Submitted by [deleted] in lobby (edited )

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I really like this post! I'm often upset by the way that polemic and more generally the way that people take bad readings of other theories as the full image of a theory. I'm sometimes surprised to find people who are not what I was told they would be based on some polemic against them. But more than that I feel like this prevents many people from exploring other theories. I have regular conversations with a Marxist I live with and the way that they contextualise much of our conversations in terms of Marx's comments against Bakunin is fascinating.

I think we probably rely on polemic because we simply can't read everything. We find someone with a critical flair that we enjoy and who we find to be generally trustworthy by our best judgement at the time, and we enjoy inhabiting their critical perspective.

The reality for me is that I'm likely not to have time to read any Marx, nevermind Lenin and others. I'm aware that they have some important things to say. But I've not been given the necessary nods from various trusted sources to make such an investment of time worthwhile. I'd much rather spend all my time thinking about more particular things.

That said, I haven't read Bakunin etc. either.
So far as I can glean, classical left texts aren't necessary, and they're hardly accessible to someone like me, often because they're boring.

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ziq wrote (edited )

i was a little surprised to see certain people on this forum argue that orwell's collobaration with the british foreign office for the purpose of identifying communists was justified by way of his anti-authoritarian politics.

The guy saw first hand how MLs betrayed the anarchists to the fascists in Spain. After his friends were mass slaughteted because of tankies, why would he want MLs to be part of a socialist government? Him fingering them was no different than us fingering fascists to the police today. They're all murderous fascists. Back then calling yourself a communist or a socialist didn't mean anything. Even Hitler called himself a socialist. Stalin and Hitler were 2 peas in a pod.

If you saw the "communists" betray the Spanish revolution and bring the fascists to power, why wouldn't you do everything you could to spite them? MLs are a plague on every revolution.

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mofongo wrote

That's the more interesting take on Orwell I've read 🤣

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comrade_pikachu wrote

how well do you appreciate the theoretical differences between marx, lenin, and stalin?

It's a natural evolution of ideas. Marx never got to put his theory into practice, but Lenin, Stalin and Mao did and they saw what worked and what didn't from examining the progress their predecessor made and progressed accordingly.

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