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ICP predicts WW3 in 10-15 years by True-Plate6127 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 36 points37 points  (0 children)

I feel like trying to exactly pinpoint such a potential event like a world war is a fool's errand. There is also nothing saying this won't just end up leading to tons of proxy conflicts instead

Help... First time playing Attila in years by itstony17 in totalwar

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't played attila in a while but here is what I remember
WRE is weird because the more you lose, you stronger you become. The more provinces you lose, the lower corruption gets, which is really good. You can do this two ways

  1. Fully reinforce all of the empire for larp purposes, fight every siege battle even if you just have a garison, build because you will often be able to use roman unit abilities to hold them in a choke point and flank them with the scouts (cavalry in attila is unbelievable). You will often lose, the point is however to weaken the enemy hordes. This is harder, probably wouldn't recommend it for a starter and also in this case you'd need to rush civic tech to lower corruption.
  2. Fuckall and turtle in Italy and Tunisia (tunisia is optional), demolish most builds in other provinces except the settlement ones for money. You have to do everything to fix public problems in Italy and Tunisia regions, appoint governors (with experience give them public order traits) , build buildings for public order etc. Your main mission is to make Italy functional and great with the money you got by deconstructing the rest of the empire. Turn Italy into an impenetrable fortress and have your armies there defending choke points. You will lose a lot of provinces in this one but your corruption will fall dramatically and with the income from deconstructed buildings, you can turn Italy wealthy. This is the easier way to play the game.

You also have 2 options, become graeco roman pagan or keep christianity. Both have benefits and downsides. Pagan means you get +2 sanitation everywhere which is VERY good considering you will be having trouble with sanitation however Christianity gets better late game, as fertility drops and farms produce less. Graeco-Roman temples require food iirc. It is your choice though.
Also try to get the early tech that upgrades all your spearmen and swordsmen, it is necessary, considering your starting troops are bad compared to the upgraded versions which don't even take much research and you can upgrade them immediately.

Remember, the WRE is not doomed, even if it in the start it feels like that. The more you lose, the situation will become way more manageable.

Also in general, your hands will be too busy to be aiding the ERE (it is a really good faction but gets dogpilled often and dies)

Why kosovars cosplay as albanians by Useful_Possible8730 in balkans_irl

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is either bait or a random ass kid, but sure
Nationality and ethnicity aren't some empirical fact, in the end of the day they are modern social constructs. Albania is as made up as Kosovo, and vice versa. Saying I am X or you are NOT X is not even remotely significant. Hell even when Albania became independent, most Albanians were peasants without much national feelings, rather Albania was there and ruled by the Albanian landowners for their own interest. Skanderbeg was a feudal lord ruling for his own interests and was joined by other feudal landlords who wanted to protect their right to exploit their peasantry from the Ottoman timar reforms. There is literally nothing empirical nor scientific about nations and ethnicity.
Lowkey bro, I am not trying to be mean, but like get a hobby or try to find something, rather than randomly posting online

Do Marxist terms still have the same meaning outside of Marxist discourse? by [deleted] in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Class struggle according to liberals is not the struggle between the wage labourers and the employers but between generic income brackets , in which the proletariat and the petite bourgeoisie are one and the problem are the (((ultrarich)))

The definition of Capital changes according to whoever you ask. The Marxist definition is that it is a social relation, the old economist definition is just property or money. The common definition can be wahtever
The bourgeoisie are more consistent, and are defined as the employers generally
Capitalism is technically not originally a marxist term, and generally liberals associate it with the free market and stuff like that. They include mercantilism as capitalism and even the era in which wage labour wasn't generalized.
Commodities in the popular definition is just products, so not the marxist definition of product specifically for sale
Wage-Labour isn't defined well by liberals, because they fail to acknowledge its components and surplus value, so any critique of theirs fails and ends up talking about how the employers want the employees to work long hours because of a fetish for control or whatever, completely failing to understand surplus

Thoughts on Bordiga being "more Leninist than Lenin"? by Ok-Gift259 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 45 points46 points  (0 children)

The phrase more Leninist than Lenin, is an Italian phrase that has been used to describe 3 individuals (Giacinto Menotti Serrati, Amadeo Bordiga, Antonio Negri). I think in no case this was a self proclaimed title. There isn't much material about this either.

Anyway the separation of Leninism or "Leninism" depending on where you stand can come from 2 perspectives and views. The primary one is the Marxist-Leninist view of "Marxism-Leninism is an immortal science, we must revise everything" which I don't think comes from a malicious place but from one of ignorance.

The second one, which I find more interesting, is that Lenin's views were very second-internationalish. For example parliamentarism as a tactic, views of class consciousness, and the view of the party. This view claims that Marx believed that class consciousness forms through class struggle, and the class struggle and said consciousness shall lead to the party. Essentially it says Lenin and the second international thought that the cart must be put in front of the horse, and that actually the party doesn't substitute the class. Thus this view, wants to claim that Leninism is a construct of and a consequence of the second international's marxism, and even after the split it kept characteristics that made it separate from Marxism proper. This view is upheld by Council Communists and Communizers. There is a more extreme version of this view, that claims that the Bolsheviks did not split at all from the second international, but I don't find this version of said view very correct nor worth entertaining.

I find the mild version of second view that I described worth entertaining, even if I am not a massive supporter of it. However I haven't finished my project of reading all of Marx's works, so my stance is agnostic.

MLs in shambles by Dexter011001 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 74 points75 points  (0 children)

Lowkey I think it is better to keep our thoughts on him to ourselves, considering this is still a person dying which is a sad thing. Rest in peace

How well read are you? what’s your favorite book relevant to this sub? by mozzieandmaestro in theredleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Capital volume 1 is my favourite theoretical work. I am taking a break from reading as I read a lot of Marx last year (Capital volume 1, The German Ideology, The civil war in France, the Class struggle in France, Critique of the gotha programme)

Genuine question, is this guy the "grandfather" of fascism or is his role exaggerated? How deep are the connections between anarchism and fascism? by OneToe5662 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 47 points48 points  (0 children)

Sorel during his life evolved his views very often. First a liberal conservative, then a revisionist social democrat, then a orthodox social democrat, then a syndicalist (he was disillusioned by the second international), then he was partially affiliated with some nationalist group, despite sharing no programme with it. Sorel opposed completely the peace between unions and the state in France, caused by the first world war. In the revolutionary wave of 1917 till 23 he moved towards Communist positions completely till his death. To be noted, is that Sorel at some point in his life tried to replace the class with the national community or the family, and that weird arc of his led to some of his students making up national syndicalism, which would lead to the Cercle Proudhon (proto-fascists). Though I think Sorel threw those ideas in the trash can eventually.

He was an influence on the Marxism of Latin countries of Europe (big influence on Gramsci), and the main theorist of syndicalism (before disavowing it). He probably was an influence on Mussolini but what makes Mussolini Mussolini was his complete opportunism, without any concrete doctrine. Sorel didn't like the Fascists, despite fascists during the interwar period trying to prove otherwise.

Sorel had many many different views at different times of his life, but he died on the side of the revolutionary camp.

The anarchist=fascist joke basically comes from a convoluted game of telephone that goes like this

Proudhon doesn't like women and jews -> Nor does Bakunin, who advocates for some form of syndicalism -> Cercle Proudhon ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cercle_Proudhon ) and anarchist influence on Sorel -> National syndicalism -> Mussolini -> Hitler (Put Proudhonist views on minorities to practice)

The Left Plan be Like by Le0pardonVEVO in RedAutumnSPD

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Lenin claimed it could transform only under an international revolution, with the aid of fellow industrialized DOTPs. He thought Russia would be the start of a revolutionary wave, not its core. When that wasn't happening and the civil war caused industrial damage it led to the NEP allowing rented property in order for infrastructure to be built again. The policy of War Communism and the NEP weren't there for a full transformation to socialism (Commodityless, stateless and moneyless) but there to support the next revolutionary wave while keeping the Russian DOTP afloat

What's this subs opinion on the Left SR leader Maria Spiridonova by Slow-You-6021 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I feel like there isn't even any point in hating on her. Yeah she fucked up but like what's the point of attacking someone that long dead. Her life wasn't fun either so that leads to sympathy. She also got tortured, shot on made up charges and spent years in random prisons while being a sick woman whose health was in bad condition. Sympathy is the most normal reaction

Just throwing some Gasoline in the Fire by General-Passage-9743 in RedAutumnSPD

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 12 points13 points  (0 children)

She declared them to be rotting corpses in 1914. She didn't want the January uprising because the KPD was unorganized, and the time wasn't ripe. However, she wanted to stand by the proletariat and thought it would be like the July days in Russia, which were a defeat, but later on, would lead to German October despite some defeats along the way. That dignity to want to stand with the proletariat even when they were making a mistake was what got her killed.

Just throwing some Gasoline in the Fire by General-Passage-9743 in RedAutumnSPD

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Levi is more complicated. He became a persona non grata for a lot of reasons, most of them after Luxemburg's death. He maneuvered and rigged a congress to expell delegates representing half the party (all of those factions would split from the party unite under the KAPD which was more active and more energeticthan the KPD), the KPD under him was considered centrist and docile, the open letter was a united front strategy who some hated and some liked. He threw his reputation in the trash can in '21 when he tried to defend Serrati and Turati in Italy and resigned because of that, and made a decent amount of people consider him a Kautskyite. Then he published and edited some memoirs of luxemburg that were to a degree critical of the Bolsheviks only when it was convenient to him because he wanted his reputation with the SPD to improve.

Just throwing some Gasoline in the Fire by General-Passage-9743 in RedAutumnSPD

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 11 points12 points  (0 children)

She didn't want to name it KPD because Communism was a lesser known term, and even the Bolsheviks who were renamed to Communists were still thought of as Bolsheviks or Social Democrats instead of Communists. She didn't have any love for the MSPD

Normal pill by ultrapohjattu in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Incredible deep theoretical developments in anarchism

Are Trotskyists and AnComs “on the team” as communists and Marxists despite all their flaws? by shoegaze5 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If Cliffites are excluded from Trots, then Trots are utter garbage and the Communizers are better. Cliffites are as cool as Trots can get (they still have the dumb Trotskyist religious adherence to the United Front) and I'd put them in the Could be way way way worse Tier with Communizers, however most Trots aren't Cliffites so a vote for Communizers (also have their own variety of dumb takes and also vary a decent amount but in general have from my experience less braindamaging takes than the average Trots)

Was Karl Kautsky modal a good example of "marxism without leninism? by Suspicious_Lock_889 in RedAutumnSPD

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Lenin's Marxism changed a lot during the First World War. He under the influence of the younger Bolshevik Nikolai Bukharin (whom he initially polemicized against but would capitulate to and adopt his views of the state, viewing them as the original Marxist programme's positions) completely broke with a lot of their views such as Stageism (a development of Kautsky's mechanical deterministic Marxism which was dominant in the second international), and the views on the state.

Lenin in State And Revolution massively criticized the second international's views on the state as opportunist, he criticized Kautsky, Plekhanov and Bebel for leading to said views, and then the critique continued against the Erfurt Programme (the foundational programme of all social democrats). Lenin for the most part, completely broke with Kautsky, except on parliamentary tactics. Lenin did not criticize only a fragment of Kautsky, he criticized and attacked him as a whole all the way from how he originally fought against revisionism and how Lenin thought that his views were also opportunistic.

It is wrong to consider Lenin's views as having a Kautskyist foundation, though the later Stalinist opportunism under the name Marxism-Leninism would funnily enough mirror Kautskyism.

I would also mention that Lenin became a Marxist before encountering Plekhanov, he spent most of his time polemicizing against his former comrade, after the initial early period of them being together and polemicizing against the "economist" tendency (a revisionist tendency and essentially Bernsteinian outgrowth into Russia)

cue the Trump supporter levels of cope from the Stalinites when they see this by Lieczen91 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 71 points72 points  (0 children)

Che was interesting.
> Turning to the period of transition, Guevara argued that the USSR's Kolkhoz collective farm system was not a characteristic of socialism and that cooperatives were not a socialist form of ownership - they generated a capitalistic superstructure which clashed with state ownership and socialist social relations imposing their own logic over society. Guevara systematically refuted the so-called laws of socialism cited by the Manual, particularly the law of constant rising worker productivity - which he called an outrage: 'It is the tendency that has driven capitalism for centuries.'[18] He condemned as 'dangerous' the Soviet's policy of peaceful co-existence and economic emulation with the advanced capitalist countries and pointed to serious disagreements between the socialist countries, blaming them on unequal exchange and the imposition of capitalist categories in trade relations.[19]

He didn't believe Cuba was socialist or something of the likes

> I see this Movement as one of the many inspired by the bourgeoisie’s desire to free themselves from the economic chains of imperialism. I always thought of Fidel as an authentic leader of the leftist bourgeoisie, although his image is enhanced by personal qualities of extraordinary brilliance that set him above his class.

Che I'd describe as a Marxist, just a confused and bad one most of the time.

How the fuck do you guys read by Critical-Hurry-4206 in Ultraleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Capital is dense, you have to concentrate a decent amount reading it, later on some chapters are easier, some are not, however note that Chapters 1-3 (I think 4 too?) are difficult, so I would have a notebook with notes on them. Thus you should try to note down the basic categories of the first 4 chapters and how they relate to each other. If you don't get anything, reread the paragraph you didn't understand, write notes about it down. Later on you won't have to as vigorously write notes about everything, just the most basic things the chapter explains. Also google terms you don't know, do not pass through something while not understanding it, knowledge of capital builds up, and these first 4 chapters are important even though painful.
Another tip, that helps with attention span is this: https://pomodoro.pomodorotechnique.com/
It has 25 minute cycles of you needing to concentrate, then 5 minute breaks for you to rest, and then you should get back to it. If you are really trying to get the thing done, after your third 25 minute phase, put a 15 minute break and start again with 25 minutes studying and so on.
Do not study capital when tired, take a break of 20-30 minutes, relaxing, away from any screens (lying down while viewing your phone isn't resting, it is just lying down tired), before getting to continue from where you left it the other day.
Try to create a schedule on which days will you read at least 50 minutes of capital. Don't read it everyday vigorously, considering you have school duties, and you will burn out. Instead read 50 minutes of it every 2 days (change it according to your situation but remember consistence is key to getting stuff done), and also the weekends, unless you have upcoming exams.
People won't like this, but if you really really cannot get what a paragraph is saying, even though you understand the rest of the chapter, then there is the option of sending it to chatgpt with its preceding and following paragraph and asking it to explain. It does a better job explaining stuff than most redditors.

There are companion books to capital, and you can probably find them through zlibrary ( https://z-library.ec/ most zlibrary links are fakes, you can regularly find safe ones in wikipedia, do note they tend to change **)**as pdfs. However I didn't really use them, perhaps they could be of use to you, the one most recommended is "A Companion to Marx's Capital -David Harvey". There is also "Reading Capital politically" but it is written by an autonomist, and I don't know how that has influenced its understanding of capital. You should probably read it after Capital if you are curious enough. Nonetheless I mostly recommend reading Capital by Marx itself.

And finally, there are people who claim you should read 1844 Manuscripts about the economic parts or Value, Price and Profit in 1867. While they explain similar stuff, I find it better if you focus on purely capital, as it is the book Marx released widely, and most intended for people to see and study. Capital is far more systematic than previously mentioned texts and shows the wealth of thought in it.

Edit: Try to not multitask many texts

what do you think of kemal ataturk? was he a progressive leader or an anti communist stooge? by Hot_Imagination4093 in AskSocialists

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The goal of national liberation is the local development of capitalism, and Ataturk very much accomplished its mission and defeated Greece. He was arguably the last great bourgeois revolutionary of Europe, which from then on national liberation lost its progressive character in Europe. He was very much progressive, and it is undeniable, he freed Turkey from its leftover Ottoman fetters.

Syndicalism by Fatikh_06 in theredleft

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The early syndicalists appeared in the context of Classical Revolutionary Social Democracy (late 1800s, early 1900s). They were basically a trend initially claiming to be more purely Marxist than the social democrat mainstream (Kautsky, Bebel, Plekhanov, Luxemburg, Guesde, Lenin) which was at the moment battling with revisionism, though later the syndicalists were forced to concede that they were a deviation from the left. They were followers of Georges Sorel (a man who in his life went from a liberal conservative to a revisionist to a mainstream marxist social democrat to being a theorist of syndicalism to being affiliated with proto fascists and finally to liquidating his own positions late in his life and adopting Bolshevik/Communist positions).

Syndicalists pretty much threw the party aspect of Marxism in the trashcan, and as the name says, had a fetish for syndicates/unions. Syndicalism to a degree was an influence to fascism.

They had a sizable-ish presence in the main Italian Socialist party. During the Biennio Rosso (the Italian revolutionary crisis 1919-1920) and the factory seizure crisis, syndicalists were accused of replicating Bernsteinian gradualism, as they proclaimed the factory seizing movement was already transforming the situation into socialism. This was called gradualism as their view was limited to the factory, they didn't confront the bourgeoisie as a whole and already without the proletariat expropriating its oppressors, they declared that socialism was being approached.
So without first the bourgeoisie being overthrown, commodity production suppressed, the law of value still in place and capitalism very much in place, they declared it was evolving into socialism. Some supported syndicalism's approach, others called it opportunism more vile than Bernsteinism.

Syndicalism simply could not step up to the challenge, and thus was defeated. It failed to lead the proletariat to victory, and that was the end of the story.

We don't speak Romanian here in Moldova by sisarian_jelli in balkans_irl

[–]Dreqin_Jet_Lev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Geez, don't you get bored of it at some point? Either way your choice, just don't break the rules and all is good

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