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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Lots of material here.

My own figuring is we'll need an authoritative communist state that has the ultimate goal of dissolving itself into anarchism. I believe the current social climate is way too fascist to go directly to anarchism, lot of people are going to need the proper framework to unlearn generations of propaganda. If there's a road we can find that fits there, I'd like to ultimately give the world to the free association of men. I don't support people who would keep the state in existence and use it against us, but I'd be hesitant to go directly to anarchism in places like the US where hundreds of thousands of white supremacists have bibles dangling from their AKs or bougie liberals that allow violence or etc.

I may have to read up some on that. I've mostly read just direct anarchist theory, and that idea cropped up in my mind over time thinking about how to introduce anarchism to friends and family. They won't hear of it. I grew up with a lot of people that would shove guns down our throats in the name of Jesus and I can't imagine them being anything other than active violent murderers if we had genuine free socialism tomorrow. There has to be some kind of intermediary stage, right?

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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.

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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?

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