I didn’t mean to 🫠

Trotskyism is often just Marxism-Leninism, but anti-AES for nonsense reasons IMO. Some Trotskyist critique of capitalism and imperialism is good still, and Hudson is one of the better ones, though not perfect by any stretch. Trotskyism isn’t a particularly coherent ideology at a theoretical level, and is mostly distinguished by what it opposes.

We’ve been over this already, with sources I was able to provide. I directly responded to this. If you’re gonna complain about listening, don’t do it while repeating shit at me I already responded to.

And yet your sources contradict your claims, showing instead that Marx became convinced later in life of the real revolutionary opportunity in Russia, not that it outweighed the revolutionary opportunity in western Europe.

I listened to what you said, disagreed, and now you want to keep whining about it and insisting that its wrecker behaviour as if that’s respectful. Grow the fuck up or just leave it be.

Wrecker shit. You went beyond disagreement into misunderstanding, either deliberate, or deliberately refusing to acknowledge.

I suggest walking away, touching grass, and ideally joining an org if you aren’t already a part of one. All 3 would be immensely beneficial, I believe.

We agree that Marx believed Russia could have sidestepped capitalist development and gone straight from feudalism to the communalist movement to socialism to communism. However, he did not think this was more likely than revolution in western Europe. He simply saw it as it was, a great but likely squandered opportinity.

In other words, if Marx believed there was a 75% chance the revolution would first come to western Europe, and a 25% chance it would come to Russia, it is correct to say that he believed it would most likely come first to western Europe. It is, therefore, equally incorrect to say that he believed it could only happen in western Europe, as you allege I say (but I have disproven this), as it would be to say that Marx believed it would happen in Russia first (as you appear to be saying).

You’re getting labled a wrecker because there’s no logical explanation for why you would maintain that I claimed Marx said revolution could only happen in the west, and that it could only happen because they were developed capitalist countries. I never said anything of the sort, and even elaborated on my views to you. Instead, you jumped to condescending remarks, pretending that this is new information to me, and jump to insults.

I do agree, this isn’t ever going to get anywhere if you can’t even treat me with the respect of listening to what I said.

Yes, we indeed had a minor back-and-forth, yet you can’t for some reason admit to misunderstanding my original claim, no matter how much I explain that to you. Now that you’re getting called out on it, you retreat to insult.

This kind of behavior really isn’t common, especially not in real-life organizing. Don’t be disheartened! Also, if you want a place to start with reading theory, I made an intro Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out!

What else would you call repeatedly misframing what a comrade is saying? We are both presumably communists, and we’ve both read the literature. If I am telling you that I never once said Marx thought revolution was only possible in the west, and you continue to quadruple-down on that, what possibly could be your goal?

There absolutely was, no matter how many times I explain that I never said Marx believed revolution would only happen in the west you keep insisting that I did. Either you misunderstand, or you deliberately lie. This is wrecker bullshit.

Marx also aided and worked with western revolutionaries. He didn’t make a complete pivot, he saw new opportunity where he previously thought there was none. I have never said that Marx only thought a revolution would happen in the west, this is nonsense. Touch grass, comrade.

If Russia continues to pursue the path she has followed since 1861, she will lose the finest chance ever offered by history to a nation, in order to undergo all the fatal vicissitudes of the capitalist regime.

Marx thought Russia had a unique opportunity to sidestep capitalist development, and kick off revolution in the west. He made it clear that if conditions continued as they had, however, that this opportunity would never materialize. I’ve read Capital and its post-scripts, I’ve read his letters to Russian revolutionaries. I used to be an anarchist, and these get thrown around all the time to make it seem like Marx was supportive of anarchism at the end of his life (which he wasn’t). This isn’t new information to me, you’re just confusing Marx saying Russia had a great opportunity to skip capitalism with Marx saying he thought Russia would in fact do so.

I don’t know why you’re continuing to double and triple-down. We agree that Marx believed Russia could have sidestepped capitalist development and gone straight from feudalism to the communalist movement to socialism to communism. However, he did not think this was more likely than revolution in western Europe. He simply saw it as it was, a great but likely squandered opportinity.

In other words, if Marx believed there was a 75% chance the revolution would first come to western Europe, and a 25% chance it would come to Russia, it is correct to say that he believed it would most likely come first to western Europe. It is, therefore, equally incorrect to say that he believed it could only happen in western Europe, as you allege I say (but I have disproven this), as it would be to say that Marx believed it would happen in Russia first (as you appear to be saying).

Ah, I see the problem. I never said Marx said socialism could only begin in western, capitalist societies. Here’s what I actually said:

To be annoyingly accurate, Marx still held the belief that the west would be the first to revolt and establish socialism

Notice how I didn’t say he thought it was only possible in western, capitalist countries. I specifically said that he thought that they would be the first. In the case of the commune movement in Russia, he said they were essentially squandering a very real chance to avoid that same path of development, not that he believed Russia would be first.

In short, the strawman you made of my point is indeed flatly wrong, and if I had said what you thought I said I would agree that it was indeed wrong. But I didn’t make that point.

He isn’t useless, he often makes good points. He isn’t as good as Lenin, or modern Marxist-Leninists, but his analysis in Super-Imperialism is useful, even with his biases.

Yes, he is suggesting that they could skip capitalism and enter what we understand to be socialism. He isn’t wagering that they would, just that they could if the commune movement succeded in supplanting the rising capitalist class, which your sources shows that Marx’s expectation was that capitalism will in fact rise. Here:

If Russia continues to pursue the path she has followed since 1861, she will lose the finest chance ever offered by history to a nation, in order to undergo all the fatal vicissitudes of the capitalist regime.

Marx did not think Russia could go straight to what we understand today to be communism, or “upper stage communism” as Marx puts it. Just that they could skip capitalism and begin socialism right from the commune movement.

Not skip straight to what we know of as communism, ie a global system of collectivized production and distribution, just that they could begin what we call now socialism earlier. Marx still believed that the west would be the first to transition to socialism.

Sure, I’ll cop to that level of idealism. I think the “human condition” is a real thing we’ve inherited from our evolutionary forebears, and we’re constantly fighting against it. Heck, my main complaint started out as seeing Lemmy MLs as tribalistic to their own detriment. Even if it isn’t truly universal, I don’t think any form of political organization can permanently overcome that.

“Human nature” is most accurately described as formed by our social being. It does not exist outside of that, and isn’t something hardcoded into us. Humanity has, for the longest time, been largely cooperative. It’s mostly a factor of modern class society that negative traits like corruption take hold, it has nothing to do directly with the scale of society. That’s why I try to drive that point home, a scientific analysis of the problem means that we can’t treat human nature as something fixed, static, divorced from our actual lived experience, but instead something that is malleable and based on a given set of material conditions, material conditions we can deliberately change.

Also, yeah, I know that fiction doesn’t describe reality, just the author’s perspective of reality (learned that from Ayn Rand, 🤣 ). Didn’t know that Orwell was anti-semitic (nightmare ick), but the message I took from 1984 was anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian, not necessarily anti-communist. I was taught that the “soc” in Ingsoc was a lie, just as in the Ministry of Truth produced lies and the Ministry of Love produced cruelty. Anyway.

Orwell kept a list of Jews and communists he would use to snitch to feds. In Animal Farm, his entire point about the bolsheviks rests on the assumption that the working classes of Russia are too stupid to understand that they are being duped, as an explanation for why the working classes really did support the bolsheviks in real life. Orwell was all manner of things, but most of all supremely British and liberal (in a bad way).

I also want to reference some things I’ve heard about the USSR and the PRC, but I feel the canned response is that it’s all Western propaganda, and I don’t see a productive outcome of that line of conversation. I have some observations after reading Three Body Problem and my partner’s fandom for MXTX’s light novels, but that’s very anecdotal.

Depends on what you’re talking about. It could be entirely real, entirely invented, an exaggerated real problem, a minimized real success, or a success framed as a problem.

At any rate, I got more of the insight I wanted about Lemmy MLs, and you as always give me a lot to think about, Cowbee <3 I always appreciate your time and patience.

No problem!

The concept of a labor aristocracy existed with Lenin, but Fanon in particular delved into the psychology of nationalist revolt against colonialism and imperialism, and Sakai with why the US Empire in particular has a settler-garrison, essentially. For a more broad concept of the modern labor aristocracy, I like how Nkrumah describes it as exporting of the heightened contradictions of late-stage capitalism from core to periphery. It’s only really recently that conditions in the US Empire have begun to decay enough that the class interests of the working class there have become more genuinely aligned with the working classes abroad. Quantity into quality, etc. etc.

To be annoyingly accurate, Marx still held the belief that the west would be the first to revolt and establish socialism, as they had reached the higher reaches of capitalism first. He hadn’t lived to see the contemporary period of imperialism Lenin had, where a bunch of competing developed capitalist nations split the world and warred over it with each other, nor had Lenin lived to see the end-result of that war, one where the US Empire stands unquestionably on top while the rest are vassalized, nor the current stage where the US Empire is crumbling beneath its feet.

In other words, Lenin, Nkrumah, Cheng Enfu, or Michael Hudson would all be strong contenders over Marx for theory on why the west in particular is the biggest obstacle for socialism globally.

You’re confusing the way people behave in some forms of organization with the way people behave in all circumstances and forms of organization. The idea of a universal human nature that exists in static form, outside of its context, is idealism, ie an appeal to the supernatural. Further still, socialist governments and parties have all been very large, the CPC for example has 100 million people.

I don’t personally take much stock in fiction as a means to explain reality. Orwell was an anti-semitic British fed that kept a list of Jews and communists. His projection in Animal Farm and 1984 are taught in western schools for the very reason you are reminded of them, to discourage socialist organizing at a young age.

Read when you gain interest! If you force yourself, you won’t retain any of it, or you’ll take the wrong message.