Thoughts on the Gulag (and its splinters)?

[Comrade Samuel]

Perhaps some of you have heard of it: a closed facebook group comprised mainly of MLs from all over the world.

It's been a very long time since I've been seen on Revleft but my short stay and recent ban from this group has really reignited my interest in talking about theory with new comrades again . I've never forgotten the cause and have tried to do everything in my power to aid it but over the course of these past couple years things really have really changed as far as ideological thought goes in the western world.

"Idpol" (short for identity politics) seems to be the buzzword of 2016 for right/left wing radicals alike. Does it apply to the neoliberal's narrative of manufactured inclusion? What about the fascists' narrative of racial superiority? What about ourselves when speaking in regard to the emancipation of the working class? Where is the line? Who defines this term? Does it serve any cause?

I ask these questions here because apparently they are frowned upon in that group.

In the gulag pretty much anything you say that is in opposition to a strange doctrine which combines elements of the alt-right with the militant left is liable to get you labeled as "a participant in idpol" and subsequently banned.

Anybody have similar experiences? For the month or so that I was there it did feel pretty nice to see so many people enthusiastically discussing leftist issues again but I couldn't escape the feeling that over half of the members were just reactionaries who lacked a theoretical understanding of Marxist-Leninism and instead just used it as a platform to "battle SJWs".

[Comrade Samuel]

(bump, guys?)

[Die Neue Zeit]

I like that. "Idpol" is a nice negative word to use when describing the politics of those who shun class politics.

[Comrade Samuel]

It opened my eyes a bit to the liberal's latest tactics of dividing the working class and I think "idpol" is harmful but I find it concerning that the phrase can also be used as a convenient excuse for reactionary tendencies.

Fascists engage in it when they say their identity as white men is the basis of their ideological beliefs.

Increasingly, over the past decade liberals have been engaging in it when they say their identity as (insert marginalized group here) is the basis of their ideological beliefs.

Can it be concluded then that communism breaks this trend because literally anybody can declare and act upon their underlying sympathies for the working class regardless of their material conditions? For as long as I can remember we were the sole voice for marginalized groups in the political world and now that liberals have appropriated that and put their own twisted capitalist spin on it, where do we stand? How do we move forward?

[John Nada]

Anybody have similar experiences? For the month or so that I was there it did feel pretty nice to see so many people enthusiastically discussing leftist issues again but I couldn't escape the feeling that over half of the members were just reactionaries who lacked a theoretical understanding of Marxist-Leninism and instead just used it as a platform to "battle SJWs". With a name like "Gulag", it shouldn't be surprising that it'll attract, well, brocialists who would've likely end up in a gulag:/. It sounds like a spinoff of /leftypol(itself a spinoff of /pol) that idpol (http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1028009-leftypol) shit, hence the whining about "SJW":. Okay sometimes for memes(not like the one in the link), not so much as a substitute for IRL politics.

According to Marxism the superstructure(politics, state, philosophy, art, ideology, family, ect.) arises from the base(relations of production and productive forces). There's a dialectical relation between the two, with the base determinate in the last instant: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm The working class appears divided, not (entirely) because of some bourgeois conspiracy, but because under capitalism, particularly imperialist-capitalism, it already was: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm

While identity politics is going nowhere, there are legitimate democratic demands amongst the oppressed peoples. Contradictions amongst the people, as well as antagonistic contradictions. Either excluding class from politics, like identity politics, or excluding politics from class(like the "anti-SJW"), is economism(opportunism of excluding politics from economic struggles). Both make worker an identity and end up excluding the proletariat from the political struggle. As Lenin said:
The question arises, what should political education consist in? Can it be confined to the propaganda of working-class hostility to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to the workers that they are politically oppressed (any more than it is to explain to them that their interests are antagonistic to the interests of the employers). Agitation must be conducted with regard to every concrete example of this oppression (as we have begun to carry on agitation round concrete examples of economic oppression). Inasmuch as this oppression affects the most diverse classes of society, inasmuch as it manifests itself in the most varied spheres of life and activity — vocational, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc. — is it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the political consciousness of the workers if we do not undertake the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects? In order to carry on agitation round concrete instances of oppression, these instances must be exposed (as it is necessary to expose factory abuses in order to carry on economic agitation). https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm
Increasingly, over the past decade liberals have been engaging in it when they say their identity as (insert marginalized group here) is the basis of their ideological beliefs.

Can it be concluded then that communism breaks this trend because literally anybody can declare and act upon their underlying sympathies for the working class regardless of their material conditions? For as long as I can remember we were the sole voice for marginalized groups in the political world and now that liberals have appropriated that and put their own twisted capitalist spin on it, where do we stand? How do we move forward?There's opportunism(economism of the old type), which begot more opportunism(economism of identity politics). Without a strong worker movement guided by Communism to take up the demands of the masses, liberalism and the dominate bourgeois ideology seeps in to fill the gaps in a manner safe for capitalism.