Let's reinvent communism

I, for one, agree with RW Emerson II. The Left is divided into many factions:

1. Marxists (Classical Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, "Stalinists", anti-Revisionists)

2. Revisionists (Left Communists, Trotskyists, Maoists, Khrushchevites, Brezhnevites, Titoists, adherents to Juche, etc.)

3. Other leftists (mostly Anarchists)

There is too much bickering amongst the Left so we are too weak to unify the workers. We are all comrades in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, but I will say that the revisionists and others will have no place in the new world. Regardless, we all aim to bring peace and freedom to the proletariat so we can start from there.

TovarishchMovrov wrote:

I, for one, agree with RW Emerson II. The Left is divided into many factions:

1. Marxists (Classical Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, "Stalinists", anti-Revisionists)
2. Revisionists (Left Communists, Trotskyists, Maoists, Khrushchevites, Brezhnevites, Titoists, adherents to Juche, etc.)
3. Other leftists (mostly Anarchists)

There is too much bickering amongst the Left so we are too weak to unify the workers. We are all comrades in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, but I will say that the revisionists and others will have no place in the new world. Regardless, we all aim to bring peace and freedom to the proletariat so we can start from there.

Exactly! I'm not saying that we all have to think alike. Diversity is strength. No one person sees the whole picture, so some people may achieve results in one area and some in another.

What I object to is a narrow-minded intolerant arrogant attitude. I'm thinking of the movement in general, not of anyone in particular. When we have a positive open-minded attitude, we attract others into the movement. When we have a negative attitude, we self-destruct. When we need to criticize others, we should offer the person a better or more effective approach!

This is really an exciting time to be alive! The Bolsheviks were 100 years ahead of their time. Now, history has caught up!

I think that one of the reasons why the movement is so fragmented is because it has had so little success, not the other way around. Marxists of various persuasion can't change the actual world they live in (try as they might) and so all that's left is to debate over theory and re-hash past "glories". Not particularly appealing and one of the main reasons why I have never been a member of a party.

That said, there are some Marxist parties out there whom I disagree with so much that I see their line as more damaging to the Marxist movement than helping.

gRed Britain wrote:

I think that one of the reasons why the movement is so fragmented is because it has had so little success, not the other way around. Marxists of various persuasion can't change the actual world they live in (try as they might) and so all that's left is to debate over theory and re-hash past "glories". Not particularly appealing and one of the main reasons why I have never been a member of a party.

That said, there are some Marxist parties out there whom I disagree with so much that I see their line as more damaging to the Marxist movement than helping.

I agree with you!

By the way, we are changing the world! We change it with every breath, with every word we speak, with every attitude we share!

We don't notice these small but important changes, becase we're hoping for large revolutionary change, the kind that takes a hundred years to develop. Hope leads to disappointment which leads to paralysis. We achieve more without hope, simply by persisting, doing what's right day by day, doing our part.

We struggle not because we hope to win: We struggle because we love to fight for truth, justice, peace, humanity, freedom and the future. Love inspires us, not hope! As James Hillman once reminded us, hope was the last and worst of the evils to escape from Pandora's box. Maybe that is one reason why the West lionizes hope: "pie in the sky", as opposed to "here and now"

Why is it that we think we have "little success"? Do we actually want to succeed? If so, the first thing we need to learn is the art of communication: How do we reach and inspire other people? Here, the place to start is with ourselves. I think our minds are fragmented, because there are many unanswered questions and unresolved issues, many compartments that we are afraid to explore. To convince others, we need to be convinced ourselves. So what, exactly, do we know for certain? Convince me!

sup guize

gred wrote:

al Qaeda and ISIS blowing up Iraqi and Syrian civilians is the West's fault?

so you think isis would exist if there had been proper state structures in place in the region?

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Bombing actually disrupts trade and resource acquisition.

omg how dense are you. bombing allows for puppet regimes to be put in place. it is literally what happened in iraq.

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If imperialism is beneficial to the vast majority of workers in the West, how and why are they supposed to overthrow it?

living standards have been falling all over the west for like a decade now. that is what's going to make them move. this is not rocket science

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The problem with Lenin's theory of imperialism though, is that it places so much emphasis on supposed wealth extracted from abroad (so-called "super-profits") that many Marxists neglectfully and simplistically come to think that the source of all Western wealth is third world labour.

lol not really. there's a shitload of production happening in the west and nobody denies this

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But since the world market is ultimately people and not territory, let's not forget that the world market keeps expanding simply through population growth.

except you know if their wages keep falling and they can't buy all the stuff that's being produced :/

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It's doing better than it ever has.

https://www.google.at/search?q=climate+ ... 80&bih=646

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Why is humanity thriving?

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Then why aren't there a lot more wars?

it's not like we're not getting there lol

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sup guize

And I thought these days were gone forever

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so you think isis would exist if there had been proper state structures in place in the region?

Probably not but then terrorist groups are perfectly capable of thriving in areas with proper state structures in place. See al-Qaeda in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and the IRA in Northern Ireland.

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omg how dense are you. bombing allows for puppet regimes to be put in place. it is literally what happened in iraq.

You've taken me out of context. I was replying to Dagoth who linked constant bombing of the global south with resource extraction. The West extracts billions of $ worth of resources from Africa and it doesn't need to bomb it to do it. Look at the South African mining industry. When was the last time the West bombed South Africa?

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living standards have been falling all over the west for like a decade now. that is what's going to make them move. this is not rocket science

Correct, correct, correct. But again, out of context. I was responding to the assertion that imperialism benefits everyone in the West. If this is so, how can we expect people to oppose it?

Living standards have been dropping in the West but I don't put it down to imperialism.

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except you know if their wages keep falling and they can't buy all the stuff that's being produced

Yep, and automation is going to have a real impact on this as demand for workers decreases meaning wages fall but fewer people will have money to buy the products that are being produced. This will reduce prices and profit margins.

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Why is humanity thriving?

Yes, there's plenty of suffering in the world still, but then this has always been the case for most humans for thousands of years. As a species we are generally doing better than we ever have, even in developing countries.

TovarishchMovrov wrote:

There is too much bickering amongst the Left so we are too weak to unify the workers. We are all comrades in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, but I will say that the revisionists and others will have no place in the new world. Regardless, we all aim to bring peace and freedom to the proletariat so we can start from there.

"plz help me take power so i can kill you"

Only someone with no real activism experience could say half the shit in this thread. Left unity is bullshit. Marxist-Leninism, ML-MZT, and MLM are the vast majority lf leftists. Ultras and classical, aka armchair, Marxists have awful analysis and actually cause more harm than they help.