BlisterexeI wonder what the rapture equivalent is?
WiredBrainGreat take. Serious question: what happens the day after the revolution?
IndiBrony1rpd/1440=0.00069rpm
Nice.
To idle along nicely, we need to reach about 800 revolutions per minute. So we need to increase our number of revolutions by about x1,100,000
And I realise now I’ve inadvertently worked out that if I left my car idling for 24 hours, the engine would go through over 1.1million revolutions. Cool!
Really, if there is a sudden turning point, where Eat The Rich becomes common thought, how long does it last? Is it over in a few days? Is it a literal class war going on for years? If the bottom 50 decides to take out the top 5, how long can it go on for?
Hey, when you’re 22 you know everything but your brain still hasn’t fully matured and you don’t have time for that kind of stuff!
Death to capitalist oppressors! Let’s fuck!
otterIt’s all a crab bucket in a crab bucket in a crab bucket in a… aw, fuckit.
SamskaraCheck out the Russian revolution. The extremists will put the moderate revolutionaries in the gulag or shoot them.
Cowbee [he/they]Depends on the country. China was at war for decades, Russia had several revolutions before the final revolution, Cuba’s took years, Vietnam’s involved war against the US as well. There are no universal conditions for that.
Well if we look at China, Cuba, the USSR, Vietnam, Laos, you get invaded/bombed by America.
But also continue to work really hard, but now your labor goes to bringing yourself and a billion others out of poverty instead of further expanding the power of the bourgeoisie.
When was the USSR, China, and Cuba bombed by America directly anger their revolution?
The USSR was invaded by every capitalist country that still had a significant army after WWI. Bombing civilians in Cuba was just one part of Operation Mongoose. During the Korean war, Shanghai, Dandong, and Ji’an were bombed by the psycho Lemay.
Building socialism, as has happened everywhere else revolution has succeeded. It’s a long and difficult process, but it’s real and possible at the same time.
SalThis is literally just almost every terminally online ML lol
that’s why I posted this here lmao
1XEVW3Y07Especially over the past few years, this viewpoint seems to dominate over so many leftist spaces, and I believe it’s part of what led to Trump winning the election. I don’t particularly like the Democrats either, but so many refuse to vote for anything other than an impossible overnight jump to socialism.
yOu JuSt hATe tHe WoRkiNG cLaSs!1!
Ivory tower leftists hate nothing more than the working man.
How many would “vote with their dollar” if $==🧨, though? 🤷🏼♂️
The Rapture (or whatever no-effort salvation flavor you prefer) will not be televised.
Boomer Humor DoomergodThis leftist believes we are already dead and in hell.
It’s hell all the way down.
Zen makes no sense and all the sense simultaneously, the more you look/don’t look at it.
Yeah I’d much rather die in the fast track concentration camps our government is building today than the slow track one our government has us in now.
AllNewTypeFaceWell, Marx’ withering away of the state and the rise of Communism was basically the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
“A stateless utopia birthed from the continual consolidation of power in a proletariat dictatorship” gives the same vibes as trickle down economics.
As production and distribution are collectivized, class fades, and along with it the institutions needed to uphold the working class as the ruling class over capitalists, as there would be no capitalists. It doesn’t mean the total erasure of administration and management.
It doesn’t mean the total erasure of administration abd management.
Except they become the new capitalists. They would develop an interest in maintaining their position as administrators and as administrators would have the means even if it conflicts with everyone else’s interests. They’d become the new upper class.
Also, I’m surprised you didn’t point out that this was Friedrich Engels’ idea technically. Not Marx.
No, they would not become the new capitalists. Collectivized production is based on allocation of labor, means of labor, and distribution of goods and services based on needs and in some cases “labor vouchers.” An administrator in such a system is entitely distinct from a capitalist. Even in capitalism, managers are not capitalists and do not play the same role.
Capitalism is predicated on circulation of commodities, and constant reproduction on an expanded scale with profit as the motivator. Capitalists aren’t capitalists because they manage, but because they use their money, cast it into the market like a net (buying means of labor and labor-power), and return said net with greater sums of money. Such a system is completely incompatible with collectivized production.
As for the withering of the state, Marx came up with the concept. Engels merely came up with the phrase.
I wasn’t saying administrators would become capitalists in the strictest definition, but in the fact that they’d become a class distinct from the rest of the proletariat. You’d still have a state enforced hierarchical structure that has its own interests. It just wont be structured around facilitating various corporations and their profits. You can argue that’s an improvement over capitalism, but to suggest the state will naturally wither away in such a system is naive at best and a manipulative lie at worst.
As for the withering of the state, Marx came up with the concept. Engels merely came up with the phrase.
Where did Marx originally describe the idea?
I’m aware of what you meant. Administration isn’t a class, and is not based on domination of the means of production through ownership, but is merely a necessary part of the production process. Further, the proletariat wouldn’t exist either, proletarians are specifically wage laborers that sell their labor to capitalists, what we are discussing is classless society.
As for Marx and the concept of the state withering, I’m unaware of the first mentionings of it, but the idea can be found all the way back in Economic Manuscripts of 1844:
The first positive abolition of private property — crude communism — is therefore only a manifestation of the vileness of private property trying to establish itself as the positive community.
(2) Communism (a) still of a political nature, democratic or despotic; (b) with the abolition of the state, but still essentially incomplete and influenced by private property — i.e., by the estrangement of man. In both forms, communism already knows itself as the reintegration, or return, of man into himself, the supersession of man’s self-estrangement; but since it has not yet comprehended the positive essence of private property, or understood the human nature of need, it is still held captive and contaminated by private property. True, it has understood its concept, but not yet in essence.
Engels was great at writing and contributed a great deal to the development of Marx’s thought, but even before co-writing Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx had already had a fairly developed conception of the negation of the state, as a student of Hegel.
I’m not much of a fan of Engels, as I noticed of what I’ve read of him that his works or works involving him tend towards subtly implying (or even explicitly stating) top down structures and authoritarianism is initially necessary to achieve communism in the ways he frames his analysis. Something that Marx seemed generally more mixed or neutral on when he wrote independently of Engels depending on how late in his writings you look.
I’m aware of what you meant. Administration isn’t a class, and is not based on domination of the means of production through ownership, but is merely a necessary part of the production process. Further, the proletariat wouldn’t exist either, proletarians are specifically wage laborers that sell their labor to capitalists, what we are discussing is classless society.
Regardless, having access to the controls that gives one power over economic value and the ability to exploit that power, even if its not through ownership its still under their control. For example, someone who runs a non-profit organization but uses all the grant money to build a clubhouse for them and their friends rather than something broadly socially beneficial is exploiting the people who actually generated the value for the grant money in the first place, even if the clubhouse is not the administrator’s by deed.
I work for a non-profit. I know a lot of decisions above me get made because its more beneficial for leadership or even employees rather than the greater community.
Why is a class based society bad? Why is it harmful? My personal answer is that it just results in a generally worse world for people through taking away control over their own lives as they end up largely dictated by capitalists. If the system you aim to replace classes with reproduces many of those same kinds of consequences for the average person but just changes who’s in charge then its not really what I would describe as a meaningfully better world. Its the same shit but with a different color palate.
I’m not convinced a state with its own self interest with ever permit its power to “wither”. That doesn’t mean a state can’t be used for good, or that states are intrinsically evil, but a state given some ideological revolutionary foundation, monopoly on violence, and a “ends justify the means” attitude towards achieving utopia and an indifference towards individuals under its power is going to commit some atrocities and historically has.
Marx and Engels have the same view on the state and its withering. Marx dedicated his later years to Capital, of course, but the two bounced their ideas off of each other and were aligned. Engels was more a student of Marx than an equal, though, as Marx was the one that truly advanced dialectics into dialectical materialism, formed historical materialism, and of course wrote Capital. The communist society envisioned by each involves full collectivization of production, which includes administration and management, but of course also includes democracy and full control by the people.
Secondly, the idea that administration can be abused in a planned and collectivized economy the same way it can be in a non-profit in the broader context is misframed. Decisions made to benefit leadership in an independent non-profit are entirely different from how, say, the post-office is run. A communist society would be far closer to how the postal service runs than a non-profit, but of course would move beyond the concept of markets and money.
Thirdly, socialism has resulted in massive uplifting of the working classes, and reductions in disparity. Capitalism and socialism have not been equals, economies where public ownership is principle have not been utopian wonderlands, of course, but have achieved far better than capitalism has for more people. Letting perfect be the enemy of good isn’t something I consider a worthwhile endeavor.
Finally, the state is interlinked with the mode of production, and serves to resolve class conflicts in favor of the ruling class. In socialism, when public ownership is principle, that is the working class. The state withers as class does, but that doesn’t mean it collapses into full horizontalism. What it means is that special bodies of armed people no longer have an economic compulsion to exist, without class conflict there is no class to uphold. The state doesn’t “let itself wither,” it erases its foundations as a tool to reconcile class distinctions.
The state doesn’t “let itself wither,” it erases its foundations as a tool to reconcile class distinctions.
Why would it erase something that gives those within it power? If the reason it exists is to reconcile class distinctions, it will not bother to erase class distinctions and will in fact work to make sure the justification of its existence is maintained. People with power do not willingly permit the reasons for their power to “naturally dissolve”. If they must, they will manufacture a crisis to justify their continued power.
For one, administration isn’t disappearing. Some positions will wither, perhaps, but production will still be collectively planned. Further, collectivization is economically compelled in systems where public ownership is principle. Your conception of the state making up reasons for its existence isn’t really accurate, it isn’t distinct from the mode of production but thoroughly enmeshed in it and the class struggle.
Wake me up when they stop the endless tilting at imaginary counter-revolutionary windmills and actually do that. Somehow there’s always some pesky boogeyman that requires benevolent repression. Absolute fantasy that class could ever fade when guns and politicians exist.
Class is not administration, and there has never been global socialism to begin with so there hasn’t been a point free from capitalism’s antagonization.
If a group of people calls the shots they have inherent power and form their own class. You write this problem off via a bedrock axiom starting that a vanguard party is and always will be representative of the proletariat masses. That’s fundamentally impossible, humans don’t organize or behave like that on historical time scales.
If a new political force cannot supercede their control and externally correct value drift then your system cannot evolve. If you can’t correct for that other than by saying “better representation will emerge” then you’re flat out anti-revolutionary; a reformist in wolf’s clothing.
Administration in socialist countries is not as simple as “a group of people that call the shots and form their own class.” Administration is economically compelled by large-scale production, and is to be made accountable via robust systems of democracy. Further, in collectivized production, there isn’t the same mechanism built-in for profits and creating whole industries for luxury for the few like there is in capitalism.
To the contrary of your point, systems must evolve, there isn’t a way to stop it. Everything is in motion, and history builds up. There are no static systems, you don’t enter the same river twice, yada yada. It’s not about “better representation emerging,” it’s about deliberately understanding how the structure of the mode of production impacts how society is run.
systems must evolve, there isn’t a way to stop it
What comes after this fabled stateless society? If it isn’t a stable system with no possible need for correction then what prevents the re-emergence of states?
The benefits of states are self evident: your immediate group benefits from the use of force to leverage and exploit others. The benefits of remaining stateless are entirely intangible and abstracted.
When a catastrophic event forces your hand, subjugation of your neighbors may be the only way for your populace to survive. One solar flare or meteor or mega volcano and your carefully plotted administration is in the shitter. It’s survival of the ruthless and we’re off to the races again.
This archaic attempt at dissecting the complexity of human existence into a mathematical and controllable roadmap is absurd. Wake up, it’s not the 19th century; we’ve known better for a while now. Let’s fix the world we have instead of having you spending 12.7k comments naval gazing about ideology and which tin pot dictators need our “critical support”. I pray to God you’re at least cashing a paycheck for that drivel.
The basis of the state is class society. The state did not exist in communalism, nor would it exist in communism. Society will continue to evolve and change in communism, yes, but production will not see the re-emergence of classes just as we are not going to see the re-emergence of creating fire with hand-drills.
The state is not an independent force, it is thoroughly enmeshed in the relations of production. In a collectivized economy, there is no economic basis for the state. Your comment is just a mischaracterization of me and Marxism in general. I never said there was a clear roadmap, but I do agree, it is the 21st century. We have learned better than liberalism, and know that socialism works better than capitalism. I don’t get paid to be a communist, I pay dues.
That’s a lot of words to abstract and obfuscate the reality that HUMAN HISTORY BEGAN STATELESS. These power structures weren’t schemed up in prehistory by some mustache twirling villains, they are emergent when humans embark on the task of organizing larger and larger groups to fulfill the needs of a sedentary civilization. You can’t eliminate one and keep the other.
Just waving a socialist wand to reset the class hierarchy doesn’t change anything. We still have the same naked apes extracting the same finite resources on the same planet.
[Here’s where you respond by citing dead philosophers and social theorists or the inbred revisions of their theory]
None of this is based in any actual hard science. Hell, the ink wasn’t even dry on Darwin’s work while Marx and Engels were writing the magnum opus of their foundational theory. They had no idea what the human animal really is or how it functions. Lenin wrote and died long before the seeds of game theory were planted or any mathematical modeling was explored. Mao et. al wrote and died before massive leaps in biology, ecology, physics, information theory, etc…
At every step along the way the theory becomes more divorced from reality and clings to pedigree for authority. We have an incredible amount of knowledge to build on but you’re stuck clinging to a twisted knot of circular logic because of who wrote the first draft. It is, as the post says, political theology fermenting in real time.
Declaring that humans must behave differently by slightly reorganizing them or putting different labels on who owns what is pitiful. You’d laugh at someone citing the old testament for social theory but uncritically do the same with a work so far removed from the modern politics that it may as well be from 0 C.E. Saying “X wouldn’t happen because [I’m declaring] there’s no incentive for X” is as ludicrous as “Breaking X commandment degrades society because [I’m declaring] it’s against human nature”.
The fact that you pay dues only makes every comment more pitiful. You are truly a lost soul grasping for higher meaning, wandering into each post to peddle your pamphlets on the Good Word. Go touch some grass and develop your own thoughts.
I outright stated that human history began stateless, I said communalism was stateless, ie tribal society. I didn’t abstract or obfuscate anything. As production grows it centralizes, and over time this will result in democratization and collectivization as the workers and owners conflict with each other until production is collectively run and planned. This isn’t some absurd idea, it’s based on the trends we observe in capitalism and what we know of socialism.
The rest of your comment is an incoherent rant against a strawman you invented, I suggest you take your own advice you gave at the end.
this will result in democratization and collectivization as the workers and owners conflict with each other until production is collectively run and planned
There is absolutely zero, zilch, nada proof that this is an accurate projection. But here you are just stating it as fact and declaring you’ve won. This entire political theory was couched in the industrial revolution, where growing masses of workers were the only way to extract and process what was thought of as a functionally limitless bounty of resources.
Well it’s now the 21st century. A technological explosion has fundamentally fractured all assumptions a political theorist might have made 200 years ago.
- We know an incredible amount about the limits of our world; what resources are left to be exploited and what it will cost. Unlike 100+ years ago, we already have far more human bodies than are needed to handle the job, the excess only diminishing the value and leverage of other workers.
- Workers in key industries already rarely share a physical working environment. Humans do not form close connections and necessary camaraderie without constant and prolonged proximity, no matter how many memes are passed.
- All practical communication channels are monitored and censorship is trivial. AI (as silly as we view it now) will usurp control of narrative and popular opinion, putting directly in control of those who own the infrastructure.
- Automation, drones and robotics are rapidly displacing workers and have the near term potential to become functionally self sufficient.
- In the same stroke the ability to identify, locate and suppress dissent has been formalized and streamlined. A soldier in 1917 Moscow might have hesitated to pull the trigger on a civilian 10m away, vanishingly few will hesitate to click a the disintegrate button on an anonymous undesirable thousands of miles away.
- Human behavior and control has been studied and honed to a fine point. In the past we only knew that a populace behaved better with alcohol and bread and circuses. Now we’re fine tuning access to information, entertainment, pricing and propoganda in real time and often at an individual level.
- If that’s not enough, provide the perfect simulacra of contentment via biochemical prescription. We’re not as far off from this as people think, the study of the human brain is ongoing.
- The promise of human gene modification will bring a physical reality to the classes. The haves will produce offspring fit to resist the ecological wasteland we’re making; the billions of have-nots will spiral to irrelevance.
What about this shows a likely march to a socialist utopia? How is that more likely than a quiet, gradual culling as we slip into technocratic neo-feudalism? And when that collapses with the relentless grind of entropy, why would our atrophied class consciousness not slide is back to tribalism?
How can a theory built on the broad rational collective goals of entire classes be distilled to predict the self-serving (and often irrational) behavior of the few hundred who will control the future? The answer is irrational faith in ideology, revising the sacred texts to ensure we must be on track to Rapture communist utopia. You have absolutely no footing to make these projections.
As for my last part being a strawman, it emphatically is not. We’ve literally had this conversation several times and I’ve seen you argue a dozen more. Every response you have is a regurgitation of some link to a blog or official party-sanctioned rhetoric. Pointing out any hypocrisy or an official “AES” policy that explicitly runs counter to your stated socialist messaging gets shut down with genetic fallacies or shifting blame to capitalism. You have never provided any outright criticism or even questioning of any party policy or messaging, there’s not an original thought in your post history.
Nothing you’ve said contradicts Marxism-Leninism, though. You hopped up on a soapbox, railing against people that don’t exist. We know it’s the 21st century, socialism works, and is guiding the most rapidly developing economies like the PRC right now. Marxism has grown and evolved, and the basic critiques and tools laid out in Marx’s time have proven their usefulness when tested to practice.
As far as I know, this is the first time we’ve spoken. I don’t remember you, but I do know that this is a misrepresentation of me. It’s an incoherent rant against a strawman, just like your comment here as well.
Holy fucking hell, the material conditions described RADICALLY ALTER THE FUNDAMENTAL FOUNDATION OF YOUR THEORIES. You can’t just say “they don’t contradict anything” when the basic interaction of humans and the control they exert has radically fucking changed. It’s not possible to present any worldview integrating all these facts because you’re trying to apply broad-brush classical political physics to the unknowable future decisions of a shrinking handful of rulers and drained resources. Don’t worry though, God Lenin works in mysterious ways.
“Socialism works”. Sure does when you can slap the label on any old country without critically examining how they operate or how much they deviate from the stated core goals and road map of a socialist project. If the CCP determines that the only way to maintain control in a shrinking geopolitical landscape is to sedate 1/3 of the population and violently repress 1/3, how does that functionally differ from their post-capitalist neighbors doing the same? Is there any social progress to be made in such a state? But utopia soon ™️, just have to sink to new lows to match our neighbors.
And again, not a strawman when you can go to your history and read our convo to see yourself posting the same links and toeing the same party line verbatim. But if you don’t want to that’s fine. Just say I’m incoherent and confirm that you don’t have a sound response to the basic facts of life in 2025.
Time has moved on from the industrial revolution, yes. At the same time, the basic analytical tools of Marxism, such as historical materialism, have not become outdated. Analysis of capitalism along the law of value, analysis of circulation, reporduction on an expanded scale, the centralization of production, all have become increasingly relevant. The differences between then and now do not invalidate Marxism, because Marxism was not soley applicable to a snapshot in history.
Lenin isn’t god, either. Lenin analyzed imperialism, for example, which is extremely relevant today and is the driving force of western economies. He isn’t a god, he was just a man that accurately described existing processes that fundamentally describe the driving forces of existing economies in the west.
No idea what fanfiction you’re referencing with regards to China. It’s supported by over 90% of the population even when western polling organizations are gathering the data. It’s socialist because public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, ie it governs the large firms and key industries, not because of something like “labels.”
If our past conversation was you making a bunch of strawmen and getting extremely angry online, then I don’t think I need to go back and see it, I think I’ve already seen the extent you’re willing to participate in good-faith (not at all).
Not really, all it means is that as an ecomomy collectivizes and class distinctions fade as ownership of production is equalized, the need for strong institutions to uphold one class and oppress others fades too, as there would be no class.
abbiistabbiiYou forgot to mention both have accelerationists willing to make people’s lives worse to hasten the Rapture Revolution.
Comrade, this time it’s really late stage capitalism comrade, trust me comrade. / repeat for 150 years.
UnderpantsWeevilboth have accelerationists
Accelerationism isn’t a policy, it’s a coping mechanism.
“Actually, I love that things aren’t going my way, because it’ll all work out in the end” is what you say when you’re down bad with no clear hope of recovery.
And complaining about acceleratism is just scapegoating. You’re not in this position because a secret cabal of extremists is sabotaging your milquetoast efforts because they think losing harder is good.
Accelerationism is definitely also a policy.
A lot of these bastards tacitly favored The Idiot during the 2024 election, essentially on the basis that everyone dying horribly would turn out better in the long run.
Hmm… Floating into the sky which is also where a magical land exists with an all knowing, benevolent supreme being or equality and fair treatment for all peoples… Yeah those are the same.
wizardbeardHate to say it, but I’d argue that this particular leftist sub-group can be ever worse than Christians. At least on paper, Christians are supposed to want to convert sinners and non-believers, and are supposed to work to do outreach to help people explicitly undeserving. The Christian enemy of the devil is effectively an abstract. Yes, there’s the anti-lgbt+ bigots, but in my experience they are a minority despite their incessant loudness and overwhelming presence in the public eye.
This particular revolution worshipping sub-group of leftists though? They appear to overwhelmingly just want death and suffering for their “enemies”. They have no plans to attempt to convert people and many are actively against even trying.
I can’t tell you how much heat I’ve taken for suggesting that (at best) ignoring all the fuckers that voted for Trump and not trying to find any way to build relationships so you can turn them is a losing strategy.
It makes me sick that so very many people see violent and complete revolution where somehow they never have to deal with opposition voices ever again afterwards (read: purges and re-education camps, ideas I’ve seen positive unironic support for from this group a shocking amount) as a more viable and desiriable outcome than trying to understand and care for their misguided neighbors and family so they can turn them.
Just because your plan isn’t technically genocide due to it falling on lines of political ideology doesn’t make it less completely fucked in the head and reprehensible.
If your wishes for the future include “We have to be baddies so we can completely erase the worse baddies from existence and make our utopia” then I strongly suggest you need to reevaluate just about fucking everything in your life and ideals.
RhaedasThat's why they narrowed it to evangelical Christians. There is still your argument that they will try to convert you first, but boy if you don't, it's the same hate. I'd say the leftist hate is at least honest and doesn't try to camouflage it with "love the sinner" lies and cherrypicking from a guide book.
Leftists cherry pick from holy scripture aka. theory ad nauseam to build arguments to support any inhumane action.
The Christian „love the sinner“, „love your enemies“ is different. There you only need to profess your faith to be accepted in the community. Then afterwards the reeducation/indoctrination/conversion happens over time.
With tankies you go to gulag/reeducation/indoctrination first, and if you survive that you can maybe become a comrade. You will never join the party though. You remain irredeemable and a suspect counterrevolutionary.
You mean, the paper that was inked to “allow” divorce & execution of a certain Anglo king’s wives, or the “original” low-effort patchwork plagiarism of any/all folklore the ruling class could scrape together? Either way, that’s some ironclad foundational document, there. 😝🤌🏼
This is just wrong from top to bottom. Revolutionary theory has always posited that revolution can only come from the large majority, even if we use methods like vanguard parties if the working class at large isn’t behind it then it will fail. Every successful revolution has had working class education, organization, and agitation as its basis.
Revolution doesn’t mean genocide. Historically, revolution has been less bloody than the systems that upheld pre-revolutionary society. Mark Twain has an excellent quote on this:
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Overall, I think you’d do well by actually listening to us. I wrote an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, feel free to give it a look!
Read Theory, Darn it! An Introductory Reading List for Marxism-Leninism - Lemmy
“Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.” — Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done? [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/WD02.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/seGAATanGtfufEkQoLH1X3] It’s time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, “Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.” Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/CPM13.html]: | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/8yUvkgJ4m5ZHPdESAyjg8k] 1. Dialectical and Historical Materialism 2. Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value 3. Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let’s get started! Section I: Getting Started What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism? 1. Friedrich Engels’ Principles of Communism [http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/PC47.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/8JtpMuYQ6Ho6gzYtLLuL4k] The FAQ of Communism, written by the Luigi of the Marx & Engels duo. Quick to read, and easy to reference, this is the perfect start to your journey. 2. Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds [https://c.encryptionin.space/epubs/blackshirts-and-reds/] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/uZFGgeJsE4bHHBTd1m3eFK] Parenti’s characteristic wit is on full display in this historical contextualization and analysis of fascism and Communism. Line after line, Parenti debunks anti-Communist myths. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous “Yellow Parenti” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP8CzlFhc14] speech. Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism Ugh, philosophy? Really? YES! 3. Georges Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy [https://c.encryptionin.space/epubs/elementary-principles-of-philosophy/] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/wv44hU6NjoLgn6yrnXBQjc] By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don’t be intimidated! 4. Friedrich Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific [http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/SUS80.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/nhVVanPX5WPVor7Yy7TDrp?start=3h13m40s] Engels introduces Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates and cartels. Section III: Political Economy That’s right, it’s time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it’s mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws. 5. Karl Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital [http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/WLC47.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/nhVVanPX5WPVor7Yy7TDrp?start=1h35m58s] & Wages, Price and Profit [http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/WPP65.html] | Audiobook [https://youtube.com/watch?v=TjhVZW3HJzM] Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. 6. Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/IMP16.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/8STrUAEfwiFGRFcRsSNqtv] The era of Imperialism, which as the primary contradiction cascades downward into all manner of related secondary contradictions. Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state? 7. Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution [https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/k5tp58hyGPpTRUtpB79Kra] If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn’t. 8. Vladimir Lenin’s The State and Revolution [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/SR17.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/6M8bL2HGs5rGXmvThU1JG5] Further analyzes the necessity of Revolution and introduces the economic basis for the withering away of the State. Section V: National Liberation, De-colonialism, and Solidarity The revolution will not be fought by individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Solidarity allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a single broad movement. Marxists support the Right of Self-Determination for all peoples and support National Liberation movements against Imperialism. 9. Vikky Storm & Eme Flores’ The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/vikky-storm-the-gender-accelerationist-manifesto] | (No Audiobook yet) Breaks down misogyny, and queerphobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of “gender” from a Historical Materialist perspective. 10. Leslie Feinberg’s Lavender & Red [https://www.workers.org/book/lavender-red/] | Audiobook [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXUFLW8t2snsEPC7kkMKkZf-45FrnJTO7] When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, they are emboldened and empowered ever-further. 11. Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth [https://archive.org/details/the-wretched-of-the-earth] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/p/f3tK7UC2HAK1WLUNg4yVen] & Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed [https://archive.org/details/FreirePedagogyOfTheOppresed] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/koxxesz38QPVKaAFr8iVTF] De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor justice. These books are best taken as a pair, read in quick succession. Section VI: Putting it into Practice! It’s not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass! 12. Mao Tse-Tung’s On Practice [http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/OP37.html] & On Contradiction [http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/OC37.html] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/qnzYg56huhwgKYk9Py3mcR] Mao wrote simply and directly to peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice. 13. Vladimir Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC20.html] | Audiobook [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh84f8czc7g] Common among new leftists is dogmatism over pragmatism. Everyone wants perfection, but dogmatic “left” anti-Communists let perfection become the enemy of progress. 14. Jones Manoel’s Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution [https://blackagendareport.com/western-marxism-loves-purity-and-martyrdom-not-real-revolution] | (No Audiobook yet) Common among western leftists is fetishization of Marxism, rather than using it as a tool for analysis and social change. This article helps rectify that. 15. Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1939/how-to-be/index.htm] | Audiobook [https://tankie.tube/w/kzi58GMjH9DzSBqz1eTXVb] Organizing is a skill. If we are to be successful, we must work to better ourselves. Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course! With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice. 1. Get organized. The Party for Socialism and Liberation [https://pslweb.org/], Freedom Road Socialist Organization [https://frso.org/], and Red Star Caucus [https://redstarcaucus.org/] all organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! 2. Read theory. Don’t think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn’t mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don’t speak on it! 3. Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody go forgotten. 4. Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your knowledge. 5. Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. 6. Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. With consistency, every rock, boulder, mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but water droplets. “Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.” — Mao Tse-Tung Credits [https://lemmy.ml/comment/15046925]
I can’t tell you how much heat I’ve taken for suggesting that (at best) ignoring all the fuckers that voted for Trump and not trying to find any way to build relationships so you can turn them is a losing strategy.
Look I hate tankies, accelerationists, and purity testing among progressives, but generally speaking the great rural swaths of MAGA chuds are as much of a waste of time as tankies are. They’re either completely deluded or sociopathically self-interested. There isn’t any moral standing to demanding I go out and have a beer with my racist MAGA neighbor. Nor would that even be a tolerable course of action for me, he could literally die in a fire I’d feel nothing.
So… do you find extermination of these people is a more tolerable course of action than getting to know them?
This is a core point I’m trying to make here, and strive to make fairly often elsewhere. The “rural swathes of MAGA chuds” (keep drinking the 1%s rural vs urban division of the middle and lower classes why don’t you) are a large enough group/voting bloc that they cannot simply be ignored.
It doesn’t have to be you, but someone has to do something about this group. And I’m not coyly endorsing mass murder or sterilization here. I’m also not sitting on my ass telling others to do work I’m not doing myself.
You can resign yourself to try and just outlive them. You could just keep trying to outvote them every time, forever. Sad, but tolerable and entirely understandable, attitude.
You can come up with a large number of other ways that effectively amount to “remove their ability to vote”, most of which would be violations of human rights or elimination of human life. These are the attitudes I find reprehensible, and shockingly fucking common.
Or we could all start making concentrated efforts to start treating people with god awful views as people where some amount of them might be able to be changed. Not as subhuman mosters (the term “chud” is pretty disgusting when you get down to it), as unredeemable fools, as non-entities (wouldn’t care if they dropped dead), or at best as roadbumps to be driven over on the path towards the future.
The fact that so many people look around at their neighbors and see so many of them as just useless wastes of space is one of the most effective ways that those in power maintain that power. Keeping those lower than them squabbling among each other so they can’t effectively organize against the people on top.
I’m not going to argue for some full overthrow of the concept of capitalism, but there is clearly a hell of a lot wrong. A lot of rot up at the top. Willingly and intentionally saying “but those people are so backwards that I could never work with them” is just a disgustingly elitist concept.
Go and punch the actual nazis. Call out “nazi bar” situations. People who literally want you and yours dead? Fire at will.
But those are levels of hatred that are far rarer than people pretend they are. Most people just want to get on with their day, and a lot of people against certain groups fold very quickly when someone they love turns out say, homosexual. That’s not hypocrisy. It’s an opportunity to help someone reflect on their biases. We all have them, stop putting yourself up on such a pedestal.
I’ve rambled enough, but I’ll throw this in as a bonus:
The “rural flyover states” have been done so fucking bad by the federal government, by their local politicians, and by corporations for so fucking long that I can’t help but see punching down every time someone starts in on the bullshit about “those stupid people out in rural areas”. They deal with a lot of similar issues to poor urban areas, and the attitude of the entire fucking world in calling impovershed areas “the global south” should give us all pause, especially when these areas of the US are in no way limited to the former confederate states.
I was born in one of those states. My wife is from one of those counties in a larger state. We’re both happy as hell to be out, but seeing what goes on there on a regular basis is terrible.
People talk about tent cities and rising amounts of homeless in major cities. No one talks about the towns that have had every industry pull out over the last 50 years and the homeless and drug abuse problems in them that are only exacerbated by there being literally no homeless shelters or clinics for 30 miles with almost entirely barren highway in between the few pockets of dying towns.
So… do you find extermination of these people is a more tolerable course of action than getting to know them?
False dichotomy. I never said I’d start the fire. I said if they died I’d feel nothing, not that I want to go out and start killing them.
The “rural swathes of MAGA chuds” (keep drinking the 1%s rural vs urban division of the middle and lower classes why don’t you) are a large enough group/voting bloc that they cannot simply be ignored.
I fucking live in the rural areas myself and I’m surrounded by mostly contemptible people. I’m not “drinking” anything.
And I can ignore them because there is nothing realistic that I can do about them with out suffering the absolutely massive waste of my finite time alive interacting with them trying to “turn” a small percentage of them less evil.
But you’re right it doesn’t have to be me. Could I go that route? Sure, but there isn’t much in the way of ROI and I don’t owe these people shit. I also can’t endorse anyone else do so in my stead though either. I don’t think I could with a straight face tell people to waste their own time if I can’t justify myself doing it.
You can resign yourself to try and just outlive them. You could just keep trying to outvote them every time, forever. Sad, but tolerable and entirely understandable, attitude.
I mean, technically rural areas are going to slowly and naturally disintegrate economically. Which is good, but its not going to happen fast enough to meaningfully fix the problem in a time frame that matters to me. As for “outvoting”, dude I’m really blackpilled on political engagement after Trump won a second time I don’t even want to talk about voting anymore. I think we’re all getting what we deserve. A very loud part of my mind is extremely vindictive and wants almost all of US voters to suffer even if it includes me at this point. In so far as is possible: we deserve it.
Or we could all start making concentrated efforts to start treating people with god awful views as people where some amount of them might be able to be changed. Not as subhuman mosters (the term “chud” is pretty disgusting when you get down to it), as unredeemable fools, as non-entities (wouldn’t care if they dropped dead), or at best as roadbumps to be driven over on the path towards the future.
I’m not even concerned with the world’s future. We lost. I’m just trying to salvage whats left of my life after wasting so much of my time, mind, and body on politics. The only reason I’m still engaging with it on Lemmy still is because I’m at work with nothing else to do. The only reason I still engage with it elsewhere is algorithmic influence. I’m outside of this actively trying to escape politics as much as feasibly possible. I’m putting effort into me and my loved ones now to survive and thrive in the upcoming slow grind collapse. That’s it.
Willingly and intentionally saying “but those people are so backwards that I could never work with them” is just a disgustingly elitist concept.
bonus ramble
You know, when I was younger growing up in mostly rural areas, I thought I was a worthless fucking idiot weirdo. I thought all my peers around me had their shit together and understood the world better than me. My peers noticed this and early life for me was fairly awful as a result. Redneck dipshit bullies that TBH I probably would smile at their death if I had learned of now-a-days but back then I thought I deserved it. I thought I was a loser and I just needed to keep my head down. I thought everyone else around me was more competent and put together. I believed this so firmly that I barely engaged with employment early on in my life as I thought the only way for me would be faking my abilities. I ended up barely getting a college degree which I also thought was a fluke. Hoping that just having the degree would “trick” an employer into hiring me for some decent paying but easy office job. Every interview I was a shaking insecure mess and I was stuck for a long time in that state we call “NEET”.
Then I finally got a job and I finally started working and realized that holy shit: the people around me are actually moronic. I excelled in my job. Constant remarks from people in disbelief at my performance reviews. I literally had a performance evaluator tell me they had never seen anyone manipulate the UI the way that I did in the 7 years they worked there. At first I felt a blip of pride. Yet later I felt nothing but utter and total horror at this revelation. Not smug satisfaction. Not relief that I was actually smarter than I thought. Pride drained away. Just horror remained. Terror. Shock. Despair. And now bitter anger that I had wasted so much time thinking I was an idiot but that actually I was surrounded by people so stupid they barely managed to do the bare minimum of their jobs, but kept them because they were the bosses nephew or vapidly likable or some similar shit. No one fucking tries.
I tell that story because the 2024 re-election of Donald Trump felt like that moment of horror in my life but a million times over. I had spent an absurd amount of time and energy on politics for about 15-20 years because I thought that people were capable of getting better because we lived in an age of abundant information. I joined organizations, I canvassed for Harris, I engaged with my rightwing family members and annoyed boss and co-workers (risking my job). I hoped people were getting smarter about their own self interest and would start voting in ways that reflect that and but we needed to just dodge a second Trump term. I now feel like I’ve wasted my life on this. Time and effort I could have spent fortifying my own personal situation because most people are so painfully self destructive and stupid they act as a vortex and will drag you down into them if you let them. And I have been doing that. I’m done doing that.
These people do not deserve another ounce of my respect or time. I’ve spent too much of my life humbling myself and they almost never returned the favor. FUCK THEM. I’m getting out if it fucking kills me, and it will. No one is going to make it, but I’m going to make sure that on my ride towards the grave I enjoy my remaining chunk of life as much as feasibly possible and giving up on trying to help people who would never do the same for me.
So no, I hope rural communities crumble and everyone is forced to move into cities. People become sociopaths or religious idiots living out so spread out. Let it rot.
And not a single one is doing anything to actually revolt, just sitting online talking shit on people who are actively doing things because “incrementalism is useless, we need a revolution”.
Sorry creating lemmy isn’t starting the revolution, getting together a small amount of people online to talk about a parallel societal formation isn’t starting a revolution, being civically inactive is not starting a revolution, buying a bunch of guns is not starting a revolution, talking about moving away from corporate tracking tools is not starting a revolution, switching from US to Chinese propaganda is not starting a revolution. As lame as all the gravy seal militias in the US are, they are numerous steps ahead on the starting of a revolution.
This is erasure of orgs like The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. One of the number one things leftists try to encourage people to do online is to join an org, because sitting around and talking is useless beyond the entertainment of it and perhaps learning more theory. We do organize IRL, I’ve met some wonderful people doing so.
Yeah and I am a member of the two that are in my area. They all subscribe to incrementalism as people on your .ml would put it, though. None of these are preparing a revolution, they would labeled terrorist organizations, and destroyed very quickly if they did anything, actually, radical, like the ALF/ELF, while being so visible.