#international proletarian solidarity

[damnesdelamer]

I’ve had some conversations recently in which the point arose that, considering how Reagan et al responded to the AIDS crisis, seeing the mismanagement of covid as at least partially intentional is not all that much of a conspiracy theory. I think we need to read this as an effort by capital to sabotage ground-level organising.

Covid has placed enormous pressure on working classes, as well as other marginalised groups, at a time when the class interests of those in power were threatened more directly than they have been for decades. Not only has the overwhelming narrative been the imperative to ‘get back to normal’, but this has been during - and indeed in direct response to - some of the largest popular movements for changing entrenched systems in living memory, especially in specific regions.

Of course union action continues to make strides in spite of labour movements being largely calcified in the West toward the end of the last century, but I’ve read that BLM was the largest protest movement in American history, and this was at the same time as mass scale protests in India, Hong Kong, Mexico, which were not focused on race. This could have been (and indeed can still be) catylised into a popular internationalist movement for proletarian gains, but has been largely buried in favour of record profits for corporations, and obfuscated by merely symbolic victories such as the trial of Derek Chauvin, and the ongoing jangling of keys that is Donald Trump.

I’ve heard many say that BLM lacked a clear goal and that’s why it started to fizzle; well yeah so did the French Revolution, but it still stands as one of the greatest precedents in history of the power of regular people to exact vengeance against their enemies. In fact, the measures taken to mitigate covid, such as remote working, served to demonstrate our proficiency in self-organising, which by extension also attests that managers have no real function but to threaten and steal labour. And such organisation can be multi-pronged: we can at once dedicate ourselves to productive labour, ideological gains, and leisure, and ultimately these efforts will compliment and enrich one another. We may even call this praxis.

Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, the ends which protest seeks is to prove that victory is within our grasp. Casting the statue of Edward Colston into the sea may have done little to improve the material conditions of Bristol’s people of colour, but it undoubtedly improved people’s mental wellbeing, and empirically highlights that we have the means to effect the change we seek without appealing to bourgeois authority.

A better world is possible. But sometimes ‘better’ must be read as the comparative it really is. A world in which the Tories aren’t able to deport masses to Rwanda is undeniably better, even if we still don’t have a nationalised solar power grid and so on. And there will always be greater improvements to work toward, more practical gains to win. We ourselves must ply the bellows.

All of this is simply to remind us: agitate, because we need all your enthusiasm; educate, because we need all your intelligence; organise, because we need all your strength! Together, we can break their haughty power.

#class struggle #class war #class consciousness #workers movement #workers' movement #original #labour movement #proletarian solidarity #international proletarian solidarity

[connorthemaoist]

Proletarian internationalist solidarity poster between the Indian & Filipino Maoists

#India #the philippines #communism #Maoism #Maoist #MLM #marxismleninismmaoism #marxism leninism maoism #proletarian internationalism #internationalism #international solidarity #solidarity

[transmutationisms]

wait go on about the theoretical point of departure

ugh well it's 'phenomenology of spirit', because in the lord-bondsman dialectic hegel argued that while both lord and bondsman develop self-consciousness through their mutual encounter, the bondsman does so first, both through recognition of the threat of death and through his direct encounter with nature through his labour; the lord, on the other hand, is dependent on the bondsman as a mediator because the lord doesn't have this direct relationship to the external world, instead expropriating the products of the bondman's labour. hegel wrote as though these were abstracted, theoretical figures, and it's true he was talking about world-historical consciousness, but he was also directly theorising in response to the newspaper coverage he was reading on the haitian revolution. so when he talked about bondsmen developing self-consciousness and no longer needing the lords, he didn't mean this in an abstract sense; he meant the literal revolution in which slaves overthrew masters and haiti gained independence.

so, when marx 'turned hegel on his head' (ie, made the analysis material), one thing that came through was this underlying understanding of alienation as something that affects both labourer (whose products are expropriated from him) and capitalist (who is not directly producing and thus not encountering the outside world except by mediation). you can see this especially in marx's earlier work, like the 1844 manuscripts, which is why i always say this is an interesting text through which to consider some of succession's premises. marx was more interested in proletarian alienation in the sense that he saw this as eventually birthing revolutionary consciousness and class solidarity, and later in his career much of the 'alienation' theorising was subsumed into his analysis of the 'commodity fetish'. 'succession', on the other hand, is a piece of psychological fiction but starts, i would argue, from sort of the other side of this theoretical point, where the interest is in the alienation of the capitalist, using of course a 21st-century media conglomerate and not the figure of the factory owner or whatever.

later in his career hegel was far less sympathetic to the bondsman and to the position of enslaved people generally. this was a shift that happened for numerous reasons, but one was that he continued to read european newspaper coverage about haiti following the revolution, a situation that involved grappling with the continued effects of french colonialism, from internal social tensions to the difficulty of shifting away from the monocrop economy the french had imposed. make no mistake that this was not how haiti was covered in the papers hegel read, and instead, by 'philosophy of right' he had settled into a very different reading of slavery, which he justified in part by what he perceived as the despotism of king henri christophe, and in which he argued that enslaved africans were in fact not capable of gaining true self-consciousness and spiritual freedom. this was absolutely part of a broader trend by which europeans pointed to any 'failings' of independent haiti and, instead of seeing the legacy of pre-revolution french colonialism as well as ongoing us and french imperialism and intervention, used it as a rhetorical tool against anti-slavery, anti-colonialist, or black humanist arguments. additionally, marx had his own reasons for talking about slavery as either a bygone practice or an example of labourers being 'lazy' in contrast to the european proletariat—namely, he had specific class and racial interests in defending european labourers and using the denigration of enslaved africans in order to do so.

(my sources here are primarily 'baron de vastey and the origins of black atlantic humanism' by marlene daut; 'the fetish revisited: marx, freud, and the gods black people make' by j lorand matory; and 'hegel, haiti, and universal history' by susan buck-morss)

#hegel

[revolutionarymaoistschicago]

Statement on the Split in AF3IRM

Originally posted February 7, 2023

News has recently surfaced regarding a split in the organization known as AF3IRM. We will not go into the details of this split here, as the comrades directly involved have already published their own principled criticism of AF3IRM and summation of the issues leading up to the split (find their statement here: https://proletarianfeminist.medium.com/our-split-from-af3irm-shedding-light-on-our-issues-to-encourage-our-growth-towards-a-real-76cd1bcae395). Since the initial statement was published on February 6th, the number of signatories has only continued to grow, sitting at 48 at the time of our writing this article. 

At this time, the Chicago Chapter of the Revolutionary Maoist Coalition wants to extend our unconditional solidarity and support to the brave comrades who have broken with the liberal leadership of AF3IRM. Building a revolutionary women’s movement that is 1) free from both male-chauvinism as well as bourgeois liberal feminism, and 2) based in proletarian feminism, anti-imperialism, national liberation, and scientific socialism is one of the most pressing tasks of our movement today. We applaud the bravery and revolutionary discipline exhibited by the comrades who are now working to forge their own path forward in accomplishing this goal. Let it be known that you are not alone, and that we in RMC – Chicago are happy to aid in this work in any way possible. 

Moreover, we formally denounce the actions of AF3IRM leadership not only for the liberal, pro-imperialist, anti-democratic tendencies which led to the split, but also for the manipulation and misinformation — described by one former-member that left during the split as “psychological warfare” — employed by them in the wake of the split. Those who remain in leadership have audaciously claimed that only two members of AF3IRM have left, denied the existence of the split, and claimed that social media pages formerly affiliated with AF3IRM which have posted about the split have simply been hacked. This should be seen for what it is: utter cowardice. It exhibits nothing else other than a fear of accountability; a fear of ideological struggle and criticism; a fear of the truth. 

We wish all 48 signatories of the document shedding light on the split the best of luck in continuing their struggle for a revolutionary proletarian feminist line. You comrades are justified, brave, and supported by revolutionary women and gender-oppressed people everywhere. 

Down with imperialist “feminism”! Proletarian feminism forever!  Long live the women’s struggle!  Long live the international proletariat! 

Signed,  Executive Committee Revolutionary Maoist Coalition – Chicago

#rmc-chi #af3irm #feminism #proletarian feminism #maoism

[gamergoo]

Post by log6 I don’t care to reblog but I’ll leave my thoughts here.

1.) a number of people taking issue with Mr trances do not claim to be leftists, we are Marxists. This seems like a meaningless distinction but it matters because we actually have a materialist lens to view the world through, and relates to my next points

2.) you are literally better off than you would be otherwise! Black Americans, regardless of their attitudes about the empire, can get bananas at the store when they’re out of season, this is explicitly a benefit of living in the imperial core, and while not every individual has the money to utilize such a benefit, it is there. Regardless of diaspora or internal colonies or police violence, we do not live under the same exploitation faced by the global south. That you can post this to tumblr is proof of the benefits afforded to you by imperialism. Whatever device you used to access tumblr was produced in exploitative conditions, it was built using rare earth minerals mined in horrible conditions by people under the thumb of the American empire. This is not necessarily a moral judgement on you, simply a byproduct of a vast web of forces we cannot yet control! Furthermore, the assertion that people in the Congo for example are “full citizens of their nation-state” and black Americans are not is like staggeringly ignorant of the conditions of the American empire and also seemingly frames it like they have it better than the black diaspora in the USA? Like what does it matter if they can participate in a liberal democracy(if that) if the end result is still materialistic exploitation and an election to be overthrown in support of imperial industry. This is not to say that black Americans have it good by any stretch, but consider that you are not the only people suffering under American imperialism!!!!

3.) I love that the framing of this continues to ignore that the criticism is largely coming from people of color in the global south, aline is an indigenous woman for fucks sake!!!! The only people not interested in international proletarian solidarity are the ones literally ignoring the material facts of exploitation of the global south. Framing it as though a revolution of black Americans within the empire would suddenly free everyone in an exploited country is like painfully ignorant. Literally read Lenin and Marx

4.) you used the word degenerate in reference to people criticizing you. Bad look, bad post.

#god I am so sick of people refusing to see the facts of empire #so pissed off

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

#CorpMedia #Idiocracy #Oligarchs #MegaBanks vs #Union #Occupy #NoDAPL #BLM #SDF #DACA #MeToo #Humanity #DemExit #FeelTheBern

The Rojava experiment [UPDATES]

https://newint.org/blog/2015/05/22/rojava-experiment

Follow the river Tigris as it threads through the snow-capped Taurus mountains, as it spills into the Turkish lowlands before flowing hundreds of miles thereafter – and you will eventually reach the border with Syria...

RELATED UPDATE: What the Syrian Kurds Have Wrought

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/kurds-rojava-syria-isis-iraq-assad/505037/

RELATED UPDATE: The Rojava experiment

https://www.redspark.nu/en/proletarian-feminism/the-rojava-experiment/

RELATED UPDATE: Turkish attack on Syria endangers a remarkable democratic experiment by the Kurds

https://theconversation.com/turkish-attack-on-syria-endangers-a-remarkable-democratic-experiment-by-the-kurds-125105

RELATED UPDATE: What the World Loses if Turkey Destroys the Syrian Kurds

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/trump-syria-kurds-turkey.html

RELATED UPDATE: Trump’s Betrayal of Rojava

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/trumps-betrayal-of-rojava

RELATED UPDATE: Rojava, Lost? Turkish Offensive Threatens to Destroy a Radical Democratic Experiment

https://theglobepost.com/2019/10/23/rojava-revolution-turkey/

RELATED UPDATE: We stand in solidarity with Rojava, an example to the world

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/01/we-stand-in-solidarity-with-rojava-an-example-to-the-world

RELATED UPDATE: A bold, democratic-feminist experiment is under threat

https://www.newframe.com/a-bold-democratic-feminist-experiment-is-under-threat/

RELATED UPDATE: "Rojava revolution is a bright spark for oppressed people" -Stellan Vinthagen

https://www.hawarnews.com/en/haber/stellan-vinthagen-rojava-revolution-is-a-bright-spark-for-oppressed-people-h31872.html

RELATED UPDATE: We Celebrate 10 Years of Rojava - A Visionary Social Experiment Under Threat

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/21/we-celebrate-10-years-rojava-visionary-social-experiment-under-threat

RELATED UPDATE: Rojava’s Experiment in Radical Democracy Braces for Turkish Invasion

https://truthout.org/articles/rojavas-experiment-in-radical-democracy-braces-for-turkish-invasion/

RELATED UPDATE: Danielle Mitterrand Foundation awards prize to "founders of the utopias of North and East Syria"

https://anfenglishmobile.com/news/danielle-mitterrand-foundation-awards-prize-to-founders-of-the-utopias-of-north-and-east-syria-64320

RELATED UPDATE: Beyond the Nation State in the Middle East

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/beyond-the-nation-state-in-the-middle-east/

RELATED UPDATE: "A natural disaster, inseparable from its political implications" -Internationalist Commune of Rojava

https://anfenglishmobile.com/features/internationalist-commune-of-rojava-a-natural-disaster-inseparable-from-its-political-implications-65410

RELATED UPDATE: AANES releases declaration for a solution in Syria

https://anfenglishmobile.com/rojava-syria/aanes-releases-declaration-for-a-solution-in-syria-66698

RELATED UPDATE: Art event at Whitney Museum in New York with Iranian-Kurdish artist Allahyari

https://anfenglishmobile.com/culture/art-event-at-whitney-museum-in-new-york-with-iranian-kurdish-artist-allahyari-66704

RELATED UPDATE: Heyva Sor grants about 80 thousand Euros in aid to Rojhilat

https://anfenglishmobile.com/kurdistan/heyva-sor-grants-about-80-thousand-euros-in-aid-to-rojhilat-66720

[milkboydotnet]

The International Committee in Support of the People's War in India calls on all the world proletariat, revolutionary and democratic organizations to actively participate from July the 1st in the International Campaign in honor of the martyrs of the revolution in India and Philippines, as well as for the freedom of political prisoners and in support of the glorious People's War that is taking place in India and the Philippines.

This campaign must honor all the comrades who gave their lives for the revolution. Among the great martyrs of the World Proletarian Revolution is Comrade Azad of the CPI (Maoist) of India.

On July the 1st, 2010, comrade Azad was kidnapped in the city of Nagpur, from there he was taken to the district of Adilabad, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, near Maharashtra, and there he was brutally murdered.

Comrade Azad's work was not only important to the Adivasis, Dalits, peasants and workers of India, but his revolutionary imprint is present among the conscientious proletariat all over the world.

The crimes of the Indian state against the vanguard of the proletariat will never be forgotten.

As in India, in the Philippines, comrades Ka Laan and Ka Bagong Tao were kidnapped and killed by the Philippine bourgeois state. They, like so many other revolutionary men and women, are martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the people, for the revolution, for the abolition of classes in communism.

It is important that the proletariat of the different countries of the world remember the brilliant history of the MCI, how communist women and men knew how to sacrifice their lives to transform a world that in the era of imperialism is always under the danger of the destruction of humanity.

Nor can we forget the comrades who suffer repression and torture in the extermination prisons of the fascist governments of India and the Philippines.

Our fight has to be tireless, to achieve their immediate release.

From July the 1st to the Week of the Martyrs on July 28, we call for meetings, actions of all kinds near the embassies, consulates and other similar national and international institutions according to national and local conditions of each case, as well as all kinds of militant initiatives in factories, popular neighborhoods, universities, associations and social centers that inform and demonstrate our proletarian solidarity with the political prisoners and with the People's War in India and the Philippines, as well as our homage to all the martyrs of the World Proletarian Revolution.

The martyrs of the revolution will never be forgotten!

The martyrs are the red flag of the World Proletarian Revolution!

Immediate freedom to all political prisoners in India and the Philippines!

Long live the People's War in India!

Long live the People's War in the Philippines!

International Committee for Support of the People's War in India

[andromerot]

international proletarian solidarity is one of the most important things to build in this moment without it none of us will succeed. unfortunately usamericans are annoying online so it will not be happening Good Bye

#<- how some people sound like SORRY. #like they ARE annoying but. whatever

[justanotherwastedyouth]

Racism was a very real problem that needed to be confronted before class solidarity could be built, but the two forms of identity were deeply intertwined. Marxists still experienced difficulties in conceptualizing issues of racial identity, with many militants considering it to be a form of false consciousness that distracted from the more important proletarian class struggle. Nevertheless, in terms of lived experiences, race and ethnicity repeatedly overpowered class in debates over which was more important. Mariátegui noted that Indigenous peoples, for good reason, often viewed mestizos as their oppressors, and only the development of a class consciousness could break through the racial hatred that divided these groups.

Marc Becker, “The Comintern and the Question of Race in the South American Andes” in Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial, and Racial Questions, ed. Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019), 277.

#Marc Becker #Mariátegui #The Comintern and the Question of Race in the South American Andes #Left Transnationalism #Socialist Party of Peru #José Carlos Mariátegui

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

"We don't think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water best. We're going to fight racism not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. We're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism. We're not going to fight reactionary pigs with any other reactions on our part. We're going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution. We're saying all power to the people."

- Fred Hampton

#wanted to add this to the post i made earlier but tumblr doesn’t let you add videos to reblogs 😑

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (5/1/22) Otto Griebel (German, 1895-1972) The Internationale (c. 1929-30) Oil on canvas, 123 x 198 cm. Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

"The Internationale" is an outstanding example of proletarian revolutionary art. The painter filled the canvas with a veritable army of workers of different nationalities, standing on an equal footing, who sing the "Internationale." Griebel, though an active member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) since 1919, waived the usual communist symbolism. The picture rather illustrates the ideal of the party and the country moving forward together in harmony with the world proletariat: Only the international solidarity of the workers can overcome the prevailing abuses. Thus the picture encourages class struggle. Griebel painted himself into the picture. He demonstrates the solidarity between artists and workers, by placing his hand on the shoulder of the miner standing before him.

#otto griebel #the internationale #german artist #weimar

[whitesalmanrushdie]

Zachary Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine 1906-1948

This section is talking about the Arab wing of the Palestinian Communist Party, which split along settler/native lines a few years previous. Interesting because we can see in their statements the position of many modern antizionists - in other sections of the book, Lockman mentions examples of their activities, which included pamphleteering in Hebrew, attempting to win over jewish workers to their version of proletarian international solidarity.

#historyquote #comrades and enemies #zachary lockman

[eelhound]

"Quoting Aristotle that where anger provokes a desire for revenge, 'hatred wishes its object not to exist,' for [Haig] Bosmajian, Marx’s 'goal was to arouse his listeners to that state in which they would wish the bourgeoisie eradicated.'

This is ambiguous: the point for Marx and Engels isn’t the 'eradication' of individuals, but of the bourgeoisie as a class — which is to say, of capitalism. To suggest that the text evokes 'hatred' of bourgeois individuals is to misrepresent the ambivalence in its passages, as well as its focus on the class system of capitalism. To go further and claim, as does Leo Kuper, that the 'thoroughgoing dehumanization of the bourgeoisie' has 'relevance' for the problem of genocide, implying a teleology of 'the inevitable violent extinction of a dehumanized class of people' is absurd...

In the Manifesto, in Marxism in general, the relation between classes is definitionally not on the basis of static, given identities, but relations, which include things done. And the 'eradication' necessary is of those relations, not of specific people.

The Manifesto is clear: 'To be a capitalist is to have not only a purely personal but a social position in production.' And not by essence of self, either, as the Manifesto’s description of class renegacy among some of the bourgeoisie attests, but by virtue of taking 'positions that reflect tendencies, a tendency toward capital concentration and a tendency toward dependency and immiseration,' in Jodi Dean’s gloss — that is to say, actively perpetuating these structures and dynamics. It’s precisely the pressing need for rupture in the Manifesto that expresses what radical hatred it contains...

Workers, for [Friedrich] Engels, 'shall live like human beings, shall think and feel like men [sic]' 'only under glowing hatred towards their oppressors, and towards that order of things which places them in such a position, which degrades them to machines.' Hatred is necessary for dignity, which means for political agency. He doesn’t celebrate hate tout court, all too aware of the dangers of 'hatred wrought to the pitch of despair' and manifesting in individual attacks by workers on capitalists.

'Class hatred,' by contrast, is 'the only moral incentive by which the worker can be brought nearer the goal.' This stands in direct opposition to individualized hatred: 'in proportion as the proletarian absorbs socialistic and communistic elements, will the revolution diminish in bloodshed, revenge, and savagery . . . [I]t does not occur to any Communist to wish to revenge himself upon individuals.' ...

The history of the revolutionary movement is, among other things, a history of organized radicals attempting to restrain individualized class hate. Hatred must be class hatred, with 'communistic ideas,' precisely to obviate 'the present bitterness.' But that class hate is glowing and must glow, and only by 'cherishing the most glowing hatred,' in Engels’s vivid formulation, can those at the sharp end of history keep self-respect alive. Herein lies the 'purity' of which the radical journalist Alexander Cockburn enquired when he famously asked of his interns, 'Is your hate pure?' This is a political iteration of the תַּכְלִ֣ית שִׂנְאָ֣הַ, the taklit sinah, the 'utmost' or 'perfect hatred' of the Psalms for those who rise up against the Lord — that is to say, to translate into political eschatology, the enemies of justice. Psalm 139:22: 'I hate them with a perfect hatred.'

We must hate harder than did the Manifesto, for the sake of humanity. Such class hate is constitutive with and inextricable from solidarity, the drive for human liberty, for the full development of the human, the ethic of emancipation implicit throughout the Manifesto and beyond. We should hate this [capitalist] world, with and through and beyond and even more than does the Manifesto. We should hate this hateful and hating and hatemongering system of cruelty, that exhausts and withers and kills us, that stunts our care, makes it so embattled and constrained and local in its scale and effects, where we have the capacity to be greater.

Hate is not and cannot be the only or main drive to renewal. That would be deeply dangerous. We should neither celebrate nor trust our hate. But nor should we deny it. It’s not our enemy, and we cannot do without it. 'At the risk of seeming ridiculous,' said Che Guevara, 'let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.' It’s for the sake of love that, reading it today, we must hate more and better than even the Communist Manifesto knew how."

- China Miéville, from "China Mieville on Why Capitalism Deserves Our Burning Hatred." Jacobin, 27 November 2022.

#china miéville #quote #quotations #marxism #democratic socialism #friedrich engels #communist manifesto #class struggle #hatred #alexander cockburn #oppression #inequality #capitalism

[unwilting]

The proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that “its own” nation oppresses. Unless it does this, proletarian internationalism will remain a meaningless phrase; mutual confidence and class solidarity between the workers of the oppressing and oppressed nations will be impossible; the hypocrisy of the reformist and Kautskyan advocates of self-determination who maintain silence about the nations which are oppressed by “their” nation and forcibly retained within “their” state will remain unexposed. The Socialists of the oppressed nations, on the other hand, must particularly fight for and maintain complete, absolute unity (also organizational) between the workers of the oppressed nation and the workers of the oppressing nation. Without such unity it will be impossible to maintain an independent proletarian policy and class solidarity with the proletariat of other countries in the face of all the subterfuge, treachery and trickery of the bourgeoisie; for the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations always converts the slogan of national liberation into a means for deceiving the workers; in internal politics it utilizes these slogans as a means for conduding reactionary agreements with the bourgeoisie of the ruling nation (for instance, the Poles in Austria and Russia, who entered into pacts with reaction in order to oppress the Jews and the Ukrainians); in the realm of foreign politics it strives to enter into pacts with one of the rival imperialist powers for the purpose of achieving its own predatory aims (the policies of the small states in the Balkans, etc.).

The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Lenin

#by: lenin #on: internationalism #on: self determination

[talking-theory-with-chatgpt]

What lessons might the modern American left draw from Lenin's "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky"?

There are a few lessons that the modern American left might draw from Lenin's "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky."

First, the book serves as a reminder of the importance of revolutionary principles and the need for a clear understanding of the nature of capitalism and imperialism. Lenin's critique of Kautsky's abandonment of revolutionary Marxism in favor of a more moderate, reformist position can be seen as a call to the left to maintain a focus on the revolutionary struggle and to resist attempts to reconcile socialism with bourgeois democracy and reformism.

Second, the book highlights the importance of international solidarity and the need for socialists to oppose imperialism and war. Lenin's critique of Kautsky's support for the German government in World War I can be seen as a reminder that socialists must always prioritize the interests of the working class over the interests of their own nation, and that imperialism and war are fundamental features of capitalism that must be opposed.

Finally, the book can be seen as a call to the left to be vigilant against the dangers of opportunism and revisionism. Lenin saw Kautsky's abandonment of revolutionary principles as a betrayal of the working class and a threat to the socialist movement as a whole. The modern American left can draw on this lesson by remaining vigilant against attempts to water down or compromise socialist principles in the pursuit of short-term gains or popularity.

Overall, Lenin's "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" can serve as a reminder of the importance of revolutionary principles, international solidarity, and vigilance against opportunism and revisionism for the modern American left.

#marxism leninism #chatgpt

[strommccallum]

Democratic Socialism and the “Politics” of Exhibitionism

Tailing socially reactionary sentiment would lead international democratic socialism to a dead end. So would continuation of its accommodation of exhibitionism practiced under the guise of democratic socialist agitation.

Not only does exhibitionism carried out on Twitter, city streets, TikTok, organizational meetings and conventions, and all spaces in between under the name of democratic socialist organizational effort repel or frighten the vast majority of those that are exploited and oppressed by Capital, the vast majority of those who would make up the ranks of the Socialist Revolution, but it is in itself demonstration of a lack of commitment to a serious revolutionary politics and program, a lack of commitment to a politics and program of development of an international class conscious proletarian consensus, seizure of state power, expropriation of Capital, and realization of a global cooperative commonwealth. It amounts to display of the mindset that Marxism and democratic socialist agitation is simply a pretext for lashing out and being "bad", "edgy", or generally unlike so-called "normies", for ribaldly signaling that one is "different", for throwing temper tantrums of raw, indiscriminate iconoclastic rage.

If a movement is one of trumpeting that its faithful are "different" from and somehow better than the "normies", of shocking and offending simply to shock and offend, of being a boisterous "Catboy", "commie witch" or "commie Satanist", "Tankie"-themed BDSM practitioner, or clotheshorse of styles and articles meant only to be grotesque, it is not one of serious politics of radical social transformation and is, by definition, a movement which is anti-popular. The objective of the democratic socialist project, as laid out by Marx and Engels, is developing the class consciousness of all proletarians to a mature level, freeing humankind from the scourge of capitalism, and building a classless world of human solidarity and democratic production for use economy. It is about emphasizing what the exploited have in common and emancipating the "normie" and the "eccentric" or "queer" oppressed alike. The idea that the eccentric or the exhibitionist libertine is superior to the "normie" is anti-majoritarian, counter-proletarian solidaristic, anti-socialist, bourgeois hyper-individualist nonsense. International democratic socialism must be intolerant of these attitudes, just as it is intolerant of racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation bigotry. How can we continue to allow space for thinking so oppositional to genuine Marxist thought in our institutions of political education and organization?

Intolerance of the practice of exhibitionism in the name of Marxist revolutionary politics does not in any sense amount to intolerance of deviation from aesthetic or sexual norms. It amounts to enforcement of a serious commitment to revolutionary politics and protection of our movement from tendencies opposed to serious constructive mentality and programs of action, to protection of international democratic  socialism from tendencies that would derail the movement. Institutions of international democratic socialism must not accommodate elements which deem the objective of the democratic socialist project to be the advertisement of sexual or aesthetic preferences in a manner designed to offend the "everyman and everywoman", establishment and broadcasting a "subcultural" identity, simple castigation of the "masses" or bragging about how "bad" or "edgy" we democratic socialists are.

No, we cannot write off proletarians practicing this rubbish as "irredeemables" or individuals incapable of becoming revolutionary actors, just as we cannot write off those proletarians under the sway of socially reactionary ideology or "radical" essentialism and identity reductionism as such, but we cannot pretend that they are as of yet serious, genuine Marxists.

(Republished from my blog)