A rejection of Marxism-Leninism

[reklaw]

Definition of terms:
ML means Marxism-Leninism



Dichotomy
One of the most important things that suggests to me the non-viability of ML is the severe dichotomy of workers/peasants and the bourgeoisie. Such a distinction seems stuck in the 19th century, since in western countries there really are no peasants, and the working class is now the middle class. By appealing only to poor farmers and people who work in manufacturing, you appeal to maybe 10-15% of the modern population. Would someone who works in a shop be a worker? Would someone who owns a small organic farm and sells produce to survive be a member if the evil bourgeoisie, as they are a landowner?

The dichotomy totally fails to recognise that the world as it really exists is not black and white, that there are almost always shades in between. And by appealing to social classes/groups that almost no longer exist in the developed world, I am wondering how MLists propose they will ever convince enough people that revolution is the way forward?
The lack of pragmatism and backward looking/regressive nature of ML is, for me, most exemplified for me by the Soviet embrace of Lysenkoism, and its rejection of quantum physics as cosmopolitan (read jewish). Their ideological fervour blinded them even to very credible scientific theory; a bizarre mistake for an ideology that is so materialistic in nature.
Statism
This to me is the worst aspect of ML; that the needs of the individual must conform to the needs of the state. Even if the state oppresses workers, it cannot be anti-worker because it is, nominally, a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is why most communist regimes outlaw trade unions it seems to me. Because they refuse to recognise any power base or interest group other than their own, and refuse to recognise any one else having a mandate to represent either working people, peasants or anyone else.
I think it would be fairly well accepted that communist regimes in the 20th centuries were generally not as good at producing and distributing consumer goods to their population as the western economies; focus was generally on heavy industry, agriculture, the military-industrial complex. It seems that inordinate resources were dedicated to making the state stronger, more powerful, more influential, but not necessarily increasing the living standards of people.
The worst aspect to me is that anything can be justified in the name of the state; taking away pretty much a lot of liberties (the right to form unions, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, of association etc), and I would think the evidence points to much worse (people sent to gulags, murdered, imprisoned for minor offences, the abuse of psychiatry).
Even totally excluding the latter, I don’t think anyone can argue that the Soviet Union, for example, did not do the things mentioned above. It can be credibly argued, though I may disagree, that it was justified, but not that the people of the USSR were free to voice their opinions openly, to travel freely etc etc
Which brings me to my main point; what if the state becomes corrupt? Any dissent is illegal and suppressed, the state refuses to sanction even the slightest disagreement outside policy making circles, how can you ever guarantee that a “dictatorship of the proletariat” will not become corrupted, as seems to be the case every time it has been tried?
Vanguard/elitism
This is what disturbs me most about ML; many of its proponents seem positively bloodthirsty. They seem to revel in slogans and hard ideology, in conflict, and even violence. Even today, there are MLs who love talking about “toasting over the bones of the bourgeoisie”. In this sense, it doesn’t surprise me that the few hardcore ML’s I have known generally become pseudo-fascists and/or white nationalists. It seems to come with the territory; indeed, many neocons are former MLs. I think the love of authority and statism is what unites the far left and far right, so that they are more alike than middle of the road people.
Indeed, I feel that for all its pretensions, revolutionary ML is an elitist ideology. It believes that the people are too stupid to know what is right for them, and so a revolutionary vanguard must seize power and institute a dictatorship of the “x” for the good of the “x”. In this sense, MLs remind me a lot of Straussians and Islamic fundamentalists.
Denial of human nature

ML has consistently failed because it denies human nature, particularly so in a period where a plurality, if not most people, are middle class. It denies people’s aspirations, it denies that they usually know what they need better than some bureaucrat making a decision for them on the basis of the persons membership in a “class” of people. And it seems to believe that Lord Acton’s maxim only applies if it is a free-market economy that is being discussed, despite history’s ample evidence to the contrary.
Indeed, communism seems to be positively regressive; it seems that ML socialist nations often become effective monarchies (North Korea, Cuba), and are always left worse off than comparable free market economies. If we want to compare apples with apples, look at the DDR and the GDR, or North and South Korea. In both cases, the communist nation was worse off. In both cases, the migration of people overwhelmingly went from the communist to the capitalist half. In the minds of MLs, this is apparently because the masses are too stupid to know what is good for them. They are mindless lapdogs for wanting to live in a society which allows freedom of movement, of commerce, of speech over a society where shortages are endemic, where there is no freedom whatsoever, and everything is subject to the whim of a dictator or party.
In terms of replies, I’m interested to hear what a modern ML feels about the things I’ve mentioned, if you disassociate yourself with the things done by the USSR, Communist China, NK, DDR, Cuba etc. Will not reply to the nuts on the fringe who claim things like the USSR was totally free, everyone was happy, there were no gulags, Stalin didn’t kill anyone. I’m not interested in troll-like behaviour or people that can only argue their point of view with logical fallacies. I am interested in genuine dialogue with sincere, normal MLs.

[Kayser_Soso]

I really wish that if you intend to continue this discussion you will use the default font.


Definition of terms:
ML means Marxism-Leninism



Dichotomy
One of the most important things that suggests to me the non-viability of ML is the severe dichotomy of workers/peasants and the bourgeoisie.

This presupposes that Marx's ideas were basically plucked from his head and applied to the world as he saw it. Marx made observations and based his theories on those observations. Every Marxist understands that the realities of class in a particular nation are a bit more complicated than the standard proletariat, petit-bourgeoisie(your "middle class"), and bourgeoisie. If this common sense didn't exist, one would have to claim that billionaire CEOs are "workers" since they often earn a large portion of their income from "work", as they are often hired. Of course this would be ludicrous. People can have so much wealth, and be so dependent on the status quo for that inordinate amount of wealth, that they side totally with the bourgeoisie class regardless of the fact that they might be, for example, Bono.




Such a distinction seems stuck in the 19th century, since in western countries there really are no peasants, and the working class is now the middle class.

Marxism-Leninism is actually a methodology for analyzing these social conditions, so one cannot say it is stuck in the 19th century. That being said, there still are millions of peasants worldwide, still going through a process not much unlike that which occurred in England in the 16th century onward.



By appealing only to poor farmers and people who work in manufacturing, you appeal to maybe 10-15% of the modern population.

Marxism does not only appeal to those who work in manufacturing; though you must also remember that while manufacturing has been moved out of the Western countries over time, it has to be moved somewhere, so it is always important to someone.





Would someone who works in a shop be a worker? Would someone who owns a small organic farm and sells produce to survive be a member if the evil bourgeoisie, as they are a landowner?

If they WORK in the small shop, as opposed to owning it and hiring labor- yes. At most they are petit-bourgeoisie, the actual middle class of which you spoke. And that being the case, I would venture to say that by definition, most Americans for example, either aren't truly "middle class", except certain kinds of contractors and those with unusually high salaries(certain types of manager). A great deal of the latter are still often getting their income from work and often don't have their own employees.



The dichotomy totally fails to recognise that the world as it really exists is not black and white, that there are almost always shades in between.

Yes, the dichotomy in the strawman theory certainly obliterates the strawman. But then that is the whole purpose of strawmen arguments, is it not?



And by appealing to social classes/groups that almost no longer exist in the developed world, I am wondering how MLists propose they will ever convince enough people that revolution is the way forward?

First problem, it's a false assumption- the working class is still the largest class in any major Western nation, and second, it is not necessary that revolution break out in these countries first.



The lack of pragmatism and backward looking/regressive nature of ML is, for me, most exemplified for me by the Soviet embrace of Lysenkoism, and its rejection of quantum physics as cosmopolitan (read jewish).

There is no concrete evidence that "cosmopolitan" meant "Jewish". In fact there is plenty of evidence to the contrary based on a wealth of information from the USSR which was never classified nor kept secret. The fact that this term "cosmopolitanism" is saddled with this "hidden meaning" is a testament to how far anti-Communists will stretch the truth to slander Communism.

"....It is important . to emphasise that in these attacks (the anti-cosmopolitanism campaign Ed.) there was no anti-Jewish tone, either explicitly or implicitly".
(Benjamin Pinkus: 'The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority' (hereafter listed as 'Benjamin Pinkus (1989)'; Cambridge; 1989; p 152).

"The chief victims . . . were two non-Jews - the satirist M. Zoshchenko and the poetess A. Ahianatova".
(Benjamin Pinkus (1989): ibid.; p. 151).

In fact the term "rootless cosmopolitanism" was first used against the German Nazis.

"The German invaders were deliberately encouraging rootless cosmopolitanism, which stems from the so-called idea that everybody is a 'citizen of the world"'.
(Aleksandr Fadayev, in: Norah Levin: 'The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917'; London; 1990; p. 464).





Their ideological fervour blinded them even to very credible scientific theory; a bizarre mistake for an ideology that is so materialistic in nature.

Indeed, but this kind of thinking affected and effects capitalist states as well. There were historical factors that caused Lysenko's theory to be looked upon favorably.



Statism
This to me is the worst aspect of ML; that the needs of the individual must conform to the needs of the state.

There is no evidence to suggest this is the case. The Soviet Union is rife with tens of millions of personal stories of individual creativity and achievement. One need only take the time to read the memoirs from this era. The problem is, that virtually every book written deliberate focuses on the lives of dissidents and those who were persecuted- in fact a small minority. Even at the highest point of the purge, the percentage of the adult population in prison throughout the USSR was lower than that of the States at the moment, and political prisoners(terrorism, among other serious crimes, were considered political crimes as well) were always the minority in the GULAG system.



Even if the state oppresses workers, it cannot be anti-worker because it is, nominally, a dictatorship of the proletariat.

This certainly can be a problem, as it was from 1956 onward especially, but it does not discredit M-L. It just means that the practical methods for avoiding this problem need to be developed and applied next time around.



This is why most communist regimes outlaw trade unions it seems to me. Because they refuse to recognise any power base or interest group other than their own, and refuse to recognise any one else having a mandate to represent either working people, peasants or anyone else.P

This is not entirely historically accurate.



I think it would be fairly well accepted that communist regimes in the 20th centuries were generally not as good at producing and distributing consumer goods to their population as the western economies; focus was generally on heavy industry, agriculture, the military-industrial complex. It seems that inordinate resources were dedicated to making the state stronger, more powerful, more influential, but not necessarily increasing the living standards of people.

Heavy industry and the means of production are necessary to produce large amounts of consumer goods. The thing is though, that the socialist states did not keep up this focus on heavy industry long enough. This was what Stalin was harping on before his death- instead, all the revisionists wanted to switch to consumer goods as soon as possible. Early on, they switched over to light industry and back to heavy, seeing the problem they created. After that they tried to focus on light industry most of the time. This among other things, ensured shortage, because they still needed to build up the means of production first.

That being said, the standard of living for most people throughout the socialist bloc was far more secure and in many cases higher than it is today.



The worst aspect to me is that anything can be justified in the name of the state; taking away pretty much a lot of liberties (the right to form unions, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, of association etc), and I would think the evidence points to much worse (people sent to gulags, murdered, imprisoned for minor offences, the abuse of psychiatry).

Virtually all of these things occur in capitalist states, including "enlightened" Western ones. And where they don't, you can bet that groups like the CIA and MI6 are happy to train the thugs of any tyrannical regime in order to keep the markets open and the consumer goods flowing in. No rights are absolute, period, and even in the States many of those rights, such as the right to form unions, are basically non-existent. Also, statistically it is clear that large numbers of people are sent to prison in the US for extremely minor offenses.



Even totally excluding the latter, I don’t think anyone can argue that the Soviet Union, for example, did not do the things mentioned above.

But they cannot similarly argue, that capitalist states haven't done the same, sometimes for a much longer period, as they can also not argue that the USSR acted this way in a vacuum, totally removed from the historical events of the time, the Russian Empire's own legacy, and it's security in relation to other world powers around it.



It can be credibly argued, though I may disagree, that it was justified, but not that the people of the USSR were free to voice their opinions openly, to travel freely etc etc


Russians are more than free to voice their opinions today- and it has done nothing to help their situation. What good is your free speech when you are freezing to death on the street?



Which brings me to my main point; what if the state becomes corrupt? Any dissent is illegal and suppressed, the state refuses to sanction even the slightest disagreement outside policy making circles, how can you ever guarantee that a “dictatorship of the proletariat” will not become corrupted, as seems to be the case every time it has been tried?

This is obviously something that modern M-L adherents discuss and deal with. The issue is creating a system whereby dissent(as opposed to propaganda) is freely voiced, and problems are solved.



Vanguard/elitism
This is what disturbs me most about ML; many of its proponents seem positively bloodthirsty. They seem to revel in slogans and hard ideology, in conflict, and even violence.

Sorry to say but the world is a violent place. Thank the capitalists for that. We have no illusions that when the chips are down, the capitalist will happily abandon all the talk of democracy and "freedom" and "disappear" as many Communists as possible. In the West that is not such a huge problem, but my Turkish friends often say that they are prepared to face serious consequences at any time should the government decide to crack down. Many have already done so before them.



Even today, there are MLs who love talking about “toasting over the bones of the bourgeoisie”.

I suspect those who revel in the idea of killing, but sadly, there will be little choice. Failure to do what is necessary, as happened in the USSR, leads to horrifying consequences, as modern day Russia shows.



In this sense, it doesn’t surprise me that the few hardcore ML’s I have known generally become pseudo-fascists and/or white nationalists. It seems to come with the territory; indeed, many neocons are former MLs.

This is a phenomenon of great interest to me, as I wrote a very long internal party document one time on this issue. For some time, the capitalists have attempted to portray Communism as a fellow traveler of Nazism and Fascism, anti-semitic, etc. Clearly it worked on you since you bought the "rootless cosmopolitanism claim"(I don't blame you at all since virtually every mainstream book repeats this idiotic lie). It is only natural that WNs, particularly the very ideological ones, will occasionally out of frustration flirt with what they interpret as "Stalinism".

Still, this group will always remain small and insignificant- these people worship a symbol that is in fact totally false, and such people are totally irrelevant outside of the internet. That being said, it was certain groups of Fascists who started making efforts, often by outright trickery, to court the left all across the board. Many leftists were unprepared for this and it led to very strange alliances and power shifts.



I think the love of authority and statism is what unites the far left and far right, so that they are more alike than middle of the road people.

This is another strawman and sweeping generalization. I have never known an actual Marxist-Leninist(as opposed to some Red Alert playing teenager) who expressed anything which could be called "love of authority".




Indeed, I feel that for all its pretensions, revolutionary ML is an elitist ideology. It believes that the people are too stupid to know what is right for them, and so a revolutionary vanguard must seize power and institute a dictatorship of the “x” for the good of the “x”.

Then you are completely misinterpreting the point of Marxism-Leninism. It is simply a fact that the majority of people are not aware of the inner workings of the system- this is not an elitist statement, because society has a variety of institutions which intentionally keep this status quo.




In this sense, MLs remind me a lot of Straussians and Islamic fundamentalists.

This is a bizarre statement because after ignoring the strawman argument designed to make ML seem "elitist", I don't see how Islamic fundamentalism really compares. Islamic fundamentalism is extremely simplistic, not elitist.



Denial of human nature

ML has consistently failed because it denies human nature, particularly so in a period where a plurality, if not most people, are middle class.

The existence of constant human nature has never been proven- quite the opposite actually. Appeals to human nature raise an important question as to what that is specifically, and are also basically poorly worded appeals to nature.



It denies people’s aspirations, it denies that they usually know what they need better than some bureaucrat making a decision for them on the basis of the persons membership in a “class” of people.

Yes, that's why nobody in the USSR ever had dreams. All those special cultural/sport programs went to waste....

There is absolutely nothing in ML which denies peoples' aspirations. Plus a person's class is generally not based on factors within one's control. Nor are classes something just plucked from the mind of Karl Marx.



And it seems to believe that Lord Acton’s maxim only applies if it is a free-market economy that is being discussed, despite history’s ample evidence to the contrary.

Lord Acton's famous quote is often misquoted, so that it becomes a sweeping generalization. The world does not revolve around various famous quotes, no matter how profound.



Indeed, communism seems to be positively regressive; it seems that ML socialist nations often become effective monarchies (North Korea, Cuba), and are always left worse off than comparable free market economies.

Yes, both Cuba and North Korea started from the same situation as the US, Germany, etc., but then ended up like that because Communism doesn't work. HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRR!!!



If we want to compare apples with apples, look at the DDR and the GDR, or North and South Korea. In both cases, the communist nation was worse off.

The first is inaccurate(not the least because the DDR and GDR are the same thing, West Germany was the DBR), and the second actually false. The GDR suffered from historic disadvantages(its territory corresponded to the less developed part of Germany) and a non-stop campaign of sabotage(see William Blum's Killing Hope on this matter). As for North Korea, North Korea used to have equal if not better standards of living than the ROK for most of its existence(pretty impressive considering it was bombed into a moonscape in 1950-53) until the late 80s. By contrast the ROK was far less stable, and required billions of dollars of US aid(not unlike West Germany in fact) to get to the standard it has today. See Bruce Cummings' North Korea.




In both cases, the migration of people overwhelmingly went from the communist to the capitalist half.

Despite 20 years of capitalism, far more people immigrate to the West from former Soviet and East Bloc nations. What is your point? Most of the world is capitalist yet a huge portion of that population wishes to immigrate to a few leading countries. What does that tell you? In fact the emigration from Poland since its EU membership in 2004 is equal to the emigration from the DDR in the entire span of its existence.

And no, claiming that more people would have emigrated if they could isn't an argument. It's clairvoyance.



In the minds of MLs, this is apparently because the masses are too stupid to know what is good for them. They are mindless lapdogs for wanting to live in a society which allows freedom of movement, of commerce, of speech over a society where shortages are endemic, where there is no freedom whatsoever, and everything is subject to the whim of a dictator or party.

Strawman, plus historical inaccuracy, equals clusterfuck argument.



In terms of replies, I’m interested to hear what a modern ML feels about the things I’ve mentioned, if you disassociate yourself with the things done by the USSR, Communist China, NK, DDR, Cuba etc. Will not reply to the nuts on the fringe who claim things like the USSR was totally free, everyone was happy, there were no gulags, Stalin didn’t kill anyone. I’m not interested in troll-like behaviour or people that can only argue their point of view with logical fallacies. I am interested in genuine dialogue with sincere, normal MLs.

Well since you bring up logical fallacies, I think I'll quote not Marx, Engels, or Lenin on the subject, but rather Jesus:

" First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye." Matthew 7:5

So far I counted several strawmen arguments, a red herring, sweeping generalizations, and of course an appeal to nature. I'm sure I'm missing something but I wanted to point out the most obvious first.