Questions for the Authoritarian Left

[Zalthulu]

1) Why have countries like the Soviet Union and China always failed to establish genuine Communism? How do you plan to ensure that you can establish a Socialist state that will, in the end, lead to Communism?

2) How do you expect to establish such a powerful, highly controlling state that will actually allow itself to dissolve for the creation of Communism, rather than perpetuating its power?

[Blake's Baby]

What do you mean by 'Authoritarian Left'?

Without defining your terms, especially if you're using a term that I suspect no-one subscribes to, you're going to find it hard to elicit answers. You may know what you mean, but maybe the people you're trying to get answers from don't.

Of course, you could just say 'the Authoritarian Left can't/is too scared to answer my questions', but if I put up a thread saying 'Question for idiots' and the question was 'can I have all of your money (say no in this thread or lose it all)?' and no-one posted to say 'no', that might not be because everyone on RevLeft thinks it's OK for me to take their money - it just might be because they don't consider themself an idiot.

So, I think you have to rethink your approach to the questions.

If you mean 'do you think the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary, and what does the revolutionary dictatorship mean?' then ask that. If you mean 'do you think a political organisation like a party needs to take control of the state?' then ask that. If you mean 'how do you think revolutionary transformation will come about?' ask that. Ask all of them if you like. But don't prejudge the answers you're going to get and try to make them fit into your already-existing schema.

[BIXX]

I would assume the asker meant anyone who thinks the left should gain control over the state.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, you know what people say about assumptions.

At least, I assume you do.

[BIXX]

Well, you know what people say about assumptions.

At least, I assume you do.
Again, I too am waiting for the op to say what they meant. That's just what authoritarian leftist has always meant to me.

[Blake's Baby]

But there are no 'authoritarian leftists' who identify as such, I would guess. Which is my point about a hypothetical 'question for iddiots'. No-one self-identifiies as an idiot, so no-one answers the question. No-one self-identifies as an 'authoritarian leftist' so no-one will answer the question.

Thios is why I say that the OP shouldn't pre-judge stuff. They have already decided that 1) 'authoritarian leftist' is a thing, and 2) what it is. Without other people sharing those assumptions, questions based on them aren't going anywhere.

Even if people do share some of those assumptions, they're unlikely to be the people the questions are addressed to; someone like yourself, Placenta cream, may believe that 'authoritarian left' has some meaning, but you don't identify as a member of it. Again, it's about defining other people in a way they don't recognise.

If I put 'a question for petit-bourgeois reactionaries' but I meant 'a question for Anarchists', how many answers do you think I'd get?

[BIXX]

But there are no 'authoritarian leftists' who identify as such, I would guess. Which is my point about a hypothetical 'question for iddiots'. No-one self-identifiies as an idiot, so no-one answers the question. No-one self-identifies as an 'authoritarian leftist' so no-one will answer the question.

Thios is why I say that the OP shouldn't pre-judge stuff. They have already decided that 1) 'authoritarian leftist' is a thing, and 2) what it is. Without other people sharing those assumptions, questions based on them aren't going anywhere.

Even if people do share some of those assumptions, they're unlikely to be the people the questions are addressed to; someone like yourself, Placenta cream, may believe that 'authoritarian left' has some meaning, but you don't identify as a member of it. Again, it's about defining other people in a way they don't recognise.

If I put 'a question for petit-bourgeois reactionaries' but I meant 'a question for Anarchists', how many answers do you think I'd get?
Lol an assload of answers.

And I understand your point and agree. I just was under the assumption that that is what this op meant. I don't believe I attacked anyone's viewpoints or any of that shit.

[Blake's Baby]

Never said you did - just saying that as someone who accepts some of the OP's assumptions (in that 'authoritarian left' is to you a term that has some meaning) it's still a term that you would only apply to to others, backing up my general contention that addressing questions to 'the authoritarian left' is a non-starter, as it's a term only applied to other people.

What the OP refers to as 'the authoritarian left' doesn't identify itself as such, and therefore doesn't know it's being addressed.

I still don't know whether (or why/why not) different people consider the Communist Left to be 'authoritarian'. I'm fairly certain - because there were years of thrashing it out - that the general view on LibCom is that it's only the Bordigists out of the Communist Left that qualify as 'authoritarian' and the rest of us qualify as 'libertarian', but as all of us reject the dichotomy it's a bit difficult to be sure, and any one person's definitions might be different anyway.

[Art Vandelay]

words

I don't think folks like Bordigists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, etc...would necessarily take issue with being described as authoritarian leftists. I think it's somewhat of a silly term to be honest, which groups together politically divergent tendencies, but when it comes down to the 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' left (as much as those labels can be meaningfully applied), then I'll gladly toss my hat in the ring with the authoritarians.

[consuming negativity]

is anybody going to answer the questions though?

:ohmy:

[RedKobra]

I don't think folks like Bordigists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, etc...would necessarily take issue with being described as authoritarian leftists. I think it's somewhat of a silly term to be honest, which groups together politically divergent tendencies, but when it comes down to the 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' left (as much as those labels can be meaningfully applied), then I'll gladly toss my hat in the ring with the authoritarians.

Sort of 'on topic', "Stalinist" is something Marxist-Leninists get called by others, we don't, in my experience, use it to describe ourselves. In general though you're right. If someone wants to call any tendency that believes in an organised, disciplined working class 'Authoritarian' then fine. We prefer to see it as the difference between a defeated working class and a victorious working class.

[Art Vandelay]

Sort of 'on topic', "Stalinist" is something Marxist-Leninists get called by others, we don't, in my experience, use it to describe ourselves.

Oh I'm well aware. Unfortunately for you lot, however, Stalinism was a petty-bourgeois phenomenon which had very little to do with - and that's being generous - the politics advocated by Marx & Lenin. Call yourself M-L's all you want, you're still Stalinists to the rest of us.

[RedKobra]

Charmed, I'm sure.

[BIXX]

RedKobra, your shit about a disciplined working class is one of the many reasons I hate stalinists.

[Comrade #138672]

RedKobra, your shit about a disciplined working class is one of the many reasons I hate stalinists.What about a self-disciplined working class? Does that sound better?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

1) Why have countries like the Soviet Union and China always failed to establish genuine Communism? How do you plan to ensure that you can establish a Socialist state that will, in the end, lead to Communism?

2) How do you expect to establish such a powerful, highly controlling state that will actually allow itself to dissolve for the creation of Communism, rather than perpetuating its power?

(1) Leaving aside the fact that most of us don't plan to establish a "Socialist state", the failure of the Soviet Union was the failure of the world revolution. Without the global overthrow of capitalism, there can be no communism.

(2) "Power" is an abstraction. On one hand, the workers' state will tear up all the reactionary laws of the bourgeois state, laws against things like abortion or adultery, against trespassing or blasphemy, which means that the worker will enjoy unprecedented freedom. On the other hand, the workers' state is, to be blunt, a boot, stamping on a bourgeois face, forever as long as the bourgeoisie and its associated elements exist. When they cease to exist, the repressive features of the state will likewise cease to exist. As will the state. Power isn't some kind of occult influence that infects states and individuals.

[Tim Cornelis]

Oh I'm well aware. Unfortunately for you lot, however, Stalinism was a petty-bourgeois phenomenon which had very little to do with - and that's being generous - the politics advocated by Marx & Lenin. Call yourself M-L's all you want, you're still Stalinists to the rest of us.

Why do you consider Stalinism petty bourgeois?

[BIXX]

What about a self-disciplined working class? Does that sound better?
Nope. Who here is defining discipline in a way that makes the word not meaningless?

[Sharia Lawn]

1) Why have countries like the Soviet Union and China always failed to establish genuine Communism? How do you plan to ensure that you can establish a Socialist state that will, in the end, lead to Communism?

2) How do you expect to establish such a powerful, highly controlling state that will actually allow itself to dissolve for the creation of Communism, rather than perpetuating its power?

1) Isolated states cannot establish genuine Communism, with the capital C. They cant even establish lower-case communism. Communism requires an egalitarian planned economy, which requires the overcoming of the value form and commodity production. That, in a world with a global division of labor, requires a global transformation in the mode of production.

2) Whatever disagreements a person has about whether a state exists under communism or socialism, not a single communist on this forum wants any apparatus in communism to be "highly controlling."


I don't think folks like Bordigists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, etc...would necessarily take issue with being described as authoritarian leftists. I think it's somewhat of a silly term to be honest, which groups together politically divergent tendencies, but when it comes down to the 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' left (as much as those labels can be meaningfully applied), then I'll gladly toss my hat in the ring with the authoritarians.

Then I think you have been huddled under a rock somewhere for the past hundred years and need to come out for some sunlight. While those tendencies you allude to might not have a problem with the concept of authority, or even the term authoritarian as Engels used it, they would overwhelmingly reject the characterization today because of its association with the idea the OP invoked in question 2 above. Ignoring the change in the word's meaning is just so much time-travel role-playing. I've never been a big fan of this pastime, now popular with ostensible revolutionaries in more isolated sects.


Why do you consider Stalinism petty bourgeois?

Stalinism is petty bourgeois because it represents a compromise formation between a proletarian gain, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, with continued exploitation and oppression of the working class on a national basis by pencil-necked bureaucrats.

[Comrade Mei-Ling]

If you mean the classical definition of the word authoritarian then of course I would have to say that I am a leftist authoritarian and do believe in loyalty if not obedience to a governing ideology. Although the ideology at hand is to be questioned.