Conflicts between different groups on the left

[Lanky Wanker]

I'm sure we're all aware of the fact that just because we want a classless, stateless society that doesn't make us all best friends. How much of a problem do you see different leftist ideologies causing during "a" revolution? It seems to me as though the conflict between different groups could be more of a problem than actually overthrowing capitalism. The anarcho-communists and Stalinists are hardly going to agree on how to go about a revolution, are they?

Thoughts on this? :confused:

[roy]

Any predictions about revolution are mere speculation of course, but I think that the working class would carry out its own revolution and leftist sectarianism would be swept away in the upheaval. Like you said, our goals are all the same.

[Vendetta]

I'm sure we're all aware of the fact that just because we want a classless, stateless society that doesn't make us all best friends. How much of a problem do you see different leftist ideologies causing during "a" revolution? It seems to me as though the conflict between different groups could be more of a problem than actually overthrowing capitalism. The anarcho-communists and Stalinists are hardly going to agree on how to go about a revolution, are they?

Thoughts on this? :confused:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_May_Days

[Yuppie Grinder]

I get the feeling that a lot of authoritarian socialists honestly don't believe in the possibility of a rulerless world and are more concerned about defending whatever despot from history they've decided to worship then actual communism. This is not true for all of them, though.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think a lot of these disagreements as well as dogmatism of theory or tactics on the contemporary left largely is due to the lack of working class struggle. Many of the disagreements and debates can be settled if show effective or ineffective in struggle during a period of working-class fight-back. Of course, if these periods of struggle decline or are defeated, then whole new sets of disagreements and dueling explanations emerge.

In a period of real struggle IMO those who talk the talk and those who walk the walk will become more apparent and sectarians and people too attached to certain dogmas despite changing facts on the ground will become less relevant.

It's like people speculating about what the surface of Mars is like. Before decent telescopes, basically anyone could argue anything based on circumstantial evidence: the surface is red so it's covered with red moss or the surface is red because huge fires ravaged the planet's surface, or the surface is red because the whole planet is made of iron. Then if there is better technology and more information, it may throw up new questions and debates, but will eliminate the theories that have no real hard evidence. Right now people can argue any number of things about what they think will help the worker's movement because there is not a huge radical worker's movement in most places and so no way to separate what works and what doesn't in practice. People use history, but that's problematic because we know what happened but we can disagree as to why and no real way to test how things might have been different with different circumstances or tactics or theories.

[thefinalmarch]

There will never be a Stalinist revolution. The Russian revolution overthrew the feudal, Tsarist state, and its aftermath led to the establishment of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- albeit in a strange, new form. Stalinism as an ideology was retroactively developed from the experiences of the Bolsheviks in running the country. Stalinism therefore was born from capitalist society, and the official state ideology of the capitalist state in question remained Stalinism, or "Marxism-Leninism".

There can never be a Stalinist revolution in any meaningful sense because the establishment of a bourgeois state is no longer a necessary task anywhere in today's world -- a world where the only existing states are already aligned with the class interests of the bourgeoisie.

It's no wonder so many "Marxist-Leninist"/Stalinist parties have opted to participate in the administration of the bourgeois state via parliament: Stalinists and Maoists were only ever a relevant social and political force when it came to the overthrow of feudalism -- and that is a task already completed.

[thefinalmarch]

As for my views on left unity in general, check out my posts and the ones I thanked in this thread: Why don't all commies unite? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-dont-all-t162630/index.html)

[Lanky Wanker]

As for my views on left unity in general, check out my posts and the ones I thanked in this thread: Why don't all commies unite? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-dont-all-t162630/index.html)

Oh, cheers for that. I actually just remembered when I saw Zav's post that I've read this thread before. I did use the search feature but the threads I search for always seem to have completely different titles...