3d ago

I'm A Communist

168 comments

Communism stateless anti authoritarian? Are we not confused with Anarchism?
- The end goal of Communism is for what we know as "the state" to wither away as peoples of all nations learn to function together. Each state that exists currently must choose Socialism. Be it revolution with words and actions, or by a armed uprising to force out those that refuse to stop supporting the dictatorship of the bourgeois.
  All acts of revolution are an exertion of authority/will over what exists. Anarchists believe (at least very generally speaking, but I will yield my own lack of understanding) that "the state" should go away from the jump. Which from a Communist or non-anarcho versions of Socialism/Communism perspective doesn't work at the scale of whole nations that we have. Especially while the bulk of everyday people still need things they already know or need to function as they learn to place peoples' needs over profits. Being fair, this mass learning is crucial for all versions of anti-capitalist/imperialist political spectrum.
  Though I can see how real dedicated Anarchists that hold the revolutionary spirit and the will to put in the very hard work could happen in smaller scales. Like in getting folks in rural areas to collectivize various farms to grow and rotate crops and everyone that can contribute work/resources. Or in small towns where everyone already kind of knows everyone to some level. Small towns with lots of rural areas around them would be like the best option of course.
- The distinction between Marxists and the anarchists is this: (1) The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, recognize that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as the result of the establishment of socialism, which leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish the state completely overnight, not understanding the conditions under which the state can be abolished. (2) The former recognize that after the proletariat has won political power it must completely destroy the old state machine and replace it by a new one consisting of an organization of the armed workers, after the type of the Commune. The latter, while insisting on the destruction of the state machine, have a very vague idea of what the proletariat will put in its place and how it will use its revolutionary power. The anarchists even deny that the revolutionary proletariat should use the state power, they reject its revolutionary dictatorship. (3) The former demand that the proletariat be trained for revolution by utilizing the present state. The anarchists reject this.
  https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch06.htm
  
  What does "Commune" entail in this context?
  
  A Commune, in Marxist-Leninist theory, is a revolutionary political-economic structure where the proletariat collectively owns and democratically controls the means of production, abolishing capitalist hierarchies and bourgeois state machinery. It is rooted in the analysis of the Paris Commune of 1871 by Marx and Engels who saw it as a prototype of proletarian dictatorship. The key aspect of a commune is that it embodies direct workers' democracy, dismantling the separation between state and society. Lenin further expanded this as a transitional framework where a decentralized network of soviets composed of laborers self-govern, eroding class distinctions and advancing toward a stateless, classless communism.
  
  Are there any examples of this 'late stage Communism'? I thought it was more about the central planning aspect. And if not are the USSR/China/Russia even Communist?
  
  Late-Stage Communism must be global, so no, it hasn't existed yet. The USSR and PRC are examples of Socialist countries governed by Communist parties trying to bring about Communism.
  
  Does a global expansion require imperialism? Getting the entire world to sign up before dissolving sounds pretty mission impossible.
  
  For about 30 years from around 1950 the American government believed communism was so liable to spread that their only option for maintaining a capitalist world hegemony was direct intervention in communist countries and countries with strong communist movements. See: domino theory. They even worried about it domestically which was part of the motivation for McCarthyism.
  
  Spreading revolution is not imperialism. Imperialism isn't just "when I invade another country" it has a specific economic meaning
  
  If by Imperialism you mean millitant expansionism, no. If by Imperialism you mean the form of economic extraction practiced by countries like the US, also no. The basis for the abolition of borders isn't one of legalistic matters, but economic redundancy. Borders become more and more unnecessary in more and more interconnected economies, and even become a barrier on progress, ergo they will wither over time much the same way the state would.
  
  The contradictions of capitalism are universal and inherent to the system. Much the contrary, as soon as the major seats of global financial capital are defeated I don't see why the unwashed masses of the world would wait very long to seize power. As the system currently stands, comprador colonial governments only maintain stability because they can buy weapons and maintain large armies thanks to the imperialist powers.
  
  It's an ideological competition between different ways of organizing society. We have a western model of capitalist organization and the socialist model advanced by China. The western model is visibly failing in every regard right now, so there is every reason to expect that more and more countries will look to Chinese model as a result.
  
  I feel like the Chinese model is already way too far into pragmatism to ever idealistically flip the switch to abolishing their state at the endgame.
  
  There won’t be a moment where the “abolish capitalism and the state” button is pressed. That’s not how these things works. They are intractable society wide slow changes like a glacier that move slow but cannot be stopped. Was there a moment where feudal kings pressed the “abolish feudalism” button and the rich became the new rulers? No, it was a hundreds year long process of lurching progress
  
  The abolition of the state isn't a legalistic choice, but a result of the abolition of class. The abolition of class is an economic result, not a legalistic choice either.
  I think you're confusing the state with all government and structure, which isn't what Marxists are talking about when we speak of the withering of the state.
  
  So if everyone gets rich we have Communism?
  Also I read some of your other link as well, but it went into tangents about elite friend groups and while it was interesting I felt like watching one of those 2 hour videos about speedrunning where you get a huge infodump but are not sure what to take away from it.
  
  This is all so wrong. First of all, most anarchist advocate for prefiguritive politics, or "building a new world within the shell of the old" which is why things like Food Not Bombs exists, along with many many other anarchist projects specifically aimed at building a stateless, moneyless, classes society. They don't NOT want to simply abolish the state completely overnight.
  Anarchists have come up with a WHOLE lot of ways that a society could be run, and they generally don't think that there's a one size fits all solution that would work for everybody.
  You haven't read a single thing about anarchism that didn't come from a Marxist source, have you?
  
  There still has to be a point where there is a state and then a point where there is not. Are you advocating for seizing control of that state before it seizes to exist, or does your political program want to stay outside of the state until the state stops existing?
  
  That really depends on the anarchist and what they believe about how capitalism comes to an end. But that's all theory anyway. Anarchists are usually considers materialists, so theory usually comes second to practice. Like, "If I can fill that pothole on my street right now, then why not just do it? For example.
  
  Anarchists are not materialists for the most parts, and the ones that are are cribbing from Marxism
  
  The VAST majority of anarchists are, in fact, cribbing from Marxism. Anarchists don't generally reject Marxian economic analysis.
  
  Anarchists are usually considers materialists, so theory usually comes second to practice.
  That's not what materialism means
  
  Sure, but can you offer me at least one example? I don't mean to bore you with the Socratic method so I should just lay my cards on the table:
  In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
  Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that's really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You're just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
  
  Sure, but can you offer me at least one example?
  Yes I can. But you may not be totally satisfied, because anarchists and Marxists view the "revolutionary project" as slightly different things. My previous hypothetical about potholes wasn't actually hypothetical. It was based on a real thing called PARC (Portland Anarchist Road Care) which I had the pleasure of participating in back in 2017.
  There's the old standard Food Not Bombs which has fed probably millions of people since the early 80s and are often the first people on the scene in the wake of a natural disaster along with anarchist darlings Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  But if you're looking for things that more closely emulate state level actions, you're going to be more out of luck, as anarchists don't advocate for a state at all, and so that would be a little antithetical. There are, however, a few examples to point to when it comes to highly intricate levels of organization and resources distribution. For example the aforementioned Zapatistas who don't claim to be anarchists (there movement is much more multifaceted and intersectional due to the intersecting indigenous rights issues), but they DO adhere to primarily anarchist principle. There's also Rojava or Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which operates on a sort of localized version of Social Ecology/Libertarian Municipalism called Democratic Confederalism, that was, and it's worth noting, developed out of an ostensibly Marxist-Leninist structure.
  Of course there are historical examples in Revolutionary Catalonia and the Makhnovshchina, both of which I genuinely believe would have more successful with a little left unity.
  In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
  This is a valid critique. I personally tend to envision a scenario that would NECESSITATE mutual aid (think, the total dissolution of anything that resembles social welfare in a given location or a massive natural disaster or just the inevitability of destabilization due to climate change), which would have the positive side effect of concentrating more power into the hands of the proletariat. But there's certainly other ideas about exactly HOW a revolution would take place, I just don't personally tend to concern myself with those.
  Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that's really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You're just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
  This really depends on what you mean. Anarchists usually see the state and capitalism and inextricably linked, and to defeat one, you must defeat both. But many anarchists also consider capitalism to be inherently unstable and prone to crashes, affording a prime opportunity to step in and show people that people are capable of taking care of people. But I wouldn't consider the inevitability of the state using force against the proletariat as "using the state to wage class war", as much as revolutionary potential.
  *I'm really sorry this is so long, but you gave me a lot to think about and I didn't want to just give you a bullshit non answer.
  
  Thank you for the thoughtful answer. I'll reflect on those points.
  Just one final question that's a bit unrelated: I've seen a tendency online from anarchists to be extremely critical of revolution, in general. Some say that Marxists are doing nothing because they're all waiting for "the glorious revolution" that will fix all problems. Some say that revolution is a gradual process that happens through many reforms. Other say that revolutionary politics are reactionary because the revolution will inevitably harm a lot of marginalized people, like the disabled who won't have their care infrastructure while there is a civil war going on. I think you can probably spot a lot of contradictions and weaknesses in those arguments, maybe to the point that it looks like I'm presenting a strawman. But I actually mean to ask with genuine interest: what do we say to those people? If there are people who lose faith in revolution because they're more concerned with morals and "anarchist principles" or "anti-authoritarian principles" to ever actually join a revolutionary struggle, how do we win them back?
  
  You've done nothing but act in good faith so far, and of course I will extend you the benefit of the doubt. Asking questions is how we learn, right?
  Honestly, I think the reason why a lot of anarchists tend to view Marxists as overly theoretical is because there a few of them participating in the everyday struggles. I can personally say (and this is purely anecdotal) that in actions I've taken part in, the committed Marxists that are there are some of the most loyal and trustworthy people I've ever been beaten up by cops with, but they are almost always the minority. It's usually a mix of various leftist tendencies, mostly anarchist, that are all there to achieve a common goal. Very liberal protests, for what it's worth, seem to have a tendency to attract large groups of Trotskyists.
  And then in big tent orgs I've been in, then MLs especially, are usually the ones pushing for electoralism and reform.
  Anarchism is a LARGE umbrella, kind of like Marxism. But anarchists that I know in real life are generally willing to put aside differences in petty ideology in order to accomplish a goal for the greater good.
  I run into people online ALL the time who blindly support the DPRK, the PRC and modern Russia out of some kind of, I don't know, ritual practice? ANYBODY political online (including both of us) should be treated with heaping mounds of scepticism.
  But to more directly answer your question: Anarchism has a history with nihilism. And it has a history with statist projects. And the two things are not mutually exclusive. You will be called "Tankie" the same as I will be called "Liberal", because nobody that's making those accusations really know what they're saying anyway.
  Personally, Tankie is a term reserved for very specifically people who defend the Soviet Union in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia . Nothing more or nothing less.
  Now, if you're talking about if you can count on anarchist comrades to take arms and fight against their oppressors, the answer is a definitive "yes". But if you're asking them to follow a vanguard that promises it has their best interests at heart, then that is a resounding, "no". Because hierarchy itself is challenged, there will be no capitulations on personal autonomy that doesn't originate specifically from the proletariat.
  
  Tankie is a term reserved for very specifically people who defend the Soviet Union in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
  Why Czechoslovakia? The term originally came from Hungary
  
  I mean, it's both. Hungary was the upper cut and Czech was the right hook. But regardless, if you don't have a blind allegiance to just any state calling itself socialist, then you probably aren't a Tankie, right?
  
  The fact that anarchists can't agree on a unified course of action is a big part of the reason why all these different ways of running society that people have dreamed up remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
  
  I'm not an anarchist but in their defense, while anarchism proper has never had lasting success the Zapatistas are much less centralized than other socialist experiments and have taken a lot of inspiration from anarchist principles. Left unity should mean that we take an earnest and good faith approach to learning about what we have in common, not just seizing any opportunity to dunk on the other "team."
  Also, even MLism still recognizes that different contradictions demand different approaches. Marx doesn't prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach either. For some revolutions the right move is a guerilla struggle. For others a general strike. For others it's about landless peasants doing protracted struggle. So on and so on.
  
  I generally agree that there's no one size fits all approach. However, any effective organization needs to be grounded in material reality. Discussing concrete examples of organization like Zapatistas is useful because they are achieving something tangible, but saying that people dreamed up plenty of ways to organize society is not very useful of itself.
  
  I just don't want to get into all the nitty gritty if you haven't done the reading. We could talk about mutualism, anarcho-communism, syndicalism, democratic confederalism, zapatistas, Makhnovshchina, social ecology, library socialism, etc, etc, etc if you want. We can talk about about all of those and specifically HOW they prescribe a society, how they could interact and/or intersect ALL DAY LONG. But anarchists tend to be materialists, and praxis often takes priority over just theory.
  
  But anarchists tend to be materialists, and praxis often takes priority over just theory.
  Are you implying this is somehow different from Marxists?
  
  I'm not, no. Because most anarchists I know ARE Marxists (at least in terms of economic analysis). But, in my experience, anarchists are the ones that are actually out there preventing fascist cop training grounds from being built, feeding the unhoused, smuggling people across state lines for healthcare, prison outreach, etc. Because (and this is genuinely just my own experience; I'm totally sure this isn't a universal constant) I see a lot of Marxists and MLs talking a lot about "when the revolution happens" and not a whole lot about the revolution being fought right now, everyday.
  
  I'm not sure who these MLs are that you're referring to, but the whole point of ML approach is to do all these things you're talking about and couple that with education that provides a clear theoretical understanding of what the problems are, and what the solutions need to be. The whole contribution of Lenin to Marxism was to provide the structure for organizing a revolutionary movement.
  
  And that was a useful framework in the early 20th century (I've at least read the April Theses), but can we not continue to adapt our revolutionary strategy to better combat the forces who opposed us today rather than in 1917?
  
  Because (and this is genuinely just my own experience; I'm totally sure this isn't a universal constant) I see a lot of Marxists and MLs talking a lot about "when the revolution happens" and not a whole lot about the revolution being fought right now, everyday.
  It's unfortunate that the MLs in your area are that way. I think it's interesting that I've seen the opposite where I am in the global south. Student groups tend to have a lot of wonderful anarchist tendencies and lots of people who have come to understand politics via online forums (I guess that's partly true of myself, except I sort of ended up on the other side). Meanwhile, when you go to Palestinian solidarity marches, the labor movement, and other things on the ground (well, except for when student groups demand something from the university) it looks a lot more traditional left wing, with the usual Trotskyist groups and some ML.
  I guess if I can point to anything in this dynamic it's that there isn't really a huge difference in how effective the different groups are at accomplishing their short term goals, so IMO it would just make more sense to figure out which ideological line is most attractive to the people it's supposed to serve in a given area and stick to that.
  
  I guess if I can point to anything in this dynamic it's that there isn't really a huge difference in how effective the different groups are at accomplishing their short term goals, so IMO it would just make more sense to figure out which ideological line is most attractive to the people it's supposed to serve in a given area and stick to that.
  I 100% agree
  
  There are at least six feuding Marxist orgs where I live, I don't think this is a valid critique of anarchism.
  
  Sure, in initial stages you'll have many different orgs. This was the case during Russian revolution as well. However, eventually a single unified vanguard emerges and people get on the same page regarding how to move forward. There is no mechanism for creating a unified vanguard under anarchist approach where there is no central authority by design.
  
  Good point.
  
  What a fucking straw man definition lmao
  The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, believe that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as the result of the establishment of state-socialism, which supposedly leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish the state completely overnight, understanding that the conditions under which the state can be abolished must be different from the conditions which allowed the state to flourish
  FTFY
  Also to me the biggest reason I call myself an anarchist is that I respect the diversity of not only tactics for abolition of the state and capital, but also the diversity of ways communal living may look when influenced by difference socioecological conditions.
  
  A socialist revolution cannot magically abolish relations that have been internalized by a society born out of capitalism. The notion that you can just flip a switch and transition from one type of society to another is precisely what underpins anarchist achievements to date.
  
  Marxists and Anarchists have a different view on what the "state" entails, and what constitutes "class." The former see the state as an instrument of class oppression, while the latter see it as an institution of hierarchy. The former see class as relations to production, the latter see class as relations of hierarchy.
  I recommend reading my comment here where I go over why this is the case, and why Marxists see Communism as a fully publicly owned and planned economy, while Anarchists see Communism as a fully decentralized network of communes, and neither recognizes the other as truly "stateless" or "classless" due to these differences.
- See my comment here.
  
  You better not be sending me into recursion when I click this
  
  hold my marxist theory, i'm going in.
  
  I swear every time I read some commie stuff I get halfway and it starts referencing other stuff which I click and then I get halfway and then it references something else and suddenly I'm reading critiques from 1800
  
  Lol. If we didn't do that then we would get accused of not including our sources. But i get your point, sometimes we can tend to be overly thorough.
  I view this as being a bit like mathematics. The things we say make sense to someone who is already versed in the subject but for someone who doesn't already understand or agree with certain concepts or ideas we don't necessarily want to rehash arguments that were already laid out in works a hundred years prior so we just refer back to those in the same way that when you do modern mathematics you don't need to repeat proofs that were already done in the 19th century. You can just take those theorems as given and if you are really interested in how they were derived you can still go back to the original literature and read up on it.
  Of course you can still engage with and understand the more advanced arguments even without going all the way back to the basics but then you need to accept certain things as axiomatic, because it would take too much time to go back and explain them every time.
  Let's say for instance that we are talking about imperialism. To clarify what exactly we mean when we talk about imperialism we may briefly give the Leninist definition of imperialism. You can either accept that this is the definition or you can ask why. Why is it defined that way and why does it make sense? Well for that you would have to go and read Lenin's work on Imperialism. Which in turn references but does not necessarily thoroughly explain certain concepts about the nature of capitalism that were worked out earlier by Marx.
  You see, you can either choose to go down this rabbit hole and invest the time it takes to really go to the basics and build up from there, or you can take it as given that this has already been worked out and you can try and understand how we apply it to the modern day, which saves time and is more practical. Neither is wrong, it just depends on your personal interest.
  
  At least this person is the polar opposite of that guy from yesterday who refused to watch that video about the great firewall, accused the author of being paid by the CPC, then refused to engage in any good faith until finally complaining about getting "dogpiled" lol.
  
  Definitely. I have liked the attitude i have seen so far from this person a lot. I think the most important thing is being curious and open to learning. Ignorance is only a sin if it's willful. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, some other people choose go to great efforts to remain ignorant.
  
  It's so hard to wrap my head around too. I know I grew up around much much more radical folks than your average westerner but still had to get over some internalized brainworms as I grew more mature but I never found it hard to be self critical and have always strove to be able to put myself in others shoes or challenge accepted narratives. On that last part I thank my parents and stepdad for inoculating me pretty well against bourgeois/imperialist propaganda. I remember I got called a lib quite a few times on the old CTH subreddit, but instead of telling everyone else they were wrong and acting smug or superior I dug into their claims and realized "oh shit I have totally been misinformed on or had the most important bits of almost all of history omitted. Fuck me, time to take my ass back to school".
  
  Humility is key to learning. Admitting that you can be wrong and don't know everything. Unfortunately in capitalist society the opposite behavior is encouraged and rewarded.
  
  I'm clicking all the "read my other comment" links until I've basically read Capital Vol. 1 in its entirety through Lemmy posts.
  
  Between that and a lifetime of low wage labor, by the time I started reading volume one I practically skimmed over the first 5 chapters because it all just seemed perfectly obvious when I went through it. If anyone else is trying to read capital but gets bored reading a bunch of simple algebra forms about bolts of linen and wage labor in the abstract because you already have a passing familiarity with Marxist concepts, I usually recommend people skim if not just skip ahead to Chapter 5 cuz that's where he really starts cooking once his whole economic proof is out of the way.
  
  You'll get vol. 2 and vol. 3 from watching all the dang lectures we link too.
  Here's the latest one I linked, Michael Hudson on Marxism, Parasites, and Debt Cancellation
  
  Lmao, I've tried to minimize my copy-pasting of comments over time so there's more links in my comments now, haha.
- Plenty of communists see a form of Anarchism as the goal endpoint, but realize the need for strong state power in the hands of workers to get there.
  
  Do you have any examples? I'm not aware of this, Marxists generally advocate for a centralized stateless society while Anarchists advocate for horizontalist structures, generally.
  
  I'm not thoroughly read up on theory and I'm not about to heavily defend the previous argument. I'm still not certain after reading in between replying here.
  I don't see why a centralized state can't have more flattened power hierarchies, especially as needs and material conditions are improved.
  
  The structure of society largely depends on the mode of production. As production advances well into Communism, it would likely flatten more and more, though administration and whatnot may still continue to exist.

168 comments