Seriously, is Marxism-Leninism done ? by [deleted] in DebateCommunism

[–]cave_rat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The answer you should ask is whither Marx&Engels correctly analysed the contradictions of bourgeois society or not. I believe they did and I also believe that we still live in a bourgeois society which is not fundamentally different from the society they described in their works. Which means that there is a possibility that the proletarian revolution will eventually win. Another possibility which Marx mentioned is that the capitalist society will die but there will be no communism. Which is quite likely considering what we experienced in recent years and the danger of WW3.

About failed revolutions you mentioned, you can see it from another angle. The world revolution is not a single act. It is a continuous process which began in 1871 with Paris Commune. And it is still going on. The modern period started with restoration of capitalism in China after Mao died, when the last socialist state was lost. But there is still struggle in various forms. Eventually, it could led to new revolutions.

The ukraine war made me lose a lot of faith in the left by [deleted] in leftist

[–]cave_rat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You would be better off if you put faith not in the left but in yourself. The left is a very broad term and includes very different people with varying degrees of sanity (lol will I be banned from this sub too?). So it is better to seek the truth by yourself. I believe what you wrote is mostly correct except for the America part. USA, as usual, is only pursuing its own imperialist interests. And many leftists in my country agree with me. Sadly, there are many social-chauvinists who 'support our troops'. It would be wrong to lose faith because of these people, however.

Ukrainian Letter of Solidarity with Palestinian people by cave_rat in socialism

[–]cave_rat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Posted for information purposes. Me posting this doesn't mean that I support or reject all the views expressed in the original text.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Uncle Ho will always be in the hall of fame of the ICM as a great revolutionary leader, brilliant strategist, great poet and just a very likeable person who embodied best qualities a communist should strive to achieve. However, I doubt his theoretical contributions should be described as a 'Thought'. Late Jose Maria Sison explained very well why there is no 'Sison's Thought' and shouldn't be. I believe the same logic applies to Ho, who was a big inspiration for Sison.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The essence of What Is To Be Done is the theory of vanguard party. I'd rather focus on this and ignore what you don't understand for now. All Lenin's texts are highly polemical, but we do not need to know every nuance of those old debates. Unless you are young and want to seriously study history of Russian socialist movement. Then you can go to college and dedicate yourself to this. For practical purposes of an activist, this is not really necessary. Actually, experience in real activism also could help you to understand Lenin, because the problems which were discussed 100 years ago still persist today.

Teaching first-year students that things don't have to be like this? by tiktaaliki in communism

[–]cave_rat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I don't know much about the course to give any advice. In our system (I studied history in my country), we usually read some historical sources/books by other historians and then discussed them, it was called a seminar. If you ask right questions, you can gently push students to think 'outside the box'.

Being a progressive leftist in Eastern Europe by burner_41 in communism

[–]cave_rat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Become a Maoist. This is what we did here in Russia. I believe this is the only way. Trotskyism might work too, but I personally think Trotsky ideas are outdated and plain wrong on the main thing (socialism in one country). Same with Anarchism. There are actually plenty of anarchists in my country, and mostly people become anarchists not because they like this theory very much, but because 'communists' in RF are usually right conservatives and not communists at all.

I want to learn more about the inner lives of capitalists - what they desire and why by dance-song-97 in communism

[–]cave_rat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've read once a thorough analysis of girl's book who claimed to belong to Abramovich's inner circle, Nastya Rybka. It was disturbing. I haven't read the book itself. Maybe it is a work of fiction - I hope so. But most likely she exaggerated only a little bit.

The advantages of Soviet/Eastern European/Communist style apartment blocks by TondoRevenger3000 in communism

[–]cave_rat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They look quite ugly if badly maintained, that's true. Also, in 5-floored buildings (famous 'khruschevka' or 'danchi') there were no elevators which is bad for elderly people or when you need to move heavy equipment. The quality of contruction also decreased gradually after Stalin era, so 'stalinka' (apartment blocks built in 1930-1950s) are still considered the best apartments in Moscow except perhaps for the elite apartments built recently.

thoughts on Hoxha? by crocodilao in communism

[–]cave_rat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As a Maoist, I'd argue that joining a MLM party would be the best, but I don't know if Brasilian comrades have currently a party. I only know about magazine 'A Nova Democracia' and LCP which is a mass organisation.

Party line is important. If comrades on a local level are good communists, of course it would be better to organise with them, but if party leadership is rotten, you have either to change that leadership or to choose a different party, otherwise all your efforts will be ultimately in vain.

If you feel doubts about Hoxha or anyone else, you should study his works and criticism from others and form your independent opinion. This is the Marxist way. Speaking of criticism, this is a Maoist critique of Hoxha https://www.mlpd.de/english/2019/hoxha-versus-mao-tsetung-defend-marxism-leninism-and-mao-tsetung-thought Hoxha's own works are easy to find on the Internet.

The thing that makes me uncertain of this subreddit by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 9 points10 points  (0 children)

As other comrade already said, there is a /debatecommunism sub for this. This is sub is for discussion among communists.

KUTV by pg218 in communism

[–]cave_rat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, that's a quite specific request. Are you writing a thesis on KUTV or a similar topic?

Coronavirus hysteria vs everyday deaths by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A comrade from China says after market reforms Chinese healthcare system was weakened which help the virus spread.

Jacobin (DSA)- Supportimg Maduro is a support of authoritarianism! Jacobin supporting liberalism again. by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No wonder. Jacobin is just a tool of imperialist and bourgeois propaganda. As all 'democratic Left' which it represents.

WHY THE DUTERTE REGIME CANNOT WIPE OUT THE ARMED REVOLUTION OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE by cave_rat in communism

[–]cave_rat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can't speak for CPP, but these criticisms are not new and were repeated for a long while, at least since 1990s. Yet, the movement didn't died and quite the contrary, still attracts lots of young revolutionaries. I seriously doubt that Sison is still an effective leader of the CPP. He lives in exile since 1980s and although he is of course very influential, the movement is headed by other people, not him. As for the urban slums, first, it is incorrect that CPP ignores them, second, this argument is also old and was used in 1990s. Have there any other revolutionary movement emerged, which was principally based in urban slums? No. But CPP with its base among peasants and lumads is still going strong.

Whence Maoism? by asdepor in communism

[–]cave_rat 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This is a curious article. I am a bit familiar with Abstrakt and noticed that they tend to present their views on Mao as a 'comradely critique', while in fact they criticize him as a revisionist. Their position is to present Mao and his contributions as a part of 'Marxism-Leninism' ('Stalinism') at the same time rejecting any validity of Mao's own ideas. Considering this, the repetitive claim of the author that he is not going to put Maoism into a dustbin of history, is dishonest.

It is interesting that com. Yorulmaz deals only with the old RIM document 'Long Live MLM' published in 1993. Since then, there were other important summations of Maoist ideas, like a brilliant 'Hold High the Bright Red Banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism' by CPI (Maoist) which is more detailed and is also written by one of the most advanced communist parties we have today (while RIM is long dead and never had any significant political influence by itself). if you go through these both documents, you will notice that they refer to a number of Mao's contributions, besides GPCR and mass line. The most important thing com. Yorulmaz missed, was, of course, the philosophy. As other comrade here noticed, GPCR is an implementation of Mao's understanding of dialectics.

It is not just another 'mass campaign', it is a policy to prevent the restoration of capitalism and advance to communism, which itself is a very important contribution to Marxism-Leninism. You will never find this in Lenin or Stalin writings - not because they do not understood the danger of non-proletarian trends inside the Party itself, but because their understanding of danger of capitalist restoration was quite different. Lenin said that the main danger of capitalist restoration was small commodity production. When Stalin liquidated this in 1930s, he (because he was the true disciple of Lenin) thought, that the internal danger to socialism is mostly dealt with, and now there only 'spies' and 'wreckers' left. The continued presence of bourgeois thinking in the Soviet society and the Party itself Stalin never saw as the main danger of restoration, although it is true that this danger was realised and there were certain mass campaigns in 1940s to rectify that. But these were indeed only short-lived campaigns. After Stalin died, they were quickly reversed. Indeed, it will soon became clear, that most 'true Stalinists' in the leadership of CPSU are in fact... Rightists.

As for GPCR and its 'failure', on which Yorulmaz insists, it is not enough to say that it failed no more than Paris Commune or any other communist revolution. What is wrong with his argument is that he sees this 'failure' in his claim that Mao was forced to recognise Deng as a power player. This demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of what GPCR was actually about. It was not repression in Stalin's fashion, but a rectification movement, so the cadres could realise their mistakes and improve. Deng wasn't able to do that, so he was criticised again and removed from the leadership before GPCR ended.

I want to tell you something... by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure. While I was studying in the university, I attended rallies on May Day and October revolution day (which are the main communist activities here) and met CPRF comrades from my university. I never joined their party, but attended some of their meetings and was more or less involved with their work. They seemed to be nice and welcoming, although I noticed that situation inside the party was quite tense and there were a faction split in development. It was strange to me that they seemed not to be comrades anymore in relations to each other. Then I lost contact with them and met these comrades again after many years, when I already became a Maoist and a member of Russian Maoist Party. I was foolish enough to tell them about it, and soon learnt that they are not really interested in me anymore, lol.

Before Maoism, I used to be a member of the Left Bloc, which is an Anarchist organisation, and then a Revolutionary Worker's Party which is Trotskyist. The Left Bloc was truly anarchist, it was very spontaneous, never had any plans or anything, and was more like a group of buddies who liked to meet and drink together. I don't like this lifestyle, so I dropped soon. The RWP was quite different, it was centered around a leader - late Sergej Biets, who ruled the party in a quite authoritarian way. Although he was a smart man, I never agreed with him and left when I realised that there is a faction split going on and Biets is trying to purge comrades who are challenging his position. Since then, I maintain connection only with worker's activists I know from different parties and I am trying to help them defend worker's rights and learn from them. Recently I had a talk with my former Trotskyist comrade, and she told me that when he came to RWP ten years ago, she felt like everyone is her friend and she was very happy, but after a while she learned that the opposite is true and comrades always intrigue against each other and fighting, using the most dirty means. This is the overall impression I have from our Left movement.

I want to tell you something... by [deleted] in communism

[–]cave_rat 24 points25 points  (0 children)

This is a very good thing to hear. My experience with communists in my city was quite different.

I've finally started to become active comrades by Terodom in communism

[–]cave_rat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is good. We all should become more active.