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TRUE communism!

Cross-posted from "TRUE communism!" by @Muaddib@sopuli.xyz in !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

The Democratic People's Republic of Tankiejerk @lemmy.world
PugJesus @lemmy.world

TRUE communism!
Political Memes @lemmy.world
Muad'dib @sopuli.xyz

TRUE communism!
473 comments

  • I understand that this is an anarchist comm, so you're free to post whatever you want, but I don't think it's productive to take a stance that fundamentally rests on misrepresenting what you're critiquing. Since you invoked my username in one of your comments here, I'd figure I'd give the Marxist stance its fair representation.

    First, there is no such thing as "true communism." The obsession over purity in politics is a result of dogmatism and book workship.

    Secondly, for Marxists, the stance isn't that you "do a state" and then "stop doing the state." For Marxists, not just Marxist-Leninists, the state is purely a body that resolves class contradictions through class oppression. It isn't hierarchy, and it isn't organization. Communism in the marxist conception, as a stateless society, is stateless in that once all property is collectively owned and planned, there is no class distinction. Administration remains, and is not to whither, as that's a necessary product of mass, industrialized production.

    Taking that into account, the state can only disappear if all class disappears, and class cannot be abolished until all global production is collectivized. There has never been that point, you cannot have communism in one country. You can be socialist, in that public property can be the principle aspect of the economy and the state can be proletarian in character, but the state can never whither until all states are socialist, interconnected, and borders fading away into one democratic system.

    Socialist countries like the PRC do rely on commodity production to engage with the global economy, as they must for the time being. They can't achieve a global system as one single country. As long as the state holds control of the large firms and key industries, and resolves class contradictions in the favor of the proletariat and against the bourgeoisie, then as the economy develops and grows it will continue to take on an increasingly socialized character. You cannot "declare socialized production" with the stroke of a pen, it's something that must arise from development. That doesn't mean the character of an economy that is dominated by public ownership is capitalist, either, just that it is on the "socialist road," ie it is socialist, and working its way to higher levels of socialization until communism is achieved.

    This is all starkly different from the anarchist position, that we can develop from the outset a decentralized, horizontalist society. I'm not going to debatelord here, this is an anarchist comm, but if you're going to misrepresent the views of Marxists, then I feel you're doing a disservice by making anarchists less prepared to engage in productive conversation with Marxists.

    • That doesn't mean the character of an economy that is dominated by public ownership is capitalist, either, just that it is on the "socialist road," ie it is socialist, and working its way to higher levels of socialization until communism is achieved.

      This is the crux of the disagreement between anarchists and MLs. I would argue that state ownership - if the state does not adequately represent the will of the people - is not public ownership. A hierarchical state with a flawed and bureaucratic democracy that is prone to corruption inevitably creates and maintains a class of bureaucrats with social, political, and economic privilege. The state - in order to preserve itself - maintains a monopoly on collective ownership, preventing workers from organizing on their own terms.

      This is what anarchists mean when they call something "state capitalist." They are arguing that the state itself is a private entity pretending to represent the will of the people.

      • I'd say the real crux of the argument is in full centralization and collectivization, or full horizontalism and decentralization. The endpoints are different, so the means are different.

        Either way, I don't agree that administrators represent a class. Public property is not bourgeois property, it doesn't exist in the M-C-M' circuit of production, it's collective and planned. Even if there's administration, it's a physical, real thing. There will be flaws, there will be issues, but to let perfect be the enemy of progress is an issue. It's less about some metaphysical "will of the workers" and more about material relationships to the means of production and the sublimation of property.

        Secondly, the state doesn't "preserve itself," at least the Marxist conception of the state. The state isn't a class, it's a representative of a class, and when all property has been sublimated, there is no class, and no state. There still exists administration, but not special bodies of armed men to oppress other classes, as there are no classes to oppress.

    • It feels a bit disingenuous to hear the following:

      to engage in productive conversation with Marxists.

      I mean I got your point the other day, that I shouldn't necessarrily argue about Communistic dogma without reading all the literature, but I had to fight tooth and nail to get to that point and not just be waved away as a bad faith actor. So I was already working hard just to be told to go and read up.

      OP is using the same intensity hammer you guys got going on over there. Is it fair?

      • I don't remember having this convo with you, so I don't have any reference for that convo. OP is misrepresenting the Marxist stance. It's one thing to critique the genuine positions Marxists have, it's another entirely to invent a strawman to argue against. The intensity of the argument isn't the problem, the illegitimacy of the argument is.

    • As long as the state holds control of the large firms and key industries, and resolves class contradictions in the favor of the proletariat and against the bourgeoisie, then as the economy develops and grows it will continue to take on an increasingly socialized character.

      When has this been achieved in communism?

      • Cuba, USSR, PRC, etc, though these are/were socialist. Communism, in the Marxist sense (not anarchist), must be global, fully collectivized, etc, while these are examples of single states in the context of a globally capitalist-dominant system. Nevertheless, they are all examples of socialism, where as they developed as socialist countries their economies became increasingly developed and collectivized.

        The USSR dissolved for myriad reasons, such as liberal reforms that set elements of the system against each other, and the PRC at one point under the Gang of Four tried to shortcut its way to communism out of a dogmatic approach to socialism, but post-reform as the PRC has been developing, it has steadily been increading the socialized character of its production. The large firms and key industries are firmly held by a proletarian state, and over time as the small and medium firms grow, these are more and more controlled by the public sector.

  • Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of the factory owner.

    • I guess it's tempting to say stuff like this when you can point to capitalists moving their factories to China to take advantage of cheap costs of production, but you do realize that capital is recoiling in total fear of the monster that their investment in a legitimately socialist country has created, right? If Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of the factory owner, why are American imperialists (who politically answer to and are controlled by the forces of capital) so dead-set on isolating and crushing China? Why are they trying to open 3 fronts around China, separating them from Iran and Russia, as well as creating a proxy army in Taiwan?

      Furthermore, why is it that liberals and fascists can more or less be trusted to reliably communicate what their intentions are (within some margin of error, it's especially necessary substitute "development" for "colonization" when you listen to them talk about the economy), but when it comes to communists they actually mean the opposite of what they say? Fascists are pretty open about believing that the causes of conflict are the impure rabble that have corrupted the noble races. Liberals are pretty open about believing that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the system of liberal democracy in the West, the problems are with foreign influence (Russiagate, TikTok) and with poor regulation/over regulation, or with too little government influence and too much (depends on which side of the Keynesianism debate a liberal lands). But when communists say, labor must seize the means of production and become the rulers of society, what they really mean is that a small cabal of vanguardists should rule over the workers like dictators? Why is it that the communists are understood as inherently duplicitous?

      edit: Maybe I'm naive to expect a response but I did feel like expanding on my argument about the suspicion placed on communists that isn't placed in equal measure on fascists, particularly. There is a sense in which fascists are duplicitous, hide behind many layers of masks like the ever-present chan-board irony culture that has actually influenced much of the modern internet. But communists are the opposite! Communists can't operate behind secrecy and with the kinds of tactics that fascists employ because communists rely on the masses. For communists to be successful, they can't trick the masses into believing one thing, then implement another; they must educate the masses about what the masses must themselves do, then empower the masses to carry out revolution. I think that Roderic Day does a good job of explaining this phenomenon in his essay Really Existing Fascism, where he even generalizes the instinct to conceal reactionary aims to also apply in equal measure to 21st century liberals:

      According to Marx, solidary forms of social organization that in the past had arisen simply out of need and circumstance, which were equally superseded by need and circumstance (by the efficient oppression of man by man, by slavery), were to make an emancipatory comeback. However, this time around they would be enshrined and protected by masses of conscious workers, workers who know the value of their labour, who demand an economy that they have made, that they know they have made, and that they are capable of remaking ongoingly. [60]

      Nietzsche, if we accept the reading of him as the ultimate fascist philosopher, is easily understood as making an analogous plea to his own reactionary constituency. Where Hannah Arendt and John Seeley try to claim that Western colonization and slavery were “absentminded” pursuits, Nietzsche persuades readers that there is glory in all of it, if done properly, aesthetically, “beyond good and evil.” Where Marx wants the masses to rediscover “primitive communism,” only this time consciously, Nietzsche wants elites to pursue the brutal programme of “primitive accumulation,” only this time consciously and without private shame.

      I say private because, in anti-symmetry with Marx, and fully aware of the danger of letting people know what he’s really about, Nietzsche recommends concealing one’s aims. Thus we come to understand Nietzsche’s warm reception in the liberal West, whose architects turn out to be much better pupils of Nietzsche than the Nazis ever were. George Kennan posits American supremacy as an end in itself, donning a perfectly serviceable mask of liberal pluralism, then goes on to play an important role in planning several decades of “Pax Americana” on the basis of genocidal terrorism. The defining characteristic of the fascist is that they defend their anti-egalitarianism purposefully. The fundamental cleavage between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism is simply the heightened awareness, given the Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions of the 20th century, that it is tactically expedient to wear a mask.

      • legitimately socialist country has created

        What legitimately socialist country? Are you referring to the one where "Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics" is the law of the land, perhaps?

        so dead-set on isolating and crushing China?

        It's a complete mystery, I tell you... why would the US want to crush it's most powerful imperialist rival? You know... the one that helped the US push the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan back in the 80s?

        Furthermore, why is it that liberals and fascists can more or less be trusted to reliably communicate

        Lol!

        Liberals can be trusted when they pretend that liberalism is compatible with democracy? Fascists can be trusted when they pretend to be doing something in the interests of nationalism?

        Again... lol.

        Why is it that the communists are understood as inherently duplicitous?

        History, perhaps?

        because communists rely on the masses

        Oh, yeah... they rely on the "masses," all right. I guess the Gulags existed to keep them "reliable," eh?

        they can’t trick the masses into believing one thing, then implement another;

        You mean that exact thing all the (supposedly) "Actually Existing Socialist" countries have been doing since their inception to one degree or the other?

        The fundamental cleavage between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism

        There would only be a point to this if we were discussing liberalism. But it's not liberals brigading this post, is it now?

473 comments