Petrol posted:

The general position of the rhizzone seems to be *licks finger & sticks it in the air, furrows brow* Marxist. And I often see a disdain for anarchism, well, not that the subject comes up often here, but certainly when it's mentioned among similarly-minded pals on other sites.

So. What I'd like to know is, what's wrong with anarcho-syndicalism? I ask because I think there is something to be said for its criticism of the state, and the solution offered. TIA.

not sure, op
*phones CIA blacksite*

AmericanNazbro posted:

Jumps from capitalism to socialism(?) without a clear methodology of getting there; A->Z without the letters in between—those letters are M, L and M

Some type of state is required while society moves from capitalism to socialism, otherwise, you risk capitalism reproducing itself via atavism (i.e. concentrations of capital in hands of a few, leading towards a new bourgeoisie).

This is a reasonable concern. However, you presuppose the Marxist evolutionary theory of economics. Doesn't the concentration of power in the hands of a few, i.e. a central committee, carry precisely this risk? Is that not what we now see in Russia and China - centralised power leading to centralised wealth and the creation of a new bourgeoisie? If so, is the state necessary, or a stumbling block?

AmericanNazbro posted:

Jumps from capitalism to socialism(?) without a clear methodology of getting there; A->Z without the letters in between—those letters are M, L and M

Some type of state is required while society moves from capitalism to socialism, otherwise, you risk capitalism reproducing itself via atavism (i.e. concentrations of capital in hands of a few, leading towards a new bourgeoisie).

Is M-L(-M) actually better about this though? The most developed and general M-L theory on the transition from capitalism to socialism is The State and Revolution - which is both remarkably libertarian and (at the time) incredibly attractive to anarchists - yet it had almost nothing to do with how the state actually operated in the USSR or Mao's China, or really any Actually Existing communist state anywhere. It's really more that M-Ls have a remarkable track record of success in achieving state power, though of course given that this control was completely rolled back to a single (or maybe a couple, if you count the DPRK) state almost as quickly as it appeared there's probably reason to be skeptical.

success in achieving state power

Is critical, I would think? And given that it's still 9/11, allende's attempt at building socialism in Chili demonstrates the necessitry of a strong state lead by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Once the transition to socialism is accomplished, the state becomes superfluous, and it would wither away, etc... etc... It's the transitioning period from capitalism to socialism that is so critical and difficult due to the immense power, and resources the bourgeoisie have at their disposal.

Anarchists are pretty cool though. I've had the same experience with them that they're extremely well read (more so than me). I've always abhorred the petty sectarianism that plague all leftist groups and spaces in the west (even occurs on social media platforms like freaking twitter). The divisiveness of leftists is more deleterious to the anti-capitalist movement than state repression, imo.

jools posted:

anarchists are usually alright (albeit they're often used to fog up situations as in venezuela or ukraine)

imo this is why they are forever fucked, they pride themselves on no skin in the game and will always be used as reactionary tools

Lessons posted:

IDK if M-Ls are really better about this now though given that the Soviet Union is gone, and tbh there are a lot of sacred cows to be knocked down and a lot of work to be done formulating a strategy for the 21st century rather than trying to repeat the Soviet/Chinese/whatever experience.

this whole line is always weird to me because m-l-m continues to be the most active revolutionary socialist mass movement worldwide. i mean that might be engaging in a bit of circularity where only m-l-m can be determined as revolutionary in the first place, but regardless of that, in india & the philippines respectively cadres engaged in armed struggle alone number in the tens of thousands, without mentioning the membership of national democratic / cultural / student / youth / peasant fronts & participants in party governed villages & rural districts etc.

i mean like even looking at particular instances that we can determine as "failures" of this model, the pcp at the point of gonzalo's capture was the single largest political organisation in peru and were identified by even bourgeois political organs internationally as being in a position to take power. and even taking this failure into account, the naxal movement and the cpp suffered equally significant blows at different points historically with the captures of majumdar and sison. it wasn't that long ago when people talked about the end of maoism in india or the philippines in the same tone we do when talking about peru, and they managed to reaffirm themselves as salient political forces. that's not necessarily saying that we are going to see a significant resurgent shining path or anything (although iirc a certain amount of concern about such a possibility was uncovered in the stratfor leaks), just that it's not always a cut & dry dustbin of history matter

and these movements are marxist-leninist-maoist in the most orthodox sense, the basis of what we understand as "maoism"in the first place comes from the theoretical developments that emerged from these experiences and their influence on the revolutionary internationalist movement. & looking at something like the national democratic process in the philippines, the dynamism, adaptability & internationalism of this model is a lot more significant than is given credit

like are we just going to figuratively slap the literature out of their hands & smirk at the portraits of stalin hanging on the walls of party buildings as they're not relevant to the conditions of the 21st century? it doesn't make sense to me that the starting point of thinking about the practical concerns of a revolutionary socialist project isn't looking at actually currently existing and broadly successful iterations of such

i mean obviously the processes of people's war in the philippines can't be replicated as a 1:1 representation in the imperialist metropole or anything but maoist revolutionaries in the developing world aren't simply acting out of blind pragmatic concerns, slaves to geopolitical context alone, they act in accordance with extensive, nuanced theoretical investigation and debate that leaves room for the demands of particular regional & contextual details. but i mean people prefer to read books by new york publishing houses & canadian blogs instead

which is fine i guess but if you are going to start asking questions about developing revolutionary socialism in the 21st century i don't think there can be any starting point but asking what revolutionary socialist movements currently exist in the 21st century and what we can learn from their successes and their failures. i don't think it's any coincidence that the exemplary historical successes of mass revolutionary movement building in the united states, by groups like the bpp, young lords, i wor kuen, red guard party etc. took those questions as a starting point

Revolutionary theory worthy of consideration is the product of successful revolutionary practice and nothing else. Its not a question of restricting oneself to a closed canon; We are happy to pay close attention to the writings of Amilcar Cabral for example, because he won a war.

But as for the intellectual megalomaniacs who think they can overturn the concentrated knowledge gained from the sacrifice and struggle of millions to transform the world over more then a century with a few blog posts or pretentious and incomprehensible contributions to the Verso catalog, we are not offended we are merely amused.

http://www.signalfire.org/?p=17225

Petrol posted:

I don't think that's fair and considering how much we usually agree I'm surprised at your vitriol!! You're stuck on the contemporary stereotype I think.

nah i used to be one, still have my IWW card around here somewhere im sure. if you invite one anarchist to osmething expect four to show up and 25-50% of them to be cops.

blinkandwheeze posted:

maoist revolutionaries in the developing world aren't simply acting out of blind pragmatic concerns, slaves to geopolitical context alone, they act in accordance with extensive, nuanced theoretical investigation and debate that leaves room for the demands of particular regional & contextual details. but i mean people prefer to read books by new york publishing houses & canadian blogs instead

which is fine i guess but if you are going to start asking questions about developing revolutionary socialism in the 21st century i don't think there can be any starting point but asking what revolutionary socialist movements currently exist in the 21st century and what we can learn from their successes and their failures.

I agree this is vital and particularly so in comparison to reading Verso stuff. However, there is a danger in conflating the success of a revolutionary movement with the theory it espouses.

daddyholes posted:

nah i used to be one, still have my IWW card around here somewhere im sure. if you invite one anarchist to osmething expect four to show up and 25-50% of them to be cops.

I feel you but this is the case with literally every irl group I have ever been involved in. Except the one time I was recruited by a crazy drunk old trot to help with a specific campaign that he basically hijacked from another group. I mean, I think he meant well but the pigs wouldn't bother wasting resources when they could rely on him to ruin things lol

But yeah uh okay so they dont make wobblies like they used to. I'm sorry you had a bad experience

blinkandwheeze posted:

this whole line is always weird to me because m-l-m continues to be the most active revolutionary socialist mass movement worldwide.

I read the whole thing but I knew you didn't quite understand what I was saying right from this point. The thing is that there is no unitary international Marxist-Leninist movement in the 21st century and there hasn't been since, well, 1927. What do exist are a variety of diverse tendencies which we're capable of evaluating and learning from within their own context. You set up this kind of caricature of internet posters flying over the the Philippines and "slapping the literature out of their hands", but in the case of stereotypical Newspaper Trots (who are M-Ls as much as any other M-L) maybe that's exactly what we should be doing? The case of Filipino guerrillas obviously calls for something much different.

As for the larger issue that you're getting at, can we develop an international revolutionary praxis based on the struggles of Actually Existing Maoists in India and the Philippines? IDK lol, maybe, but as far as I know no such thing exists. If you have something put it out there and we can evaluate and learn from it. That's not really the issue though, I have a lot of respect for the revolutionary tradition of M-L, the problem comes in statebuilding. The Soviet Union lasted a scant 70 years, Chinese communism basically didn't outlive Mao, the whole international revolution was rolled back as quickly as it spread. A lot of communists are understandably hesitant to address this because it often ties in a with a lot of anti-communists canards, after all our very own getfiscal decided that McNuggets disproved socialism on this basis, but really it seems like a serious problem? I would like communist states that last longer than 15, 25, 70 years, and I don't see what Filipino Maoists or any sort of Actually Existing Communism outside of (hopefully) Cuba have to teach us about that.

Lessons posted:

I read the whole thing but I knew you didn't quite understand what I was saying right from this point. The thing is that there is no unitary international Marxist-Leninist movement in the 21st century and there hasn't been since, well, 1927.

well, sure, this is obviously right but it's presenting a notion of unity that i don't find particularly useful or productive to talk about. i don't see the division into particular distinct tendencies or the absence of centralized and formal international dictates to be particularly problematic in any way, i think these are largely qualities granted by practical concerns. diversification allows adaptation to particular contexts that unity for unity's sake alone might not be equally accountable to, dynamism and adaptability are more important qualities than sheer numbers if those numbers can't actually translate into effective practical expressions. i mean i don't think you disagree with that or think the lack of a broad m-l unity is necessarily a bad thing, i just think that kind of unitary internationalist model isn't particularly relevant to the point i was trying to make

what i am trying to communicate is that while such unitary internationalist models are unambiguously absent, we can't talk about the expressions of maoism throughout india, the philippines and elsewhere as simply being discrete mobilizations. these movements exist in open communication and theoretical development with each other. the coordination committee of maoist parties and organisations of south asia, the founding members of which being the parties that would form the cpi(maoist), the communist party of nepal (maoist), and organisations from bangladesh and sri lanka, held the conjunction with people's war in peru, the philippines and turkey as principal points of unity. the parties that would form the cpi(m), the cpn(m), and the pcp were all central members of the revolutionary internationalist movement. the cpp considers the cpi(maoist) a fraternal party in terms of practice and theory. in addition to that are the various international conferences organised by the belgian & dutch extensions of the cpp & national democratic front etc. etc.

these allegiances aren't drawn on practical lines, they are explicitly and demonstrably based on shared principles of theoretical unity. these principles are clearly and directly laid out, they are founded on the adoption of the scientific ideology of m-l-m, the recognition of the gpcr as the pinnacle achievement of such and the necessity of following this path, the institution of a revolutionary democratic front leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the rejection of both armed adventurism and "parliamentary cretinism" etc. etc.

of course it doesn't make sense to talk about these developments as representing some outmoded unitary internationalist movement but it's ridiculous not to understand this as a international movement in the general sense when these particular agents explicitly consider themselves fraternal political currents acting in accordance with shared theoretical principles

which is getting to my main point, that the figures of the development of socialism in the 20th century continue to be relevant and fundamental to the establishment of revolutionary socialism in the 21st because by far the most significant and active revolutionary movements of our current era base their practical development and fraternal unity in accordance with these figures. i think we can unambiguously state that the metric for determining the relevance of revolutionary content is whether it continues to be heralded by the most revolutionary currents of the people's movements worldwide, and in the instance of lenin, stalin and mao tse-tung this continues to be the case

whether we can develop an international model of praxis based on these particular political instances is a big question, in one sense it is demonstrably true because the revolutionary practical developments in various often disparate (although obviously largely underdeveloped) geopolitical contexts in some way extrapolated a notion of praxis from general theoretical principles. but of course that isn't particularly helpful for us. there isn't any specific document i can begin to cite as a definitive step forward or anything, i don't want to claim to be better versed in this subject than i actually am, i am jus generally suggesting that from my perspective, the contemporary "left" has absolutely failed to engage with or even demonstrate the slightest awareness of the theoretical organs of current revolutionary struggles. and again, i think the most successful attempts at building mass revolutionary social bases in the imperialist metropole were very consciously based on the study of international revolutionary movements and adapting their methods and principles to their particular context

adding to that a little more, if you look at something like people's war in the philippines, it's not easily reducible to some cartoonish idea of guerilla warfare, it's a very dynamic process that includes a significant degree of above ground work and extensive broad based mass coalitions alongside the development of armed struggle

re: the state, i think those are all obviously important questions but, like, the seizure of the state is something that can only happen when there is a revolutionary movement effective and resilient enough to make that a political reality. and currently, that reality is still a really distant one. before the issues of building a proletarian state in the 21st century can be dealt with the question of how the seizure of the state can be pursued at all should be confronted, or else you're putting the cart before the horse. the last time that was a real, viable prospect was in peru in the early 90s. i think it's important more than anything to assess such an experience, as well as that of the development of revolutionary movements worldwide that are in some fashion capable of the resilience and efficacy that can make that a real possibility again

Edited by blinkandwheeze (Sept. 14, 2014 02:12:23)