Marxism-Leninism

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

Why is Marxism-Leninism so universally hated on RevLeft, despite the fact M-Ls make up such a large portion of communists in the world? What, both historically and theoretically, do anti-M-L tendencies say is so counterrevolutionary or anti-Marxist about it?

[Guardia Rossa]

I will number my reasons. Most also can be used for M-L-M or M-L-M-H or M-L-W-T-F

1) They historically supported the Soviet Union, which was considered by most here authoritarian and therefore not Socialist/Communist (Or, some anarchists may consider it the model Communist nation and hate it exactly because of that? I'm not sure, but they also hate it anyway)

2) They use Dialectical Materialism as a mystical justification to their systems
As of that post of a guy asking the theoretical differences between Chinese and Soviet DiaMat. The difference was purely gibberish, as if they had to justify their systems to their empty "Dialectical Materialism" by developing these "theories"

3) Because some of them ally with questionable ideologies such as NazBols
I'm sure everyone here consider NazBols fascists, while in Brazil M-L's say that "They at least are willingly to participate in a revolution" [sic]

4) Because many support some form of nationalism ("Proletarian" nationalism)
I reject any form of nationalism, and such affirmation of "socialist" nationalism as reactionary and/or bourgeois

5) Most of them are geopoliticist, supporting Russia and Syria more than supporting actual class struggle. (I will not venture further into this line of argument, if you do it you will understand why)

6) In my personal experience, almost all of the M-L's I met was either racist, religious, xenophobe, islamophobe, jewphobe, nationalist, outright fascist, geopoliticist, etc... etc... except for one, a friend of mine, which I am deeply saddened by the fact he calls himself Marxist-Leninist, as he is the only person I know where the name of this ideology fits it's contents.

[reviscom1]

I wouldn't say it's universally hated.

Criticise even the bloodier actions of Lenin on here and plenty will jump in to defend him (more than will agree with you, in fact)

But, yes, Lenin's version of Marxism was:

ruthless
bloody
autocratic
centralising
bureaucratic
intolerant
cruel

It bequeathed Communism its legacy of secret police, censorship, prison camps etc.

I guess a lot of people are not keen on ML's vision of a "vanguard party" that decides what the workers want, then goes out and achieves it on their behalf.

I believe also many people see the Soviet model of state ownership as "State Capitalism" rather than common ownership.

Personally, I also think he was wrong to try and miss out the liberal democratic capitalist phase of Russia's development.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

I will number my reasons. Most also can be used for M-L-M or M-L-M-H or M-L-W-T-F

1) They historically supported the Soviet Union, which was considered by most here authoritarian and therefore not Socialist/Communist (Or, some anarchists may consider it the model Communist nation and hate it exactly because of that? I'm not sure, but they also hate it anyway)

2) They use Dialectical Materialism as a mystical justification to their systems
As of that post of a guy asking the theoretical differences between Chinese and Soviet DiaMat. The difference was purely gibberish, as if they had to justify their systems to their empty "Dialectical Materialism" by developing these "theories"

3) Because some of them ally with questionable ideologies such as NazBols
I'm sure everyone here consider NazBols fascists, while in Brazil M-L's say that "They at least are willingly to participate in a revolution" [sic]

4) Because many support some form of nationalism ("Proletarian" nationalism)
I reject any form of nationalism, and such affirmation of "socialist" nationalism as reactionary and/or bourgeois

5) Most of them are geopoliticist, supporting Russia and Syria more than supporting actual class struggle. (I will not venture further into this line of argument, if you do it you will understand why)

6) In my personal experience, almost all of the M-L's I met was either racist, religious, xenophobe, islamophobe, jewphobe, nationalist, outright fascist, geopoliticist, etc... etc... except for one, a friend of mine, which I am deeply saddened by the fact he calls himself Marxist-Leninist, as he is the only person I know where the name of this ideology fits it's contents.

In regards to the 6th point, anecdotal evidence is always void. The word itself refers to personal experiences that are unlikely to hold true everywhere. Personally xenophobia of any form is the last thing I've seen in any M-L, though maybe where you live they are closer to NazBols.

In regards to supporting cold war geopolitics, I'm pretty sure Hoxhaists at least do not support any current nations as they do not hold any to be socialist. If you mean just the Cold War geopolitics where you support a nation due to "anti-imperialism", I'm not sure who does that over class struggle personally. From what I've seen from Hoxhaists at least, the "anti-imperialist" support is limited; they support a nation against imperialism, but do exactly uphold any of that nation's values. I'm not sure for other M-L tendencies but Maoists seem to uphold any vaguely leftist nation as socialist these days, so I'd agree with you there.

I've also not heard of this "proletarian nationalism". Stalin, Minh and Hoxha can all be quoted supporting internationalism with proles all around the world. Although I'm paraphrasing, I'm certain Stalin himself said something along the lines of "there is no Chinese socialism, or blah blah socialism,... there is only one Marxism-Leninism". If you could point to how attempting to build a socialist system in one country inherently leads to nationalism, I could be swayed.

In regards to the USSR authoritarianism, I don't think modern M-Ls want to repeat that. Ismail and the like also seem to have some evidence that would show a lot of its authoritarianism was exaggerated or just lied about.

I don't pretend to understand dialectical materialism, so I have nothing to say regarding Soviet or Chinese "DiaMat".

[Rudolf]

So as someone who isn't a marxist let me be the first to point out that ML is fundamentally anti-Marxist. It rejected world revolution as a precondition for the development of socialism in Russia in favour of Socialism in One Country. This is a betrayal of Marxism and i think can be considered as a degeneration towards a utopian socialism.

[Guardia Rossa]

In regards to the 6th point, anecdotal evidence is always void. The word itself refers to personal experiences that are unlikely to hold true everywhere.

That's why they are my reasons.

Others will have other reasons.

[motion denied]

Oh boy where to begin.

There are a few reasons why MLs make up a considerable portion of "real world" Marxists.

First of all, the hegemony of the Third International/Kominform and the CPs even after the demise of the aforementioned organs of global counter-revolution. But why did this hegemony exist? Throughout the XXth century the CPSU and the Soviet Union were considered the bulwark of socialism. Communists were sent to the USSR to "study" Marxism; soviet manuals were printed by CPs and widely distributed. Most militants only had access to Marx and Leniin via Stalin/Kuusinen. Marxism-Leninism became the communist common sense.

Of course the oppositions weren't completely unheard of. How did the CP bureaucrats solve this? They persecuted Trotskyists (or anyone who disagreed with the official line, for that matter) through a relentless campaign of lies to discredit the oppositionists as anti-communists and fascist sympathizers; when this wasn't enough, well, they killed them (eg, Soviet Union, Spain, Greece, China, Italy, Czechoslovakia etc).

We should keep in mind that Marxism-Leninism is a state doctrine, an ideological justification of the reality of the USSR born out of the failure of world revolution. Socialism in one Country, for example, one of the cores of stalinism, had always been upheld by the right of the worker's movement (oftentimes by non and plain anti-marxists).

Another important point: stalinism is eclectic, opportunistic and pragmatic. Following a dialectical mystic parlance, Communists alternated between full adherence to bourgeois factions and mindless adventurism. That's how we can have DPRK and Nicaragua, Albania and China, Cuba and Vietnam and Yugoslavia - all of them under the banner of the "science of marxism-leninism" at one time or another despite their huge differences and contradictory interests.

Moreover, stalinists are nationalists. That's how they can appeal to the lowest common denominator of bourgeois ideology amongst the proletariat; that's how they perpetuate and spread it. That's how they can accuse trotskyists of being traitors (for all the wrong causes: embryos of class independence, internationalism etc). That's how they can support the progressive national bourgeoisie against "imperialism". Do you know where this ends? The rational administration of the bourgeois state and national economy. No wonder why many stalinists ended as eurocommunists, social-democrats or unabashed neoliberals. Capital has different needs according to its immanent contradictions, and if you're going to manage it, you'll be subjected to them.

And I call all of them stalinists. Even Kruschev. Even though they discarded Stalin and the cult of personality, the marxist-leninist Weltanschauung remained. It is not enough that one should criticize this or that figure, this or that crime, but the whole ideological universe they were immersed in. This critique would lead to the criticism of what constituted soviet society: capital.

Being a justification of the domination of capital under the red banner, stalinism led to the abandonment of the critique of political economy. Marx's magnum opus was suddenly a manual of political economy, not a critique of it. We should remember that Marx's categories are Daseinformen, forms of being fully developed in (specific to) capitalist society. Capital is a critique of the whole of the bourgeois world.

The most degenerate stalinists are at least honest. Here I take two: Bill Bland and Domenico Losurdo. The former argues that socialist society is mediated by the market; the latter, that the end of market and the state are utopias alien to marxism (!).

[motion denied]

Marxism-Leninism has aesthetic appeal. Marxism-Leninism gives you references of "success". An illusion that you're into a movement to overthrow the current state of things: North Korea, Cuba, guerrillas in Colombia, Philippines and India etc.

Current Marxism-Leninism, despite its various splits and differences, have two main characteristics inherited by its tradition: 1) pragmatic nationalists; 2) voluntarists. (These I take from experience here).

1) heirs to Cold War diplomacy, considering everything that has ever been a satellite of the fSU a socialist society. They mechanically transplant this vulgar anti-imperialism to present-day events: everything anti-"West" is progressive and deserves support. Range from aspiring revolutionaries to state officials. Tankies. Basically third positionists.

2) heirs to Mao's petty bourgeois voluntaryism; sectarians; may or may not be into Shinning Path (srsly). These are crazy af.


As i said, I took this from the South Corner, where I dwell. I have a hard times imagining some other place where stalinism was so theoretically destructive.

I say this again and again, and will keep saying: stalinism is the theorisation of late modernisation. In the so-called third world it's more evident: we can't hardly tell nationalist bourgeois economists and some Communists apart. Worst of all is that the left who criticized these dumbos is horrid. Their critique came from the standpoint of democratic socialism. They discard "leninism" for all the wrong reasons. God we're fucked.

[Blake's Baby]

revismcom1 totally misses the point I'm afraid. ML isn't 'Leninism', it's what the rest of us call 'Stalinism'. ML was only codified as a body of theory (I use the term loosely) after Lenin's death.

Sub-sets and developments of Stalinism (Maoism, Hoxha-ism if that's even a thing, Castro-ism likewise) are just types of Stalinism (based on 'Socialism in One Country').

[newdayrising]

Why is Marxism-Leninism so universally hated on RevLeft, despite the fact M-Ls make up such a large portion of communists in the world? What, both historically and theoretically, do anti-M-L tendencies say is so counterrevolutionary or anti-Marxist about it?

Socialism-in-one-country, interclass politics, support for all sorts of capitalist regimes and so on.
Not to mention historical issued inside and outside the USSR, and how their parties treated other tendencies in the past.
I don't know about "hated", though", as it implies an hostility based on emotion, which is not always the case. My grandfather was a stalinist, i liked him personally. I find Ismail's posts about Albania entertaining as well, even though I find nothing good at all in his politics.

[KurtFF8]

Why is Marxism-Leninism so universally hated on RevLeft, despite the fact M-Ls make up such a large portion of communists in the world? What, both historically and theoretically, do anti-M-L tendencies say is so counterrevolutionary or anti-Marxist about it?

I don't think that M-L is "universally hated" on RevLeft. A few years back (when I was much more active), it was probably one of the more popular tendencies on RevLeft.

Every tendency can be seen as "universally hated" when you're a part of another tendency I suppose.

revismcom1 totally misses the point I'm afraid. ML isn't 'Leninism', it's what the rest of us call 'Stalinism'. ML was only codified as a body of theory (I use the term loosely) after Lenin's death.

Sub-sets and developments of Stalinism (Maoism, Hoxha-ism if that's even a thing, Castro-ism likewise) are just types of Stalinism (based on 'Socialism in One Country').

I'm not sure that Marxism-Leninism is disqualified from being Leninism just because the term was coined after Lenin's death. Marxism became a popular phrase largely after Marx's death (although it was coined while he was alive of course) yet we don't discount the term because the way we understand it now is very different than it was in Marx's lifetime.

Also I think it's incorrect to paint Socialism in One Country as the basis of Marxist-Leninist thought. Especially since you appeal to "Casto-ism" (which definitely isn't really a distinct tendency) when Cuba, under a Marxist-Leninist leadership since the revolution, has perhaps been one of the more internationalist oriented Marxist-Leninist states of the 20th and 21st centuries.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I'd like to second what Motion Denied said.

I'd also add that one reason MLs are unpopular today was that their main appeal was that, unlike other strains of Leftist thought, the Marxist-Leninists had actually taken state power over much of the planet. Of course, that overlooks the fact that the Bolshevik revolution was not "Marxist Leninist" for the reasons that Blake's Baby mentioned - "ML" didn't emerge until later and Stalin and his ideologues wanted the theoretical authority of Lenin. Yet the Marxist-Leninists did manage to inherit the legacy of the Russian Revolution, as well as those in Cuba, China, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia and any other number of countries. The USSR had also installed their little quasi-puppet regimes in the Warsaw Pact. The only Leftist government on earth that officially rejected Marxist-Leninism was Yugoslavia, but I don't think Titoism was really any different in practice (despite what Ismail says).

The consequence of this was that Marxist-Leninism (and its offshoot ML-Maoism) spanned most of the globe and perhaps a third of the world's whole population. Moreover, if you throw in the USSR's social democratic allies like India into the bag, where MLs controlled several state governments and the regime adopted a kind of state economy, and you see a world where "Really existing socialism" had huge reach. It was a genuinely attractive ideology, even if it had some aspects that troubled people

When the USSR decides it can't afford to hold Eastern Europe anymore before collapsing in on itself in an absurd spectacle (and that is what it was - what kind of absurdity is it that can make a corrupt drunk like Yeltsin into some kind of populist hero?) that motivation for adopting Marxist-Leninism is no longer there. Now we have a handful of countries left informed by that theory - of the 5 left, China and Vietnam show forms of exploitation just as severe as liberal capitalist economies, Cuba has completely stagnated (and is somewhat dependent on its ailing ally in Venezuela), Laos is a tiny mountain country most notable for having some Buddhist monks and the Ho Chih Mihn Road, and the DPRK is a ridiculous autocracy based on military might. Thus the legacy of Marxist-Leninism today is far less attractive than it was 26 years ago.

Bad theory all too often leads to them supporting weird reactionary politics. At best, this can be seen in some posters here believing it is acceptable that States police people's facial hair because Hoxha hated beards, but at worst this comes out in things like the outright homophobia of Russia's Marxist-Leninist party, or the disgusting apologism for atrocities committed by the Eastern Bloc and their allies. A surprisingly large number of Stalinists just get banned from this forum eventually for saying something offensive or ignorant. A lot are just ignorant tankies who worship military strength and the historical successes of the Soviet Union - but how can you possibly care about that after 1991? A person might have supported something like the Prague intervention a few years after the fact (say 1970), but today, 48 years after it happened and with the Czech republic a bustling Capitalist economy? How can anyone now justify to themselves that expense of blood, treasure and willpower?



Its important to remember too that MLism is a vague and nebulous category, and there are certainly some in history who are worth looking at. However, all of these figures lived during the Cold War - again, a situation where the existence of the "Eastern Bloc" made something like that attractive. Thus we should not support throwing all MLists into the garbage since it drew so many important figures.

I don't think that M-L is "universally hated" on RevLeft. A few years back (when I was much more active), it was probably one of the more popular tendencies on RevLeft.

I believe a lot of them got banned for weird reactionary beliefs and comments. I remember one particularly vile fellow would justify anything Stalin did, even ethnic cleansing. Others I seem to remember making homophobic comments. Our Indian Maoist crowd got cut down for that same reason too (I remember there was that poster with a Tiger avatar here several years back - he and many others were banned for their reactionary views).

[Blake's Baby]

...

I'm not sure that Marxism-Leninism is disqualified from being Leninism just because the term was coined after Lenin's death. Marxism became a popular phrase largely after Marx's death (although it was coined while he was alive of course) yet we don't discount the term because the way we understand it now is very different than it was in Marx's lifetime...

I think you have missed the point. Bolshevik-Leninism is Trotskyism. Are MLs Trotskyists?

"Marxism-Leninism" is not identical with "Leninism", otherwise Stalinists follow Trotsky and Bordiga, who called Stalin the 'gravedigger of the revolution' before Trotsky did, was a Stalinist.

...

Also I think it's incorrect to paint Socialism in One Country as the basis of Marxist-Leninist thought. Especially since you appeal to "Casto-ism" (which definitely isn't really a distinct tendency) when Cuba, under a Marxist-Leninist leadership since the revolution, has perhaps been one of the more internationalist oriented Marxist-Leninist states of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The very fact that you think that you can have "Marxist-Leninist states" demonstrates that ML is nothing to do with Marxism. There is no such thing as a 'socialist state' and only Stalinists think there is.

[Comrade Jacob]

Once again Revleft shows how little they actually know. "A little knowledge is dangerous".
Not worth my time and I won't be coming back to this thread.

[DOOM]

Why is Marxism-Leninism so universally hated on RevLeft, despite the fact M-Ls make up such a large portion of communists in the world? What, both historically and theoretically, do anti-M-L tendencies say is so counterrevolutionary or anti-Marxist about it?

Well then most self-proclaimed communists are reactionary, which isn't surprising at all. Should we forget about our principles just to appease stalinists and their offsprings? Hell no.
The right wing of the VKPb was responsible for some utterly anti-marxist theories, like socialism in one country and using the law of value for "socialist production", whatever this means.
Historically Stalinists have been known for supporting various reactionary natlib organizations and sabotaging genuine revolutionary movements. And let's not forget the shit that was going on in the Soviet Union during Stalin's reign.

[Blake's Baby]

As Kurt and Comrade Jacob demonstrate, Stalinism isn't 'universally hated' on RevLeft. Sadly, there are still people who cling to it in one form or another (see also, Ismail, Jean Moreno etc).

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

There is no such thing as a 'socialist state' and only Stalinists think there is.

I still don't understand, if there's a worker revolution in a country that does not spread to other countries and they remove all leadership and take control of the means of production what will they become? Sure they cannot abolish money if they want to trade with other countries, but they cannot be called capitalist just because of that, neither socialist it seems.
Or is that impossible to happen?

[Rudolf]

I still don't understand, if there's a worker revolution in a country that does not spread to other countries and they remove all leadership and take control of the means of production what will they become? Sure they cannot abolish money if they want to trade with other countries, but they cannot be called capitalist just because of that, neither socialist it seems.
Or is that impossible to happen?

The only distinguishing feature you've given this hypothetical society is it's leaderless and the workers control the MoP. Are you sure it's not a self-managed capitalism?

[Heretek]

I still don't understand, if there's a worker revolution in a country that does not spread to other countries and they remove all leadership and take control of the means of production what will they become? Sure they cannot abolish money if they want to trade with other countries, but they cannot be called capitalist just because of that, neither socialist it seems.
Or is that impossible to happen?

Rather impossible, it seems. In this event the revolution would likely be considered a failure. Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism all require the revolution to change the ownership of the and class relations of the means of production in society, and therefore must be global. What you describe sounds like one place revolts and just sits there trading with capitalists.

[Rudolf]

Rather impossible, it seems. In this event the revolution would likely be considered a failure. Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism all require the revolution to change the whole means of production in society, and therefore must be global. What you describe sounds like one place revolts and just sits there trading with capitalists.

what does that mean? The means of production are constantly changing within capitalism anyway.