Top 5 worst strategies

[The Idler]

What do you consider the top 5 worst strategies for socialism and why? Here are some ideas.
1. Ego splits - splintering a party because of personal differences
2. The sell-out - aka welfare capitalism or "lets settle for reducing exploitation"
3. The messiah-leader syndrome - criticism is bad
4. Bombing civilians (Baader Meinhof)
5. In denial - (extreme anti-revisionism?) - Its all lies about the Khmer Rouge/Shining Path/Mugabe

[Post-Something]

Not taking democracy seriously is the worst strategy of all.

[CommieCat]

Taking democracy seriously.

[Bilan]

1/ Alliances with the bourgeoisie
2/ National Liberation
3/ Parliamentary politics (ugggh)
4/ Fetishes for bureaucratic, and otherwise capitalist trade unions.
5/ Lifestylism/dropping out.

[NecroCommie]

Dividing into numerous revolutionary movements, driven by only slightly conflicting goals.

"We wont fight with the green-left movements! They are a bunch of naive reformists!" True perhaps, but disastrous for the class-war.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Worrying too much about what we're doing wrong and not what we can do right probably constitutes as numero uno. ALL political movements have factions of varying sectarianism; all have their idiots, terrorists, blind followers, compromisers, and historical grievances. Pacifists have been known to brawl each other, and socialists have been known to attack workers.

Second would have to be knowing leftist terms like "wage slavery" but not knowing what they mean.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Becoming isolated loons out of touch with real life.

[welshboy]

Not taking democracy seriously is the worst strategy of all.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*cough* *cough*
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Could you explain your parties 'democratic' process and decision making structure again?

[Invincible Summer]

1) Reformism
2) Authoritarian regime
3) Primitivism
4) Lifestylism
5) Nationalist socialism

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I thought of a third strategy that needs to be decapitated:

Flaunting your "cool, controversial" tees, bandannas, and wristbands. Just stop.

[Circle E Society]

Becoming isolated loons out of touch with real life.
Unless your lifes goal is to be the next Ted Kaczynski

[welshboy]

1)Supporting fascist parties
2)Neutering dissent by clinging to tired old tactics that alinate the majority of working class people.
3)Thinking that having a central commitee is in any way democratic.
4)Dressing up as a clown
5)Supporting fascist parties, even if they are in the middle east!:cursing:

[Yazman]

Not taking democracy seriously is the worst strategy of all.

What do you mean by democracy? direct democracy as anarchists/anarcho-communists propose? Liberal/representative democracy? democratic centralism?

[The Intransigent Faction]

Becoming isolated loons out of touch with real life.

^ This.

[Die Neue Zeit]

1) Class collaborationism (such as the parliamentary coalitionism strategy of the "reformists," identity politics, and Green politics)
2) Ultra-spontaneism (the ever-defeatist stikhiinyi (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fetishizing-decentralized-social-t99349/index.html))
3) Broad economism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/broad-economism-t97399/index.html) ("not taking democracy seriously" per another poster above)
4) "Mass action" fetishes (general strikes, mass strikes, etc. as a strategy, not a tactic of "the left")
5) Minoritarian "direct action" fetishes (hooliganism, insurrectionism, etc.)



That leaves us with revolutionary centrism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/kautsky-v-lenin-t67203/index.html?p=1203523) as the only viable international strategy for worker movements.

[Circle E Society]

4)
"Mass action" fetishes (general strikes, mass strikes, etc. as a strategy, not a tactic of "the left")
5) "Direct action" fetishes (hooliganism, insurrectionism, etc.)

I fail to see how anyone could call direct action hooliganism unless you just sit and read books by old white dead males all day. I also don't know where you were going with the mass action bit however if youre saying that stopping the means of production in solidarity through striking is a bad revolutionary tactic then that is just silly. I may have just misunderstood because you made a terminology note.

[Circle E Society]

1.Vanguard
2.hierarchy
3.patriarchy
4.lifestylism
5.Sitting around reading theory and history all day and not putting it into action.

[Post-Something]

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*cough* *cough*
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Could you explain your parties 'democratic' process and decision making structure again?

I'm actually leaving the SWP. For lots of reasons, but one of them is the party's "democratic" process and decision making structure.

[Post-Something]

Sorry for the double post, and not explaining what I wrote earlier.


What do you mean by democracy? direct democracy as anarchists/anarcho-communists propose? Liberal/representative democracy? democratic centralism?

And yes, I mean direct democracy.

The problem with a lot of socialist efforts so far is that Marx envisioned the socialist form of democracy as the extension and completion of the process of democratisation initiated with the introduction of liberal democracy, in which freedoms and rights are preserved extended. At other times however, socialist democracy is pictured as an alternative to liberal democracy, which will supercede and replace it.

The latter view was the one that prevailed in the soviet union and other societies molded on these terms. These regimes rejected liberal democracy, and claimed instead to be "peoples democracies", which was supposed to be an alternative and superior form.

160 years after the manifesto was written, I'm curious to see if anyone can show me a working socialist society which actually had a decent democratic system. All I can find is a couple of workers councils in the early soviet union, Italy and Hungary; and none of these lasted for very long.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I fail to see how anyone could call direct action hooliganism unless you just sit and read books by old white dead males all day. I also don't know where you were going with the mass action bit however if youre saying that stopping the means of production in solidarity through striking is a bad revolutionary tactic then that is just silly. I may have just misunderstood because you made a terminology note.

This article should prove useful:

Reform coalition or mass strike? (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/618/McNair%20-%20Strategy3.htm)


I'm actually leaving the SWP. For lots of reasons, but one of them is the party's "democratic" process and decision making structure.

Which organization are you joining?

[Post-Something]

Which organization are you joining?

I most likely won't be joining any organisations for a while until I sort out my political standing.

[Yazman]

Sorry for the double post, and not explaining what I wrote earlier.



And yes, I mean direct democracy.

The problem with a lot of socialist efforts so far is that Marx envisioned the socialist form of democracy as the extension and completion of the process of democratisation initiated with the introduction of liberal democracy, in which freedoms and rights are preserved extended. At other times however, socialist democracy is pictured as an alternative to liberal democracy, which will supercede and replace it.

The latter view was the one that prevailed in the soviet union and other societies molded on these terms. These regimes rejected liberal democracy, and claimed instead to be "peoples democracies", which was supposed to be an alternative and superior form.

160 years after the manifesto was written, I'm curious to see if anyone can show me a working socialist society which actually had a decent democratic system. All I can find is a couple of workers councils in the early soviet union, Italy and Hungary; and none of these lasted for very long.

I think direct democracy is far more preferable to liberal democracy or democratic centralism as practiced in the USSR/etc. I do not think that the liberal democracy, which claims to be "representative", is such in any meaningful way.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm for something like demarchic centralism, actually. Just like plebiscites should be supplemented with the random-sortition equivalent of no-judiciary "soviet power" (thereby ensuring, ironically, a statistically representative "sample"), direct voting within political parties should still be supplemented by a randomly selected hierarchical structure that addresses Bordiga's criticisms of electoralism (the aristocratic/oligarchic method of selecting persons) while avoiding his weakness of non-accountability by stressing the need to recall abusive party officials.

[Bilan]

I fail to see how anyone could call direct action hooliganism unless you just sit and read books by old white dead males all day.

I hate this shit. It's really tedious. Someone being white, dead or male doesn't change the relevance of their ideas. That is really stupid.

[OriginalGumby]

1 Lack of Democratic Centralism (fullest democratic discussion and unity in action because we need to be well organized and efficient to win, fuck consensus and autonomous groups, fuck unaccountable bureaucracies especially if they claim to be DC)
2 Identity Politics(Blame white hetro-sexual males for oppression when its rooted in capitalism and usually arguing that they all benefit from it and cant be equal participants in fighting for liberation)
3 Substitutionism (There is no movement so we are going to have to make up the difference with radical action)
4 Defenders of "Socialist" or "Communist" countries which have nothing to do with those concepts.(Giving the real thing a bad name.)
5 Abstract Propaganda (The ideas you promote should resonate with those around, so STFU crazy sects)

Bonus Stop bothering me on paper sales if you are in one of the small irrelevant sects. I don't want to talk to you, you are scaring away all the normal people that I want to meet, and I definitely don't want your "ISO Truth Kit" You know who you are.

Bonus 2 Silly people who disregard what white dead males wrote. Why not learn from others experiences and ideas. Marx however still maintained that philosophers had interpreted the world, the point is to change it. Arguing explicitly against armchair revolutionaries and "intellectuals". Do both.

[Djehuti]

I also don't know where you were going with the mass action bit however if youre saying that stopping the means of production in solidarity through striking is a bad revolutionary tactic then that is just silly. I may have just misunderstood because you made a terminology note.

He said as a strategy, not as a tactic. I think that all focus on big demonstrations and big strikes has kept the radical movements of France and Italy for example from being a real threat to the system. These forms of mass action is a good tactic to develop unity etc. but it seems like it has become a goal in itself. We must constantly move on to remain dangerous.

[LeninBalls]

2/ National Liberation

Yes, clearly, tearing off the chains of some foreign imperialist power is wrong.

[mosfeld]

The greatest betrayal one can commit to a revolutionary movement is joining a parliamentary. Fuck Prachanda, what a spit in the face to all who died for the Nepalese maoist movement.


1.Vanguard Yeah, vanguards are really fucking stupid man, Rosa Luxemburg also thought so and you can see how successful her revolution was.


5. In denial - (extreme anti-revisionism?) - Its all lies about the Khmer Rouge/Shining Path/Mugabe
Yes, anti-revisionists support the Khmer Rouge and Shining Path :laugh::laugh:

[Post-Something]

Yeah, vanguards are really fucking stupid man, Rosa Luxemburg also thought so and you can see how successful her revolution was.

Yeah, vanguards are really fucking awesome man, Stalin also thought so and you can see how successful his revolution was.

[Dimentio]

I would say that the worst strategy of all is to "live in history" and dedicate a silly amount of time to attacking other parties who happen to think that Trotsky/Stalin said that and did so because of that...

[mosfeld]

Yeah, vanguards are really fucking awesome man, Stalin also thought so and you can see how successful his revolution was.
Thanks for backing up my point.

[Q]

I would say that the worst strategy of all is to "live in history" and dedicate a silly amount of time to attacking other parties who happen to think that Trotsky/Stalin said that and did so because of that...

While I agree with that notion, it is also true that there were there are very real political differences (because of a historical background), they shouldn't be ignored either. Discussing the best ways to develop a fighting working class movement is one of our essential tasks in my opinion.

[RedScare]

Petty sectarianism is probably up there as a really bad strategy. We all want socialism, our difference's are pretty god-damn minor in the long run, why can't we work together?

[LOLseph Stalin]

Petty sectarianism is probably up there as a really bad strategy. We all want socialism, our difference's are pretty god-damn minor in the long run, why can't we work together?

I agree. Our movement would be way larger and more successful if we could just all work together. Instead we have to dispute over little things such as the classic Stalin vs. Trotsky argument. We all want the end of Capitalism, imperialism, etc right? We should be working towards that. It's getting to be a waste of time and energy arguing over two dead men.

[RHIZOMES]

What do you consider the top 5 worst strategies for socialism and why? Here are some ideas.
1. Ego splits - splintering a party because of personal differences
2. The sell-out - aka welfare capitalism or "lets settle for reducing exploitation"
3. The messiah-leader syndrome - criticism is bad
4. Bombing civilians (Baader Meinhof)
5. In denial - (extreme anti-revisionism?) - Its all lies about the Khmer Rouge/Shining Path/Mugabe

Reading shitloads of Marxist history and theory but not actually doing anything about the present class struggle.


Petty sectarianism is probably up there as a really bad strategy. We all want socialism, our difference's are pretty god-damn minor in the long run, why can't we work together?

I think differences about modern day political practice are important enough to split over but the Trotsky vs. Stalin thing alone is not.

[Bilan]

Yes, clearly, tearing off the chains of some foreign imperialist power is wrong.

Yes, Mr Balls, that is my objection to it.
The objection to national liberation is not because it tears off the 'chains' of imperialist powers, but because it doesn't; because it aligns the proletariat with the bourgeoisie and suppresses class interests, and leads to a blood bath and the return to class oppression; because the shackles of the imperialist powers aren't 'removed', but simply maintain themselves through economic imperialism.
A short summary.

[Dimentio]

Yes, Mr Balls, that is my objection to it.
The objection to national liberation is not because it tears off the 'chains' of imperialist powers, but because it doesn't; because it aligns the proletariat with the bourgeoisie and suppresses class interests, and leads to a blood bath and the return to class oppression; because the shackles of the imperialist powers aren't 'removed', but simply maintain themselves through economic imperialism.
A short summary.

I would claim that there are methods for third world countries to "free" themselves from foreign influence. But usually, that does'nt bring them any closer to socialist liberation, or the western proletariat any closer to revolution.

Some previously exploited countries, like South Korea and Taiwan, have managed to become industrialised first world nations.

Nowadays, the USA thinks twice before attempting anything in Latin America.

I think China is moving away from being a country which is solely exploited by western capitalists into a country able to project exploitation by itself.

Some areas are more exploited than ever. Africa for example.

I would also claim that some areas of the world has been "opened up" for what could be defined as imperialist exploitation. One example is Central Asia, which may very well be the cause of the next large imperialist war.

[Enragé]

in no particular order:

1. Reformism
2. Sectarianism
3. Centralistic Democratism/Perverted 'democratic centralism'
4. Radicalising to compensate for the lack of an existing social movement/a movement which is big enough (i.e Rote Armee Fraktion, and autonomists have a knack of doing this as well).
5. Anti-Insurrectionalism ('we cant fight now, we'll never win! - we need to grow more!')/Talking of revolution without reference to everyday life (i.e Jacob Richter).

Points 4 and 5 may seem contradictory, they are, my point is we have to look at the context. Insurrection is useful and practical in non-revolutionary times - greece is a good example. But it has to be mass insurrection, mass riot. Protecting marches from cops, responding to repression and direct action is in my mind the best course of action until then (as well as organising, whether in the anarchist or the leninist way, organisation is necessary).

[LeninBalls]

Yes, Mr Balls, that is my objection to it.
The objection to national liberation is not because it tears off the 'chains' of imperialist powers, but because it doesn't; because it aligns the proletariat with the bourgeoisie and suppresses class interests, and leads to a blood bath and the return to class oppression; because the shackles of the imperialist powers aren't 'removed', but simply maintain themselves through economic imperialism.
A short summary.

Whatever, I dont think you shouldn't support Palestinians, Kurds, East Turkestans, Chechnyans, etc even if THEY WANT INDEPENDENCE because it leads to more yet to be proven struggle.

[Rusty Shackleford]

like others have said before, why not come together as a much larger force?
there are bad ways to do things, just look at evangelism haha.


we should find common ground for now, and discuss things later.
again as RedScare and others say, sectarianism is bad and the divisions are what break things down.

learn from these faults but then move on!

[Bilan]

Whatever, I dont think you shouldn't support Palestinians, Kurds, East Turkestans, Chechnyans, etc even if THEY WANT INDEPENDENCE because it leads to more yet to be proven struggle.

And herein lies the difference. You're a populist, I'm a socialist.

[Hoxhaist]

bourgeois nationalism
ethnic chauvinism
religious chauvinism
reformism
revisionism

[Die Neue Zeit]

5. Anti-Insurrectionalism ('we cant fight now, we'll never win! - we need to grow more!')/Talking of revolution without reference to everyday life (i.e Jacob Richter).

Don't confuse politicized class struggle with political insurrection. :glare: I have cited a lot of "everyday life" experiences to back up my citations of Marx, Engels, etc. which in turn back up my main points (all those media articles and blogs that guys like you conveniently ignore).

[mikelepore]

One of the worst things is writing a document that makes it sound as though socialism is one of the many disjointed objectives, way down the list: "We call for: (1) end the water pollution, (2) stop the nuclear power plant, (3) get rid of the the monopoly of the corporate media, ..... ..... ....., (57) and we also want socialism." A good communication makes it clear that capitalism is the basic cause of our social problems, and socialism already includes the fix for everything else.

[redguard2009]

1) Revleft
2) Environmentalism
3) Obamania
4) Peaceful demonstration
5) Discussing the top 5 worst revolutionary strategies on an internet forum.

[PRC-UTE]

What do you consider the top 5 worst strategies for socialism and why? Here are some ideas.
1. Ego splits - splintering a party because of personal differences
2. The sell-out - aka welfare capitalism or "lets settle for reducing exploitation"
3. The messiah-leader syndrome - criticism is bad
4. Bombing civilians (Baader Meinhof)
5. In denial - (extreme anti-revisionism?) - Its all lies about the Khmer Rouge/Shining Path/Mugabe

I've done all those things. :o

[Andropov]

And herein lies the difference. You're a populist, I'm a socialist.

Marx and Engels supported National Liberation struggles.
So really Leninballs is a Marxist, your a revisionist.

[Bilan]

Marx and Engels supported National Liberation struggles.
So really Leninballs is a Marxist, your a revisionist.

Ah, the beauty of simplistic analysis. Marx and Engels were both deeply chauvinistic. Want to play that card too?

But lets be more precise. Marx and Engels both lived in a period in which the rapid expansion of capitalism was occurring, or, to but it simply, were in Capitalism's ascendant period - where struggles which forced concessions from the bourgeoisie (such as parliamentary activity, trade unionism, etc) played a much more vital role in improving the working conditions and lives of the working class. National liberation, too, played a more revolutionary role in this period, but nevertheless, not a communist one.

We now, however, are in a completely different situation. Surely, the productive relations (those being capitalist) are unaltered, but the development of the global economy itself has been significantly altered. It is no longer in a period of rapid development, but instead, of decomposition. What was progressive in the ascendency is no longer. National Liberation struggles, fetishised by those like yourself, does not play a revolutionary role in terms of the struggle of the proletariat. It unites the proletariat and the bourgeoisie under bourgeois goals of "Self-determination" of nation states, and smothers the interests of the proletariat (No rhetoric about 'the people' changes this, unfortunately).
And even when the physical presence of an occupation is shaken off, the economic and political presence remains - the military imperialism may 'disappear' in presence, but the economic imperialism remains as strong as ever.
National Liberation is counter-revolutionary in two ways. One, in its suppression of the interests of the proletariat; Two in its smothering of Internationalism. (The two are obviously interrelated).

Your bourgeois politics speak for themselves.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Marx and Engels supported National Liberation struggles.
So really Leninballs is a Marxist, your a revisionist.

Going on from what Bilan said, the quote from Lenin (of all people!) in my sig is a beauty in response to this kind of rubbish so often thrown about without any thought.

“Anyone who today refers to Marx’s attitude towards the wars of the epoch of the progressive bourgeoisie, and forgets Marx’s statement that the ‘workingmen have no country’ – a statement that applies precisely to the period of the reactionary and outmoded bourgeoisie, to the epoch of the socialist revolution, is shamelessly distorting Marx, and is substituting the bourgeois point of view for the socialist.” (Lenin, Socialism and War)

[Hoxhaist]

the internationalism that Lenin tried to introduce into Russian society via the Soviet Union was a noble effort that ended with revisionists compromising internationalism in concessions to ethnic chauvinists. thats a poor strategy: abandoning basic principles in order to gain favor

[Dimentio]

The worst strategy ever is to either apologise Pol Pot or Kim Jong-Il.

[RyanFarrick]

The worst strategy ever is to either apologise Pol Pot or Kim Jong-Il.

Ugh, I agree. There's no excuses for them.