Whats wrong with Ultra-Leftism?

[EvilRedGuy]

Seriously, it sounds good so why are so many here against it?

[HEAD ICE]

Because it doesn't describe anything. It is just a slur.

[Sasha]

Nothing, it just an smear used by those who are afraid to admit their state'ism and parliamentism is just another form of reformist social-democracy and instead claim to be realists and their revolutionary critics "utopian" like that's a bad thing.

[graymouser]

Because if you're ultra-left you wind up being small and isolated in key periods. I think the Stalinist "Third Period," when the Communist Parties around the world formed minuscule "red unions" and attacked social democrats as "social fascists," shedding many of the trade union militants they had won in previous years, were a good example of why ultra-leftism is problematic. The KPD (Communist Party of Germany) went on an ultra-left kick that ended with the fatal idea, "after Hitler, our turn" instead of taking it up against the fascists in the streets and in alliance with the SPD. Needless to say many of them never got to the "after Hitler" part.

[graymouser]

Because it doesn't describe anything. It is just a slur.
Completely untrue. Ultra-leftism is a perfectly valid description of certain politics. It doesn't like being called by its own name, but it does exist.

The essence of ultra-leftism is its insistence upon skipping actual movement-building and ignoring the need to act appropriately given the situation. A common ultra-left tactic is to demand, abstractly, that a general strike is needed to accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. For instance, ending the war. Which may have some truth in it, but it isn't something that can be done today, at this moment. General strikes have a time and place, but until you have the resources and the organization at hand to do it, calling for them is an empty gesture. Ultra-leftism thrives on such gestures, proving how "radical" it is, but without actually accomplishing anything.

[EvilRedGuy]

I thought it was a slur used against Anarchists.

[Franz Fanonipants]

No it's also p. applicable to leftcoms. (which is why stagger lee and psycho are here in a tizzy)

The thing with ultra-leftism is it basically doesn't work. There hasn't been a single, successful "ultra-left" revolution in the history of the world.

[EvilRedGuy]

No it's also p. applicable to leftcoms. (which is why stagger lee and psycho are here in a tizzy)

The thing with ultra-leftism is it basically doesn't work. There hasn't been a single, successful "ultra-left" revolution in the history of the world.

Has there been any successful communist revolution in the history of the world? Unless you call USSR successful...

[black magick hustla]

The essence of ultra-leftism is its insistence upon skipping actual movement-building and ignoring the need to act appropriately given the situation. .

Trotskyists do not understand that communists don't "build movements", but the movement builds communists. This is why every leftist in the US that uses that disgraceful slur is part of tiny, insignificant groups. The new generation of workers lacks the experience and combativity of our ancestors in the 70s and 80s. The trots can keep trying to enter "labor parties" or whatever, they won't grow.

The term "ultra-left" emerged when the Bolsheviks were already feeling the pressure of counterrevolution.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Trotskyists do not understand that communists don't "build movements", but the movement builds communists.

lol

so basically what you are sayin is a vanguard is a necessity cus that p. much looks like what you are sayin

explain it in math bro

[Franz Fanonipants]

Has there been any successful communist revolution in the history of the world? Unless you call USSR successful...

I do.

[black magick hustla]

No it's also p. applicable to leftcoms. (which is why stagger lee and psycho are here in a tizzy)

The thing with ultra-leftism is it basically doesn't work. There hasn't been a single, successful "ultra-left" revolution in the history of the world.

There hasn't been a single "succesful" revolution that ended in communism. communism will always emerge against Communism, this is why the eastern blocs felt the pressure of mass strikes, insurrections, and working class sabotage. The program is invariant, and will always emerge against our class enemies, doesn't matter if those who fight against our enemies do not formally call themselves communists.

[black magick hustla]

lol

so basically what you are sayin is a vanguard is a necessity cus that p. much looks like what you are sayin

explain it in math bro
the vanguard is not proclaimed by a nerd and his dog, it comes from the class in times of social upheaval.

[Franz Fanonipants]

There hasn't been a single "succesful" revolution that ended in communism. communism will always emerge against Communism, this is why the eastern blocs felt the pressure of mass strikes, insurrections, and working class sabotage. The program is invariant, and will always emerge against our class enemies, doesn't matter if those who fight against our enemies do not formally call themselves communists.

so basically what you're saying is you're FOR reactionary trade unions.

Knights of Labor, ho!

[black magick hustla]

so basically what you're saying is you're FOR reactionary trade unions.

Knights of Labor, ho!
trade unions are integrated to capital

[Franz Fanonipants]

the vanguard is not proclaimed by a nerd and his dog, it comes from the class in times of social upheaval.

the thing is bro that who decides what "nerd" is part of The Class.

p.s. all that The Class essentialism is p. problematic.

[Franz Fanonipants]

trade unions are integrated to capital

but bro they are SPONTANEOUS manifestations of The Class.

[Franz Fanonipants]

mutualista societies in the rocky mtn. migrant path - A INTEGRATED PART OF CAPITAL

[black magick hustla]

and the afl clo snitches on your primos down the south whatdya know

[Franz Fanonipants]

and the afl clo snitches on your primos down the south whatdya know

i'm not talking about the afl cio. i'm talking about the fucking see-sawing inherent to ultra-leftism about what is TRUE PROLETARIAN ORGANIZATION.

you can't have it both ways, you can't recognize that some trade unions are inherently reactionary without understanding that a strong marxist vanguard keeps worker's organizations not reactionary.

[RedSunRising]

I believe that its a silly term. Most of the time when you scratch someone labeled "Ultra-Leftist" you find a reformist. I would label "Monkey Smashes Heaven" and possibly also the MPP as being genuinely ultra-leftist...I wouldnt label most Left Communists or Trotskyists that though.

[black magick hustla]

i'm not talking about the afl cio. i'm talking about the fucking see-sawing inherent to ultra-leftism about what is TRUE PROLETARIAN ORGANIZATION.

you can't have it both ways, you can't recognize that some trade unions are inherently reactionary without understanding that a strong marxist vanguard keeps worker's organizations not reactionary.

:shrugs:, nobody is denying the necessity of communist organizations. the issue here is that leftists spend all their time in building activist ghettoes and trying to spur class struggle by sheer will. Its not going to happen that way, and anybody who has been involved in average leftist activism (I did for about four years) gets that. You can shout till your face becomes purple about protesting american-imperialism, and then self congratulate yourself that 20 mofos came to picket in front of the capitol building.

[graymouser]

Trotskyists do not understand that communists don't "build movements", but the movement builds communists.
That's not true and never has been. If there hasn't been a group out there building the basis for communist organization before the struggle begins, that struggle gets hijacked by people with other agendas. Of the recent intense social struggles, from France to Greece, from Egypt to Wisconsin, not one has spontaneously developed a mass, revolutionary socialist movement. The idea that this is possible is laughable; there are other pressures ideologically, the "dominant ideas" being those of the ruling class, that a revolutionary socialist organization must fight against. Communist ideas don't spring up because there are other ideas that get in their way. It's idealist to the extreme to think that people come to correct conclusions automatically during the struggle.

[Jose Gracchus]

This is hilarious. :lol: Trots trying to justify their opportunism.

[graymouser]

the issue here is that leftists spend all their time in building activist ghettoes and trying to spur class struggle by sheer will.
Ah, the "activist ghetto" line too. Wonderful material here, you should go on tour.

Of course, the reality is that if you don't have structures in place that can organize resistance - the trained cadre who have the skills to organize a rally, to give a speech, to work in a coalition with others - then when the shit comes down, you will be bypassed by the people who do have those skills. And they will be reformists, NGO employees, social democrats, religious activists and so on. If you don't have groups that can call a protest tomorrow, other people do, but they don't have a revolutionary agenda.

Arrogant dismissal of attempting to build such things here and now is the kind of attitude that gets you in a situation when - the next time - there is no such organization to move things forward. And the reformists, who already have their own organizations, win out.

[caramelpence]

If there hasn't been a group out there building the basis for communist organization before the struggle begins, that struggle gets hijacked by people with other agendas

That's one reason (in my view - other people can speak for themselves) that it's important and useful for militants to come together on a small-scale basis in order to clarify the interests of the class and intervene ideologically when conditions of heightened class struggle do present themselves. I don't think there's anyone here who thinks that the revolutionary party will emerge without any reference whatsoever to existing organizations or the existing distribution of political consciousness. The fundamental issue is that the revolutionary party is not something that can just be called into being, it is a historic product that is only revolutionary to the extent that it arises from and remains in close contact with the spontaneous struggles of the class as a whole, and for that reason it shouldn't be surprising or even regrettable that a mass revolutionary party cannot be forged during periods of relative social peace, such as the one we are living through. This is something that Trotskyists do in practice ignore through their pursuit of party-building regardless of the state of class struggle, and this often involves parties rejecting any criteria for membership as far as political consciousness is concerned and accepting anyone who has the most basic understanding of vaguely radical politics, purely because the parties are so eager to accumulate members - and that in turn means that, in order to remain superficially revolutionary, those parties need to restrict internal democracy and discussion in order to prevent their official positions from reflecting the political consciousness of the general membership.

EDIT: I should add that although you cite France as an example of where an existing revolutionary party could have taken advantage of radical upsurges that were otherwise controlled by reformists, this seems to raise a question - France is home to one of the oldest and most experienced Trotskyist traditions in the world, so why, in that context, given a party like LO, did the self-proclaimed revolutionary party not conduct its function of assuming the leadership of struggles? Or why was it not possible for that party to do so?

[Q]

but bro they are SPONTANEOUS manifestations of The Class.

Exactly. The "natural movement" of our class within this system, will be exactly that: within this system. That is because capitalist mentality surfaces at every level. For this reason, trade union consciousness is the highest achievable if the class was left to itself to run in circles. It is true, as maldoror says, that communists come forth out of the class struggle. But they emerge as a tiny minority and it is the communist duty to explain to the class the needed political steps to human liberation, to aide the class in every step to form itself as a collective entity.

Neglecting this task is the essence of ultra-leftism, as graymouser pointed out.

[Android]

Exactly. The "natural movement" of our class within this system, will be exactly that: within this system. That is because capitalist mentality surfaces at every level. For this reason, trade union consciousness is the highest achievable if the class was left to itself to run in circles. It is true, as maldoror says, that communists come forth out of the class struggle. But they emerge as a tiny minority and it is the communist duty to explain to the class the needed political steps to human liberation, to aide the class in every step to form itself as a collective entity.

Neglecting this task is the essence of ultra-leftism, as graymouser pointed out.

Q, this is just classic talking past your chosen polemical target.

Maldoror is not a spontaneist, he is a member / sympathiser of the ICC which you well know. They are in favour of active political intervention.

[Q]

Q, this is just classic talking past your chosen polemical target.

Maldoror is not a spontaneist, he is a member / sympathiser of the ICC which you well know. They are in favour of active political intervention.

Which is why he is emphasizing "that communists don't "build movements", but the movement builds communists" and that "trade unions are integrated to capital"? While true, making these points in this way comes over to me as agitating political indifference and waiting for the "pure revolution" to emerge out of Zeus' head.

[Queercommie Girl]

Ultra-leftism is problematic because it does not have a scientific approach in its analysis of reality.

[#FF0000]

Ultra-leftism is problematic because it does not have a scientific approach in its analysis of reality.

What makes you say this?

[caramelpence]

while true, making these points in this way comes over to me as agitating political indifference and waiting for the "pure revolution" to emerge out of Zeus' head.

Then clearly you are not interpreting the argument properly. The premises that communist consciousness emerges out of spontaneous struggle, rather than struggles being called into being by communists, and that trade unions are integrated into capital do not yield the conclusion that you seem to be assuming, namely, that there is no (organizational) role for communists outside of revolutionary or proto-revolutionary periods and that the revolution itself can be a wholly spontaneous affair. You are assuming a link where one does not exist. The fact that the ICC exists as an organization should in itself tell you that you are drawing a false conclusion, because the ICC does not exhibit political indifference or believe that revolution can come about purely via spontaneous initiative.

I am not a member or supporter of the ICC, by the way.

[Q]

Then clearly you are not interpreting the argument properly. The premises that communist consciousness emerges out of spontaneous struggle and that trade unions are integrated into capital do not yield the conclusion that you seem to be assuming, namely, that there is no (organizational) role for communists outside of revolutionary or proto-revolutionary periods and that the revolution itself can be a wholly spontaneous affair. You are assuming a link where one does not exist. The fact that the ICC exists as an organization should in itself tell you that you are drawing a false conclusion, because the ICC does not exhibit political indifference or believe that revolution can come about purely via spontaneous initiative.

So much for the negative claim. Can you make a positive one? What is the argument?

[Thirsty Crow]

Ultra-leftism is problematic because it does not have a scientific approach in its analysis of reality.
Because X said so?

C'mon, you can do better than throwing around unsupported claims.
Also, how does one scientifically analyse a political and social conjuncture (in other words, how does the scientific method, as constitued within "hard sciences", relate to political organization)?

[caramelpence]

So much for the negative claim. Can you make a positive one? What is the argument?

I wasn't going out of my way to make a positive claim, only pointing out that your understanding was deficient. I believe that the role for communists during periods of social peace is to affiliate purely on a small-scale or flexible basis in order to exchange perspectives of a theoretical and analytical nature and intervene in local struggles, because mass revolutionary consciousness cannot - almost by definition - be forged outside of major periods of social upheaval or class conflict. Any attempt to build mass parties during periods of social peace will, I believe, most likely come at the expense of theoretical clarity, and those parties will almost inevitably be undemocratic, for reasons I outlined in my first post. I say this not as a Left Communist but as an ex-Trotskyist who continues to support national liberation struggles and has other positions that are incompatible with the Left Communist tradition.

[Zanthorus]

Because it doesn't describe anything. It is just a slur.

Just to point out, in France I believe that 'ultra-gauche' is also used non-perjoratively to refer to the Communist Left tradition. Hence some of the books and articles by Dauvé which talk about the 'ultra-left' for example.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

boring. i'm sick of hearing 'building movements' too. trots sit for years in the dark until conditions actually push workers into action and then take credit for whatever the working-class achieves, as if workers paid any attention to their paper sales, committees, splits and branch meetings where they waffle on about when trotsky said this so we have to build that.

you don't 'build' a movement, you guide it with theory, propaganda and solidarity and dialogue with workers when their conditions lead them into struggle. you are not lenin and the bolsheviks and ultimately, the working-class class will lead you and all of those steering committees will fade into nothingness. maybe i'm just an ultra-leftist, but i find the line that belongs to those who spurt the term incredibly arrogant and it completely turned me off of trotskyism and leninism in general.

[Q]

I wasn't going out of my way to make a positive claim, only pointing out that your understanding was deficient. I believe that the role for communists during periods of social peace is to affiliate purely on a small-scale or flexible basis in order to exchange perspectives of a theoretical and analytical nature and intervene in local struggles, because mass revolutionary consciousness cannot - almost by definition - be forged outside of major periods of social upheaval or class conflict. Any attempt to build mass parties during periods of social peace will, I believe, most likely come at the expense of theoretical clarity, and those parties will almost inevitably be undemocratic, for reasons I outlined in my first post. I say this not as a Left Communist but as an ex-Trotskyist who continues to support national liberation struggles and has other positions that are incompatible with the Left Communist tradition.

I'll have to disagree. It is exactly the task of communists to build a mass class movement in preparation to the revolution. Not in order to push for it, but to build a sustaining infrastructure to make it more probable and potentially more successful. Neglecting the task to build the movement, to "affiliate purely on a small-scale or flexible basis" outside revolutionary periods is useless. Revolutionary periods do occur with or without communist intervention, however it is my contention that they will invariably fail without having a mass political party-movement of the class.

I disagree also that mass parties will "almost inevitably be undemocratic". Within the "mere" trade union movement this is probably inevitable indeed, but it is, first and foremost, the task of communists to educate the class in the organisational forms of radical democracy, both within our movement and as a principle for our future society. Exactly through sucj proletarian democracy we can actually work towards greater theoretical clarity than we could ever achieve in our tiny grouplets.

So I'll repeat my point in post 27: Neglecting the communist task of building our class is the very essense of ultra-leftism.

[Zanthorus]

So I'll repeat my point in post 27: Neglecting the communist task of building our class is the very essense of ultra-leftism.

In this case, Marx and Engels were 'ultra-leftist' after the 1848 revolutions when they refused to have anything to do with projects to try and rebuild the revolutionary movement until the formation of the International Workingmen's Association in 1864. In fact in every case I can think of they worked in already-existing organsiations rather than trying to 'build' the class movement themselves. Probably because this Trotskyist rubbish about 'building' a class movement is... rubbish.

[Queercommie Girl]

Because X said so?

C'mon, you can do better than throwing around unsupported claims.
Also, how does one scientifically analyse a political and social conjuncture (in other words, how does the scientific method, as constitued within "hard sciences", relate to political organization)?

Nope, because ultra-leftists put dogmas before concrete strategy. Their refusal to co-operate with mainstream labour movements and social movements means ultra-leftism is largely a politically insignificant force in serious strategic terms, adhered to by very few people in the world in general.

Scientific analysis is obvious important for genuine Marxists, because how can one fight against capitalism when one does not really understand what it is? How can one attract more workers to the socialist movement when one has no serious analysis of society in general? Scientific truth matters, because truth works.

There is no qualitative difference between the so-called "hard sciences" like physics and chemistry and the so-called "soft sciences" like history and sociology, in the sense that all of their methodologies follow the general scientific method, based on adherence to solid objective evidence/sources in the material real world. It's only their subject matter that is different. The Marxist method is no different in this sense. The reality of capitalist society is empirically analysed, good and useful approaches and strategies are kept and improved, while useless dogmas that led to defeats are discarded. As the Trotskyist Tony Cliff (I don't agree with his theories of "state-capitalism", but he makes a correct point here) puts it: Marxism must move forward, or it is dead.

In war, there is nothing more honourable than victory. Ultra-leftists might take pride of the fact that they are the most "ideologically pure" of socialists, but "ideological purity" means nothing if it cannot bring about political victory. Ultra-leftists are prone to treating Marxism like a dogmatic pseudo-religion. Even a very imperfect but concrete attempt at building socialism is much better than merely standing on the sidelines and criticise every socialist movement that goes past as opportunistic.

[Q]

boring. i'm sick of hearing 'building movements' too. trots sit for years in the dark until conditions actually push workers into action and then take credit for whatever the working-class achieves, as if workers paid any attention to their paper sales, committees, splits and branch meetings where they waffle on about when trotsky said this so we have to build that.

you don't 'build' a movement, you guide it with theory, propaganda and solidarity and dialogue with workers when their conditions lead them into struggle. you are not lenin and the bolsheviks and ultimately, the working-class class will lead you and all of those steering committees will fade into nothingness. maybe i'm just an ultra-leftist, but i find the line that belongs to those who spurt the term incredibly arrogant and it completely turned me off of trotskyism and leninism in general.

Ironically, you're giving the direct definition of "building the movement". At least in our current situation this is exactly the task upon us all: To bring clarity in political tasks through open debate, tried and tested by the workers movement (in so far it exists today) which acts as a feedback loop to this.

Mind you, I do make an explicit difference with the "we know best, listen to us" approach of telling the workers what they should do. This is the method of the sect.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

yeah okay, there is a difference of tactics amongst you trots for sure, and i do agree with some of the cwi's work with regard to labour struggles. however, you are not building this, only guiding it. the conditions of capitalism are what build movements, the job of revolutionaries is to guide these movements towards anti-capitalist conclusions. i can't think of any movement that was built rather than guided. that's the point i'm making. the conditions exist regardless of trotskyists, trotskyists exist because of the conditions.

[Android]

Just to point out, in France I believe that 'ultra-gauche' is also used non-perjoratively to refer to the Communist Left tradition. Hence some of the books and articles by Dauvé which talk about the 'ultra-left' for example.

I don't have a problem with being associated with the 'ultra-left' tradition or being described as an ultra-leftist, I guess it is reaction against the dominant usage of the word which is as a pejorative. There is also the fact that an ultra-left political trend can identified as well such as groups and publications mainly who share similar positions with the Communist Left.

Also, I have been told that Lutte Ouvrière, the Trotskyist group in France either identifies or is referred to at times as extreme-left. As a characterisation that makes no sense to me at all, but there you go.

[caramelpence]

It is exactly the task of communists to build a mass class movement in preparation to the revolution

So can you actually point to a historical example where communists have done this? To me the entire notion that a "mass class movement" can built through external interventions and regardless of the conditions of class struggle is an entirely meaningless one, it abstracts from the activity and consciousness of workers themselves, and it's hard to see how it could have any possibly historical basis. The mass class movement is the working class in struggle, and it is impossible for communists to mechanically engineer the extent and form of working-class struggle. When communists have followed something like your method of emphasizing party-building in all conditions and circumstances they have frequently found themselves unable to anticipate real upsurges in working-class activity and consciousness, the paradigmatic example being when Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not anticipate the lengths to which the 1905 revolution would go, and, by Lenin's own admission, found themselves lagging beyond the consciousness of the working class as a whole.

[BIG BROTHER]

I won't get into the whole argument here and just answer the original question.

Ultra-Leftism is harmful for the workers movement because it means that you end up isolated and alienated from the working class. It means that rather than help the class struggle go forward you are detached from it and it can end in bloody defeat for the workers.

[Lyev]

How exactly does a socialist organisation "build the class" or build a "class movement"? Wasn't this the qualm that Marx and Engels had with the utopians --- that they were trying to project their own ideas and theories onto workers and society in general from the outside, rather than these ideas arising from material conditions - and changing when the objective conditions change - themselves?

[chegitz guevara]

...communists don't "build movements", but the movement builds communists.

The process is dialectical. Each builds the other.

[Queercommie Girl]

The process is dialectical. Each builds the other.

Very well said. :cool:

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

If there hasn't been a group out there building the basis for communist organization before the struggle begins, that struggle gets hijacked by people with other agendas

http://globetribune.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/stalin-2-794685.jpg

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

you can't have it both ways, you can't recognize that some trade unions are inherently reactionary without understanding that a strong marxist vanguard keeps worker's organizations not reactionary.

Which is why the black-and-white dogmatic approach fails on both ends of the argument.

In reality:

"Workers’ self-activity does create organizations create unions and other institutions, which may become bureaucratized and turn against the worker. Unions are not a secret plot designed to fool the workers. Workers organize them and then they get out of control." - Martin Glaberman


nobody is denying the necessity of communist organizations.
I am.


That's not true and never has been.

"The soviets were the realisation of an objective need for an organisation which has authority without having tradition, and which can at once embrace hundreds of thousands of workers. An organisation, moreover, which can unify all the revolutionary tendencies within the proletariat, which possesses both initiative and self-control, and, which is the main thing, can be called into existence within 24 hours.” - Trotsky

The idea that this is possible is laughable; there are other pressures ideologically, the "dominant ideas" being those of the ruling class, that a revolutionary socialist organization must fight against. Communist ideas don't spring up because there are other ideas that get in their way. It's idealist to the extreme to think that people come to correct conclusions automatically during the struggle.

The abolition of capital and wage slavery won't come as a result of "communist ideas" winning a popularity contest in a capitalist world. They will come out of the contradictions of capitalism and the material conditions of the existence of the working class itself.

“Marx believed that the conditions of life and work of the proletariat would force the working class to behave in ways that would ultimately transform society. In other words, what Marx said was: We’re not talking about going door-to-door and making workers into ideal socialists. You’ve got to take workers as they are, with all their contradictions, with all their nonsense. But the fact that society forces them to struggle begins to transform the working class. If white workers realize they can’t organize steel unless they organize black workers, that doesn’t mean they’re not racist. It means that they have to deal with their own reality, and that transforms them. Who were the workers who made the Russian Revolution? Sexists, nationalists, half of them illiterate. Who were the workers in Polish Solidarity? Anti-Semitic, whatever. That kind of struggle begins to transform people.” - Martin Glaberman

“Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration that can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; the revolution is necessary, therefore, not only the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.” - The German Ideology


Ah, the "activist ghetto" line too. Wonderful material here, you should go on tour.


Of course, the reality is that if you don't have structures in place that can organize resistance - the trained cadre who have the skills to organize a rally, to give a speech, to work in a coalition with others - then when the shit comes down, you will be bypassed by the people who do have those skills. And they will be reformists, NGO employees, social democrats, religious activists and so on. If you don't have groups that can call a protest tomorrow, other people do, but they don't have a revolutionary agenda.

Arrogant dismissal of attempting to build such things here and now is the kind of attitude that gets you in a situation when - the next time - there is no such organization to move things forward. And the reformists, who already have their own organizations, win out.

Why is formal organization necessary for things to move forward? Can't workers with a grasp of what's going on argue for the path forward to their fellow workers in times of upheaval? Can't they advocate the formation of strike committees, assemblies, councils, etc., when the conditions for them emerge? Why do they need a Politburo to do this?

They don't.

And the reality is that everywhere the class has moved on its own and made real inroads its did this without, outside of and/or even against the existing permanent organizations.

[Queercommie Girl]

The abolition of capital and wage slavery won't come as a result of "communist ideas" winning a popularity contest in a capitalist world. They will come out of the contradictions of capitalism and the material conditions of the existence of the working class itself.

If white workers realize they can’t organize steel unless they organize black workers, that doesn’t mean they’re not racist. It means that they have to deal with their own reality, and that transforms them. Who were the workers who made the Russian Revolution? Sexists, nationalists, half of them illiterate. Who were the workers in Polish Solidarity? Anti-Semitic, whatever. That kind of struggle begins to transform people.


There is a dialectical relationship between material conditions and ideas. Material conditions are primary of course, but it doesn't mean ideas can't counter-act upon these material conditions.

Of course actual socialist struggle provides the objective means by which discriminatory ideas such as racism/sexism/queerphobia can be eliminated, when different layers of workers act together in solidarity. (One relatively recent example is the collaboration between miners and the queer community during the Great Miner's Strikes in Britain in the 1980s, which changed many of the miners' initially queerphobic ideas) But this is not a purely mechanical process, raising the ideological consciousness in these areas is obviously important too. So activities such as "selling socialist newspapers" etc are actually important too.

[Arilou Lalee'lay]

...ultra-leftism is largely a politically insignificant force in serious strategic terms, adhered to by very few people in the world in general.

That's about the tenth time an appeal to popularity has been made in this thread. And if the demographics on this board are any indicator, one with no basis.


Scientific analysis is obvious important for genuine Marxists, because how can one fight against capitalism when one does not really understand what it is? How can one attract more workers to the socialist movement when one has no serious analysis of society in general? Scientific truth matters, because truth works.

There is no qualitative difference between the so-called "hard sciences" like physics and chemistry and the so-called "soft sciences" like history and sociology, in the sense that all of their methodologies follow the general scientific method, based on adherence to solid objective evidence/sources in the material real world. It's only their subject matter that is different. The Marxist method is no different in this sense. The reality of capitalist society is empirically analysed, good and useful approaches and strategies are kept and improved, while useless dogmas that led to defeats are discarded. As the Trotskyist Tony Cliff (I don't agree with his theories of "state-capitalism", but he makes a correct point here) puts it: Marxism must move forward, or it is dead.

Right, I believe what's important here is what, in your scientific analysis, leads you to think there's something wrong with "ultra-leftist" tactics. You say we're dogmatic, but we are more varied than the Bolshevik-tendencies in our views. Give me some specific examples of this dogma that you speak of that is prevalent throughout the "ultra left".


In war, there is nothing more honourable than victory. Ultra-leftists might take pride of the fact that they are the most "ideologically pure" of socialists, but "ideological purity" means nothing if it cannot bring about political victory. Ultra-leftists are prone to treating Marxism like a dogmatic pseudo-religion. Even a very imperfect but concrete attempt at building socialism is much better than merely standing on the sidelines and criticise every socialist movement that goes past as opportunistic.

I don't know any "ultra leftists" who don't support Chavez or the Zapatistas (does that make us reformists? Hoping that Chavez might do some good?). It seems to me like Bolshevik-family types are much more prone to treat Marxism like a religion. But that's just a perception based on anecdotes unless you can come up with examples that are prevalent in the positions of the "ultra leftist" groups

[Zanthorus]

I don't know any "ultra leftists" who don't support Chavez or the Zapatistas (does that make us reformists? Hoping that Chavez might do some good?).

On the contrary, I think it is fairly common for 'ultra-leftists' to oppose a populist leader in charge of a capitalist state and an indigenous nationalist movement which aligns itself with 'anti-globalisation' and 'anti-neo-liberal' politics. But perhaps you are confusing the 'ultra-left' with radical social-democrats.

[black magick hustla]

Of course, the reality is that if you don't have structures in place that can organize resistance - the trained cadre who have the skills to organize a rally, .
this is so self-important and at the same time banal. who the hell are the "trained cadre". is it those kids that speak with megaphones about imperialism in front of auidiences of a few dozens? is it the dusty bookstores that are sausage fests? idk if im cadre. the best thing i can do is try to discuss with my friends and people who are interested and pass down the conceptual framework and history that has been given to me by those who fought till death against capital. the best i can do now is to tell kids my age while we crack open a beer that they need a sense of self-worth and that this world is miserable and that there is no reason to feel that "there is no alternative". the important thing i can do is tell those who surround me that suffer of the same soul sickness as i do that there are other people like us and that we should not despair. what do you want me to do? do you want me to flyer the shit out of my city and call for workers' councils? perhaps stage a sit in with 5 people in the college administration building like the moonbats did? make completely legal and ritualistic marches where you have to ask the government to do so like the psl does? who the hell are we trying to impress

[L.A.P.]

the vanguard is not proclaimed by a nerd and his dog, it comes from the class in times of social upheaval.

Wait! I never knew Left Communists supported a vanguard, I learned something new today.:)

[Paulappaul]

Wait! I never knew Left Communists supported a vanguard, I learned something new today.:)

I don't know many Anarchists or Communists that reject the notion of a Vanguard, just whether or not it will be a party, union or the class itself.


but bro they are SPONTANEOUS manifestations of The Class.

They were. Not anymore.

[Queercommie Girl]

That's about the tenth time an appeal to popularity has been made in this thread. And if the demographics on this board are any indicator, one with no basis.


Yeah, and this board really is truly representative of the revolutionary left or the working class in general. :rolleyes:

I'm certainly not against RevLeft, otherwise I won't be here. But let's not kid ourselves and believe RevLeft is really the "command centre" of the contemporary global socialist movement.

And even on this board, I don't know, I don't think there are necessarily more non-Leninists than Leninists here.



Right, I believe what's important here is what, in your scientific analysis, leads you to think there's something wrong with "ultra-leftist" tactics. You say we're dogmatic, but we are more varied than the Bolshevik-tendencies in our views. Give me some specific examples of this dogma that you speak of that is prevalent throughout the "ultra left".

I don't know any "ultra leftists" who don't support Chavez or the Zapatistas (does that make us reformists? Hoping that Chavez might do some good?). It seems to me like Bolshevik-family types are much more prone to treat Marxism like a religion. But that's just a perception based on anecdotes unless you can come up with examples that are prevalent in the positions of the "ultra leftist" groups
Well, I think Zanthorus answered your point for me to some extent.

Labels can be misleading. Different "ultra-leftists" are as different from each other as different "Leninists" are. (E.g. Trots vs. Stalinists)

My critique, to be frank, is more directed at the likes of Zanthorus than the likes of you.

(I mean, on a purely objective level, are you sure you are ideologically closer to people like Zan than to people like me on most issues?)

[Queercommie Girl]

this is so self-important and at the same time banal.


And I guess aesthetic critique like this really settles the question. Things must be wrong and reactionary if they are "banal" or "weird" from an aesthetic perspective. :rolleyes:



who the hell are the "trained cadre". is it those kids that speak with megaphones about imperialism in front of auidiences of a few dozens? is it the dusty bookstores that are sausage fests?

the best i can do now is to tell kids my age while we crack open a beer that they need a sense of self-worth
Of course, "kids with megaphones" or "kids with dusty books" cannot be working class in any genuine sense. Only beer is working class!

More "critique" from you based on stereotypes.



and that this world is miserable and that there is no reason to feel that "there is no alternative". the important thing i can do is tell those who surround me that suffer of the same soul sickness as i do that there are other people like us and that we should not despair.
Marxism is a strategic programme for political action, not a pseudo-spiritual "self-help book".



what do you want me to do? do you want me to flyer the shit out of my city and call for workers' councils? perhaps stage a sit in with 5 people in the college administration building like the moonbats did? make completely legal and ritualistic marches where you have to ask the government to do so like the psl does? who the hell are we trying to impress
Well, at least the Trots and the MLs have done something concrete.

They've made many mistakes, but a kid learns how to ride a bike by repeatedly trying it and repeatedly falling over, not by throwing some comments from the sidelines.

And while I might be very critical ideologically of people like Zanthorus, on a personal level I have more respect for him. At least he is a real theorist with a good knowledge of Marxist principles. Zanthorus might not be "riding the bike" either, to use my analogy here, but at least that bookworm (no offense intended to Zan) is seriously analysing the aerodynamics of the bike so that kids are less likely to fall over in future attempts at riding it...

[HEAD ICE]

Just to point out, in France I believe that 'ultra-gauche' is also used non-perjoratively to refer to the Communist Left tradition. Hence some of the books and articles by Dauvé which talk about the 'ultra-left' for example.

I don't disagree with this, but as this thread shows it really isn't much more than a slur at least in english.

Basically what is being derided as 'ultra-leftism' is that you can create "mass movements" because you really really want to. Or rejecting alliances with openly bourgeois organizations because of "ideological purity." I think I give an example of where I displayed my ultra-leftist nature in being a sectarian. On my campus there was a drive to organize the cafeteria workers into a union. Being new to the activist "scene" (which I will proudly and loudly say you will NOT find me anymore...) I joined this insulated hipster social club which maldoror accurately describes as an "activist ghetto", filled with so called marxists who hop around town trying to "build" and "do something." Routinely we would actually have organizers from the SEIU drop in to the meetings, and the so called "marxist" leader of this little club even had her picture on an official SEIU produced leaflet.

So what should I have done? I could have forsaken my "ideological purity" and take part in this SEIU circus, or I could instead completely and totally reject being a foot soldier for the most rotten union in the USA, not walk around carrying SEIU placards while wearing that stupid purple shirt, and instead simply talk to workers and my friends about the struggles we are all going through and attempt to make a political connection with what has been affecting us. I chose "ultra-leftism."

Someone quoted Tony Cliff saying that this "ideological isolation" holds Marxism back. Well, I find completely defanging marxism and communism simply to be relevant to the bourgeoisie to be a far greater waste of time.

[HEAD ICE]

Well, I might be very critical ideologically of people like Zanthorus, but on a personal level I have more respect for him. At least he is a real theorist with a good knowledge of Marxist principles. Zanthorus might not be "riding the bike" either, to use my analogy here, but at least that bookworm (no offense intended to Zan) is seriously analysing the aerodynamics of the bike so that kids are less likely to fall over in future attempts at riding it...

Hasn't this been called "ultra-leftism" through out this thread? People like Zanthorus who are incredibly smart will be of much greater service in the revolution than people who have spent their political careers concerned entirely with trying "to do something." His political action will be buttressed and be much more meaningful with a clear understanding of how class struggle actually moves.

An ounce of action is worth a pound of theory, but action with no theory behind it is worthless action.

[Queercommie Girl]

People like Zanthorus who are incredibly smart


Actually I don't know about being "smart", since smartness is more associated with effective action than just book knowledge.

But yes Zan is very knowledgable indeed, I admit that.

[Paulappaul]

The process is dialectical. Each builds the other.

wait what? Op said movements build Communists, not the other way around. You didn't refute this, you just said the process is "dialectical" as this if this was a magical trump card.

Look Communists don't always build movements. It's bullshit to say one day there wasn't a movement and the next day there was. At the same time, it's bullshit to just say that Communists have built every workers movement in existence. Where were the Communists in the Spring time of the People? When the French threw up their barricades? Last I checked, this produced the Communist Manifesto, not the other way around. In the Chartist Movement, Socialism was formally introduced as the Workers' ideology. In Hungary 56 the Communists were aganist the workers.

Material Conditions create class struggle creates radicalizes workers' which in turn creates Communists. The success of the revolution I think can depend on Communists. The Paris Commune is an intresting example where I think Communists basically lead things. In Hungary 56 there was seemingly no Communists in defense of the workers, the revolution happened with the class as its own vanguard.

[Queercommie Girl]

You didn't refute this, you just said the process is "dialectical" as this if this was a magical trump card.


Nope, there is no "magic" involved at all.

"Dialectics" is just a word, but the point here is that "material conditions determine consciousness" is not merely a reductionist process. Political consciousness cannot be mechanically reduced to merely an objective description of material factors, in the same way one might reduce a Newtonian clock to mere wheels, clogs and the vector equations of classical mechanics. The subjective factor is also important, and superstructure can counter-act on the material base.

The material conditions may be sufficient, but without a sufficient political leadership, a revolution will not succeed. Revolutionary conditions emerged not just in Russia in the early 20th century, but also in countries like China and Germany. But Chen Duxiu and Luxemburg didn't possess the subjective factor like Lenin did.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Of course, "kids with megaphones" or "kids with dusty books" cannot be working class in any genuine sense. Only beer is working class!

More "critique" from you based on stereotypes.


I don't think that it's based on stereotypes at all. Anyone who has even taken a passing interest in leftist "activism" (and is even the least bit honest with themselves) knows just how divorced it is from the people that left-wing orgs. claim to be representing.

I'm in the USA, so that's the situation I'm speaking to: let's forget, for a moment, about the people who are very far removed from groups like, say, the ISO, in terms of age, or academic background, etc. There are plenty of 20-somethings who work shit jobs as waitresses, dishwashers, various service industry fields, in the construction industry, etc. These were the people I lived with in Texas, who scrapped by with just enough money to pay the rent and get drunk/high on the weekends. You'd think that these people would be a prime well-spring for agitation from communist groups, but (unsurprisingly) all of the rhetoric we speak of on this site is incredibly esoteric to them. It's really esoteric to 99.99% of the population. I think that's worth noting when speaking with people who hate where they are in life and seemingly have nowhere to go. It's no wonder communist politics are seen as some sort of weirdo cult here when people insist on talking about dialectics and the strategic battle plan of the proletariat and all this other verbage which may be good for discussion on this site, but isn't particularly good anywhere else.

[Os Cangaceiros]

No it's also p. applicable to leftcoms. (which is why stagger lee and psycho are here in a tizzy)

The thing with ultra-leftism is it basically doesn't work. There hasn't been a single, successful "ultra-left" revolution in the history of the world.

What is an "ultra-left" revolution? I thought that those classified as "ultra-left" supported revolutions of the working class. :sleep:

Also, interestingly enough, most left communist opinions I've heard/read speak positively of the October Revolution.

[Paulappaul]

Nope, there is no "magic" involved at all.

"Dialectics" is just a word, but the point here is that "material conditions determine consciousness" is not merely a reductionist process. Political consciousness cannot be mechanically reduced to merely an objective description of material factors, in the same way one might reduce a Newtonian clock to mere wheels, clogs and the vector equations of classical mechanics. The subjective factor is also important, and superstructure can counter-act on the material base.

The material conditions may be sufficient, but without a sufficient political leadership, a revolution will not succeed. Revolutionary conditions emerged not just in Russia in the early 20th century, but also in countries like China and Germany. But Chen Duxiu and Luxemburg didn't possess the subjective factor like Lenin did.

Man you talk like that to the Working Class? I hope not. I can't understand what the fuck you're talking about. Speaking of "book knowledge".

You didn't refute anything I said, just like the other guy to Nothing Human is Alien. You just kinda said your shit. I pointed out that revolution without proper Political Leadership have been won in the past. The best refutation of your thesis comes directly from Hungary 56 where there was no Vanguard Party no political party, only the Workers' in their own mass associations acting as their own masters, their own leaders.

My original point being is that it's naive to that say that without theory, without leadership, there is no revolution.

[black magick hustla]

Of course, "kids with megaphones" or "kids with dusty books" cannot be working class in any genuine sense. Only beer is working class!

nobody is claiming their class background what people are claiming is how removed and insular are





Marxism is a strategic programme for political action, not a pseudo-spiritual "self-help book".


the communist invariant program is a program for the creation of a world human community. those who do not understand the communist project of the whole man end up talking like esoteric fossils and are unable to connect with other people. its about destroying capitalist hell and creating a world community, not conjuring images of barracks and burly men with hammers.





Well, at least the Trots and the MLs have done something concrete.


we have too. but to us concreteness is not activism.




They've made many mistakes, but a kid learns how to ride a bike by repeatedly trying it and repeatedly falling over, not by throwing some comments from the sidelines.

i was an activist for four years.




And while I might be very critical ideologically of people like Zanthorus, on a personal level I have more respect for him. At least he is a real theorist with a good knowledge of Marxist principles. Zanthorus might not be "riding the bike" either, to use my analogy here, but at least that bookworm (no offense intended to Zan) is seriously analysing the aerodynamics of the bike so that kids are less likely to fall over in future attempts at riding it...
i dont know if i am a theorist, but i do have a pretty good crasp of marxist theory in general. the difference is that i communicate differently than people who push slogans like "defend the deformed workers' state right to nuclear weapons"

[Arilou Lalee'lay]

@Zan,

But perhaps you are confusing the 'ultra-left' with radical social-democrats.

No, though I was thinking about a narrower definition of "ultra left" than you are, I guess.
@Iseul,

Marxism is a strategic programme for political action, not a pseudo-spiritual "self-help book".
Trying to foster someone's sociological imagination and trace the roots of their despair to capitalism is a good agitating tactic though.

[Savage]

Actually I don't know about being "smart", since smartness is more associated with effective action than just book knowledge.

No it's not, I don't know anyone who equates intelligence with 'effective action', by your understanding, Marx and Engels didn't do an ounce of 'effective action' and so obviously weren't very intelligent either.

[Zanthorus]

Actually Marx and Engels did do what our activists here would call 'effective action' during the periods of mass struggle which they experienced, however it's probably true that the vast majority of especially Marx's activity was sitting in the British museum reading centuries old books on political economy.


At least he is a real theorist with a good knowledge of Marxist principles.

First of all can I say it's kind of creepy to read other people talking about myself. Second of all, I'm not a 'theorist', I'm some kid who prefers reading Das Kapital to playing video games (Ok, actually I read Das Kapital when I'm finished with the video games, but whatever). Third I don't care about being called a 'bookworm', and fourth can let me reiterate the point that can you please stop discussing me because it's creepy.

[Savage]

First of all can I say it's kind of creepy to read other people talking about myself. Second of all, I'm not a 'theorist', I'm some kid who prefers reading Das Kapital to playing video games (Ok, actually I read Das Kapital when I'm finished with the video games, but whatever). Third I don't care about being called a 'bookworm', and fourth can let me reiterate the point that can you please stop discussing me because it's creepy.Zanthorism is taking revleft by storm

[Queercommie Girl]

First of all can I say it's kind of creepy to read other people talking about myself. Second of all, I'm not a 'theorist', I'm some kid who prefers reading Das Kapital to playing video games (Ok, actually I read Das Kapital when I'm finished with the video games, but whatever). Third I don't care about being called a 'bookworm', and fourth can let me reiterate the point that can you please stop discussing me because it's creepy.


I don't see anything "creepy" at all about talking about another person in a general ideological sense on a forum. I think your point doesn't make any sense at all. If you talked about me in such a way, I wouldn't mind it at all. "Don't do to others what you don't wish others do to you". I didn't violate this basic moral principle.

But then I have nothing against you on a personal level, calling you a "theorist" or even "bookworm" weren't meant to be an insult at all, to some degree these are actually compliments in my language. (I like people who have a lot of knowledge, generally speaking) If you don't want me to talk about you "behind your back" or whatever anymore, then fine, that's ok with me.

[Queercommie Girl]

Man you talk like that to the Working Class? I hope not. I can't understand what the fuck you're talking about. Speaking of "book knowledge".


Sorry, I don't believe there is a particular way all workers are supposed to talk. Perhaps certain sections of workers, or workers in certain countries and regions, tend to talk in a certain way sometimes. But Chinese workers behave quite differently from American workers, and I don't think manners which will engage with American workers would work with many Chinese workers.

But I was actually addressing you specifically, not some abstract cultural definition of the working class.

Also, I never used the phrase "book knowledge" in a negative way.



You didn't refute anything I said,


Nor did you refute anything chegitz said.

Was I even trying to refute you directly? Not really.



I pointed out that revolution without proper Political Leadership have been won in the past. The best refutation of your thesis comes directly from Hungary 56 where there was no Vanguard Party no political party, only the Workers' in their own mass associations acting as their own masters, their own leaders.


I have to disagree because I don't believe Hungary 56 would have ended up as a second October Revolution even if they were not systematically suppressed.

How can you be so sure how it would have turned out, since ultimately it failed in history. You might say it only failed due to suppression, perhaps, but you can't prove that without suppression, it would definitely win either.

Russia and Germany had similar objective conditions in the early 20th century. Why did the revolution succeed in Russia but not in Germany? Are you saying the existence of Lenin and the vanguard Bolshevik party wasn't an important factor in this?



My original point being is that it's naive to that say that without theory, without leadership, there is no revolution.


My point was simply that "material conditions determine political consiousness" isn't always true in a simple sense. Sometimes consciousness can influence material conditions.

As for your point, no I wouldn't simplistically say that without theory or leadership there would be no revolution. (Theory and leadership aren't the same thing either) But then do you deny that Marxist theory is an invaluable tool for the working class? Oppressed peoples, like tribesmen, slaves, serfs and peasants, have been rising up against class society for thousands of years, but only the modern industrialised working class has the real capacity to build genuine socialism, because they are more advanced. There is a fundamental difference between a spontaneous uprising and a politically and ideologically conscious act.

[Queercommie Girl]

I don't think that it's based on stereotypes at all. Anyone who has even taken a passing interest in leftist "activism" (and is even the least bit honest with themselves) knows just how divorced it is from the people that left-wing orgs. claim to be representing.


It is a "stereotype" indeed if one thinks that the hundreds of millions of workers in the US all tend to behaviour in similar ways. In fact, it's a rather disrespectful way of looking at the working class - seeing workers as "coming out of the same social mold" rather than distinct individuals with specific personalities. Also it's viewing "working class entities" as statical things rather than real people that can transform and develop with time.



I'm in the USA, so that's the situation I'm speaking to: let's forget, for a moment, about the people who are very far removed from groups like, say, the ISO, in terms of age, or academic background, etc. There are plenty of 20-somethings who work shit jobs as waitresses, dishwashers, various service industry fields, in the construction industry, etc. These were the people I lived with in Texas, who scrapped by with just enough money to pay the rent and get drunk/high on the weekends. You'd think that these people would be a prime well-spring for agitation from communist groups, but (unsurprisingly) all of the rhetoric we speak of on this site is incredibly esoteric to them. It's really esoteric to 99.99% of the population.


I'm not saying you don't have a point, but then your statistics is obviously off. US workers aren't the only workers in the world, and relatively uneducated blue-collar workers aren't the only workers in the US either. Obviously it is important to work with such layers of the working class, but it would be wrong to focus on these people exclusively, especially since in the West today, many "professionals" have been essentially "proletarianised" as well. For me, it is important to agitate among blue-collar workers, but it is also important to agitate among many sections of relatively more educated "white-collar" workers, like e.g. teachers. It's simply a case of flexibly adopting one's political tactics for different situations and audiences.



It's no wonder communist politics are seen as some sort of weirdo cult here when people insist on talking about dialectics and the strategic battle plan of the proletariat and all this other verbage which may be good for discussion on this site, but isn't particularly good anywhere else.

Actually I don't think aesthetics is the main reason most workers reject communism at all. I think the key reason is that for many workers, the goals of communism simply seem too utopian and "too good to be true" generally speaking, so people don't believe it can ever be realised.

Another thing is that although it is important to engage with different sections and layers of workers by adopting methods which work with them, it doesn't imply that everything the "current existing working class" does is objectively correct. Marxists have a duty to try to raise the ideological consciousness of all workers, so that they have a better understanding of Marxist theory and strategy. Only then can one have an effective socialist movement.

[hatzel]

Man you talk like that to the Working Class? I hope not. I can't understand what the fuck you're talking about. Speaking of "book knowledge".

That's strange, because I personally understood everything Iseul had to say (although I can't claim to necessarily agree with the claims). Might have something to do with my not subscribing to the whole 'man, man, this kind of stuff is just far too advanced, you working class types just ain't gonna understand it, y'all better just leave it to me!' idea. Anyway, this isn't anything to do with people talking to the working class. This is dedicated socialists discussing theory and ideas with one another. If we had to do that by phrasing everything as if we were speaking to children (which seems to be what you're advocating, though I question whether it's fair to claim that the working class need to be addressed as if they were children), then something tells me that our theoretical and philosophical basis would be pretty weak...

[Leo]

Ultra-leftism is simply a meaningless slur used by the Stalinists and the Trotskyist in general to refer to revolutionaries, and used by specific Stalinist and Trotskyist groups to refer to other groups as well as splinter groups which have a slightly more radical jargon. I'd say that is what is wrong with it.

...It also sounds like a detergent brand.

[Zanthorus]

I don't see anything "creepy" at all about talking about another person in a general ideological sense on a forum. I think your point doesn't make any sense at all. If you talked about me in such a way, I wouldn't mind it at all. "Don't do to others what you don't wish others do to you". I didn't violate this basic moral principle.

But then I have nothing against you on a personal level, calling you a "theorist" or even "bookworm" weren't meant to be an insult at all, to some degree these are actually compliments in my language. (I like people who have a lot of knowledge, generally speaking) If you don't want me to talk about you "behind your back" or whatever anymore, then fine, that's ok with me.

Maybe I didn't express myself quite right, I find kind of unsettling for other people to talk about me as a 'theorist' or as 'very knowledgeable'. I don't really like it because I'm personally confused and unclear on a number of issues.

[Queercommie Girl]

Maybe I didn't express myself quite right, I find kind of unsettling for other people to talk about me as a 'theorist' or as 'very knowledgeable'. I don't really like it because I'm personally confused and unclear on a number of issues.

Ok, that's a fair enough point.

But understand that I was actually complimenting you, not criticising you. (Well, I do disagree with your "ultra-leftism" ideologically, but that's another matter)

[Queercommie Girl]

Ultra-leftism is simply a meaningless slur used by the Stalinists and the Trotskyist in general to refer to revolutionaries, and used by specific Stalinist and Trotskyist groups to refer to other groups as well as splinter groups which have a slightly more radical jargon. I'd say that is what is wrong with it.

...It also sounds like a detergent brand.

Only in the eyes of Ultra-Leftists would "Trotskyists" and "Stalinists" be lumped together like this...:lol:

[Queercommie Girl]

No it's not, I don't know anyone who equates intelligence with 'effective action', by your understanding, Marx and Engels didn't do an ounce of 'effective action' and so obviously weren't very intelligent either.

I seriously doubt your claim that Marx and Engels did not engage in effective political action. Are you serious?

I didn't equate intelligence in general with "effective action" at all. I was merely pointing out that intelligence is essentially a pluralistic quality and there are many different types of intelligence. There is intelligence associated with book knowledge, and there is intelligence associated with effective action, or social and artistic abilities, etc.

[RedSunRising]

Only in the eyes of Ultra-Leftists would "Trotskyists" and "Stalinists" be lumped together like this...:lol:

"Stalinist" is just as meaningless a term as "Ultra-Leftists".

[Imposter Marxist]

Ultra-Left is dressing up in a punk outfit, getting a bandana mask, waving a giant banner that says "NO GODS, NO MASTERS" at a Union Event, telling all the workers that their "UNION LEADERS ARE THEIR ENEMIES!"

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

That's not true and never has been. If there hasn't been a group out there building the basis for communist organization before the struggle begins, that struggle gets hijacked by people with other agendas.

Yeah. If THE TRUE PARTY isn't listened to, if it isn't in the right place at the right time, the struggle will be HIJACKED by people with the wrong ideas! This is how workers operate. Strike in their thousands, risk their jobs, risk their lives even, but they have have some trot nerd come along and sell them papers and make sure they do what their little party tells them to do or else all is lost!



Isn't it obvious to you that a working class revolution involves a little more than getting the "right" party broadcasting the right message at the right time? Doesn't that strike you as utterly unmaterialist, and utterly depressing in terms of your views on working class imitative, coming from a communist? Doesn't it seem obvious that this rabid faith in their own individual parties filled with university students are needed prior to the to the revolution, to get workers, by hook or crook (Since the stakes are so high, it makes sense for parties which truly believe they are the salvation of the working class to resort to any kind of skullduggery to get new recruits) is the source of much of the pointless dishonest, sectarianism and all of the crap that can't conceivably lead to any form of working class revolution, amoung the left? If you think that revolution will be missed if your organisation isn't followed by the workers right at that crucial moment, isn't it logical to try and deceive people into joining, slander other parties for short term recruitment? Vacillate over a load of contradictory and unprincipled positions? etc etc?

[BIG BROTHER]

Yeah. If THE TRUE PARTY isn't listened to, if it isn't in the right place at the right time, the struggle will be HIJACKED by people with the wrong ideas! This is how workers operate. Strike in their thousands, risk their jobs, risk their lives even, but they have have some trot nerd come along and sell them papers and make sure they do what their little party tells them to do or else all is lost!...

I think you are getting wrong the role of what a Vanguard Party is. It is not just selling newspapers.

We are the ones leading by merit and hard work the strikes, the walkouts, the occupations, etc.

So no, its not about being "some Trot nerd" its about being a real leader.

[graymouser]

Yeah. If THE TRUE PARTY isn't listened to, if it isn't in the right place at the right time, the struggle will be HIJACKED by people with the wrong ideas! This is how workers operate. Strike in their thousands, risk their jobs, risk their lives even, but they have have some trot nerd come along and sell them papers and make sure they do what their little party tells them to do or else all is lost!
I can smell the strawman burning from over here, you should cut it out or you might light your own pants on fire.

Revolutions are won or lost by timing and correct tactics. If people who understand these things aren't putting them forward, it's very easy to lose the whole thing.

Opportunists and traitors to the class struggle are already organized. Their ideas are already getting out there, and they control the elements of organization of the working class. That's why, for instance, Wisconsin's heroic struggle has been corralled to electoralism and gone basically to defeat. If you think you can counter them with organization that is made on the fly during the revolution, it's simply a fantasy. You cannot make a party at the same time the revolution happens - which is why revolutions without a party established beforehand have tended to go on to be losses well-liked by people who prefer purity of ideals to success. (Hungary in 1956 is a stand-out here.)

[Queercommie Girl]

I love it how people just dismiss "selling newspapers" etc. as some kind of completely trivial or useless task.

I suppose if socialist activism is absolutely spontaneous, then we don't really need Marxist theory either. To the hell with the "nerds" Marx and Engels who spent half their lives inside libraries painstakingly analysing capitalism and society! Let's burn those Marxist books! :rolleyes:

And I love the insulting slurs against "nerds". Obviously "nerds" can't be workers. If you not manly or tough enough then you simply can't be a worker. One's socio-economic class status is primarily determined by how much beer one can gulp down in one go...

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

I can smell the strawman burning from over here, you should cut it out or you might light your own pants on fire.

Revolutions are won or lost by timing and correct tactics. If people who understand these things aren't putting them forward, it's very easy to lose the whole thing.

Opportunists and traitors to the class struggle are already organized. Their ideas are already getting out there, and they control the elements of organization of the working class. That's why, for instance, Wisconsin's heroic struggle has been corralled to electoralism and gone basically to defeat. If you think you can counter them with organization that is made on the fly during the revolution, it's simply a fantasy. You cannot make a party at the same time the revolution happens - which is why revolutions without a party established beforehand have tended to go on to be losses well-liked by people who prefer purity of ideals to success. (Hungary in 1956 is a stand-out here.)

Why is what I said a strawman?


Yeah. If THE TRUE PARTY isn't listened to, if it isn't in the right place at the right time, the struggle will be HIJACKED by people with the wrong ideas! This is how workers operate. Strike in their thousands, risk their jobs, risk their lives even, but they have have some trot nerd come along and sell them papers and make sure they do what their little party tells them to do or else all is lost"

You claimed that without a party invented by a load of communists with the aim of building an organisation that can intervene when the class struggle heats up (Presumably to show the workers the right way..and have a ready made route of organisations to get there all set up) then workers will be "hijacked" by other groups?

Where is the strawman in the two things I said?

A; you feel it must be done by the "right" organisation/s" (which is a given since a specific set of tactics will be needed to convince/decieve the workers to getting on board.)

B; that it seems odd that workers currently risking their jobs and livelihoods will require some premade group of people to come along and show them the way - or else all is lost?

*I note here you will probably change your line to the standard "Well the party learns from the people and the people learn from the party" so as not to seem totally absurd, but that wasn't already apparent. I don't think it matters though - if you believe that revolution is fundamentally the result, or the crucial factor, is having an organisation of people intervene and guide workers, there isn't much incentive for the learning and so on.

I also note that your accusations of strawmen are ironic since your first post on this thread was a strawman on your part, since you claimed that "ultra leftists" are attached to the idea of theoretical purity and doing what is "ideal" in a situation rather than doing what will likely advance the communist movement. I find it hard to believe you actually think left communists (who you must know are the ones mostly identified by the ultra left slur etc) believe this given your 1500 posts, and aren't just following the behavioural pattens naturally generated by thinking that dat dere party has got to win the workers over ASAP - be dishonest about other communists, but it was clealry a strawman whatever.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

I love it how people just dismiss "selling newspapers" etc. as some kind of completely trivial or useless task.

I suppose if socialist activism is absolutely spontaneous, then we don't really need Marxist theory either. To the hell with the "nerds" Marx and Engels who spent half their lives inside libraries painstakingly analysing capitalism and society! Let's burn those Marxist books! :rolleyes:

And I love the insulting slurs against "nerds". Obviously "nerds" can't be workers. If you not manly or tough enough then you simply can't be a worker. One's socio-economic class status is primarily determined by how much beer one can gulp down in one go...

Think your taking off the cuff remarks references a little too seriously dude. Which is ironic since you manage to make a ton here yourself..However I think its pretty obvious that they're hyperbole and so i'm not going to critise you for thinking that people who described trots as nerds therefore, actually want to burn Marxist books.

[Robocommie]

Think your taking off the cuff remarks references a little too seriously dude.

Iseul is a woman.

[graymouser]

Why is what I said a strawman?
Your hysterical nonsense about "THE TRUE PARTY" and your ad hominems about "some trot nerd" are pretty hard core strawmen.


You claimed that without a party invented by a load of communists with the aim of building an organisation that can intervene when the class struggle heats up (Presumably to show the workers the right way..and have a ready made route of organisations to get there all set up) then workers will be "hijacked" by other groups?

Where is the strawman in the two things I said?
In the picture of the "TRUE PARTY." My organization tries to win over the working class by being the best militants and also having the correct line in the struggle - not by proclaiming its ideological purity. You're overemphasizing a one-sided view of organization by its ideology alone.


I also note that your accusations of strawmen are ironic since your first post on this thread was a strawman on your part, since you claimed that "ultra leftists" are attached to the idea of theoretical purity and doing what is "ideal" in a situation rather than doing what will likely advance the communist movement. I find it hard to believe you actually think left communists (who you must know are the ones mostly identified by the ultra left slur etc) believe this given your 1500 posts or whatever, but that was clearly a strawman.
Honestly, in real political discourse, I don't deal with left communists at all. They simply aren't a factor, it's like talking about how I'm wrong because my initial post about ultra-leftism didn't deal adequately with DeLeonists. RevLeft is fairly exceptional in having a bit of a community of left coms, as well as the APL flavor of Hoxhaists.

My initial sally against ultra-lefts was directed at ultra-"pure" Trotskyists mostly, because when I encounter ultra-lefts off this board, it's mostly them.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It is a "stereotype" indeed if one thinks that the hundreds of millions of workers in the US all tend to behaviour in similar ways. In fact, it's a rather disrespectful way of looking at the working class - seeing workers as "coming out of the same social mold" rather than distinct individuals with specific personalities. Also it's viewing "working class entities" as statical things rather than real people that can transform and develop with time.

What are you talking about? My whole point was simply that radical organizations are currently very detached from the people they claim to be representing, in the United States, based on 1) my own anecdotal experiences on the sidelines of the activist scene, and 2) the raw numbers of how many people belong to these so-called up-and-coming vanguards.


I'm not saying you don't have a point, but then your statistics is obviously off. US workers aren't the only workers in the world

1) I'm pretty sure that I was speaking only to the situation in the USA, and mentioned that early on; and 2) those statistics were obviously not accurate, they were just used to convey the point that the vast majority of the population is unfamiliar with marxism or communist politics. Emphasis on the word "vast". It's probably more like 99.9999%


and relatively uneducated blue-collar workers aren't the only workers in the US either. Obviously it is important to work with such layers of the working class, but it would be wrong to focus on these people exclusively

You're arguing against a point which hasn't been made.

My point was that it showed the weakness of many youth-heavy communist organizations, in that this base of support is left untapped...people the same age, working the same kinds of jobs, the majority unhappy with their work, etc. Nowhere did I say that these people needed more emphasis than other sectors of the target audience.


Actually I don't think aesthetics is the main reason most workers reject communism at all. I think the key reason is that for many workers, the goals of communism simply seem too utopian and "too good to be true" generally speaking, so people don't believe it can ever be realised.

See, I don't agree with that at all. I don't think there's going to be some moment when the realization dawns on people that, "Hey! The communist program now wonderfully balances pragmatism and far-reaching social change so effectively! Let's support it!"

[Paulappaul]

Sorry, I don't believe there is a particular way all workers are supposed to talk. Perhaps certain sections of workers, or workers in certain countries and regions, tend to talk in a certain way sometimes.


Well.. duh. That's common sense. But you can't expect the masses to understand words like objective, subjective, political conciouness, material conditions, etc. You talk bigger then Zanthorus, the so called "theorist".


Nor did you refute anything chegitz said.

Was I even trying to refute you directly? Not really.


Yeah I did, I presented an argument based on historical truth, presenting, well, evidence. Unlike you who threw at me a philosophical treastise.


How can you be so sure how it would have turned out, since ultimately it failed in history. You might say it only failed due to suppression, perhaps, but you can't prove that without suppression, it would definitely win either.


Then Socialism has never worked. Congratz. The October Revolution was eventually a failure. I hate this cynical view history though, so lets look at what the Hungarian Revolution created. Workers' Control in both a political and economic sphere thru a system of Workers' Councils. It smashed Hungarian "socialism" and replaced it with a legimate workers' government.



Russia and Germany had similar objective conditions in the early 20th century. Why did the revolution succeed in Russia but not in Germany? Are you saying the existence of Lenin and the vanguard Bolshevik party wasn't an important factor in this?

Russian and German conditions were complete oppisotes. There objective conditions were only similar in that they were both in revolutionary atmospheres. But in the true material conditions they were completely different. In Germany it was the so called Vanguard Parties, the Bolshevik supported KPD and the Social Democratic Party which hindered the development of Workers' Councils and the Workers' Government which took hold of power all over the country.


But then do you deny that Marxist theory is an invaluable tool for the working class?

No I think Marxism is a product of class struggle and of material condition and regardless of it being put on paper or studied, it exists. "Marxism" is living part of the working class.


Oppressed peoples, like tribesmen, slaves, serfs and peasants, have been rising up against class society for thousands of years, but only the modern industrialised working class has the real capacity to build genuine socialism, because they are more advanced.

Okay and your point?


There is a fundamental difference between a spontaneous uprising and a politically and ideologically conscious act.


There is nothing "spontaneous". Things are only considered spontaneous for the amazing speed that the working class becomes conscious. Spontaniety are those conscious acts.

[chegitz guevara]

wait what? Op said movements build Communists, not the other way around. You didn't refute this, you just said the process is "dialectical" as this if this was a magical trump card.

The poster, malador, was half right. Why should I refute him? He was only wrong in asserting that communists do not build movements. He was completely correct in asserting that movements build communists. They do both, and they affect each other, in a feedback process, which is a dialectical, not mechanical, process.

[chegitz guevara]

Maybe I didn't express myself quite right, I find kind of unsettling for other people to talk about me as a 'theorist' or as 'very knowledgeable'. I don't really like it because I'm personally confused and unclear on a number of issues.

Truth hurts sometimes. Nothing wrong with being confused or unclear on a number of issues. Unless you're a dogmatic, you should be. That's what makes us keep testing our beliefs, correcting the ones that are wrong, and getting a better understanding of the ones that are closer to accurate.

I have to say I find your explanations quite helpful quite often.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Ultra-Left is dressing up in a punk outfit, getting a bandana mask, waving a giant banner that says "NO GODS, NO MASTERS" at a Union Event, telling all the workers that their "UNION LEADERS ARE THEIR ENEMIES!"

Oh shit, how did you know that was me? :ninja:

Nic.

[9]

Originally Posted by Leo http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2100704#post2100704)
Ultra-leftism is simply a meaningless slur used by the Stalinists and the Trotskyist in general to refer to revolutionaries, and used by specific Stalinist and Trotskyist groups to refer to other groups as well as splinter groups which have a slightly more radical jargon. I'd say that is what is wrong with it.

...It also sounds like a detergent brand.Only in the eyes of Ultra-Leftists would "Trotskyists" and "Stalinists" be lumped together like this...:lol:

what, you mean like this...



Well, at least the Trots and the MLs have done something concrete.


...?

Its always interesting, tho, to see Trotskyists railing against "ultra-lefts" because half the time they're just recycling the exact same bullshit that Stalinists say about Trots.

[Leo]

Only in the eyes of Ultra-Leftists would "Trotskyists" and "Stalinists" be lumped together like this...Please don't make me spend time quoting the loads of texts, speeches, articles and so on from different Stalinist and Trotskyist groups as well as the texts of Stalin as well as Trotsky calling everyone "ultra-leftists" - I really have better things to do. I am completely apathetic to your ignorance here, so please feel free to make your own research to see whether what I'm saying has any validity or not.

[Savage]

I seriously doubt your claim that Marx and Engels did not engage in effective political action. Are you serious?

I said that's what you implied, by saying people like Zanthorus are not participating in 'effective action'.

[Savage]

"Stalinist" is just as meaningless a term as "Ultra-Leftists".

This statement is quite peculiar, obviously those that uphold Stalin generally don't consider Stalinism to be a distinct tendency, but they also see 'ultra-leftism' as something that is quite distinct (and obviously, for 'ultra-leftists' the opposite analysis is true). I think the term 'Stalinist' is probably used fairly often as a pejorative, but on the whole I consider it to be accurate when describing certain political tendencies, as for 'ultra-leftism', this seems to be used primarily in the pejorative sense, although I believe it has been used historically by groups to describe their own politics,


It was at that time that I first encountered the theory of what I then used to term the “ultra left”, not left communist. It's a broader concept which includes libertarian communists, Situationists, the Socialism or Barbarism group in France around Castoriadis, and the ICC which existed at that time, and many other small groups. Today we say “left communist” but at that time the term more widely used was 'ultra left'.-Loren Goldner

[Queercommie Girl]

However I think its pretty obvious that they're hyperbole and so i'm not going to critise you for thinking that people who described trots as nerds therefore, actually want to burn Marxist books.


It's hyperbole, but it's also the logical implication of the "all trots are nerds and are therefore wrong" line of ideas.

[Queercommie Girl]

Please don't make me spend time quoting the loads of texts, speeches, articles and so on from different Stalinist and Trotskyist groups as well as the texts of Stalin as well as Trotsky calling everyone "ultra-leftists" - I really have better things to do. I am completely apathetic to your ignorance here, so please feel free to make your own research to see whether what I'm saying has any validity or not.

I was only half-serious, since I'm not even formally a Trotskyist or indeed a Stalinist, despite being "Trotskyism-leaning" on many issues.

Trots and Stalinists may both use the term "ultra-leftist" to describe rival tendencies, but they don't mean the same kind of thing at all. Don't get fooled by superficial appearances. Terms must be analysed in their own contexts.

[Queercommie Girl]

Radical organizations are currently very detached from the people they claim to be representing, in the United States, based on 1) my own anecdotal experiences on the sidelines of the activist scene


This is true to some extent, but you are exaggerating the situation. This is probably because you are on the sidelines of political activism rather than in the midst of it.



1) I'm pretty sure that I was speaking only to the situation in the USA, and mentioned that early on; and 2) those statistics were obviously not accurate, they were just used to convey the point that the vast majority of the population is unfamiliar with marxism or communist politics. Emphasis on the word "vast". It's probably more like 99.9999%
It isn't just being unfamiliar with Marxism though, since you were trying to argue that the vast majority of the US working class does actually fit into the typical stereotypes people have about workers in general. It is this second point which I contest.



My point was that it showed the weakness of many youth-heavy communist organizations
If you are referring to students, well obviously I think it's a problem to be a "studentist" and focus too much on student activism. But I think students certainly shouldn't be written-off as a layer either.

Interestingly, many of the "youths" you talk about are actually those with very uncertain job prospects and therefore ideologically more likely to be influenced by socialist ideas than well-paid professional layers.



See, I don't agree with that at all. I don't think there's going to be some moment when the realization dawns on people that, "Hey! The communist program now wonderfully balances pragmatism and far-reaching social change so effectively! Let's support it!"And I disagree with the notion that people disagree with communism just because it's "not cool" enough, so that if we make communism aesthetically attractive to workers and "hip" like basketball is, and use "working class language" (whatever that is), then suddenly workers would be attracted to the communist program en masse.

The problem we face now is not an aesthetic one.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well.. duh. That's common sense. But you can't expect the masses to understand words like objective, subjective, political conciouness, material conditions, etc. You talk bigger then Zanthorus, the so called "theorist".


I was talking to you, who I assume has some theoretical knowledge.

I called Zan a theorist as a compliment actually. He is a theorist in the sense that he has memorised a large amount of Marxist knowledge, not because he likes to use abstract terms.



Yeah I did, I presented an argument based on historical truth, presenting, well, evidence. Unlike you who threw at me a philosophical treastise.
But you didn't show that dialectical materialism is wrong at all. In fact, your historical examples actually affirm it, even if you don't seem to realise this fact.



Then Socialism has never worked. Congratz. The October Revolution was eventually a failure. I hate this cynical view history though, so lets look at what the Hungarian Revolution created. Workers' Control in both a political and economic sphere thru a system of Workers' Councils. It smashed Hungarian "socialism" and replaced it with a legimate workers' government.
I'm saying you can't assume that it would have worked.



Russian and German conditions were complete oppisotes. There objective conditions were only similar in that they were both in revolutionary atmospheres. But in the true material conditions they were completely different. In Germany it was the so called Vanguard Parties, the Bolshevik supported KPD and the Social Democratic Party which hindered the development of Workers' Councils and the Workers' Government which took hold of power all over the country.
No they were not, except the nature of the vanguard party. You've actually mentioned here the fact that in Germany the vanguard party collaborated with the imperialism-supporting Social Democrats which is why the revolution failed there. This actually affirms the importance of having the correct political leadership.



No I think Marxism is a product of class struggle and of material condition and regardless of it being put on paper or studied, it exists. "Marxism" is living part of the working class.
Marx and Engels still spent a huge amount of time and effort to come up with a coherent and systematic theoretical and ideological framework though. Marxism as an ideology certainly wasn't just a product of spontaneous worker's struggles.



Okay and your point?
What does being "more advanced" actually mean? How does it make revolution more likely? Partly it's organisational, but partly it's actually intellectual. Even the most uneducated modern urban worker generally knows more and understands more than a primitive tribesman, or a slave in ancient Rome, or a serf in medieval Europe. The very fact that the modern working class is intrinsically involved in advanced industrial production of all kinds means that some degree of literate and technical knowledge becomes a necessity in workers.



There is nothing "spontaneous". Things are only considered spontaneous for the amazing speed that the working class becomes conscious. Spontaniety are those conscious acts.
Or put in philosophical terms, there is a dialectical unity between "spontaneous action" and "politically conscious action". ;)

[black magick hustla]

This is true to some extent, but you are exaggerating the situation. This is probably because you are on the sidelines of political activism rather than in the midst of it.
arent you in the uk? trust me whatever problems the left has in the uk is exponentially worse in the us.


[/quote]
And I disagree with the notion that people disagree with communism just because it's "not cool" enough, so that if we make communism aesthetically attractive to workers and "hip" like basketball is, and use "working class language" (whatever that is), then suddenly workers would be attracted to the communist program en masse.

The problem we face now is not an aesthetic one.[/QUOTE]

of course the problem cannot be reduced only to aesthetics and language. in the US the working class is very weak and defeated, this is one of the reasons why social democracy was never a possibility here (compared to europe).

however, the material conditions also yielded the type of militants ES described. isolated, filled with groupspeak and self congratulatory. i think most "communists" do not get their own program at all, the invariant aspect of the communist program is that it is a program for creating a world human community. this aspect of the program is extremely important for those of us who lack a political language.

[RedSunRising]

This statement is quite peculiar, obviously those that uphold Stalin generally don't consider Stalinism to be a distinct tendency, but they also see 'ultra-leftism' as something that is quite distinct (and obviously, for 'ultra-leftists' the opposite analysis is true). I think the term 'Stalinist' is probably used fairly often as a pejorative, but on the whole I consider it to be accurate when describing certain political tendencies, as for 'ultra-leftism', this seems to be used primarily in the pejorative sense, although I believe it has been used historically by groups to describe their own politics,

The problem is that the term Stalinist is applied to those who do NOT uphold Stalin such as Euro-Communists or those who uphold him so critically that they might as well be Trotskyites. Any term that can be applied equally to the Shining Path/PCP-MLM and the CPUSA has got to be a bit silly no?

Fair enough about your comment on the term Ultra-Left, but lots of people would use it for the Sparts for instance or Maoists, so maybe Left Communist inspired or non-Bolshevik Communist would be a better and less confusing term.

[Queercommie Girl]

what, you mean like this...

...?

Its always interesting, tho, to see Trotskyists railing against "ultra-lefts" because half the time they're just recycling the exact same bullshit that Stalinists say about Trots.


MLs like PSL aren't really "Stalinists". If anything, they are more of a right-wing Pabloite Trotskyist tendency.

Might I also say that ultra-leftist criticisms of Trotsky are largely copied (poorly copied I should add) parrot-style from Trotskyist critique of Stalinism? ;)

[Queercommie Girl]

I said that's what you implied, by saying people like Zanthorus are not participating in 'effective action'.

So you think Marx and Engels are like Zanthorus? :confused:

Marx was the person who actually founded the First International. Engels played a significant part in the founding of the Second International. No participation in effective action? Are you serious? Karl Marx was actually like the "first emperor" (only an analogy) of the entire Communist International historically speaking.

[graymouser]

Fair enough about your comment on the term Ultra-Left, but lots of people would use it for the Sparts for instance or Maoists, so maybe Left Communist inspired or non-Bolshevik Communist would be a better and less confusing term.
This is a good point. Ultra-left is more of a term I'd use for Trotskyist groups like the Sparts (or my former group, Workers Power/L5I) or for more radical than thou types like the PLP or, historically, the 3rd Period Stalinists or the Weathermen - groups that try to push further than practical politics can get. I don't think of left coms as the main "ultra-left" forces after 1923 or so; the politics simply don't seem to reference reality at all for me, even in a "too far left" standpoint.

[Paulappaul]

I was talking to you, who I assume has some theoretical knowledge.

I stick to truth.


I'm saying you can't assume that it would have worked.

It did work. Workers' Councils, Workers' Government, what more do you want? I am sorry the masses weren't developed in the rest of the world to spring to their aid.


No they were not, except the nature of the vanguard party. You've actually mentioned here the fact that in Germany the vanguard party collaborated with the imperialism-supporting Social Democrats which is why the revolution failed there. This actually affirms the importance of having the correct political leadership.

They had completely different Material Conditions. This was the main critique of the Left Communists, that Russian Material Conditions which were backward in comparison to Germany and the 1st World. The Bolsheviks organized Peasants. The German Communists could not. Political Leadership to guide to the working class wasn't important, what was important for Communists to do is to enlighten the masses on the nature of the Social Democratic Parties and the Bolshevik Supported parties which sought to lead them aganist socialism and aganist their fellow workers. The Workers' had taken control of cities and factories on their own account, the "Vanguard" led them from taking more power.


Marx and Engels still spent a huge amount of time and effort to come up with a coherent and systematic theoretical and ideological framework though. Marxism as an ideology certainly wasn't just a product of spontaneous worker's struggles.

I disagree, Marx's opinions were validated by the real world. The Communist Manifesto, was a response to certain historical conditions and to the spontaneous arise of workers' struggles. Marx's whole "Historical Materialism" was not conjured in his head, but was a study of the relationship between class struggle and the way history moves.


Even the most uneducated modern urban worker generally knows more and understands more than a primitive tribesman, or a slave in ancient Rome, or a serf in medieval Europe. The very fact that the modern working class is intrinsically involved in advanced industrial production of all kinds means that some degree of literate and technical knowledge becomes a necessity in workers.

Wrong. Alot of Russian Workers and Peasants were completely illterate and yet they stood for Socialism as a result of their material conditions. You don't have to smart, literate or anything really only then a part of the working class to understand class struggle and socialism.


Or put in philosophical terms, there is a dialectical unity between "spontaneous action" and "politically conscious action".

That's nonsensical but whatever.

[Savage]

The problem is that the term Stalinist is applied to those who do NOT uphold Stalin such as Euro-Communists or those who uphold him so critically that they might as well be Trotskyites. Any term that can be applied equally to the Shining Path/PCP-MLM and the CPUSA has got to be a bit silly no?
If you uphold Stalin's policies then you are a Stalinist, I wouldn't consider the CPUSA to be Stalinist, they seem to be social democrats.



So you think Marx and Engels are like Zanthorus? :confused:

Marx was the person who actually founded the First International. Engels played a significant part in the founding of the Second International. No participation in effective action? Are you serious? Karl Marx was actually like the "first emperor" (only an analogy) of the entire Communist International historically speaking.

Alas, the art of conveying and understanding sarcasm is dead.

[Queercommie Girl]

It did work. Workers' Councils, Workers' Government, what more do you want? I am sorry the masses weren't developed in the rest of the world to spring to their aid.


Just because certain organs of worker's power appeared for a short amount of time doesn't imply it was a mature revolutionary development.



They had completely different Material Conditions. This was the main critique of the Left Communists, that Russian Material Conditions which were backward in comparison to Germany and the 1st World.
So you think the only determining factor in whether or not a revolution would be successful is in the objective material conditions?

This is almost like a fatalist perspective in which human subjective agency plays no fundamental role in human history.



The Bolsheviks organized Peasants. The German Communists could not.
Peasants are never as central to the revolutionary process as urban workers are, because they are more backward in terms of organisation, as well as political awareness and general education level.

No peasant war in the ancient world had ever succeeded in overthrowing feudalism.



Political Leadership to guide to the working class wasn't important, what was important for Communists to do is to enlighten the masses on the nature of the Social Democratic Parties and the Bolshevik Supported parties which sought to lead them aganist socialism and aganist their fellow workers.
Which is indeed the task of the vanguard. In Leninism the vanguardism isn't some kind of dictatorial political force over and above the workers, but a force that works with the workers.



The Workers' had taken control of cities and factories on their own account, the "Vanguard" led them from taking more power.
Because it was not a genuine vanguard. In Russia there was genuine vanguardism so the October Revolution succeeded.



I disagree, Marx's opinions were validated by the real world. The Communist Manifesto, was a response to certain historical conditions and to the spontaneous arise of workers' struggles. Marx's whole "Historical Materialism" was not conjured in his head, but was a study of the relationship between class struggle and the way history moves.
No I didn't say Marxism was just "conjured in Marx's head" anywhere at all. Marxism obviously is a materialist philosophy. I think it's neither "conjured in the head" nor "purely a product of spontaneous movements". You seem to take the view that it must be either "black or white", so if it's not completely "spontaneous", then it must be "conjured in the head". In reality it's a mixture of both. Marxism was motivated by real struggles and in turn validated by them, but there would be no Marxism if Karl Marx didn't make very in-depth and objective analyses of the conditions of capitalism as well as society in general. Many of Marx and Engels' works, such as Engels' The Origins of the Family, do not directly deal with any worker's movement in the immediate sense, but were very deep historical texts analysing many aspects of human history from the perspective of historical materialism.



Wrong. Alot of Russian Workers and Peasants were completely illterate and yet they stood for Socialism as a result of their material conditions. You don't have to smart, literate or anything really only then a part of the working class to understand class struggle and socialism.
Many were illiterate, but urban workers in general had a higher education level than contemporary peasants, or medieval serfs, or slaves in Rome. This is partly why the urban working class is the leading class in a revolution while the peasants can only be the semi-leading class.

You sound almost as if education is not an important thing generally speaking for socialists. This is a mistake, especially if you consider that generally there is a negative correlation between education level and the prevalence of reactionary attitudes such as racism, sexism and queerphobia. Just because they are working class doesn't imply all of their views are correct. Genuine socialism also takes the elimination of racism/sexism/queerphobia seriously and not just worker's liberation in the economic sense.



That's nonsensical but whatever.
No it's not "non-sensical" at all. You are reading too much into the word "dialectics". All it means is that there is never just "black-and-white" in the world, things are always in a mixed state, and things interact with each other, rather than just one thing influencing another but not being influenced in return.

You seem to be incapable of understanding, for instance, that Marxist theory is a product of both theoretical analysis and worker's movements; or that it is both the case that real movements influence communists, but communists also influence real movements in return. For you it's always "one thing or the other". That's what it means to have a undialectical approach to analysis.

[Queercommie Girl]

Alas, the art of conveying and understanding sarcasm is dead.


It's only because your sarcasm was of a particularly poor quality. :D

[Paulappaul]

Just because certain organs of worker's power appeared for a short amount of time doesn't imply it was a mature revolutionary development.

Mature in my book, workers took state power, took control of production.


So you think the only determining factor in whether or not a revolution would be successful is in the objective material conditions?

This is almost like a fatalist perspective in which human subjective agency plays no fundamental role in human history.

I think it is a major component of the nature of the revolution. If the Russian material conditions had barely gone beyond feudalism (in most places, not at all) then I don't think it was ripe for a Socialist Revolution.


Peasants are never as central to the revolutionary process as urban workers are, because they are more backward in terms of organisation, as well as political awareness and general education level.

No peasant war in the ancient world had ever succeeded in overthrowing feudalism.


I agree, I think this was fatal for the Bolsheviks and a sign of Russian conditions.


Which is indeed the task of the vanguard. In Leninism the vanguardism isn't some kind of dictatorial political force over and above the workers, but a force that works with the workers.

No the Leninist Vanguard is to enlighten, educate and lead the masses. I think being a tool of the working class is the duty of the Vanguard.


Because it was not a genuine vanguard. In Russia there was genuine vanguardism so the October Revolution succeeded.

The legitimate vanguard was those "Ultra Leftists".


You sound almost as if education is not an important thing generally speaking for socialists. This is a mistake, especially if you consider that generally there is a negative correlation between education level and the prevalence of reactionary attitudes such as racism, sexism and queerphobia. Just because they are working class doesn't imply all of their views are correct. Genuine socialism also takes the elimination of racism/sexism/queerphobia seriously and not just worker's liberation in the economic sense.

I think Sexism, Racism, etc. is a result of Capitalism, and when there is class struggle, workers throw out those distinctions and unite as class for itself. I don't think education is important, I think it is a small part of our work.


You seem to be incapable of understanding, for instance, that Marxist theory is a product of both theoretical analysis and worker's movements; or that it is both the case that real movements influence communists, but communists also influence real movements in return. For you it's always "one thing or the other". That's what it means to have a undialectical approach to analysis.

Fine I am undialetical.

[hardlinecommunist]

Seriously, it sounds good so why are so many here against it? Everything is wrong with Ultra-Leftism it hinders and holds back Revolutionary Movements and in a lot of cases destroys them outright

[Savage]

It's only because your sarcasm was of a particularly poor quality. :D

Hence the art of understanding and conveying sarcasm is dead.

[Savage]

Just because certain organs of worker's power appeared for a short amount of time doesn't imply it was a mature revolutionary development.

Workers' Councils don't have specific formulas developed by some theoretician, they're simply the material expression of workers assuming power over production and society, something which can't be done by the policy of a state.