Can someone help me unjumble my thoughts?

[superborys]

I have been battling with my tendency for a while, and I eventually decided upon Council Communism, and that's great and all, but it's damned hard to convince people that people will autonomously organize themselves.

I recently learned that Trotsky claimed permanent revolution, and everyone here rags on Trotsky like he went suckling on the teat of capitalism. Even if he had, his theories are sound, at least to me.

In his Permanent Revolution theory, it cannot be denied that for a bourgeoisie-democracy to be formed, the proletariat has to be compliant in order for this to happen. Sure the proletariat wouldn't likely know about communism, but it's a choice time to show them, and let them take charge! Two Stage theory would work fine if it weren't for today's system where people are so bound within their system and live so comfortably there's no reason to revolt.

And what he said about Internationalism amongst the proletariat can also sort of be proven by the fact that the USSR collapsed, and one of the contributing factors was that its economy, and comecon/comintern's system, couldn't keep up with a rapidly-developing capitalist economy. Comintern isolated itself and stagnated, and the people got angry and counter-revolted when Glasnost' happened.

I also certainly don't think that Stalin's USSR was remotely close to a true socialism. It had the nomenklatura system which basically allowed the Communist Party in Russia to ignore all democratic systems and boot and appoint people at will. Perhaps the USSR was socialist in that people were all in the same boat technically, but the higher-up officials that had multiple salaries certainly lived better than the lower-down people, and that cannot be considered a revolutionary left-socialism, not in the least.

Wikipedia, in the article on Trotskyism, lists 4 points in the beginning, and I agree with all four of them.
I think permanent revolution, if not necessary for the survival of socio-communism, definitely is necessary for the prosperity required to overtake capitalism, if you plan to build socialism in one country. We can see this in that Stalin managed to make the USSR survive well while he was in power, but he was in no position to overthrow the West, or anyone for that matter. He managed to make socialism survive, but he was wholly unable to export revolution.
I think social revolution would happen mostly on its own, but only if the proletariat wanted it to.
I don't entirely agree with internationalism. I think it can't hurt, but would be rather impractical for people in America to have cohorts of comrades in London. I lean more toward Marx's idea of world revolution, as opposed to a global class. It's just impractical to a certain extent.

Trotsky, at least to me, appears to be a valid theorist, and it just is beyond me why people consider all of these theories to be bourgeois and capitalist. They feel pretty socialist to me. Now, I don't know the intimate details of Trotskyism, but on the surface it seems pretty valid.

On another note, and back to my original statement of grappling with tendencies, I feel lost. I hate Stalin because he was evil, and nothing he did was democratic in the least, so I just denounce Stalinists (forgive the supposedly pejorative term) utterly.


I'll list anything that can be used to identify me to a tendency:
I think a vanguard party may be necessary, but should be immediately dissolved after the revolution is achieved. There will be people who aren't willing to learn about the revolution, as you can't convert everyone before the revolution, so I think there should be people, who, if not professionals, are like mobile communism factories, to use a silly metaphor. They should be the people who spend most of their free time advocating Communism. So, not a professional revolutionary party, just a really dedicated one.

I think that socialism in one country is doomed to fail, as the USSR has shown us. Perhaps it would work if the country were more democratic, but at least authoritarian socialism in one country can't work. People take any excuse they can to fix their situation, and being disallowed a political voice and being in a failing economy generally riles people up, as glasnost' has shown us.

Personally, I'm for decentralization, but only if participation is mandatory. I think people should come together to decide what their area needs, and to decide what would make them all the happiest, but I also think that there should be a top-side government making decisions that the whole country needs. People in an area obviously won't see a use for factories, but they would see a use for a road, or a hospital, etc, but if that factory never gets built, the country can never be furthered. I think it should be a series of decentralized, and increasingly centralized levels.

But I'm not against a delegate-system. I think it can work just as well if there's a central system in which people elect instantly-recallable delegates to speak in their stead in a central government. I think this is just an extension of the decentralized theory, so long as the delegates go there, and basically say "I'm the Los Angelesian delegate, and we've decided that we need roads, and schools, and blah blah blah", and then their requests are acknowledged in the central system.


Ask me anything else about my beliefs. I really want this tendency-war I have to be over, so I can just go back to evangelizing Communism for the good of us all.


I've found that I agree partly with Lenin's democratic centralism, as it makes sense that if you want to accomplish something, you've got to cooperate with others, and a centralized system is a good way to accomplish this, as it brings people together just out of nature.


I see what Wikipedia depicts as Lenin's view on globalism/imperalism being pretty correct.

I feel like I don't know enough about Leninism, as the Wikipedia article on it is sort of short.

Anything I missed?

[RED VICTORY]

Comrade, i wish you luck in discerning which tendency you belong to. Just remember that due to our current state as socialist revolutionaries we shouldn't feel rushed in figuring out these internal matters. We, no matter how zealous we are, probably have some time before we can gain any real ground as socialists. Pace your theory intake but remember that it's theory and has seldomly been put into practice. I understand you want the tendency war within to be over...i can relate trust me. But more than that we have to want the tendency war without to be over too. We all must retain our uniqueness in which theories we adhere to while getting on the same page nationally and internationally or risk passing on from time with nothing won at all. Ironically in Lenin's "Tasks of the Social Democrats" explains the need for the left to be united in struggle while maintaining their distinct tendencies. Good LUck Comrade and do not be troubled.

[9]

My brain is too shot atm to respond to the different points in the OP, but a few things.
First, things are generally much more complicated than they appear on wikipedia with regard to the positions of leftist groups. I don't know if you are trying to figure out what tendency your views fall under on your own, but if you are, I wouldn't expect you to have much luck. You should try getting in touch with different organizations (Trotskyist or otherwise), and discuss some of your views with them, ask questions, etc. You don't have to be committed to a particular tendency, let alone a particular organization, in order to get in touch with them and try to understand some of their positions and how they relate to your own. If nothing else it will prob help you clarify your politics. You might also try setting up a 'leftist' reading group or something if you know a few people who also have socialist leanings. I identify with Marxism but I am in a discussion group with mostly anarchists (though, to be fair, I was in a local platformist/syndicalist collective a couple years ago, so I am already accustomed to anarchist views) but debating points of contention and having to defend my own views against their arguments has actually helped me to clarify them more - probably a lot more than if the people in the group agreed with me about everything anyway. But yeah - I don't think you will be able to come to any conclusions just from reading wikipedia entries,so...

[JacobVardy]

OP, there is a great deal to tackle in your post, im just back from work and its late. But mate, don't join a group because you agree with their line on everything. Get active and find what group you can work with. They might believe something that you think is utter BS, but how often is this going to influence your union and co-op organising?

[Blake's Baby]

I think the main thing you can do to help yourself make sense of this is work out what's most important.

I'd suggest - the impossibility of 'Socialism in One Country' and the necessity for both a vanguard party and world revolution would point you towards the parties that broke (or were expelled) from the 3rd International in the period 1920-1930. Not the Council Communists, as they don't generally believe in a vanguard party.

So that would leave the Trotskyists and Left Communists.

What then is your attitude to cross-class alliances, anti-imperialism and national liberation struggles? If you support them, feeling that even though you would not actually support those policies at home it's better to fight the 'big' imperialisms, then the Trotskyists are closer, as most Trotskyist groups follow a 'lesser evil/enemy's enemy' approach. Left Communists however generally reject the notion of a 'progressive faction of the bourgeoisie' or 'the right of nations to self-determination'. So if you're critical of the worth of national liberation struggles and alliances with factions of the bourgeoisie, you might be closer to Left Communism.

[DaComm]

I feel like I don't know enough about Leninism, as the Wikipedia article on it is sort of short.



Leninism has all of the major concepts of genuine Marxism, but it expands upon it based upon his recent observations. What I mean by this, is the concept of Vanguardism that states it is necessary for the most militant/professional/communist-intellectuals of the working class to rise up and educate the working class to bring the workers to their senses to finally revolt. He believed the necessity in this lied in that the working class was very un-homogenous in thought; being divided by what they perceived to be "race" and "religion" and Capitalist ideas (Republicans & Democrats), and a whole bunch of other things, meaning that worker unity was non-existent, thus a "Spontaneous Revolution" could not occur without intervening help. Of course there are other reasons why he thought this was needed, but in my opinion, this is the most paramount one. He also went into depth with Imperialism, something that Marx (to my knowledge) never did. I seriously suggest you read up on his notes on Imperialism. He also believed in Democratic Centralism; which is essentially (very simple) allowing democracy for the Communist Party. Another, he said, was the need for a Soviet Democracy to allow those who never held any power to practice having all control. These are the most paramount concepts which make Leninism unique from Marxism, and I suggest you look deeper into them...cause you can't be a Trotskyism without being a Leninist ;)