/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

>>2838595
wait until you read this banger from engels:

<Our theory is a theory of evolution, not a dogma to be learned by heart and to be repeated mechanically. The less it is drilled into the Americans from outside and the more they test it with their own experience […] the deeper will it pass into their flesh and blood. When we returned to Germany, in spring 1848, we joined the Democratic Party as the only possible means of getting the ear of the working class; we were the most advanced wing of that party, but still a wing of it. When Marx founded the International, he drew up the General Rules in such a way that all working-class socialists of that period could join it – Proudhonists, Pierre Lerouxists and even the more advanced section of the English Trades Unions; and it was only through this latitude that the International became what it was, the means of gradually dissolving and absorbing all these minor sects, […] Had we from 1864, to 1873 insisted on working together only with those who openly adopted our platform where should we be to-day? I think that all our practice has shown that it is possible to work along with the general movement of the working class at every one of its stages without giving up or hiding our own distinct position and even organisation […]

• Friedrich Engels, Letter to Florence Kelley Wischnewetsky, January 27, 1887

>>2838595
It's just the politics of despair. In the imperial periphery, most of those sorts are deeply mentally-ill, drunkards, heavily religious or engage in violent crime. In the imperial core we have similar types but instead of getting a drug addiction they larp as Maoist revolutionaries or Social Democrat reformists.

>>2839243
>evolving is when you ignore what has worked
I'm not saying there should be no communist parties that don't do this either, btw.

good stuff comrade!

>>2838595
I think they're not mutually exclusive we should wage class war on all political fronts but we shouldn't have any illusions about individualism, mutual aid, unionism, reformism and parties, no one can emancipate labour other than labour itself, purity will only result in sectarianism and armchairism

>>2838595
Because the larpers know that participating in elections would actually be a clear metric that would show how disconnected they are from the working class when they get 0.5% of the vote lol.

If you notice, the larp and sect left never have concrete measurable goals for anything they do. Their whole modus operandi is diffusing ideology which literally can't be measured

Nobody reads Lenin and everybody is a liberal.

See being a communist is not determined by "your beliefs" or by what you read, that's a liberal understanding. Being a communist is about your actions.
It doesn't matter if you're a theory buff, if you do not ACT communist then you are a liberal, that's hwhat.

Lenin tells you what TO DO and why to do it, it's the reason he's essential no-skip reading. Mao also helps with that. Log off and go do stuff, stop being a liberal NOW!

>>2839688
Ok? But if there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that is the only choice afforded to workers under capitalism then I may as well live as an apolitical normie but with the knowledge that the whole system is rigged.

>>2839688
>Lenin tells you what TO DO
No he doesn't. Reading Lenin literally without understanding his historical surroundings and the people he's debating will net you a bunch of contradictory and inapplicable positions