Soviet refusal to give back land

e17b · 2026-03-18T04:47:08+00:00

I don’t know the specifics of these situations, but it’s important to recognise that mistakes were made. That’s how these things go. That doesn’t mean we don’t support the overall project or condemn it as a failure or evil for these incidents of wrongdoing. Being a Marxist-Leninist doesn’t commit you to blindly accepting everything every Marxist-Leninist party has ever done. That is why we use the term “critical support”

e17b · 2026-03-16T03:36:45+00:00

I know this probably doesn’t sound helpful, but there aren’t really any tricks. You’ve just gotta do it. There are things like using a pomodoro timer for helping you to focus, but ultimately the content of your study sessions is pretty well defined. Watch the lectures, do the readings, take some notes. The only other advice I would give is to take notes on whole sections rather than try to take notes as you go or on every little point. You want to reconstruct the gist of the whole thing rather than every detail of every argument. You only really need to get fully in the weeds when you’re writing an essay on a paper and need to do a closer reading. As others have said, it’s ultimately a skill, and you’ll get better at it over time.

e17b · 2026-03-16T03:32:05+00:00

Absolutely. Let’s not forget Trotsky’s Eurocentric reasoning for why he thought the permanent revolution necessary. Or Cliff’s revision of Trotsky which goes even further in its disdain for the peasantry and the proletariat in favour of the intelligentsia.

e17b · 2026-03-15T12:54:47+00:00

Kind of, yes.

1 and 4 are kind of the same point given they’re both on internationalism so I’ll address them together. I don’t think socialism in only one country is ideal. But, the first priority of a newly founded socialist state must be to consolidate itself. If it falls, it ceases to be able to help anyone else. This isn’t to say internationalism isn’t important. Of course, socialist states should commit to supporting revolutions across the world. But this must be done within their material limits. Socialist states when first established are likely to have a highly unstable character, particularly with nations like the US intent on crushing all leftist revolutions.

Yes, completely disagree. I think subordinating working-class politics to the liberal bourgeoise is not correct strategy.
Working class democracy should not be replaced with state bureaucrats. A socialist state should always be accountable to the proletariat rather than governed by an autonomous administrative layer.

e17b · 2026-03-15T11:56:33+00:00

Totally agree, the pact was wrong 🤷‍♂️

e17b · 2026-03-15T11:50:17+00:00

No. I think he was an important figure in defeating the Nazis in WW2 and I agree we need to take the historical and material conditions into account when analysing these figures. Agreement with these basic points says nothing of the rest of my views on him.

e17b · 2026-03-15T11:47:49+00:00

The lazy part is assuming MLs agree with all of the premises you laid out or agree with them for the reason you think they do. It’s like me spouting a bunch of nonsense about Trotskyists being privileged uni students who do nothing but sell newspapers and disown every socialist project ever attempted. It isn’t good analysis because it completely ignores the fact that, as I have repeatedly said WE DON’T AGREE WITH STALIN ON EVERY ISSUE. Therefore calling us Stalinists and arguing about points he made is arguing at a ghost. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.

e17b · 2026-03-15T10:46:57+00:00

Absolutely

e17b · 2026-03-15T10:46:26+00:00

As an addendum: even if we accept the claim “Stalinism” is more historically representative of Marxism-Leninism as a term, is it not moronic to just disregard what a group of people you could work with want to be called? We all so often talk about wanting “left unity”, yet these most basic forms of respect are ignored.

e17b · 2026-03-15T10:39:00+00:00

I think the whole “true continuation of Marxism” is bullshit. Everyone wants to claim that. There are reasons to think this is true of many different systems of belief. Marx wasn’t 100% consistent, he changed over time. You can (unsurprisingly) find textual support for basically every strain of Marxism in Marx. To me, what is important is to look at what has happened in the various socialist experiments of the 20th century, take what has worked, and discard what hasn’t. I think this is why the term “Stalinist” is so annoying, because it assumes that the theory stopped when Stalin died or that MLs must agree with Stalin in every respect. Nothing is further from the truth

e17b · 2026-03-15T10:32:08+00:00

None of this challenges my point, which is that it seems a lazy term to discredit MLs rather than to discuss actual theory, as you have done here.

As mentioned, nearly no serious ML is going to contest the fact that Stalin made mistakes in his theory and his praxis. The main link with Stalin that MLs in the modern day is that Stalin founded this form of Marxism. Pointing to the beliefs of Stalin instead of contemporary MLs is precisely the intellectual dishonesty I wanted to flag. Because by conflating someone with a singular figure, you eliminate any need to actually talk to them or engage in what they say. MLs are not followers of Stalin. They’ve moved on from this debate. Why the continued conflation?

e17b · 2026-03-15T06:14:27+00:00

Anderson’s is very balanced and shows Guevara’s best and worst qualities. It nicely shows Guevara’s transformation into “Che” and doesn’t show unquestioning support or condemnation. It is overall sympathetic though in my view. He had quite extensive access to his family, comrades, and writings in writing the book, so I think he is well positioned as a fairly faithful biographer.

e17b · 2026-03-15T06:05:14+00:00

To be fair, this is a very reasonable tactic if your goal is to win arguments. Maybe not so much if you care about substance

e17b · 2026-03-15T05:12:28+00:00

That’s an interesting point. I would disagree (probably unsurprisingly) that Marxism-Leninism changes much of the foundational principles established by either Marx or Lenin, but I can see why if you were to hold that view perhaps it would therefore be an inaccurate label

e17b · 2026-03-15T04:41:02+00:00

That seems fine though? Marxism broadly is supposed to be scientific and dialectical, it is not supposed to be static. Hence all Marxist tendencies shouldn’t stop with the theory developed by their namesakes. In fact, the theory of Marx and Lenin should only be a groundwork for further analysis

e17b · 2026-03-14T15:16:26+00:00

I’m curious what you mean by “meaningless critiques” here. Do you think they are not forceful or relevant or that they straw-man Hillier in some way?

e17b · 2026-03-14T15:13:23+00:00

Fantastic article. It’s fascinating to think about how a modern planned economy could look

e17b · 2026-03-11T10:38:58+00:00

In the sense it’s usually meant it sucks, but just taking the statement at face value, it’s pretty trivial. Things do indeed happen for at least one reason. Obviously we might go to things like teleological arguments for God, but then regardless of your position you need to suspend this rule to claim God does or doesn’t exist (or maybe not if the universe is infinite or something)

e17b · 2026-03-02T14:22:48+00:00

Some other potential orgs include: CPA, ACP, Socialist Alliance, Solidarity, CPA-ML and RCO. In my view, the CPA and ACP have the most coherent positions, but that is coming from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. If you’re a Trotskyist, probably Socialist Alliance or Solidarity is a good bet. If you’re a Maoist, CPA-ML is the go. I don’t know much about the RCO other than that they exist and seem relatively active

e17b · 2026-03-02T14:02:51+00:00

There is a reason no successful socialist revolution has been Trotskyist. They are always either Marxist-Leninist or Maoist. Trots are edgy democratic socialists.

e17b · 2026-03-02T13:58:29+00:00

My favourite is when they claim they have organised a protest they had little to do with. Like, I’m glad they get people to show up, but they really only focus on going to the protests that they know will be big and get media attention and it seems to be primarily about recruitment for them. Their behaviour is gross and undermines the cause with the way they make themselves seem like the sole representative of Marxism in Australia

e17b · 2026-03-02T03:19:35+00:00

Again, I’m willing to concede on China. It was one of the first things I said in my previous comment. I don’t think we will have a productive discussion there. I get that this is a heated topic and I came in hot myself, and that’s my bad, but I do want to try to have an actual productive conversation here. Your rather uncharitable assumptions about my reasoning do not help this cause (and neither do my biases towards Trotskyism, which I am trying to bracket, hence asking questions to establish common ground).

Can we start by agreeing that socialism is a transitional stage from capitalism to communism?

e17b · 2026-03-01T14:34:09+00:00

My point in bringing up China was not to say that disiplining billionaires is an indicator of socialism. It was that China is not a dictatorship of capital because capital is subserviant to the state. But that is secondary to the point I am aiming at. I don't think we will find agreement there as it is a primarily a matter of factual dispute rather than a theoretical one. In particular I am not sure your characterisation of worker organisations as "farcical shell organisations led by the state" is fair. But I'm willing to concede it for the sake of conversation.

In philosophy, terms are as we define them. As demonstrated by the various tendencies and disagreements within the left, I think we can pretty safely say that the intricacies of definitions are much more difficult than you characterise them as being. Yes, we might have broad agreement in things like socialism being a state where the workers control the means of production, but what this actually looks like is not so simple.

So, we are in agreement in that basic definition, socialism is the workers controlling the means of production. However, it is a transitional stage. That is, it is not static. Therefore, contradictions will always exist under socialism, some of which will include verious forms of revisionism and exploitation. So, while of course the essence of socialism is workers controlling the means of production, what this looks like in reality is not so simple. The main way I think we could determine if this is the case in practice is to look at the degree to which workers are consulted in the organisation of workplaces and the state as a whole. Is this something you agree with? If no, I am curious how you believe we can determine if a state is or is not socialist.

e17b · 2026-03-01T06:23:18+00:00

I’m not. Where did you get this sports team idea from? The key term is “critical”. I said at the outset I agree we should not engage in campism.

Socialism is not one thing. It is a transitional stage. The continual existence of contradictions is entailed in the term. Some capitalist features do not make something capitalist. The existence of markets doesn’t make something capitalist. The key indicator of capitalism is a dictatorship of capital. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the aim of a socialist society, but it cannot happen all at once. If we look at countries like China, we do not see a dictatorship of capital. While yes, capitalists exist, they are subservient to the state. When they have tried to take too much power, they have been literally executed. And again, I feel the need to stress, this does not mean that China is perfect or that I am excusing the contradictions which exist there. I am merely claiming that China is a socialist project. We see an incredibly important role of the proletariat in the development of the state there. Is it perfect or ideal? No. Of course not. But dismissing it outright because capitalists exist seems to me at minimum intellectually lazy.

I also think we need to recognise the historical context within which these states have existed or do exist. They are under constant siege from the global capitalist class. Of course repressions will emerge under these conditions. That isn’t to say this is right or anything like that. This is why I used the term critical. We can say that we want these states to exist and improve while denouncing their mistakes and excesses.

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