first world countries most primed for revolution. Even with modern repressive states, all it takes is a major crisis of capital, and the US is basically going through rolling crises every 10-12 years.

>>2678317
>How exactly are you supposed to overthrow the government of the most powerful country on Earth with a legally registered above ground organization where members don't hide their affiliation and which can never ever ever commit a crime?
You aren't, but PSL doesn't like it when you say the quiet part out loud. Can't build a career and petty bourgeois lifestyle off of guerilla warfare.

>>2679399
the time will eventually come when western governments get more aggressive and authoritarian as capitalism decays and they'll inevitably restrict or ban communist parties. Going clandestine right now doesnt make you more serious or likely to succeed, it just cuts you off from the masses

>How exactly are you supposed to overthrow the government of the most powerful country on Earth with a legally registered above ground organization where members don't hide their affiliation and which can never ever ever commit a crime?
You don't, the point is to grow class-consciousness with material wins in order to get to the point where people will support a revolution

>>2679390
So far nobody seems to care about these crises apart from a single-digit number of assassins(or would-be assassins). Who knows though, social changes can be sudden and unexpected.

>>2679402
If you join a communist party openly you won't have the opportunity to go clandestine when they're banned, they'll have you on a list.

>>2678393
People underestimate how much of the rank and file of the military would defect in a civil war. Most low level enlisteds are just there for the paycheck and would shit themselves if they had to fight an urban insurgency on their home turf, especially in the midst of a social and economic collapse. Also minorities are heavily overrepresented among active duty enlisteds as well as people just serving to get citizenship, meanwhile the Officer corp is mostly white, and petit bourgousie.

You do know that there's a world government, and even overthrowing the government in one country won't save you, right?
Although the US has a good geographical position, so if you manage to conquer ALL of North America, you might have some chance. Although you won't be able to do it without wunderwaffe.

>>2678317
There has never been a revolution in modern history that did not take advantage of state collapse or a literal civil war. The conditions for a successful revolution require that the repressive apparatus of the state has already broken down or turned against itself.

>>2679399
>Can't build a career and petty bourgeois lifestyle off of guerilla warfare.
I could do it

>>2678317
You don't "overthrow the state" and commit crimes, you uphold the existing law while society around you collapses into chaos. Then it's you who is the government. You don't go from one state -> revolutionary point in time (false bourgeois notion of time) -> another state. When two dictatorships overlap that is called dual power.

Learn the history of government, it began when thousands needed to protect their crop from flooding and safely store grain. Someone will always need to organise masses of people for a higher purpose. Kerensky Provisional government cannibalized itself, meanwhile the The Petrograd Soviet already built up walls to keep out the jackals. Then it was no longer "dual power", it was "all power to the soviets". The communist party remains the only semblance of order, and people gravitate to order and stability.

>>2679649
>When two dictatorships overlap that is called dual power.
Nice.

>>2678364
That's a bullshit excuse
>Muh survelliance
Did they watch Epstein fuck those kids from the fed cuck chair? Not even Epstein. Just go after the fuckin reddit jannies. Can't even do that. Feds and authorities of all kinds tongue my anus and if I wanna kill someone, anyone, I just will. I'll yell pipe bomb where I want as well. Everytime my stupid ass phone fucks up and goes automatically to Google Ai that's what I do to make it shut it's bitch ass up
>Google how do I make a bomb? (Turns off)
>Yeah that's what I thought faggot

You're just reactionary, it's ok most Amerikkkans are. You're inherently worthless and that's why there isn't gonna be a revolution in the states as noone is coming to save your ass cause you ain't worth it

>>2679402
>the time will eventually come when western governments get more aggressive and authoritarian as capitalism decays and they'll inevitably restrict or ban communist parties.
Meanwhile, real life spits at your vague, ever-moving goalposts and demands specifics:
>Communist Control Act of 1954
>Long-term strengthening of the US' executive branch
>militarization and centralization of Police
>entrenchment of the CIA and FBI
>deep collaboration of capital with the state to create a universal surveillance network (flock cameras, doorbell camera databases, etc.)
>"urban revitalization" coincidentally always means the systematic atomization and diaspora-fication of nationally oppressed communities and their eradication as a cohesive political force
>systematic imprisonment and assassination of ideological leadership within the Panthers, Communist Workers Party, Black Liberation Army, American Indian Movement, etc.
<But hey, CPUSA and the Pakistani Super League are allowed to exist aboveground so we must not be at that point of restriction and clandestine activity!
Or maybe, just maybe, these "parties" (PSL is the only one even vaguely organized as a Bolshevik-type party) don't actually present any real threat to the bourgeois state and exist as a relief valve for downwardly-mobile petty bourgeois to vent their frustrations as acceptable opposition with vague strategy and muddled tactics until they burn out and go back to passively or actively taking part in imperialism. PSL's Socialist Reconstruction actively refuses to answer the most basic questions about revolutionary strategy and amounts to PatSoc fanfiction (their internal documents aren't any better, in case any of you were wondering). All aboveground parties share functionally the same movementist tactics expressing empty and aimless "militancy" that never actually goes beyond what the Democratic Party organizes. I say this as someone who spent years in these organizations complicit in these same practices. In reality we are well-past the point where serious revolutionaries can look at the US govt as anything but "aggressive and authoritarian", and all genuine Communist Parties and uprisings are met with the highest degree of state repression necessary. Contrary to what some of you will then pretend like I believe, or worse what some of you actually believe, no amount of state repression means revolution is impossible. In fact, it's a necessary part of the negation of the negation, but strategic and tactical clarity is needed to take advantage of the moment. The aboveground "parties" actively obstruct this.
>Going clandestine right now doesnt make you more serious or likely to succeed, it just cuts you off from the masses
This is ahistorical nonsense that only serves to justify further movementism and careerism. In Haiti, the Communist Movement has essentially had only a couple of decades in the mid- and late-20th century where it could exist openly, out of a century of overall activity. Yet, those decades are periods of serious retreat and opportunism in our struggle. Clandestinity forced well-meaning cadre whose class and social position would (demonstrably) lead them to otherwise work in opportunist ways to connect with the masses more genuinely and build a mass movement against imperialism throughout the country. It's telling that the Duvaliers conducted wholesale slaughter of thousands of Communists and killed whole central committees several times over, yet during the Dechoukaj there were still multiple internationally connected Communist organizations who could report on what was happening (GRIA, PTH, etc.). This isn't to say that Parties should completely eschew aboveground work where possible, but this is little more than a truism which, again, is mainly being used today to justify exclusively conducting opportunist aboveground work. Aboveground work is only meaningful to the revolutionary struggle insofar as it assists the fundamentally underground work to overthrow the bourgeois state. Exclusively aboveground Communist parties represent the same right-wing opportunist trends that Lenin spent the majority of his life combatting. That they now selectively use his criticisms of a less important left-wing tendency to justify adopting that right-wing opportunism is an insult to his life's work against right-wing revisionism and opportunism in the Communist Movement.

>>2678317
>holding up signs and selling newspapers or fighting losing battles to get tiny NLRB contracts, or ocassionally you have a schizophrenic anarchist/symbionese liberation army cult
are these mutually exclusive? how do you know they arent made up of the same people?

i thought above ground and underground were supposed to work together

>>2678317
>We need to go underground before being a communist is illegal and not after.
We still need an above ground appearance, and how would you go about implementing hierarchical vanguard parties in America?

>>2678317
You're right mostly, I dont think orgs need to be completely clandestine right now, but they should have more basic security. DSA and PSL are literally government registered non profits. Additionally the "chapter" format of many left wing organizations is a structure that leaves you open to easy infiltration or state repression.

Bolsheviks were organized into cells of 5-15 people, That way you knew your comrades very closely and intimately, which is a type of closeness that is hard to accomplish in a chapter of 100 people. You as a single person are effectively anonymous and another face in the crowd at your monthly meeting.

Additionally these orgs have very little internal discipline. Theres essentially no requirements to join and you can be as involved as you want or not. In a 10 man cell, every absence is noticed and that creates social pressure to stay involved even in times without state repression.

DSA has lots of problems with keeping people from going inactive, thats simply just a reality of the low time and political investment it requires of its members. Not saying members need to be worked like slaves, but just basic expectations of activity

>>2679403
>material wins
this will just give workers less material interest to support a revolution as they become middle class btw
liberal democracy is a dead end unless there is some catastrophic event

>>2678317
>>2678321
As I see it, the only path is to have a communist power sponsor you. The Chinese Communist movement started with just a handful of university students. In most cases the CCP would have ended up as a footnote like the communist parties in many other Asian countries at the time. but it had the Soviet Union backing them, The Soviets essentially strong-armed the KMT, and in exchange for military aid and funding, they required the KMT to accept the communists(who were only about sixty people at the time) as a privileged faction within the party. From there, the communists managed to “turn” many KMT officers and officials to their side and grew from a few dozen members to tens of thousands.

>>2680452
no lies were detected in this post

>>2721446
When will China start "sponsoring" socialists then?

>>2678317
a revolution could grow out of the epstein files if a few vigilantes start offing the billionaires.

>>2722286
Never.

>>2721446
The context is still way too different. China was a semi-feudal backwards agrarian state. The same was true for the revolution in Russia.

Successful socialist resolutions have only happened so far under these conditions because the bourgeoise were weak or close to non-existent and state institutions were fragile or in crisis. By contrast, in advanced capitalist democracies, bourgeois class power is deeply entrenched: economically, institutionally, and ideologically. There's basically a material tipping point. Before that tipping point, countries are able to establish proto socialist revolutions because capitalist power and liberal institutions haven't become too entrenched.

By the way, the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara largely did not receive Soviet support before victory. Same with Nicaragua and Angola. If they did, the support was very minimal. And there was obviously no other communist power sponsoring the Russian revolution.

Also, the Chinese communist movement grew large as it did because the Allies in the west betrayed them during WW1. This led to a cultural and political movement called the May Fourth movement and a turn towards Soviet Russia. It was also mainly the innovation in Mao Zedong Thought about mass mobilizing peasants and the people's protracted war that made their movement successful. Not to mention, the Soviets supported the anti-communist KMT as well and helped build military academy at Whampoa Military Academy, where officers like Chiang Kai-shek trained. The Soviet Union tried to grow a communist moment inside it but this collapsed after the Shanghai Massacre in 1927, when Chiang purged the communists. And then during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the USSR mainly supported the Chinese Nationalist government under Chiang. The CPC received very little direct aid during this period.

>>2722725
>By the way, the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara largely did not receive Soviet support before victory
The Batista-era Cuban Armed forces were basically an extended police force rather than a true army. That was/is the case for many post-colonial militaries and something people willfully forget is that when Che and other guerrillas tried to apply foco doctrine in other Latin American countries that had semi-decent militaries, it ended up failing miserably.
>The Soviets supported the anti-communist KMT as well and helped build military academy at Whampoa Military Academy, where officers like Chiang Kai-shek trained. The Soviet Union tried to grow a communist moment inside it but this collapsed after the Shanghai Massacre in 1927, when Chiang purged the communists.
But that literally happened. The Communists only gained real relevance when they were part of the KMT. It became the main nexus and meeting point for most Chinese communists, in 1921 the party had only about 60 members in all of China.

>>2722413
They'll start some time after they reach basic socialist modernization

>>2678317
Obviously the masses won't overthrow the USG. That's the military's job. And it won't necessarily be violent either. See the Carnation Revolution.

You people need to look into the history of revolution and insurgency in order to understand what you are even talking about with words like "clandestine", "underground", and "above ground".

There is nothing that fundamentally cuts off revolutionaries from the masses by them organizing in a clandestine way. That simply means their activities, existence, and membership is not openly advertised. Like both the Bolsheviks did and the Chinese communists did in the cities while the PLA was at work in the countryside, you can do clandestine work in unions, community organizations, and really any sort of organization or place of gathering. It's clandestine because you don't advertise your affiliation, goals, organizing activity, party organizational structure, etc.

Once you firmly grasp this essential fact, alongside the history of repression against all communists, allies, and accused allies of communists via annihilation campaigns, as well as simple illegalization and communist bans, you will see that "above ground" serves no purpose. It's a historical artifact of the organic working class movement, but the organic working class movement begins with reforms in mind, and communists have to act from the knowledge that all reforms accelerate the dissolution of bourgeois democracy and violent repression. It's our unique position as communists to set up clandestine organizations that can at worst survive repression, and at best successfully defend against it with arms and contest bourgeois state authority.

The clandestine work among the masses consists of intelligence gathering (mass line (i.e. assess grievances, combine this with economic-political knowledge to create solutions, and return with these solutions), social investigation (i.e. objective analysis of local economy, classes, class relations, class forces, etc.), and determining the advanced (those you can recruit), intermediate (those you can educate and potentially mobilize semi independently when necessary), and backwards (those who need to be watched for sabotage, violence, snitching, etc. and suppressed/marginalized), and counter-intelligence on bourgeois forces), intelligence disseminating (education and propaganda), intelligence denying (security), and building a people's militia.

>>2678317
Policy of radical cooperativism and state participation in the market

>>2678317
Communists cannot limit themselves to only legal work, as the Liquidationists wanted, or only illegal work for the communist cause, as the Otzovists wanted. Communists participating in an election have the function of breaking the illusions that the bourgeoisie places on the masses about the bourgeois state, that there is an alternative, to prevent people who become disillusioned with the bourgeois election from falling into complacency and accepting the bourgeois state as something natural to nature instead of being socially constructed to serve the interests of the bourgeois class. Many of these people who question and perceive something wrong may end up being co-opted by reformism, reactionism, liberalism, or any fantasy that does not question capitalism and the bourgeois state, thus preventing the formation of class consciousness in workers with illusions of false consciousness. This is why various situations must be exploited to spread communist propaganda whenever possible.

Now I will post quotes from Marx and Engels proving my point on how communists should act in a bourgeois democratic election:

<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, 1850, "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 organisation 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 rapidly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first programme 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 transitory 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

<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

Lenin also agrees with me if you read the text “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder in the section written "Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?". I'll leave the quote here:

<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
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm

what exactly are communists supposed to run on and then do when in office? like in europe there are "communist" parties that run for election but have essentially been integrated into being a wing of the bourgeois "left"
in the USA im not sure there has ever even been a communist in any political position since the cold war, and even before that it was extremely limited
idk if it's even legal nowadays

>>2678409
If we continue with this fantasy, how would one deal with how anti communist American farmers are? As they saying goes, no farms, no food.

>>2721321
Fascinating. Is there anywhere I can read more about Bolshevik strategies and such like that?

Lol at the idea of proletarian revolution at all, it’s not gonna happen, they’re robots

>>2728047
https://www.newconsensus.com/read/blueprint/introduction

>>2728249
It's already answered in the post you quote. Consolidate power in the cities and overrun the small towns. Make the land owners comply by force. I don't know the numbers so this may be off base, but much farming is done by non-owning non-related laborers, even where small holdings and owner-operator farms are common many employ such labor. We need the cooperation of the laborers and to force cooperation by the owners at gunpoint, just like all owners who will be absolutely against a communist worker's state and will attempt sabotage however they can.

>>2728262
I know of no writings on this except for memoirs. There is one by Bobrovskaya and one by Piatnitsky. There is also Armed Insurrection by "Neuberg" (actually the mostly Tukhachevsky, commissioned by the soviet government). Mao writes about strategy in his context. I like the "fire with fire" blog, it goes over multiple workplace organizing methods - these methods are the basis for all organizing. I've found no literature by the bolsheviks or the CCP on the detailed enumeration of the concrete practices of organizing clandestinely under state repression. Maybe learning Mandarin would be helpful.

>>2728454
I am from Iseral btw

>>2728249
The LAND OWNERS are reactionary, the actual farmers will probably be one of the easiest groups to recruit given as most of them are horribly exploited migrant laborers.

>>2678317
No, Liquidationists are gay.

>>2678321
No, Third Worldism is gay.

>>2728047
>what exactly are communists supposed to run on and then do when in office?
Use their Office and Platform to highlight the Contradictions of the System.
Yes Eurocommunism is essentially anti-communism. However a worker' party doesn't have to undergo "political normalization", this has just happened cause these parties have dropped their illegal activities in favor of Parliamentarism. The PCI for example would have likely done better had it NOT dropped the C and stayed radical. These Political normalizations aren't even popular.

>>2728498
I am from from Israel btw

>>2678317
>How exactly are you supposed to overthrow the government of the most powerful country on Earth with a legally registered above ground organization where members don't hide their affiliation and which can never ever ever commit a crime?

You aren't, and that is why most of the western "left" does it that way. They don't WANT to overthrow the government, they want to reform it mildly so it provides American workers a better standard of living, while still necessarily plundering the world and it's resources. Groups like the DSA, PSL and CPUSA don't actually want to overthrow the government, they simply want to make it smile more. They want Capitalism with a human face.

>I don't support adventurism or terrorism or firebombing a Walmart or useless political assassinations that only have symbolic results. But revolution is still illegal and actually successfully accomplishing a real revolution involves committing countless crimes, often violent ones, and requires being actually capable of withstanding extremely intense state repression.

"Adventurism" is mostly a snarl word used by unserious "leftists" to make themselves feel better about doing nothing. Terrorism has been employed as a strategy by every successful revolutionary movement in the history of the world and it will be employed by us, if we mean to succeed, as well. Things like bombings, political assassinations and sabotage are tools that we can and must use when the time calls for them. Our enemies will not hesitate to do the same things to us, when they have the chance.

>The "left" in Western countries seems stuck in an eternal malaise where it struggles to accomplish virtually anything. Why? Let's look at the Western left.

Yes, let's look at the Western left. The largest group by far, the Democratic Socialists of America, has accomplished absolutely nothing except getting Democrats elected and strengthening the Democratic party, which will inevitably betray the working class as it is a bourgeois party that exists to further bourgeois interests.

Why do they keep doing this?

It is by design. Read about the history of the DᛋᛋA, particularly Michael Harrington's dispute with the "New Left" regarding the Vietnam war. The DᛋᛋA was EXPLICLTLY founded to destroy the rising left wing movements inside the US at the time and push the left back into the control of the Democratic Party, which would be pushed left to create a kinder, gentler (but still explicitly imperialist) Capitalism. This is still the function it plays in society, and, as a Social-Democratic party, the only role in society it CAN play. The role of Social Democracy is simply anti-Communism in times of peace, whereas Fascism is anti-Communism in times of crisis. The role of the two is identical, the only difference is the existence of a crisis. The rise of the DᛋᛋA, therefore, comes about as some sectors of bourgeois society (Bernie, AOC, Warren, et cetera) become cognizant of the need to give out concessions to the workers in order to avoid the rise of an actual militant working class movement which could potentially seize power. The DᛋᛋA exists as a way to prevent a revolution, rather than foment one.

All of this history is freely available and yet people still refuse to educate themselves. I am getting tired of telling you all this over and over again, but I am going to keep doing it until someone listens.

The rest of the Western "left" are frankly microsects who have no power whatsoever and it's not even worth discussing them. We need to start over with a new, young party that isn't burdened by the weight of history and repression (CPUSA) or wrongheaded ideology (FRSO, PSL, also CPUSA) and is willing and able to actually, physically fight against the government. It needs to be a a party that understands itself, first and foremost, as a military organization waging a military campaign. The politics is just a tool we use to achieve and sustain military victories.

>>2728516
the Problem with political violence is when it's used without direction. Random Acts of Ultra-Left Violence don't advance the cause. When Mangione killed that Guy it might've highlighted how much people really DO hate their "Healthcare providers" but there was no Propaganda Campaign to capitalize on that, directing people to a Party or Militant Union etc and organizing subsequent actions.

>>2728521
Mangione, Kirk, whoever is just a start. A lot more people are going to have to die.

>>2728521
Of course, propaganda is vitally important to wage war. It's why the Army has it's own media apparatus and psychological operations (which, despite it's ominous reputation, mostly exists to make propaganda) commands. You need propaganda to demoralize the enemy, to raise your own morale and to control information and how it's perceived. Your party should have an active, well funded and ideologically trained propaganda wing as one of it's core departments.

The key to all of this is organization. Nothing is done aimlessly, without the control of political leadership with long term goals and strategies rather than isolated acts.

Mangione was a failure of the left. A man like that should have been a new breed of revolutionary soldier, able to strike fear in the hearts of our class enemies and make a difference in the state of the world. However, our ideology never reached him. We need to redouble propaganda efforts to reach out to people like this. Rather than just handing out newspapers at demonstrations (organized by, and full of, people we already know) we need our own media apparatus which can reach out to the largest possible number of people. Some groups are doing this quite successfully with apps like Telegram now.

>>2728523
Charlie Kirk was aiming too low. While I won't mourn his death, and he would and should absolutely not survive a revolution, our goal at this point should specifically be to degrade the authority of the US government. To erode it's physical, flesh and blood structures at every opportunity and using all means available. We should be attacking police and military officers even and especially when off duty, sniping police chiefs and reactionary DAs, hitting politicians whenever possible and bombing the shit out of all government infrastructure more repressive than the Post Office.

>>2728523
Except none of those guys were leftists

i don't advocate violence but for real to hell with walmart

>>2728610
proceeds not to firebomb a Walmart

>>2728530
>We
How about you get to it, We will wait to see how it goes.

Here's something to think about: most Bolshevik leaders had spent long periods in prison or exile. How many leaders of leftist parties in the US can say the same?

>>2728600
Why weren't they leftists?

>>2728636
You can't do any of this as an individual, it requires an army.

>>2729282
None, because none of them have ever done anything illegal, which is why their organizations are allowed to exist.

>>2728530
>Mangione was a failure of the left. A man like that should have been a new breed of revolutionary soldier, able to strike fear in the hearts of our class enemies and make a difference in the state of the world. However, our ideology never reached him.
truke

Reminder: The Axis of Resistance builds strike drones capable of infiltrating state of the art air defense installations and striking key targets with a high degree of accuracy in underground tunnels with no electricity.

You could literally buy all the equipment necessary to do the same.

Why don't you?

>>2730093
Because i would be put on a terrorist watchlist immediately after ordering the said materials to construct it.

vanguardism can't be purely legal,
or purely illegal.
it has to be a mixture of both!
at least in most standard accounts…
read lenin!
if you think about it, organized crime syndicates are bourgeois leninism. they do both legal activity (business fronts) and illegal activity (racketeering, prostitution, murder for hire, drug dealing, smuggling, etc.)
they use the illegal activity to fund the legal activity.
bolsheviks did the same.

>>2730093
What does that have to do with communism?

>>2728047
The participation of communists in a bourgeois election aims to gather the strength of radicalized workers, as a method to spread propaganda to the masses to lose faith in bourgeois democracy, so that radical reforms that prevent capital from accumulating with imperialism abroad or intensifying the exploitation of workers within the country, leading to a capitalist state in crisis, can occur, in order to intensify the class struggle instead of pacification. An example of such a program is the defense of guaranteed public employment, forced unionization of all workers, ensuring that all labor rights apply to all workers, ending the more intense exploitation of informal work, equalizing union wages and radically democratizing these unions by removing all barriers to union radicalization imposed by the bourgeois state or capitalist influence, guaranteeing the right to legal action for all workers to defend their rights with all costs passed on to the capitalist and the bourgeois state, guaranteeing solidarity in defending the labor rights of another worker, with all capitalists exploiting any worker being obliged to compensate that worker along with the union and the state, plus fines, and this will apply to everything and will be done so that capitalists go bankrupt to be collectivized and nationalized since they will be competing with state-owned companies in the market, which intends to cheapen consumer products in order to deliberately bankrupt private companies.

Another program that communists should defend in a bourgeois election is the nationalization of all banks, because no bank should have any independence or be free from politics. A workers' statistics council without "technocrats" will control inflation by balancing workers' wages with the price of food and workers' consumption so that no costs are passed on to the workers. Cheap credit will be used to benefit cooperatives, state-owned companies, and workers, and to indebt capitalists so they can be expropriated. All money abroad will be cut off for puppets of financial capital, both in weapons and debt, including non-profit organizations, to foster solidarity with workers worldwide. A country's public debt should be reviewed, as should all contracts with capitalists, prioritizing non-payment of the debt and abolishing any fiscal responsibility or spending cap used as an excuse for austerity. The abolition of all indirect taxes on workers' consumption and progressive direct taxes attacking capitalists, with no loopholes for bankruptcy, should be defended. All pensions must be public, not tied to profit, passing the cost on to the state and capitalists.

Bourgeois democracy must reach its limit so that popular workers' councils can be formed, a popular workers' militia for self-defense can be formed and gain experience in class struggle so that the masses are prepared by the vanguard for the revolutionary situation. There is no contradiction between revolutionary socialism and the use of reforms to bring about the collapse of the capitalist state; this is not revolution by peaceful means, but rather preparing the conditions for a revolutionary situation, and this means that it is forbidden to vote for parties that serve imperialist capitalism without exception.

If you don't believe what I've written, I will post four quotes from Marx and Engels with programs in a bourgeois democracy and one from the Bolsheviks by Lenin that prove my point. The first is in the text of the "Communist Manifesto," the second in "Principles of Communism," the third is in "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany," the fourth is in "The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier," and the last, by Lenin, is in "Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme," in chapter four, called "Draft of Revised Programme."

Here is the link if you want to read it:

From the Communist Manifesto in Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

From The Principles of Communism:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

In "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany":
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm

In "The Program of the Parti Ouvrier":
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm

Now the text of Lenin:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm

A communist party in Europe would have to advocate for an immediate exit from the European Union, the elimination of all private banks with a public bank with its own currency, and a workers' statistical council without economists or "apolitical technocrats" to control workers' wages, linking them to the price of food and necessities to minimize the impact of inflation on workers, because capitalists will always want to pass the costs on to them. All foreign funding must be cut off to prevent profits from imperialist capitalism, no matter how demonized you are by liberals or "lovers of democracy," so that your bourgeois state descends into chaos, making a revolutionary situation in your country more likely and preparing the workers, led by the vanguard, for a revolutionary situation. Remember that NATO and the European Union must be abolished and sabotaged, and if you wish, I can cite the part of the five links I gave about examples of programs by communists in a bourgeois election.

>>2678397
Prove him wrong and name a third world revolution that led to AES (Nepal did not)

>>2678366
I think he was talking about 2006 Revolution and not the Gen Psyop Revolution.

>>2733142
These Demands where pretty basic for European Communist Parties pre 91. Eurocommnism has slowly dragged these Parties away from Commnism and made them Opportunistic Social Democratic Platforms reminiscent of Socdem Parties just before Blairism destroyed those just about a decade earlier.