"Don't worry guys, the Vanguard(tm) will totally let us skip the whole 'bourgeois democracy' phase of things and definitely not devolve into a fascist state capitalist regime"
Wait. I'm ignorant about this stuff. Can someone explain please?
At a super rough gloss:
Pure Marxism encompasses two basic theories: Marx's critique of capitalist economics, which he argues are predicated on unjust material distributions which are employed by the owning class to steal value from the working class by controlling the means of production; and his proposed alternative, wherein the workers own the means of production and exist in a stateless, classless worker's paradise ("communism").
Notably lacking in Marx's work is a compelling plan for how to move from capitalism to communism. Enter Leninism: to transition, the so-called "vanguard party" will seize control and establish a total dictatorship to wholly quash capitalism and bring the society into alignment towards communism; when this is achieved, the vanguard party is supposed to relinquish control and the worker's utopia may commence.
This school of thought, deemed Marxism-Leninism, is the nominal philosophy underpinning many modern states that bill themselves as communist, including the USSR and the CCP. While on paper it provides a feasible path to the worker's utopia, critics argue that in practice the vanguard party fails to relinquish control, establish themselves as the new owning class, and operate a fundamentally capitalist regime under the trappings of communism.
Wow that's a great explanation! Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. It's a lot more clear now.
Orthodox Marxism believes that societies develop through different modes of production, each one building the foundations for the next - feudalism builds the foundation for capitalism, which overthrows it; capitalism builds the foundation for socialism, which overthrows capitalism in turn.
Marxist-Leninists believe that you can skip the whole pesky "capitalist accumulation" bit if you just believe really hard with a small group of dedicated ideologues (the vanguard party), and that if you give all power to this vanguard, it will DEFINITELY turn into a worker's state. Somehow. Someday. Seemingly, though, every time MLs have tried this, it's devolved into a fascist state or a capitalist oligarchy.
Very curious. I'm sure this isn't some flaw in their brilliant planning. Maybe they didn't believe hard enough.
And the beauty of such an excellent summary is that it's all historically based. So many things look good on paper but never factor human nature—which coincidentally loves ignoring history and repeating it's mistakes.
I knew I didn’t like Leninism, but it was moreso because I hate totalitarian regimes. TIL about the vanguard and it’s purpose, thanks for that.
The strength to overcome capitalism has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? Lenin says that for the workers to achieve this strength, the organization of the working class is necessary, because it is the only weapon we have in front of the entire state apparatus that the bourgeoisie holds and the only way to organize this force is through a vanguard party
OP's entire ideology is summed up by "Stalin bad". Which fair enough, criticism of Stalinism is always welcome, but he's a leftist anti-communist dedicating more time to spread negative sectionalist propaganda than to actually push for leftism.
OP’s entire ideology is summed up by “Stalin bad”.
What a radical I am.
Wow, he's just like ML then. Well minus the hypocrisy.
i really appreciate the discussion here but holy hell y'all, is name-calling and vulgarity an essential component of leftist infighting or just tradition? just seems like we could save the vitriol for the bourgeoisie.
Look at this class traitor, trying to soften the only true leftists, the most opinionated version of Redditors.
Didn't you know? The Internet is only for porn and being dicks to people with beliefs slightly different from your own. /s
Kindness rarely costs anything.
Alot of the criticism of Stalin was basically already laid out by Bakunin before Lenin so maybe the second face for both
cries
Mom and Dad are fighting again!
come up with and execute something better then
It's called capitalism.
lol ok
"fascism is when classless society without exploitation of surplus value, when no mythical past of greatness of the nation, when no ethnonationalism, when women's rights and when equal political representation among different ethnicities, when promoting internationalist solidarity, and when greatest union membership in the history of humanity"
How about instead of, as a self-proclaimed leftist, you stop wasting time making sectionalist memes and you focus on actually productive discussion?
“fascism is when classless society without exploitation of surplus value, when no mythical past of greatness of the nation, when no ethnonationalism, when women’s rights and when equal political representation among different ethnicities, when promoting internationalist solidarity, and when greatest union membership in the history of humanity”
Rich. If anyone is wondering, this is what MLs genuinely believe about the Soviet Union and China.
How about instead of, as a self-proclaimed leftist, you stop wasting time making sectionalist memes and you focus on actually productive discussion?
Like explaining basic concepts of Marxism to MLs? No thank you.
this is what MLs genuinely believe about the Soviet Union
Please explain how there were exploitation of surplus value, a mythical past of greatness, ethnonationalism in the USSR, and how womens rights weren't categorically forwarded to world-pioneer levels, tell us the percentages of representation in the party of different ethnicities, tell us how the USSR's ideas weren't based on internationalist solidarity, and tell me one country with more union members than the former USSR.
I know you're not going to answer to any of these questions seriously and you're gonna dismiss it with "lol u are fash", just pointing out you haven't done and won't do any research on the topic because you've been brainwashed by leftist anti-communism.
classless society without exploitation of surplus value
To quote your daddy Engels (from a wholly different context, but it fits):
These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
greatest union membership in the history of humanity
And that "union" was better to agree with the party, or else...
That actually matches with what the Nazis did to unions.
Much as I love a good dunk on the tankies, I find Marxism a bit lackluster in this day and age.
Marx was an important thinker for his time, and made important insights on the nature of capitalist economies, but he also lived over 100 years ago. Practically the entire field of economics developed after this point, not to mention a lot of relevant history and struggle related to his ideas.
So go ahead, read Marx, read Lenin, read whoever. But place them in the proper historical context. We’ve learned much about the world since these people lived, and the world has changed as well. They weren’t prophets whose sacred words we must follow, just a few voices among many. Take what is true and useful and discard what has been disproven.
Not to insult anyone's philosophies or anything, but it's always weirded me out how socialists name their ideologies after people, instead of what they represent. Anarchist philosophies are called things like mutualism, market anarchist, syndicalism, platformism, et cetera. Socialist philosophies are Marxism, Leninism, De Leonism, et cetera. Again, not shitting on the philosophies themselves, just the naming tradition, and how psychologically I think that might help that whole image of dogmatic attachment to the thinker, instead of the thought.
Doesn't seem weird to me. Things are routinely named after their creators/discoverers/proponents in STEM. Nobody thinks you're being dogmatic if you talk about Newtonian gravity or Fourier transformations. Why should political philosophy be different?
That which you describe is not socialism. Marx, Lenin, Mao, ho chi min, ect. were communists and their acts were meant to build up to communism. They believed that a command economy with socialistic entities controlling industry were a good tool to do so (save for Marx). Their philosophy was not sincerly socialist however they simply saw it as a means to an ends. A step in the evolution towards their goal.
Seperatly, communism which can be described as a moneyless, stateless, classless system where resources are distributed according to need first then want and ability to redistribute is an anarchist solution. Sure, they never got there, but this is what they were trying to build towards. They were, fundamentally, anarchists. They simply believed that an authoritarian "vanguard" was needed to get society to a point where it could form this anarchistic solution by overthrowing the vanguard.
Lastly, syndicalism is arguably not an anarchistic movement as it's not even really a cohesive idiology. It's moreso descriptive of common ideas than proscriptive and can work with both a regulated economy with an organized government or without. Thus the term anarch-syndacalist
As for the naming I tend to agree. Though the reasoning for the name is understandable. Each had a different idea on how communism could be built and each (save for marx) were quite dependant on authoritarian, strong man tactics. On Marx though, he was the prodomenant speaker for the ideas put forward. The more generic idea present, communism, follows your prefered naming scheme.
Lastly, I'm certain I could find some mutualist variant, or market anarchist variant, named after it's progenetor. Particularly if I were to look into anarch capitalism I'm sure it's present
Well, as Marx once said, "If there is one thing that is certain, it is that I am not a Marxist."
Marx recognized his place in the grand scheme of things as a contributor to socialist thought, not a prophet or final arbiter of socialist theory. I find that very noble and far-sighted (ironically?).
Yes, well this comment was directed mainly at Marxists, not Marx himself. He seems like he was a mostly reasonable person, even if a few of his ideas were disagreeable to me.
I also just generally think naming your entire philosophy after one person suggests a certain level of dogmatism. You don’t have to call yourself a Marxist to think Marx had a lot of good and important ideas. Humans are very prone to deifying people and it’s a dangerous and anti-intellectual urge.
Well said.
David Ellerman's modernization of the classical laborists' argument against capitalism is significantly more powerful than modern Marxism.
Marx's claim that private property is the root of capitalist appropriation has been disproven in modern theories of capitalism's property rights structure. Private property plays a role in giving bargain power to get favorable terms, but the ultimate legal basis of capitalist appropriation is the employer-employee contract
@politicalmemes