/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>606507

>How will you protect the revolution from bourgeois forces?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYOy1tuVv3w

>>606508

>tfw no argument

> tfw I'm not interested in past or current experiments.

Both Marxists and Anarchists have a terrible rap sheet and judging each other off the failed states of the past is a misstep.

>>606508

funny meme :)

>How will you protect the revolution from bourgeois forces?

This is the shittiest argument against anarchism tbh. Anarchist have historically been just as good (or just as bad in many cases) at organising armed defence as marxist. A workers state doesn't give us some magical power to stop invasions.

>>606729

I would have to agree with this anon.

>>606729

""the way contemporary anarchism is less and less like classical CNT-FAI anarchism and more and more like "post-left" or insurrectionary anarchism, which explicitly rejects "workerism" and organization""

hit the fuckin nail on the head bravo

"Centralization" is exactly what will corrupt your revolution and create a new bourgeois force.

>>606729

>>606729

.. this is actually p much where I am at the moment. I got interested in leftism within the last three years however, so newer to these ideas

>>606729

>2. the role of the state. The idea that "after the revolution" every autonomous commune is gonna voluntarily come together through consensus democracy to plan the construction of socialism is pretty utopian. I'm not arguing for another five year plan, but some kind of big coordinating mechanism like a (democratic!) state is necessary, I think. You can't go from capitalist hell to stateless, moneyless utopia overnight, there needs to be a transitional period, probably involving some form of market socialism. The whole "Defeating the imperialists" thing is less important to me.

This

>>606729

Anarchist propose a transitory period as well. You're transition is supervised by the state, ours is not. Keeping with the ideals of anarchism, the freedom of the individual is of greatest importance.

How are you going to convince people to implement a classless and stateless society by perpetuating classes and strengthening the state?

Also, arguing against post-leftism is not an argument against me, as I am not a post-left anarchist.

1. If the state is so good at working for its people why wither away the state at all?

2. What incentive does the state have to let go of power?

3. How can you expect one body to know the will of millions of workers?

As far as protecting from outside influences we will do the same as any one else. We just won't make the mistakes Spain made.

Probably using direct democracy based on consensus to put people in positions of leadership.

>>607096

who will build the roads?

>>606729

You realize anarcho-syndicalism is seen as a transitory period between capitalism and communism, right?

The thing about anarchism under a communism mode of production is that direct democracy and consensus doesn't allow for the highest amount of individual freedom compared to free association.

>>607096

"When everyone is a bureaucrat, no one will be"

>>607100

>Keep it friendly, sectarian idpol bullshit contributes nothing to an argument. Explain your position.

Marxists want revolution that utilizes the state as a means to an end

Anarchists want revolution that abolishes the state

I say both methods have serious problems that are bound to fail. Market socialism/worker co-op capitalism that puts the means of production in the hands of the workers seems like the most practical/feasible transitionary state if we are ever to achieve a genuine socialism.

>>607099

>>607083

Except it's not a transitional period, politically. You want to communize everything, establish direct democracy/consensus, and abolish the state in the revolution, correct?

>>607102

Chill bruh. My position is that if everyone participates in the state, the state will become more and more indistinguishable from society. This isn't strict Marxism, G.D.H. Cole (a market socialist) basically argued the same position.

>>607104

>Market socialism/worker co-op capitalism that puts the means of production in the hands of the workers seems like the most practical/feasible transitionary state

With state support for the co-ops

>>607105

>In the revolution

key words.

It is a transitory period.

Anarchism is about maximizing the freedom for the individual.

That means I should have the ability to freely associated, produce, and reproduce the means of survival and goods and services as I see fit and interact with who ever I want free of coercion.

Direct democracy and a syndicalist economic system is good for getting goods where they need to go in a compulsory situation 9war for example) but it's pointless if there's no compulsion.

>>607105

Every one is participating in the state right now in American democracy.

Look at how wonderful that turned out.

>>607105

also, you never answered my questions.

Some of those apply to you aswell.

If stats are so good at doing what they do why get rid of the state at all?

What incentives does any one in state power have to let go of that power?

How can you expect a state to know the will of millions of people?

>>607113

>If you see this post, you have been visited by the LEFTCOM OF UNNECESSARY PENDANTRY! Long contrarian posts and general smugness will come to you, but only if you post "UNDIALECTICAL" in this thread

You really think the revolution is gonna establish communism overnight? You're the utopian anarchist, not me. What happens when not every single workplace gets collectivized? Blame Lenin from beyond the grave?

>>607110

>Every one is participating in the state right now in American democracy.

Voter turnout in neoliberal capitalist democracies is extremely low. Most people won't even come out every 2-4 years to vote for someone to represent them far away. I wouldn't call that participation.

>>607113

>Stalin

>Stalin

>stalin

>Stalin

Bakunin predicted this would happen almost as if gazing into a crystal ball.

Spain is, literally, one of the only society to successfully implement socialism in history.

If there would have been no centralization to begin with there would have be no stalin to begin with,

And let's digress away from the fact that for all the shit you talk about Stoolin trotsky was just as bad as he was.

Lenin too. They all where a bunch of murderous counter-revs caught up in the grab for power.

> It in many instances specifically acted to prevent the centralization of the communist movement.

This is, hilariously, laughable and inacruate.

Considering Stalin tried to justify state power even after a global level of socialistic modes of production had be achieved.

You can see the echos of Stalinism reminiscent in the DPRK where kim jung ill also has tried to use the same tactics.

>>607126

let's not*

>Voter turnout in neoliberal capitalist democracies is extremely low. Most people won't even come out every 2-4 years to vote for someone to represent them far away. I wouldn't call that participation.

That's because democracy is a failure. It doesn't work.

At least it is more feasible in the work places where people are likely to be.

Ergo, If you decentralize that decision making where every one gets a say and we work our way down logically from the top to come to a conclusion every one is happy with that would be much more effective than expecting every one to compulsion to the will of a centralized state apparatus that marginalizes them.

>>607132

>everyone participates in bourgeois democracy

>no, they don't

>because democracy doesn't work

You're contradicting yourself (unless you're a different ancom anon)

>Ergo, If you decentralize that decision making where every one gets a say and we work our way down logically from the top to come to a conclusion every one is happy with that would be much more effective than expecting every one to compulsion to the will of a centralized state apparatus that marginalizes them.

I'm for workplace democracy, but I don't see why it has to be decentralized. The kind of decentralization you're talking about would make workplace democracy even more difficult to get off the ground, I think. Most existing co-ops have a difficult time because they have to compete with much larger firms.

>>607136

the point I was trying to make is that not every one can participate or is compelled to participate in american democracy.

But that isn't the only reason why it doesn't work.

State democracy, even if it is direct, is just 51% of people telling 49% of people what to do.

It just stifles development and gives people a reason to hate each-other.

>I'm for workplace democracy, but I don't see why it has to be decentralized. The kind of decentralization you're talking about would make workplace democracy even more difficult to get off the ground, I think. Most existing co-ops have a difficult time because they have to compete with much larger firms.

I am not talking in the framework of capitalism.

We would take the means of production by force and then establish a syndicalist mode of production.

>>607142

The kind of decentralization you're talking about is impossible under any economic system at this point. A syndicalist system is gonna have to scale up pyramidally or economically it won't work.

>>607154

>The kind of decentralization you're talking about is impossible under any economic system at this point.

The CNT boasted over 1 million members at its height.

You're wrong, anon.

>>607105

>With state support for the co-ops

true, true.

>>606900

Down With The Illegal Coup!

What's

>sectarian idpol bullshit

?

>Friendly debate time

>No sectarian idpol bullshit

Kek, never gonna happen.

>How will you protect the revolution from bourgeois forces?

With guns and people to use them.

>>606729

>the way contemporary anarchism is less and less like classical CNT-FAI anarchism and more and more like "post-left" or insurrectionary anarchism, which explicitly rejects "workerism" and organization

While this is true form some anarchists, specifically the ones mentioned above, dont speak for those of us you actually belive in organization, speak for yourself and to your own experinces, you gave up after one attempt at looking at and liveing with anarchist's, it your own fault you didnt look any further. Let me ask you this, did the commune funtion? Im going to guess yes, ave seen many a commune and the only reason they exist longer then a week is because they find a way of functioning on that small of a scale regardless of ideology behind it, shit ive seen a funtioning ancap commune, it was a shit hole and everyone their was retarded and left after a few days but it still funtioned.

>after the revolution

No such thing, politics evolve, things change, their will never be an after the revolution, their is only the revolution and it will be an on going process that wont stop.

>every autonomous commune is gonna voluntarily come together through consensus democracy to plan the construction of socialism is pretty utopian.

That's not how it is supposed to work, you realize? An anarchist society is supposed to federate, as in if you are in a group and a decision is to be made that effects the whole group then that group is supposed to decide on consensus on how best to approach the decision. The reason consensus has to be reached is because if it isn't then their is nothing stopping the minority from doing what they decided to do anyway. Lets say 51% of the group wants option A and 49% want option B, the people who wan option B are going to go do option B anyway because their isnt anything really binding them to go with the rule of the majority. People think that the Direct Democratic process that come with anarchist decision making come with a set of rules that need to be followed, like if you dont agree with the decision you need to still go with it because the majority have come to that conclusion, when you don't have to go along with anything you didn't agree with to begin with.

>some kind of big coordinating mechanism like a (democratic!) state is necessary, I think.

Why does it have to be a state? Why do you need a system of unnecessary hierarchy and bureaucracy in order to decide things? How did you come to this conclusion? Why do you need to create a new class structure in order organize? Furthermore, if you create the state as a tool for achieving these things, thus elevating particular individuals into a new class that would supposedly act in the interests of the workers as a class, why would they when they are no longer a member of the working class? Would they do it out of some sort of moral sense, possibly some sense that they should achieve the revolution anyway even if it actively hurts their own position?

>You can't go from capitalist hell to stateless, moneyless utopia overnight

You will never have utopia, get that out of your head right now. No one will give it to you, no one or group of people can make it because utopia does not exists and to equate a functioning stateless, classless and money less society with utopia is not only idiotic but entirely absurd. Its like people don't realize these places already exists and function perfectly well. Is it just a problem people have at imagining alternative systems to the only the have, so instead of going for the system almost everyone agrees would be a good idea, they fall back on what they've been told, that it cant work, that their needs to be a transition of some kind and then when the transitional system the create doesn't go away or simply reverts back to the old ways they act surprised that the thing they have actively put time into building hasn't simply crumbled away to give them what the actually want. Its fucking mind boggling how so many people think this way and don't actually just try to do make what they want with no other justification other than "It probably wouldn't work".

>>607220

tbh I think that even though I don't agree on many things with Trotsky, he's not the problem. It's the trots that are shit.

ITT: sectarian leftcom BTFO everyone like usual and no one can respond

The only examples of semi-successful socialist areas have been anarchist or democratic communist.

Centralisation never works for the simple reason that the people running the organising don't understand what far off communities need. It's not really socialism, because the workers aren't allowed to organise their own means of production, though I don't want to sound sectarian, even if I am being.

Decentralisation works as the bodies that run the means of production have a closer relationship to the workers, there is less corruption, less far off politics to take into account and they will organise for the workers' best interest. Hence decentralised unions are the best way to go in this society.

>>607113

Why do you think the state is what causes revolution? This isn't how it happened in, say, Chiapas.

If you do use a state to cause revolution then as that anarchist poster says the state often becomes a class in and of itself. It's not dictatorship of the proles but dictatorship of the pseudo-proles.

I could see a state being used for revolution, I think we disagree on to what extent it would be used. You seem to take it for granted that it is only the centralisation of capital which is the issue. Are you saying this was the same in every other revolution?

Also, if you could provide some links to learn about how Stalinism prevented centralisation I'd be interested in reading them.

>>607219

>Spooked

>full communism.

>Consciousness doesn't determine social relations, social relations determine consciousness.

Horse shit.

They both effect each-other.

Your basic introduction into dialectical materialism will tell you that.

There's a reason why emphasizing class awareness and spreading propaganda is so important.

>Marxists want to reverse the position of the state.

Heard that before in a different story.

>This is a valid criticism, just not of Marxism.

Yes it is.

>The state doesn't disappear because it one day looks up at the blue sky and decides it wants to retire and move to the coast to enjoy the gentle ocean breeze, it disappears because the material conditions which caused it to exist no longer exist themselves.

That's simply untrue. There's no reason for one to step out of that much power. They are just as driven by their material conditions as any one else.

>I don't?

So you don't advocate one body of the state to do the will of the workers?

>The workers' state's purpose is a tool to be utilized by the working class

and by "leadership" you mean…?

People democratically elected in the work place via direct consensus politics based on free association.

>>607220

We, also, have the actual ability to voluntarily leave or remove this person from power.

Mind you in bottom up forms of organization this is not the only option by any means. Unlike your dogmatic spooky nonsense.

>JUST

>KEEP

>CHEERY

>PICKING

>AWWW YEAH

-Litterally every leftcom, ever.

>That meme

Yeah, leftcoms are pretty infected with memes and therefor suffer from Autism

By Spain I mean the geographical location called Spain.

>What's important about history?

You are joking right?

>The socialist mode of production had not been achieved on any scale.

That is besides the point. He was trying to justify himself in the future, obviously.

also, again, anarchists have successfully established socialism.

it was done so in 1936 in Spain.

When the leftcoms think decentralisation is the problem but the entire reason why socialism has so far only worked on small scales is because those areas had delocalised governments/unions which had good relationship to workers, let them organise and own the means of production and weren't corrupt because they had to answer to said workers.

>>607105

>Except it's not a transitional period, politically. You want to communize everything, establish direct democracy/consensus, and abolish the state in the revolution, correct?

which seems more likely to work than keeping the state on eternal life support

>>607291

>functioning ancap commune

holy shit, did you also find a unicorn that shat gold bricks? I mean, that just sounds ridiculous.

I agree with the rest of what you say, but…holy shit man.

>>607328

>ignoring certain ongoing rebellions.

The question I want to know is, how can we even avoid sectarianism if another Stalin will just stab us all in the back again?

i dont give a fuck guys, i just want to feed my kids and live comfortably

>>607372

>Centralisation never works for the simple reason that the people running the organising don't understand what far off communities need

this is laughable tbh

what is the digital age

I still don't understand why people think the worker's state will just magically dissolve because Marx called it "scientific socialism."

I want to thank the dogmatists who keep clinging to outdated concepts like Bordiga, Lenin, left com, anarchism, obscure leftist writers, and 18-19th century leftist writings. Just keep bickering among yourselves in obscurity.

Why is everyone on leftypol so breath taking naive about "muh inevitable workers revolution"?

What makes you think the majority of people in the world want your shitty leftist revolution and than a shitty leftist society with a "vanguard/workers party/ glorious leader" to rule over them?

What if most people prefer capitalism?

Marxist are totalitarian state cucks. Anarchism is the way as history has showed us.

>>609105

Name for me one anarchist state. If it's so successful, it should be easy

>>609113

>Name for me one anarchist state

Everything they say isn't a state.

>>609105

>make a state

>don't call it a state

>shitty "not-state" gets destroyed

>muh [tiny shithole that lasted for three years] was 100% Communism

>>609175

>>609182

>>609201

>All forms of organization are a state.

>Also i have memw's so i must be right

>>607628

>I mean, that just sounds ridiculous.

It was ridiculous, buts as i said, on a small enough scale you can get pretty much any group of people to function. This is also granted that they acted like communists towards one another most of the time, but for the sake of ideology they were anarchocapitalists, but once i told them that what they were doing was basically communism the kicked me out of the house and threatened me and my family's lives if i very came back. It all collapsed a few weeks later, apparently someone shot someone else over teabags. Some of them went back to living with their parents and others actually became anarchists of one variety or another, two of them commited suicide.

>>609560

The russian revolution

>>609560

Hungary 1956

>>609560

Obama 2008 :^)

>>610311

Killing a person trying to murder you is still murder, folks.

>>610372

>French revolution sought to establish a state.

As opposed to, you know, not creating another state.

The superior option

>>610557

> can't, because it requires their active participation to emerge.

It's not my fault leftcoms are so sectarian. :^)

>oc related

Pure hypocrisy There's no reason to keep the material conditions around.

>In a mixture of state feudal and early capitalist conditions, where the bourgeoisie was incapable of leading its own revolution, and the community oriented forms of organization (e.g. mir) had been far along the process of destruction and, most importantly, the international revolution was defeated with the help of interimperialist war which continued in an invasion which led to destruction of the proletarian dictatorship in most everything but name.

There was never a dictatorship of the proletariat to begin with.

Did you miss the part where I pointed out that from the get go it was a dictatorship by the party of the working class from the start?

Where Lenin tried to justify state capitalism and the violent suppression of workers control over the means of production?

>Is what your argument comes down to.

No, it's, really, not.

>I could easily point to the Spanish revolution and, instead of doing a materialist analysis, just yell that it means that it will always lead to corruption and that anarchists lack discipline and so will abandon the cause.

Except that's not what I am doing in the slightest. History has shown us how these turn out on both ends of the spectrum.

>Revolutions are dead when they are killed. While things did go worse than they needed to, this fundamental fact can't be changed, no matter your respect for "freedom", "rights", and "the individual" on paper.

Implying anarchists follow "rights". lel

>What is context

>What is degeneration

>What is not being a substitutionist

>The defeat comes down to bad people / authoritarian ideologies, not material movements.

I already posted it, I believe.

Anyways:

>Bolsheviks and Proletarians

>According to Lenin and Trotsky there is no difference between party power and workers' power. As Lenin put it in Left-Wing Communism, "the very presentation of the question – 'dictatorship of the Party or dictatorship of the class, dictatorship (Party) of the leaders or dictatorship (Party) of the masses?' – is evidence of the most incredible and hopeless confusion of mind." He stressed that "to go so far in this matter as to draw a contrast in general between the dictatorship of the masses and the dictatorship of the leaders, is ridiculously absurd and stupid."

>This, by necessity, excludes democracy. In the same year, he argued that the transition from capitalism to communism could not come about via mass, democratic organisation:

Continued:

>"the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts… that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot direct exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard … for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation."

>This conclusion was not applicable just for the terrible conditions in revolutionary Russia but was rather of a general nature. He re-iterated this "lesson" in 1921: "after two and a half years of Communist rule we stood before the entire world and said at the Communist International that the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible in any other way but through the dictatorship of the Communist Party."

>Trotsky drew the same conclusion and repeated it the rest of his life. As he argued in 1937: "The revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party is… an objective necessity imposed upon us by the social realities – the class struggle, the heterogeneity of the revolutionary class, the necessity for a selected vanguard in order to assure the victory… The revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution… Abstractly speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be replaced by the 'dictatorship' of the whole toiling people without any party, but this presupposes such a high level of political development among the masses that it can never be achieved under capitalist conditions."

>Nowhere did they bother to explain how this was compatible with Lenin's claims of 1917 that "all officials, without exception," would be "elected and subject to recall, at any time."

>Lenin's and Trotsky's argument that party dictatorship was required due to political differences ("uneven development") within the class had a long history in Bolshevism and existed well before the Russian Civil War.

>During the 1905 Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks had argued that "only a strong party along class lines can guide the proletarian political movement and preserve the integrity of its program, rather than a political mixture of this kind, an indeterminate and vacillating political organisation such as the workers council represents and cannot help but represent." In other words, the soviets could not reflect workers' interests because they were elected by the workers!

>Thus "revolutionary" party reproduces the usual division of labour that exists in any class society – a few think and give the orders while the many obey. As Victor Serge, anarchist turned Bolshevik, put it in 1919, the party "is in a sense the nervous system of the class" and its "consciousness." And the working class? Well, it is "carrying out all the menial tasks required by the revolution" while "sympathising instinctively with the party."

flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/articles/lenin_alternative.html

Bump

>>611040

this aint 4chan, comrade. threads can stay for months if people still want to contribute

Friendly debate time

Keep it friendly, sectarian idpol bullshit contributes nothing to an argument. Explain your position.

This debate will center on a question for all marxists.

>How will you protect the revolution from turning into bourgeois forces?

This question is based on the idea that a Anarchist revolution will be stronger and able to protect itself due to decentralization.

What's your response, /leftypol/?

>>607271

leftcom

>>609091

Meanwhile lenin broke up workers councils, reinstated private property, and kept the state.

That pic is cancer.

>>606507

This is a stupid question, and marxists shouldn't use an anarchist community's lack of "self defence" as a way of arguing against anarchism.

An anarchist society could potentially defend itself quite well if it started from a point of having a strong national army with competent generals (all now dedicated to anarchism) before an anarchist revolution.

We should focus on an anarchist society's inability to transition people into living in a stateless way of life, and all the problems that come with that.

>>610557

>>just get rid of the material conditions right, fucking, now.

>oc related

Yeah because this is somehow suddenly possible if the state does it.

>>610557

>Revolutions are dead when they are killed. While things did go worse than they needed to, this fundamental fact can't be changed, no matter your respect for "freedom", "rights", and "the individual" on paper.

>when your experiments go wrong it's because your theory is shit

>my theory is infallible, outside forces always cause it to fail

Holy shit that doublethink