/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

There were two tendencies in the RSDLP
<liquidationist (rightsts)
Which wanted the RSDLP to liquidate itself among bourgeois and peasant parties
<otzovists (leftists)
Which wanted total and absolute absence from the Duma
Lenin was in the middle of these two and argued for either one when it was the time for that. Choosing either as an absolute maxim is incorrect.

>>2838597
this doesn't really explain the absolute refusal to participate though. if anything, history has proven that revolutionary parliamentarism was used in every successfully mounted western revolution, and there are no real changes since then, it's still a messaging amplifier, it's still a legal shield for other organizing. lenin DID use it and Lenin DID have his revolution, just because he was open to liquidation doesn't mean that vindicates it

Im sorry but aren't there thousands of parties that call themselves "socialist" or "communist" participating in elections all over the world? Many of them even in power (and of course reveal their opportunism once in power)

Why do you feel the need to criticise the 2% of self described "communist" parties that DONT participate in electoralism, rather than the 98% that do and either perform terribly in polls or become opportunist when they win?

Very curious indeed. Looking at your flag, let me guess, you want us to vote for bourgeois parties as long as they pay lipservice to Palestinian nationalism?

>>2838642
no I just picked hamas at random cause I didn't want to muddy the water by declaring an ideology and I feel anyone can get behind that. and I don't think your premise is true, almost no labor or socialist branded electoral party is actually marxist these days or do communist organizing. in terms communist-first organizations with an incidental parliamentary branch rather than full on commited revisionists are fairly rare.

>>2838595
Electoralism imposes an external test of whether your party is succeeding or failing. Most parties don't like to explain why the one true worker's vanguard got 19 votes nationwide despite running 20 candidates.

You must understand that the average communist party is a LARP org or a cult to meet the psychological needs of its members, not a real organisation working towards a political end goal. Real organising work is slow, boring, tedious, doesn't give you a feeling of power, etc, so it's obviously ignored. Even those that do run in elections usually do it in a pro-forma way just to "raise awareness" rather than having serious plans to win.

>>2838642
The small irrelevant parties are more worthy of criticism because they are pointless. A nominally socialist party that implements bourgeois policies for the bourgeoisie has a point, even if it is a negative one for us. A nominally socialist/communist party that does not in fact do any real political work whatsoever, on the other hand, is completely pointless. Its members could have far more fun (and far less culty tendencies that alienate friends and family) if they consciously admitted what they were doing unconsciously and formed an open CPSU LARP session.

It does no harm to a real communist party if potential members or supporters initially think of the traitorous socialist government before being corrected, but it is absolute doom if they think of a microparty cult. (If you're denying being a cult, you're probably in one… and failing…) Microparty cults masturbating over their lines are the bane of the left today. They're such poison that serious activists would do well to eschew the party form altogether for the time being.

Garbage thread