Types of Leftism

[uncontent_soul]

I want to know the basics in simple english of:
Marxism
Marxism-Leninism
Leninism
Stalinism
Trotskyism
Anarcho-Communism
Luxembourgism
Pan Anarchism
Etcetera...

[tuwix]

Marxism:
There two major social classes who fight in capitalism that is very unstable system and it will probably collapse. The class of proletariat is fighting for power against a class of bourgeoisie not to be exploited. It's only possible when all economic activity will become a property of workers. Such system is called socialism/communism and it will develop into the stage without money as higher phase of socialism/communism.

Leninism:
In theory, based on Marx's considerations with addition that there must be a vanguard party who lead a ploretariat towards socialism.
In practice, brutal dictatorship that introduced a secret police, censorship, etc. with a news ruling class that owns all economy instead of ploretariat.
Stalinism=Marxism-Leninism:
More brutal version of Leninism. Absolute power over a state of a chief of vanguard part and conviction that socialism can be build in separate states against an opinion of Marx.
Trotskyism:
Leninist critique of Stalinism, especially his role in government and an conviction that socialism can be build in separate states.
Anarcho-communism:
An ideology advocating dissolving a state, private property and money immediately after collapse of capitalism created by Peter Kropotkin.
Luxembourgism:
Ideology based on texts of Rosa Luxemburg who criticized Leninism as a system that is insufficiently democratic.

[#FF0000]

Marxism:
There two major social classes who fight in capitalism that is very unstable system and it will probably collapse. The class of proletariat is fighting for power against a class of bourgeoisie not to be exploited. It's only possible when all economic activity will become a property of workers. Such system is called socialism/communism and it will develop into the stage without money as higher phase of socialism/communism.

Leninism:
In theory, based on Marx's considerations with addition that there must be a vanguard party who lead a ploretariat towards socialism.
In practice, brutal dictatorship that introduced a secret police, censorship, etc. with a news ruling class that owns all economy instead of ploretariat.
Stalinism=Marxism-Leninism:
More brutal version of Leninism. Absolute power over a state of a chief of vanguard part and conviction that socialism can be build in separate states against an opinion of Marx.
Trotskyism:
Leninist critique of Stalinism, especially his role in government and an conviction that socialism can be build in separate states.
Anarcho-communism:
An ideology advocating dissolving a state, private property and money immediately after collapse of capitalism created by Peter Kropotkin.
Luxembourgism:
Ideology based on texts of Rosa Luxemburg who criticized Leninism as a system that is insufficiently democratic.

I'm not a fan of Lenin or Stalin but these are hardly helpful explanations, imo. Gotta avoid value-judgements with things like this.

[Creative Destruction]

I want to know the basics in simple english of:
Marxism

Marxism is a theoretical framework proposed by Marx. In his day, it was simply called "scientific socialism" in order to distinguish it from "utopian socialism." Whereas the utopians thought that you could bring about a new society within capitalism, through communes, worker co-operatives, labor exchanges, and the like and it also established a moral argument for socialism. Marxism pinpointed that such massive change could only happen through a revolution (hopefully peaceful, but probably violent.) The reason being that there are two main classes in society that are inherently antagonistic to each other: the capitalists and the proletariat. The proletariat are exploited by capitalists, one, but also capitalism is in a constant state of crisis due to falling profit rates and the development of the means of production. Marx thinks that the working class would serve as the "gravediggers" of capitalism once they got fed up and organized as a class to overthrow the capitalists. The system that would be the natural negation of capitalism is socialism, and the working class would seek to abolish all class (including themselves as a class), as well as all the expressions of capitalism, including money and the modern state.


Marxism-Leninism
Leninism

Marxism-Leninism is Lenin's interpretation and extensions of Marxism. It included some new revisions on Marx, including what the nature of the proletarian dictatorship was, but was also a largely strategic theory. The Communist Party would be the vanguard of the workers, seeking to help instill a revolutionary consciousness in the working class, while party politics would adhere to the idea of democratic centralism, whereby the party would allow debate, but once an issue is voted on, everyone in the party is expected to follow the line and fall in line with party discipline. M-L also recognizes self-determination for ethnic nations, which is against the classical Marxist line of proletarian internationalism.


Stalinism

The major innovation with Stalinism is the idea of Socialism in One Country. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_One_Country)


Trotskyism

Started off as Leon Trotsky's interpretation of Marxism, which comes down to the theories of permanent revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution) and also the USSR as a degenerated worker's state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerated_workers%27_state). In actuality, Trotskyism is a wide movement that includes a lot of different ideas and organizations.


Anarcho-Communism

These are anarchists that want the immediate abolition of the state (which is against Marxism, which theorizes that there would be a transformation period called the proletarian dictatorship, which would be worker's control of a state.) In addition, they want an immediately classless, propertyless and moneyless society based on a gift economy of sorts. It stands in contrast to market socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.


Luxembourgism

Rosa Luxemburg's interpretation of Marxism; it deals heavily with the idea of the general strike as a main means of revolutionary action, and also with proletarian internationalism. This is included with her criticisms of Lenin and Bolshevism, which she saw as authoritarian and bureaucratic. She was also one of the first of the Marxists to question Marx's idea of the tendential fall in the rate of profit as an underlying cause of crises in capitalism.


Pan Anarchism

I don't know what this means. I'm guessing it's like synthesis anarchism, which seeks to reconcile all the socialist variants of anarchism and bring them into one big tent, as it were.


Etcetera...

A Latin expression meaning "an so on."

[G4b3n]

Marxism is a theoretical framework proposed by Marx. In his day, it was simply called "scientific socialism" in order to distinguish it from "utopian socialism." Whereas the utopians thought that you could bring about a new society within capitalism, through communes, worker co-operatives, labor exchanges, and the like and it also established a moral argument for socialism. Marxism pinpointed that such massive change could only happen through a revolution (hopefully peaceful, but probably violent.) The reason being that there are two main classes in society that are inherently antagonistic to each other: the capitalists and the proletariat. The proletariat are exploited by capitalists, one, but also capitalism is in a constant state of crisis due to falling profit rates and the development of the means of production. Marx thinks that the working class would serve as the "gravediggers" of capitalism once they got fed up and organized as a class to overthrow the capitalists. The system that would be the natural negation of capitalism is socialism, and the working class would seek to abolish all class (including themselves as a class), as well as all the expressions of capitalism, including money and the modern state.



Marxism-Leninism is Lenin's interpretation and extensions of Marxism. It included some new revisions on Marx, including what the nature of the proletarian dictatorship was, but was also a largely strategic theory. The Communist Party would be the vanguard of the workers, seeking to help instill a revolutionary consciousness in the working class, while party politics would adhere to the idea of democratic centralism, whereby the party would allow debate, but once an issue is voted on, everyone in the party is expected to follow the line and fall in line with party discipline. M-L also recognizes self-determination for ethnic nations, which is against the classical Marxist line of proletarian internationalism.



The major innovation with Stalinism is the idea of Socialism in One Country. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_One_Country)



Started off as Leon Trotsky's interpretation of Marxism, which comes down to the theories of permanent revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution) and also the USSR as a degenerated worker's state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerated_workers%27_state). In actuality, Trotskyism is a wide movement that includes a lot of different ideas and organizations.



These are anarchists that want the immediate abolition of the state (which is against Marxism, which theorizes that there would be a transformation period called the proletarian dictatorship, which would be worker's control of a state.) In addition, they want an immediately classless, propertyless and moneyless society based on a gift economy of sorts. It stands in contrast to market socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.



Rosa Luxemburg's interpretation of Marxism; it deals heavily with the idea of the general strike as a main means of revolutionary action, and also with proletarian internationalism. This is included with her criticisms of Lenin and Bolshevism, which she saw as authoritarian and bureaucratic. She was also one of the first of the Marxists to question Marx's idea of the tendential fall in the rate of profit as an underlying cause of crises in capitalism.



I don't know what this means. I'm guessing it's like synthesis anarchism, which seeks to reconcile all the socialist variants of anarchism and bring them into one big tent, as it were.



A Latin expression meaning "an so on."

Proper Marxist analysis doe not lead one to the conclusion that capitalism will "probably callopse". It leads one to the conclusion that capitalism will collapse based on the understanding of change in past social epochs as well as our understanding of material change in the natural world.

Edit: meant to quote Twix, on my cell and kinda fucked up. My bad.

[Creative Destruction]

Such system is called socialism/communism and it will develop into the stage without money as higher phase of socialism/communism.

There is no money in the lower phase of communism, either.

[Creative Destruction]

Edit: meant to quote Twix, on my cell and kinda fucked up. My bad.

This is why drugs will be banned in a socialist society. I hope you're happy with yourself... you fucked it up for everyone else.

[John Nada]

I want to know the basics in simple english of:
MarxismA theory developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It says that the struggle between classes is the driving force in history. The classes exists in relation to the means of production(what people use to sustain themselves and build stuff). Both the way of producing and the social relations add up to a mode of production, such as ancient slavery, feudalism and now capitalism.

The current mode of production is capitalism, which is based on private property. Capitalism is where the poorer but much larger class, the workers(proletariat), must sell their labor to a small rich class, the capitalists(bourgeoisie), in order to survive. The capitalists control the economy, own most private property and rule the state(which is a tool of it). However they exploit the workers for rent, like master did to slaves or lords did to surfs. This creates antagonisms. Those antagonism will boil over, resulting in the workers overthrowing the capitalist. This results in a worker's government(the dictatorship of the proletariat) that exists only to end oppression by the capitalists, and seize property for everone to own together. With no more capitalists and private property, no one is oppressed. Since there's no poor classes to exploit, and no property of the rich to protect, the state(which only exists due to different classes) withers away and communism is achieved.
Marxism-LeninismThe development of Marxism by Vladimir Lenin. It says capitalism has reached a new phase, called imperialism. The capitalists in rich developed nations have grown so strong they now rule the world via colonies(official and unofficial). They profit off exploiting not just "their own" workers, but poorer nations too, via loans, conquering territory, puppet leaders and war.

Under imperialist capitalism, the profits squeezed out of poor nations props up the imperialist nations' capitalists, enabling them to build up industry, armies and temporarily "buy off" some richer workers. Differences between imperialist nations over the spoils stolen from poorer nations results in war, at the expense of the working class.

Lenin also developed a theory of the vanguard party. It's a party of a new type made up of workers. It's not to just win elections but for the more revolutionary workers to educate and organize the people to fight capitalism. These revolutionary workers lead the people in the fight against capitalism and to start making socialism(common ownership).

Can also refer to Stalinsts.
LeninismA more broad term of theories derived from Lenin's theories, ie Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism.
StalinismThe theories and practices of Stalin's Leninism. They define socialism as the period between capitalism and communism. It says that the workers(allied with poor peasants if they're around) in an underdeveloped country can, to a large extent, build socialism under a worker's government, even if it hasn't spread yet. When the workers throughout the world overthrow the capitalist, this is socialism's final victory, and communism is reached. Considered a derogatory name by Stalinist for their Marxists-Leninist theories.
TrotskyismThe theories and practices of Trotsky's Leninism. It says that due to global capitalism not developing the countries the same, but being worldwide nevertheless, the worker's can take power in the underdeveloped countries. It's the workers' task to develop the revolution as part of a global socialist revolution, with no stages in between. It can only go as far as the international revolution, since capitalism is world-wide and no nation is in isolation.

It criticizes Stalinism. It says that Stalinism needlessly breaks the global revolution into stages, when it's part of the same global revolution. Socialism can't be created only in one country, but must be global. It says that the Soviet Union developed an undemocratic bureaucracy that stood in the way of the workers' revolution, and threaten to go backwards.
Anarcho-CommunismA variety of theories that people should go straight to communism(stateless, propertyless and classless). A hierarchy is not needed to run things. Rulers only came when states arouse. Distribution isn't done via force from a state or bureaucracy. It's a pure democracy. Power is spread out horizontally among the people and de-centralized. A worker's government just gets in the way, and is even harmful. Both the state and property are to be abolished at the same time.
LuxembourgismRosa Luxembourg didn't have a separate tendency in her lifetime. However some who either agree with her writings, or oppose vanguards and national liberation, call it that.
Pan AnarchismIs that a real tendency?:confused: I imagine that it's for uniting various types of anarchism(collectivist, insurrectionist, ect.)