/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

In the modern era, the task is not to "convince" people of communism, but to clarify what communism actually is and formulate both an immediate program and long-term program.

You don't really need to convince most workers that higher wages would be good for them, or that they deserve better working conditions, and freedom from war and oppression.

The difficulty self-described communists face in spreading their message is because they themselves are confused and conflicted about communist theory, programme and praxis.

Like what is communism? Is it USSR style planned economy forever? Dengist social democracy? Or do you actually want a stateless moneyless classless society? What kind of roadmap actually achieves that?

These kinds of confusions is the real reason why self-described communists have trouble with the working class. Many can't answer even basic questions honestly and clearly about their actual long-term goals, short-term goals and what practical activities are needed to get there.

That's why all leftist movements eventually degenerate to social democracy, because socdems are actually theoretically and practically consistent, and they are able to communicate in an honest, direct and consistent manner. Higher taxes on wealthy, subsidized necessities, cheap housing etc.

What's the communist equivalent to that? The Bolsheviks promised peace, land and bread. What do modern communists have to offer that social democrats already don't?

>>2891717
>When people say "communism doesnt work"? Why not point out that it took liberalism like 300 years of failed revolutions and counterevolutions to finally settle?


We do.


<“I am convinced that more and more people will come to believe in Marxism, because it is a science. Using historical materialism, it has uncovered the laws governing the development of human society. Feudal society replaced slave society, capitalism supplanted feudalism, and, after a long time, socialism will necessarily supersede capitalism. This is an irreversible general trend of historical development, but the road has many twists and turns. Over the several centuries that it took for capitalism to replace feudalism, how many times were monarchies restored! So, in a sense, temporary restorations are usual and can hardly be avoided. Some countries have suffered major setbacks, and socialism appears to have been weakened. But the people have been tempered by the setbacks and have drawn lessons from them, and that will make socialism develop in a healthier direction. So don't panic, don't think that Marxism has disappeared, that it's not useful any more and that it has been defeated. Nothing of the sort!”

• Deng Xiaoping, Excerpts From Talks Given In Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai And Shanghai, 1992
  
  

>>2891717
According to the German Ideology, communism is a hot house flower that dies upon contact with capitalism unless it happens all at once and can overwhelm it.

<This "alienation" (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be
abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an "intolerable" power, i.e. a power against
which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity
"propertyless", and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and
culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its
development. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the
actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely
necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the
struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore,
because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between
men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the "propertyless"
mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally
has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones.

<Without this, (i) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have
developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions
surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism.
Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples "all at once" and
simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world
intercourse bound up with communism. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterly
precarious position of labour – power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limited
satisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a secure source of life
– presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus only exist
*world-historically*, just as communism, its activity, can only have a "world-historical" existence.
World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up with
world history.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_The_German_Ideology.pdf

>liberal revolutions also had their own terror and repression against feudalist supporters
Maybe because they were small and not as schizophrenic as the communists? How can liberals repress anyone if they stand for freedom of speech?

>By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France since June 1793, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone. In addition, an estimated ten- to twenty thousand people were executed without trial or died awaiting trial in prison.

Freedom of speech o algo

>>2891802
A drop in the ocean. Commies repressed millions.

>>2891850
/pol/ isn't sending their best

>>2891850
Yes we did. Explain what is wrong with this without resorting to moralism

Nothing works forever, it’s always context dependent and subject to the decaying nature of time.

>>2891754
forgot to fix the line breaks award

>>2891722
Communists don't have to convince anyone of anything, historical materialism will convince through reality itself. modes of production didn't have to evangelize their ideas from on high a priori for people to somehow mutually agree to organise themselves in those manners they were either post hoc rationalisations or simultaneously to their development.

>>2892129
It would take too long, not my fault ancient 1992 sites don't have a quote function.

op I've had this exact thought recently. A quarter million peasants rose up to restore the monarchy and were slaughtered by the republican government during the War in the Vendée but no lib will deny the French revolution was progressive despite crying about Mao killing landlords

>>2892146
<This "alienation" (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only beabolished given two practical premises. For it to become an "intolerable" power, i.e. a power againstwhich men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity"propertyless", and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth andculture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of itsdevelopment. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies theactual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutelynecessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution thestruggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore,because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse betweenmen established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the "propertyless"mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finallyhas put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones.
<Without this, (i) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not havedeveloped as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditionssurrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism.Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples "all at once" andsimultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the worldintercourse bound up with communism. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterlyprecarious position of labour – power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limitedsatisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a secure source of life– presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus only exist*world-historically*, just as communism, its activity, can only have a "world-historical" existence.World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up withworld history.
Fix it in like 15 seconds with vim (you could use sed too) %s/\n//g and then manually i searched for the < and added a linebreak (you could have done %s/ </\n </ probably

>>2892152
yeah but most people dont know how to do that and so learning how would take several minutes and not 15 seconds. learning "why" and "how" it works would take even longer

>>2892150
>op I've had this exact thought recently. A quarter million peasants rose up to restore the monarchy and were slaughtered by the republican government during the War in the Vendée but no lib will deny the French revolution was progressive despite crying about Mao killing landlords

sometimes slaves would side with the monarchy against the republicans in the new world. in 1776 and in the Bolivarian wars of independence. This would happen both for ideological and opportunist reasons.

>>2892131
This is a good answer but you won't like the implications of it
(The chief task of all communists is to get access to policymakers and push them to complete the neoliberal revolution, in particular global free trade, free movement, and deregulation of bizarre protected cut-outs for car dealers, urban planning, etc. This will maximise the development of capitalist productive forces and so hasten its overcoming as a MoP.)

>>2892215

Good. A socialist state that throws us in the gulag for being degenerate is advanced indeed.

>>2891722
A basic demand of modern communists should be to nationalize youtube and allow all audio/visual media to be accessed through it.

>>2892291
>nationalize
Socialize

I have before many times and as far as I can tell for the most part its a result of two things(in burgeria won't speak on other places I don't know shit about):

>1). History education on the early modern period, liberal revolutions and transition out of feudalism into capitalism is more or less nonexistent outside of various civic nationalist retellings of the American Revolution. For example huge swathes of the population don't realize modern Nation-States are a relatively new phenomena.

>2). Most USian libs(blue or red color) are bad at or just don't historicize at all. If I had to take a guess its due to Liberalism having such a hegemonic status in the US that its adherents aren't used to actually having to defend it and that it's hard for citizens of US to conceive of societies that aren't liberal capitalist nation-states on account of living in one of the first ones that was ever created.

>>2892282
Throwing homosexuals in camps simply for being homosexuals is reactionary no matter how you spin it

>>2891730
hopefuel

>>2892408
reddit

>>2892408
This is a dumb argument. Ideas exist in their context. The question is not "was Marx homophobic by the standards of 2026" but "was he socially liberal by the standards of the 1800s"

Smarter people are almost invariably more liberal than their general environment, and stupid people more conservative. In an Islamic theocracy, this will give you liberal and conservative islamic theocrats who both appear impossibly reactionary by contemporary western standards, but it's idiotic to ignore the underlying trend.
(Castro is the best example here because he lived long enough to recant his prior prejudices.)

Every system is born; lives
, and dies the way humans themselves do

>>2892444
buddhabros… we won

>>2892419
Nevertheless, all these people were homophobes.

>>2892427
>was he socially liberal by the standards of the 1800s
No

I find it amusing that nearly the entire world was extremely LGBTQ+phobic in the XX century but when western capitalist countries were like that we chalk it up to boomers amarite? but then if its communists its proof communism is le bad.

You can still find american movies made in the 90s where half the jokes are just shitting on gays and trans, but then its just "oh it was a different time". Most of the western world only decriminalized being gay in the 90s and 2000s but nobody says thats proof capitalism is super intolerant o algo. The double standards are so annoying.

>>2892658
Projection. It is the commies who excuse their leaders by citing the times they lived in. There were many figures in the world who opposed racism and homophobia (or at least didn't speak on the subject) before, during, and after Marx's era.

>>2892660
>There were many figures in the world who opposed racism and homophobia

Nobody is disputing this. This would be a valid defense if I were claiming that not a person in that time was against that sort of discrimination, my claim is that in ye olde times most people were against everything LGBT, "progressive" people by modern standards were always going to be a minority on both sides. Also you really are a liberal given the way you use pinkwashing, its really irksome as a trans woman that my existence is used as a shield for the right of the bourgeoisie to exploit everyone. You don't really give a shit about us.

Hell, the U.S only finished the process of decriminalizing homosexuality in 2003. Cuba did it in 79'.

>>2892658
That's because liberals see no continuous link between all the different administration, it's just "history", the new government doesn't carry the sins of the past and most of the time they reject the former leaders (the public face of the ruling class), scapegoating everything bad on the president/part of his government, whereas communists have a pathological need to defend every leader that they had.
If Russia had no anti-LGBT laws, that angle would be impossible to attack, there would be no point to it.

>>2892660

Gdr abolished gay discrimination before west, cope about it

>>2891717
>like 300 years of failed revolutions and counterevolutions to finally settle?
In most places liberals took power without any violent insurrection, coup d'etat, etc.

>why not point out that liberal revolutions also had their own terror and repression against feudalist supporters
There was no such thing as a state policy of 'the liberal terror' while in the case of the red one there was.
>but french revolution, Robespierre!
He was a nationalist. Nationalism and liberalism are incompatible.

The number of victims is incomparable. In both absolute and relative amounts commies killed significantly more people.

>>2891850
:^)

>>2892681
>In most places liberals took power without any violent insurrection, coup d'etat, etc.
Thqt's normal, most of Europe was brutally mogged by Napoleon, the state either gave concessions, or they knew they were getting murdered and concession given anyway, there was no choice
In the same way most communist countries also started without civil war, just look at 90% of the warsaw pact, all of them rose after WW2 without insurrection or coup. (Inb4 REEEE MUH SATELLITE STATES)

Liberalism never worked either. Shouldn't have helped the Jews get rid of the kings

>>2892680
Say thanks to Hirschfeld's legacy. This is cherry picking.

>>2892664
>as a trans woman
It's funny that the main defenders of communism are its victims: NEETs and degenerates.

>>2892695
>and degenerates
First they screech about muh lgbt rights and then they call lgbt folk degenerates lol. Thanks for the mask off.

>>2892684
Water? Malaria? Are you comparing entire Africa to the second world, or what?

>>2892698
That is not my word; I was simply quoting Stalin.

>>2892700
>>2892658
>>2892664

Your points have already been adressed and you are simply playing dumb because you are trolling. Another day of rightoids using my existence as a way to troll and spread capitalist propaganda, such is life.

>>2892704
Marx hated you, Urning. Deal with it, you idiot and degenerate.

>>2892706
The entire capitalist establishment is persecuting me right now. You do not give a fuck about us. Its crazy that the same type of people that post "41% ACK!" in the sharty then come here and pretend to care as if economic theories could be gadooshed by going "uhm but he didnt go to pride"

>>2892708
>The entire capitalist establishment is persecuting me right now.
Thanks to capitalism, I can buy HRT even if my government has taken a course on "tradition values."
You would have been put in a gulag and
>"41% ACK!"
Yourself under cummunism, an idiot and degenerate:3

"But all those dead people didn't like your personhood"
We're pretending the dead's personal opinions have an impact in the current world now ? When it's used against nazoids it's because "purity" is part of your schizo ideology dumbasses.

>Liberalism
Liberalism isn't a political system. It is an ideology.
Communism purports to be a system of politics, or at least of society.
The bourgeois revolutions were liberal, but the form of government promoted was democracy, or rule of the citizen-body. Democracy is an ancient political system, which like any other, fails at a certain point. When people say Communism doesn't work, they mean that Tyranny doesn't work (Tyranny being a form of popular dictatorship which is also ancient). This is the political critique; there are also the economic issues people present (e.g. supply shortages). The truth is that there is no perfect political system, so they all fail, the same as any economic arrangement. If utopia was possible, we would already have it by now.

>>2892699
It's just preventable deaths under capitalism. Here's more direct numbers

100,000,000: Extermination of native Americans (1492–1890)
15,000,000: Atlantic slave trade (1500–1870)
150,000: French repression of Haiti slave revolt (1792–1803)
300,000: French conquest of Algeria (1830–1847)
50,000: Opium Wars (1839–1842 & 1856–1860)
1,000,000: Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849)
100,000: British supression of the Sepoy Mutiny (1857–1858)
20,000: Paris Commune Massacre (1871)
29,000,000: Famine in British Colonized India (1876–1879 & 1897–1902)
3,445: Black people lynched in the US (1882–1964)
10,000,000: Belgian Congo Atrocities: (1885–1908)
250,000: US conquest of the Philipines (1898–1913)
28,000: British concentration camps in South Africa (1899–1902)
800,000: French exploitation of Equitorial Africans (1900–1940)
65,000: German genocide of the Herero and Namaqua (1904–1907)
10,000,000: First World War (1914–1918)
100,000: White army pogroms against Jews (1917–1920)
600,000: Fascist Italian conquest in Africa (1922–1943)
10,000,000: Japanese Imperialism in East Asia (1931–1945)
200,000: White Terror in Spain (1936–1945)
25,000,000: Nazi oppression in Europe: (1938–1945)
30,000: Kuomintang Massacre in Taiwan (1947)
80,000: French suppression of Madagascar revolt (1947)
30,000: Israeli colonization of Palastine (1948-present)
100,000: South Korean Massacres (1948–1950)
50,000: British suppression of the Mau-Mau revolt (1952-1960)
16,000: Shah of Iran regime (1953–1979)
1,000,000: Algerian war of independence (1954–1962)
200,000: Juntas in Guatemala (1954–1962)
50,000: Papa & Baby Doc regimes in Haiti (1957–1971)
3,000,000: Vietnamese killed by US military (1963–1975)
1,000,000: Indonesian mass killings (1965–1966)
1,000,000: Biafran War (1967–1970)
400: Tlatelolco massacre (1968)
700,000: US bombing of Laos & Cambodia (1967–1973)
50,000: Somoza regime in Nicaragua (1972–1979)
3,200: Pinochet regime in Chile: (1973–1990)
1,500,000: Angola Civil War (1974–1992)
200,000: East Timor massacre (1975–1998)
1,000,000: Mozambique Civil War (1975–1990)
30,000: US-backed state terrorism in Argentina (1975–1990)
70,000: El Salvador military dictatorships (1977–1991)
30,000: Contra proxy war in Nicaragua: (1979–1990)
16,000: Bhopal Carbide disaster (1984)
3,000: US invasion of Panama (1989)
1,000,000: US embargo on Iraq (1991–2003)
400,000: Mujahideen faction conflict in Afghanistan (1992–1996)
200,000: Destruction of Yugoslavia (1992–1995)
6,000,000: Congolese Civil War (1997–2008)
30,000: NATO occupation of Afghanistan (2001-present)
-222,500,000+ Deaths

>>2892735
Why wouldn't white lynchings also be counted?

>>2892735
How is this even connected to capitalism? These are simply wars; no one includes the USSR's war casualties in the statistics of deaths caused by communism.

>>2892741
What white lynching?

>>2892743
>These are simply wars
No they're not, the list includes massacres, political killings, pogroms, famines, etc
>no one includes the USSR's war casualties in the statistics of deaths caused by communism.
Yeah they do, all the time

>>2892743
>no one includes the USSR's war casualties in the statistics of deaths caused by communism.
bro they include the nazis killed by the URSS during WW2 in it

>>2892747
>Some uygha got drunk on shit and died
>Blame the capitalism
>>2892750
Who "they"? Solzhenitsyn?

>>2892752
The black book of communism

>>2892751
Interesting. I guess they're not on the list as they are not that well known. I will add them and include them in future posting
>>2892752
>non-sequitur about people getting drunk
What are you talking about?

>>2892752
black book,the victims of communism org ?

>>2892688
Liberalism abolished feudalism and progressed material conditions. It worked, it’s just outdated now.

>>2892743
>These are simply wars; no one includes the USSR's war casualties in the statistics of deaths caused by communism.

They do it all the time, it's where /pol/ gets their "One bazingillion dead" figures from. Hacks with an agenda always have double standards when it comes to this shit

>>2892762
Feudalism was better. Imagine letting peasants vote lmao

>>2892765
/pol/ REALLY ain't sending their best

You ever notice how flabbergasted dumb kids on the internet get when they try to do trolling, and get met with either indifference or actual facts?

It's like internet bubbles have gotten *even dumber* since 2016, like these kids don't even have any effort expected of them in their little communities, so when they have to justify their believes, they clam up and oh "oh shit"

>>2892719
capitalism =/= commerce, you are retarded

>>2892648
>Nevertheless, all these people were homophobes.
so? that has nothing to do with marxism. stalin smoked tobacco from a pipe. it doesn't mean marxism is about smoking tobacco from a pipe.

>>2892660
nah everyone can see exactly what the fuck you're doing. you have to make a real point. nobody is going to stop fighting capitalism just because people who did so in the past were often phobic. it's fucking stupid to even suggest that.

>>2892765
>Imagine letting peasants vote lmao
the one thing we can agree on! by the will of allah every rightoid shall be stripped of the right to vote and be forced to work in labor camps!

>>2892657

1. the first two were anomalously liberal for their time
   
2. the last image refers to a petition from more than a decade after Marx died.
   
3. it took place in Germany, while Marx died in Britain! He lived there for 34 of his 64 years! you are not comparing like-with-like. you would need to compare him with British activists.
   

(And this is not a trivial point: British homophobia has always been odd because of a preponderance for buggery in public [e.g. private, government schools are "state"] schools)

>>2892291
No thanks, YouTube compression is pretty ass. Nationalize PTP and HDB instead. Torrenting is the most communist form of sharing data.

>>2892695
victims of communism were capitalists and peasants lmao

I'm gonna remid people that those liberal revolutions were progressive and necessary

>>2894185
People that disagree dont even know Marx 101.
The problem with capitalism isnt that its le bad but that it fulfilled its historical purpose long ago and stubbornly clings to power in spite of its obvious decay.

>>2894194
And Che Guevara and Mao also

>>2892719
Are you taking that shit so they don't draft you to fight in Ukraine for Cucktin's sorry, Abramovichs mansions?

>>2891850
I always wondered why you care so much about victims of communism when you intend to surpass their kill count? Shouldn't you be praising them instead?

>>2892743
Didn't you hear? In communism there will be no wars, no states, no special bodies of armed men. These are the people calling others utopian btw.