/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>Revolution has never taken place in the bubble of first world conditions
1776

>>2933118
Giga

Nothing ever happens

yapping about revolution is tiresome

OP I'm being completely sincere here. Instead of yapping on an anonymous imageboard, you should openly talk about revolution, overthrowing the government etc with IRL people.

>>2933131
You know that’s illegal right?

>>2933123
By the time it happens it’ll be too late

>>2933141
Not in burgerland.

>>2933143
It’s not illegal to talk about it on a theoretical basis, as soon as they catch you with an unregistered gun or tannerite all that “free speech” with your friends becomes criminal evidence.

>We need to start organizing extremely quickly.
The thread should have opened with this and continued on about means to do this. Instead we have a whinging thread.
>Things are going to get very exciting very soon what with climate change, the decline of the empire, world war and several other crises hitting all at once
Are you doing things to prepare for such a crisis? If so, keep going and season your whining with practical advice for the rest of us. If not, stop whining and go prepare.

>>2933147
The thing I don’t get about preppers and revolutionaries is why you would want to live through such a crisis, if society collapses, it’s way better to be dead than alive and suffering

>>2933148
>The thing I don’t get about preppers and revolutionaries is why you would want to live through such a crisis
To try and make things better for those that come after, to carry the lessons of the world onward so the mistakes of the past can be avoided.

>>2933150
That’s a gamble and you know it

>>2933148
I can't speak for preppers but "revolutionaries" and accelerationists are just very suicidal and neglect organizing or arming themselves in hopes of some giant societal catastrophe killing them quickly. OP is "very excited" about tackling multiple crises head on with no support or plan.

>>2933158
>That’s a gamble and you know it
You just got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run.

1776
1848
1917
1922
?

>Revolution has never taken place in the bubble of first world conditions.
This is basically a boring truism to say at this point. What does this say to you. Your post generally indicates a vapid and useless view of this fact. Marx said that we can talk about how things all we want, the point is to change it. While imperialism for now has undermined the first world worker's ability to become a proletariat that can lead revolution in their countries, we can also understand that this cannot be understood as a permanent condition and cannot be stable forever.
>Revolution has necessarily been deformed in the periphery.
Define "deformed" and why it was necessary, OP.
>Most people today are adventurists, larpers or liberals.
*blows raspberry while making jerking off motion*
>Things are going to get very exciting very soon what with climate change, the decline of the empire, world war and several other crises hitting all at once.
OP really said most people are adventurists and then said the most adventurist shit possible. While Communists recognize the opportunities that could arise from coming crises, we don't cheerlead or get "excited" for the natural disasters which will arise from climate change, cheerlead as one empire falls in the absence of socialist revolution — an event that can only be followed by the rise of new imperialism(s), or eagerly anticipate the advent of a new world war. As the CPC once said:
<There are different types of peace and different types of war. Marxist-Leninists must be clear about what type of peace or what type of war is in question….
<Although Marxist-Leninists have pointed out, on the basis of the history of the two world wars, that world wars inevitably lead to revolution, no Marxist-Leninist ever has held or ever will hold that revolution must be made through world war.
The revolutionary struggle is necessarily a violent and difficult path, but it's reactionary and adventurist to act like crises that will first and foremost lead to the slaughter and death of proletarians in the third world is something to get excited for.
>We need to start organizing extremely quickly.
A fine-sounding phrase, but for what? Who's "we"? As you yourself pointed out, the subjective conditions for revolution don't presently exist in the first world, and the people who post here by-and-large aren't from or have any connection to the third world. The present paradigms of "mutual aid", trade unionism, and advocacy work in the first world wont cut it. Do you have anything useful to say?

>>2933215
>1776
A settler revolution to establish an independent colonialism — the colonialist nature of the revolution setting it apart from all other revolutions in the Americas — isn't an example of proletarian revolution. While some sections of white workers aligned themselves with the revolution, why did they do this, and were they ever in the lead of the movement? The workers never lead, and instead aligned themselves towards independence because it offered greater opportunity to take a position in the industrial bourgeoisie and slaveowning landed aristocracy.
>1848
Not really comparable to present day "first world" conditions as the labor aristocracy didn't exist yet. The first labor aristocracy was identified in Britain by Engels.
>1917
Russia in 1917 certainly can't be said to be "first world" by our standards or a timely equivalent. The labor aristocracy was in its infancy there and, though imperialist, the country was still largely semifeudal and subordinate to all other imperialisms. It'd be like calling Brazil "first world" today.
>1922
Assuming you're talking about Greece? Or Turkey? Or considering you listed 1776 already, the Rand Revolt in South Africa? ᴉuᴉlossnW taking Rome? Regardless, none are really a good comparison to present conditions.

>>2933536
>we can also understand that this cannot be understood as a permanent condition and cannot be stable forever
Why not?

>>2933564
The stability of the labor aristocracy is contingent on the stability of imperialism itself. However, we know that capitalism and imperialism is inherently prone to crises. The labor aristocracy and petty bourgeoisie are extremely affected in these crises, and are faced with their greatest fear: proletarianization. To avoid this, the labor aristocracy sloughs off sections to protect its core, generally (though not always) along national lines. Hence we see the targeting of Jews in Germany, or lynchings of immigrants and nationally oppressed groups in the US. However, this can only go so far, because we also know the rate of profit tends to decline. The labor aristocracy is only viable to the degree it exists right now because of superprofits from the colonial, semicolonial, and neocolonial nations. These superprofits cannot exist forever, and as they decline the labor aristocracy will enter greater and greater periods of crises.

>>2933564
Probably because no conditions are ever permanent, at least when it comes to human political economy

>>2933118
i think anon meant proletarian revolution, not bourgeois revolution

>>2933582
I slightly disagree in that I think the fear isn’t proletarianization so much as it lumpenization, at least in the particular case of the US which famously has a very porous social floor and a purposefully inefficient welfare system compared to the other parts of the imperial core

>>2933582
>>2933584
No human construct can last forever, obviously. My question is what if this dynamic is indefinite; that it can last for hundreds, if not thousands of years?
Nobody says crises do not occur in the imperial core, but that these crises thus far have never produced any sort of unified revolutionary action.
The unfortunate reality is that without the defeat of imperialism, revolution in the core is basically a fantasy. Thus, the major hurdle with this is that since the core is much more powerful than the periphery, the periphery ends up losing whenever they fight back (either via war, debt traps, co-option, immigration brain drain, etc.)

NO PUSSY
NO CLASS WAR

>>2933628
this argument would be convincing in the 90s but i think chinas industrialization has changed the game
>>2933117
the french fourth republic collapsed in the late 50's

>Revolution has never taken place
This is correct. Babylon persists. The much ballyhooed "revolutions" were corporate makeovers. You will remain zeks.

>>2933637
>chinas industrialization has changed the game
How?

>>2933628
>these crises thus far have never produced any sort of unified revolutionary action.
Sure they haven't, because no party in these countries have A. been able to construct a non-trotskyist, non-chauvinist political line that recognizes the labor aristocracy for what it is while B. being in position to generate a revolutionary action from capitalist crisis.
>The unfortunate reality is that without the defeat of imperialism, revolution in the core is basically a fantasy.
It is defeatist and chauvinist to pretend the defeat of imperialism can happen without revolutionary action within the imperial core. The difference between Maoism and the new reactionary pseudo third worldism peddled by many "Marxist-Leninists" is that while revolutionaries in the first world cannot lead the International Communist Movement, we reject the idea that nothing is to be done, or that it's simply up to the third world. It's a matter of joint action and the willpower of the genuinely oppressed around the world. Internationalism and peoples war will prevail over imperialism.
>the major hurdle with this is that since the core is much more powerful than the periphery
Powerful how. The major lesson of all revolutionary wars up to this point is that weapons are secondary to decisive action by the people. The enemy can have the biggest, baddest weapons imaginable, and still human action would be primary. The idea that some wonder weapon can just magically overcome this was a fantasy of Nazism that only produced embarrassment after embarrassment, and the fear of these wonder weapons is its "left" counterpart borne from Khrushchevite revisionism:
<In the view of Marxist-Leninists, the people are the makers of history. In the present, as in the past, man is the decisive factor. Marxist-Leninists attach importance to the role of technological change, but it is wrong to belittle the role of man and exaggerate the role of technology.
<The emergence of nuclear weapons can neither arrest the progress of human history nor save the imperialist system from its doom, any more than the emergence of new techniques could save the old systems from their doom in the past.
<The emergence of nuclear weapons does not and cannot resolve the fundamental contradictions in the contemporary world, does not and cannot alter the law of class struggle, and does not and cannot change the nature of imperialism and reaction.
<It cannot, therefore, be said that with the emergence of nuclear weapons the possibility and the necessity of social and national revolutions have disappeared, or the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism, and especially the theories of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat and of war and peace, have become outmoded and changed into stale "dogmas".

>>2933751
>>2933751
>Sure they haven't, because no party in these countries
No, it's because the benefit of remaining complacent is far, far greater than the cost of revolting in the short and medium term.
>It is defeatist and chauvinist to pretend the defeat of imperialism can happen without revolutionary action within the imperial core.
It's defeatist to acknowledge the material reality that the Global North proletariat has a structural stake in indefinitely maintaining imperialism?
>Powerful how.
The imperial core posses far more resources available to it to dominate the periphery than vice-versa. This is why revolutionary action in the Global South has been thoroughly stymied.
>The idea that some wonder weapon can just magically overcome this was a fantasy of Nazism that only produced embarrassment after embarrassment
What are you talking about? The Allied powers won WW2 precisely because they were stronger than Germany.

>>2933751
MaoAnon, I always appreciate your thoughful posts. I want you to know they don't fall on deaf ears even if many of the posters here are genuinely reactionary and/or more interested in trolling than having a genuine dialog.

>>2933758
> it's because the benefit of remaining complacent is far, far greater than the cost of revolting in the short and medium term
To add on to this, the chauvinism and trotskyism is created by these conditions where you have a service oriented precariat contrasted with the labor aristocratic tech industry. MLM only seems to sprout up from semi feudal conditions where you have genuine masses of landless peasants, like Peru, India, Philippines, and Nepal.

>>2933771
He’s like one of two or three posters even trying at this point

I love possum

>>2933758
>it's because the benefit of remaining complacent is far, far greater than the cost of revolting in the short and medium term.
You're mechanically distorting the very real issue of the labor aristocracy, ignoring the other internal contradictions within the imperial core, particularly the US, which makes revolutionary action possible. I am specifically referring to the national contradiction here — the internal reflection of the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations which is presently the principal contradiction worldwide. Yes, dominant nation workers are primarily a labor aristocracy, not a proletariat. But leaving it at that and declaring the whole endeavor pointless is ignoring two things: principally that oppressed nations within the imperial core (those colonized and diasporas) can be and are drawn into solidarity with the global majority as they're generally deprived of some or all benefits of existing in the imperial core. Secondarily, it must also be acknowledged that through contact and struggle with the genuinely oppressed a minority of the oppressor nation can be pulled towards the revolutionary camp. The nationally oppressed and those in solidarity with them — though a minority — is capable of revolutionary action in pursuit of their own demands and in solidarity with the objectives of the International Communist Movement. This can never be the main or leading force of the world revolutionary struggle, but it is a crucial one if we are to overcome the labor aristocracy and turn the coming inter-imperialist world war into revolutionary civil wars.
>It's defeatist to acknowledge the material reality that the Global North proletariat has a structural stake in indefinitely maintaining imperialism?
Read my post again. I am not objecting to identifying the first world worker (not proletariat) as having a stake in maintaining imperialism. My point is that leaving things at that is essentially failing to have anything useful to say for genuine revolutionaries in the first or third world. You aren't viewing the full picture — the principal or secondary contradictions globally or nationally — and you're instead positioning the third world as needing to do the work for the first world, rather than the International Communist Movement moving in its totality. This is just taking Lenin's theory of the labor aristocracy and using it as an excuse for labor aristocratic complacency and defeatism.
>The imperial core posses far more resources available to it to dominate the periphery than vice-versa.
And they will continue to have that until the day they are defeated. Again you're spouting what's basically a boring truism and leaving it at that. Are you a Marxist, or not? The point is to change the world, not endlessly spout off about what it is. The whites in Russia were backed by all the imperialist countries while the Reds were stuck with a shattered economy and building a new kind of state from scratch, and still the whites lost. Why do you think that is? Do you think the Vietnamese won against the US simply because they had the backing of the Soviets and Chinese? That would be nonsense, it was the ill-equipped but ingenious guerilla forces in the South that made victory for the Communists possible. Resources are nice to have but it's always the people who drive change. A nation of people united against imperialism is all-powerful. You by yourself with a personal nuke couldn't even put a dent in imperialism.
>The Allied powers won WW2 precisely because they were stronger than Germany.
Again, stronger how? Germany's most costly defeats were against the Soviet Union, an enemy which by all accounts was technologically inferior to it at the start of the war. What the USSR had that the Nazis didn't was the combined willpower of several nations of people who world rather die than be slaves to imperialism again. Why do you think the US didn't immediately go to war against the USSR or China when they were weakened after the war? Because it would lose, or at the very least only win with unacceptable losses. US imperialist strategists themselves acknowledge this. Owen Lattimore in 1949 says:
<Asia is out of control. From Suez to the western Pacific we face one problem after another, in one country after another, which we cannot settle either by an American decision or by joint action with countries that we consider our allies.
<From the Arab countries to China, the old forms of ascendancy, protectorate, or rule cannot be reasserted by military action. We have already had enough experience to prove that the more modem and highly equipped is the military force that is used, the more expensive is the failure eventually inflicted on it by cheap methods of guerrilla warfare that require no industrial support. An attempt to stun the peoples of Asia by atomic warfare is out of the question, except for madmen….
<Nor can Asia be starved out or coerced economically. Everywhere in Asia the local resources are ample enough to enable the people to survive without being more miserable even they resist military coercion: and that degree of misery is one which they are prepared to endure. Being willing to hold out, they have the upper hand over us; for we need the oil, rubber, tin, and other products of Asia even more than the peoples of Asia need our capital, tractors, textile and mining machinery, technicians, and teachers.
Reducing the loss of the Germans to "the allies were stronger" underestimates the willpower required to defeat fascism by the working class and implicitly feeds into the narrative of the Nazis as geniuses who were simply overwhelmed by the sheer firepower of the allies long-term. The Nazis were a bunch of coked-up opportunists who were able to ride the wave of excitement from the German bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and labor aristocracy to redistribute the spoils of imperialism for themselves. When the labor aristocracy lost their position, and the petty bourgeoisie suffered under wartime economic restrictions, their willpower dried up and couldn't sustain the war effort against the Soviet people and the people of occupied territories (not to mention German Communist insurgents) who were only becoming more and more determined to win. Unable to recognize the position they were in, the Nazis tried all sorts of "wonder weapons" which all (literally) crashed and burned. Even those which became operational like the V2 missile had zero effect on the war.

>>2934086
>ignoring the other internal contradictions within the imperial core, particularly the US, which makes revolutionary action possible
I haven't ignored anything. I simply said the contradictions in the imperial core are not as acutely felt, which thus makes revolution in the core unattractive. You have not presented any evidence why revolution is attractive in the core in the short and medium term.
>Yes, dominant nation workers are primarily a labor aristocracy, not a proletariat.
Even this is false. A labor aristocracy is still a proletariat. Labor aristocracy is only a strata from within the proletariat.
>principally that oppressed nations within the imperial core (those colonized and diasporas) can be and are drawn into solidarity with the global majority as they're generally deprived of some or all benefits of existing in the imperial core
Evidence? Labor aristocracy effect makes the proletariat in the core are more likely to side with their national bourgeoisie than their fellow periphery class compatriots.
>though a minority
Not only are they a minority, but they are essentially non-existent.
>And they will continue to have that until the day they are defeated
Truism.
>Again you're spouting what's basically a boring truism and leaving it at that. Are you a Marxist, or not? The point is to change the world, not endlessly spout off about what it is.
You can't accuse me of truism, when that is all your argument boils down to. It's not a truism, it's the reality of the Global South; revolutionary action has been throughly defeated, marginalized, or co-opted. Seeking to change the world without acknowledging this material reality is idealism.
>The whites in Russia were backed by all the imperialist countries while the Reds were stuck with a shattered economy and building a new kind of state from scratch, and still the whites lost
Hogwash. The Whites lost because they were a pastiche of uncoordinated groups only unified by their opposition to the Bolsheviks. They were led by incompetent fools, and they never controlled the industrial areas of Western Russia.
>Do you think the Vietnamese won against the US simply because they had the backing of the Soviets and Chinese
They won because the US chose to abandon South Vietnam. Even then, Vietnam is not an example of a successful socialist revolution, as Vietnam was almost immediately dragged into another conflict by China, as well as the US, and then eventually co-opted into the capitalist-imperialist global economy which is a victory for the United States.
>Resources are nice to have but it's always the people who drive change. A nation of people united against imperialism is all-powerful.
There is no "united" people.
>Again, stronger how?
Militarily, economically, strategically. You know, the way wars are actually won.
>What the USSR had that the Nazis didn't was the combined willpower of several nations of people who world rather die than be slaves to imperialism again.
Hogwash. The Soviet industry, backed by imperialist Lend-Lease, allowed the Soviets to outproduce Germany in tanks, aircraft, and other crucial military equipment used on the Eastern Front. Meanwhile, the Germans were overstretched in a two-front war and could never keep up with the combined industrial might of the US, UK, and USSR. The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze is a decent book on this topic.
"Combined willpower?" Bullshit. The Soviets were unilaterally probing the possibility of a negotiated peace agreement with the Nazis as late as 1943. By then, the Soviets were on the verge of severe food shortages and manpower was essentially drained; too many casualties, too many desertions, too many defections to the Nazi cause. It was only after the Battle of Kursk and the upping of Lend-Lease did the Soviets grind their way to victory. Your romanticized view of WW2 is, again, idealist.
>Why do you think the US didn't immediately go to war against the USSR or China when they were weakened after the war
The US benefited from the continued existence of a Soviet boogeyman, as it gave them a reason to remain entrenched in not only Western Europe, but much of the Global South. After all, the US aided and abetted the Soviets' Bolshevization of Eastern Europe during WW2. Manufacturing your own enemies is a longstanding tradition of American imperialism.
>US imperialist strategists themselves acknowledge this. Owen Lattimore in 1949 says
And the US won the Cold War, so…
>Reducing the loss of the Germans to "the allies were stronger" underestimates the willpower required to defeat fascism by the working class and implicitly feeds into the narrative of the Nazis as geniuses who were simply overwhelmed by the sheer firepower of the allies long-term. The Nazis were a bunch of coked-up opportunists who were able to ride the wave of excitement from the German bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and labor aristocracy to redistribute the spoils of imperialism for themselves. When the labor aristocracy lost their position, and the petty bourgeoisie suffered under wartime economic restrictions, their willpower dried up and couldn't sustain the war effort against the Soviet people and the people of occupied territories (not to mention German Communist insurgents) who were only becoming more and more determined to win. Unable to recognize the position they were in, the Nazis tried all sorts of "wonder weapons" which all (literally) crashed and burned. Even those which became operational like the V2 missile had zero effect on the war.
One massive strawman. Way to go. The German Wunderwaffe is NOT a testament to Germany's aggregate military and industrial might, scientifically impressive as they were. The Wunderwaffe was a desperate attempt to overcome Germany's industrial shortcomings vis-a-vis the Allies.

>>2934121 (me)
Sorry if my writing was a bit shit. I'm on my phone at work, so I kind of half-assed it.

a Marxist revolution has never taken place the first world
a Marxist revolution has succeeded in the periphery

>>2936158
>a Marxist revolution has never taken place
Could've stopped there.

>>2933117
I said the same thing and was called a social democrat.

>>2936281
and they were right