Originally posted by
[email protected] 5 2005, 06:06 PM
Don't be tagged.
Form your own opinions. They dont need to be have a name. I doubt there will be any group (ie stalinism, maoism etc) that you will agree 100% with so dont use any tags.
We all want the same, don't let the names drag us apart.
And the ideals behind the names? I hate to be a sectarian bastard but there are some massive differences between the different strands of communist thought. Obviously calling yourself Stalinist just because you thought the man had a good 'tache is stupid, but what if you think that socialism can be built in one country? That's going to set you apart from much of the communist community.
After doing a bit of digging I found this posted by Che y Marijuana:
Communist: Those who advocate the overthrow of the capitalist state in an attempt to reach communism – ie a classless society. It can be broadly split into the following ideologies:
Marxist: The belief that society progresses through revolutions, technologically and socially, and that the state is a necessary tool of the ruling class so long as divisions between classes exist. thus the belief that the state must be used by the working class to defend the revolution until the class conflict has been resolved once and for all. This is referred to as the "dictatorship of the proletariat", where the proletariat democratically controls the state for its own interests alone.
Anarchist: Many anarcho-communists adopt Marx’s analysis of history and capitalism, but consider the state a factor with its own influence on the process. The argument being that if the working class does not destroy the state as a part of the revolutionary process, instead attempting to establish its own power in a state, that state will destroy the revolution and result in oppression and the replacement of one caste of bosses with another.
Beyond that, Marxism develops into a few sub-groups:
Leninist-influenced ideologies: Can be considered as an attempt to bring Marxism from a formulistic and more rigid ideology to one that can incorporate "imperfect" revolutions. Ones where the material conditions may not be particularly favourable, but a revolution must occur anyways. such as countries where the bourgeoisie is incapable of establishing democratic capitalism, or make any progressive contributions to the society, and so workers must be the ones to both establish industry, and then continue on to establishing socialism.
Other commonalities are the ideas of strict party organization (which are often misunderstood to apply to society itself).
Non-Leninist-influenced ideologies: these are diverse, but tend to be influenced by syndicalist, or anarchist ideas. They tend to have an emphasis on more decentralized organizing, such as council communists, or have a more strict interpretation of Marxism as an ideology that rejects the possibility of revolution in backwards countries resulting in socialism.
From Leninism, a few ideologies sprung forth with varied levels of actual influences from Lenin or his ideas.
The basic division amongst "Leninist" ideologies would be between Stalinist-influenced ideologies and Trotskyism.
Stalinist-influenced ideologies: sometimes considered as an expansion of inner party discipline to apply to the society at large, meaning a greater emphasis on more central control and less emphasis on workers' control. most importantly a greater emphasis on nationalism, and the idea of "socialism in one country", that a revolution can succeed for prolonged periods in isolated conditions, and should, rather than applying its resources to spreading revolution elsewhere and emphasizing internationalism. These ideologies also tend to sometimes apply rigid ideas of "stages", as a result of an inability to implement much of the goals of a workers revolution successfully, and thus returning to a formalistic interpretation of Marxism and societal processes.
Stalin's model was expanded upon by other groups, such as Maoism, which attempted to apply it to a state with few proletarians, by basing themselves entirely on the peasantry. Maoism can be considered to have influenced anti-industrial ideologies as well.
Trotskyism: mostly the rejection of the ideas of "stages" (capitalism first, socialism later as an example), of "socialism in one country", and of the application of party structures to wider society. Though this depends on the group, as the 4th international (the organization Trotsky organized) collapsed and resulted in many, many splits since. The usual analysis of the soviet-style bureaucracy from these groups is that Stalin was the equivalent of Napoleon, in his betrayal of the revolution, but inability to abandon all the gains of the revolution. These groups refer to these states as "deformed workers' states". Alternatively, other groups consider the bureaucracy to have been a new capitalist class; hence they refer to these states as "state capitalist". Trotsky's theories on a flowing workers' revolution that combines building up industry and workers' control in one continuous process is referred to as "permanent revolution".