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ziq OP wrote
WelcomeTurbulent communist 2 points 21 hours ago
It’s interesting that you would develop some of the same ideas as Lenin in State and Revolution on your own! It affirms for me that lived experience often comes to the same conclusions as marxist theory. You should definitely read the book I’m sure you’d find it interesting whether you agree with it or not.
ziq OP wrote (edited )
Certainly we can critique the many mistakes made by previous revolutionary leaders, but this, to me at least and seemingly to most MLs, is exactly what these existing socialists states were doing. They certainly uplifted the working class incredibly, with life expectancy and literacy rates generally doubling or tripling within a generation. Even during Mao's leadership the life expectancy and population doubled and literacy rates tripled
I'm sure no doubt you've encountered Engels "On Authority" at this point which shows that "authoritarianism" without any qualifiers is not a very useful concept, rather who has authority and whom are they using this authority on.
we can see from actual evidence that the USSR achieved a level of equality that no liberal nation has been capable of before or since. If the leaders of MList states were the self interested and self enriching type that they are accused of being, it sure seems as if they cared considerably more for the plight of the workers than we were lead to believe.
As someone who used to call themselves anarchist who now is more MList the "tankie obsession" with managing counter revolution is something that seems to be of paramount importance to any revolution. It simply doesn't matter how much good you are doing if you are unable to protect that from its enemy, and as much as I wished we lived in an ideal world where this is unnecessary, we don't and our enemies are beyond brutal, beyond deranged and will use any and every means available to them to not just stop us but kill us all.
Not to mention MList states like the USSR did have considerably more worker democracy than any capitalist state, of course liberal conceptions of this freak out and say its an authoritarian dictatorship because they don't allow opposition parties but c'mon, if you win a revolution how would the people be served by allowing the GOP or democrats to remain legitimate political parties? The liberals admonish the communists for curtailing freedom of speech but how would allowing Fox News or Infowars to freely spread propaganda benefit a socialist revolution in any way?
ziq OP wrote (edited )
Lots of material here.