The left is far to divided and needs a central leader. The advantage the liberals and conservatives have are that their parties are not fractured. The two party system also prevents any way to win democratically so the only way to do this would be a revolution. But to have a revolution you must have the people on your side and Americans tend to look at a central leader like a president as the representation of a movement. How should we unite all of the different leftists under one leader so that there can be a united opposition. We also need to get more people to understand that currently America is not a true democracy and that the only way to fix this is with violence. Currently we need far more comrades like Luigi to remove the bourgeoisie with violence. If there are people with nothing left to lose some brave comrade should give them a weapon so they can do something.
For those of us living in the USA discussing theory won’t change anything. Only action will. United we will win, fractured we will fall.
You won’t thats the hard truth for now find like minded communists and try not to lose your mind and most importantly stay underground
I appreciate your enthusiasm, comrade, but there are 3 major flaws with this frame of thinking.
- There’s a huge focus on waiting for or creating a cult of personality around a single person, ie Great Man Theory. This is idealism.
One of the biggest reasons why Marxist movements succeed where other movements failed is in the adoption of dialectical and historical materialism as our scientific outlook on social change. Idealism traps us in incorrect practice, it isn’t great men that move history, but evolving class dynamics based on our surrounding material conditions. As such, worker organizing takes priority over waiting for a “great man” to save us.
- There’s a huge emphasis on wanting adventurist, individual acts of terrorism, rather than organizing for dual power and creating a cohesive working class movement.
One of the most important questions of the Russian revolutionary groups was whether or not to focus on assassinations, or on organizing. The SRs relied on terrorism, the Bolsheviks relied on integrating with the broader working class. It’s easy to see which was correct looking back, but more than anything it was already possible to arrive at correct analysis through adopting a materialist outlook. Assassinations do not transfer power, because capitalists hold power as a class and not as individuals.
- There’s a rejection of theory in favor of only acting.
The SRs also rejected theory, preferring instead to act. However, again, they were wrong. Theory is important because it informs practice, which in turn sharpens theory. They mutually correct and reinforce each other. We must take the lessons of our predecessors to heart, learn from them, and act accordingly!
If you want a place to start with theory, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Check it out!
I love fedposting
You are jumping much too far ahead of the existing conditions. Your thinking is idealistic and detached from the material reality that exists in the US at the moment.
The US left, right now, needs to focus on educating and organizing the working class, not doing pointless adventurism, fetishizing violence when the masses do not yet support it, or LARPing as “leaders”. Revolutionary leaders aren’t self-appointed, they emerge organically through struggle as they are recognized by the masses. Do something for the masses first before you expect them to follow you.
Right now the US left is not united about what needs to be done, there is disagreement on the correct political line and the correct organizational strategy. And you won’t find the answer just by talking about it, you need to get out there, do the work, participate in the struggle alongside the working class, and learn through experience what works and what doesn’t. Win the support of the masses by standing up for the exploited and oppressed.
Find ways to help with labor struggles, help workers to form unions, convince them to join collective organizations for mutual aid and communal self-defense, help tenants to protect their rights against landlords. Don’t discount non-violent means of struggle. Help people without the means to do so to navigate the legal system. Organize protests, strikes and direct action against the fascist repression and the imperialist war machine.
And while you are doing these things continue to educate the people about capitalism and the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (don’t use fancy theory lingo that will alienate them, use words that they understand from their day to day lives), educate them about how the system really works, the mechanisms that are used to represses and exploit them. Raise their level of class consciousness.
Contradictions are already intensifying and material conditions will continue to deteriorate. This will open up opportunities to radicalize more people. Once the organized and revolutionary left has done all that work which i just spoke of, then the people will know that you are on their side and willing to fight for them. They will recognize those organizations and those leaders as their vanguard who have proven themselves as such.
Unity and centralization will emerge in the same way, through struggle against those ideological tendencies and those organizational strategies which are erroneous and don’t work. This struggle helps to correct your party line and hone your party discipline. In the meantime, form a united front with other working class organizations which share your goals, even when they don’t necessarily share your exact ideological line or your exact methods.
The reason why studying theory is important is because people have been through this before in the past. They have grappled with many of the same questions and problems. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel. You can learn from history what worked and what didn’t, lessons that were learned by others through great hardship and sacrifice, and then you must analyze your own conditions at the present time to understand what is applicable.
Why not just go underground?
Because that has a severe impact on your reach and your ability to continue build the revolutionary movement.
If the conditions force you to go underground then so be it. I strongly believe and i have said before that any anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist leftist organization must be prepared for that eventuality and expect it. But to self-impose that on yourself when the conditions have not yet reached the level of a revolutionary situation is to self-sabotage. Lenin spoke about these sorts of strategic choices and about recognizing when it is more advantageous to work within the system as opposed to outside of it.
Lenin wrote extensively about how to organize under conditions of harsh state repression, because that became a necessity for the Bolsheviks at some point. But there were also times when he advocated for communists to work within the bourgeois system. A vanguard party must know how to do both, but most importantly it must know how to correctly read the political situation and understand what the present conditions allow and call for.
And in fact, to some extent, a vanguard party can and should do both simultaneously. You can maintain your open and legal activities while also having cells organizing underground work with the necessary operational secrecy, provided that you properly insulate one from the other to maintain deniability and prevent the underground activities from being used as a pretext to shut down your legal operations. This is something that revolutionaries and resistance movements have always done.
Here are some works of Lenin that may help you understand this topic in greater detail:
The Illegal Party and Legal Work (1912)
The Principal Stages in the History of Bolshevism (1920)
Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments? (1920)
The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats (1897)
And here is a compilation of Lenin’s views from dozens of different works:
Lenin - On Parliamentary Struggle
I find particularly Lenin’s early writings to be the most relevant when it comes to how to organize and what to prioritize at this very early stage of leftist revolutionary activity in the US and other imperial core countries. Because we have to admit that there is a long road still to go and we are only just at the beginning, and that we have not yet reached the sort of conditions that existed in Russia on the eve of the October Revolution, or even the first failed Russian Revolution of 1905.
If you want to gain more insight into how Lenin and other revolutionaries lived and worked during those early days i can also recommend perusing
Krupskaya’s Reminiscences of Lenin (1926)
But im saying the situation has already reached that point
This is the most sus post I have ever seen
Either that or they’re like 15
How do I prove I am not FBI. I am seriously posting this but I understand how it could come off like that.
Well, your username is pretty generic, and you only joined a couple days ago so…
Mainly chose the name based on the year that the Russian revolution happened which caused the first time communism was attempted on a large scale. Just thought the name was cool lol. Is there anything I could do to not be seen as FBI.
Well, your terminology is a little off… the years following 1917 was when socialism was attempted on a large scale, not communism. Barring that, get a profile picture and post more.
Well the revolution did start that in motion. The revolution itself is important here because without a revolution socialism could not be implemented. Also wasn’t it only socialist until the conditions improved eventually so they would shift to communism. Yes this never happened unfortunately but the intent was there
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I relate to your frustration. I felt the same, just months ago.
It stems from lack of knowledge in the face of overwhelming threat. If you stare at a tiger and dont know how to get away or make it leave you alone, thats a strong motivator for panic.
So let me try and set this straight as far as I can:
There is no need for violence, moreover, comrade lenin warned against “adventurism” as it has detrimental effects. Then, having a strong leader is looked at very different all over the world and within communities. Asking for someone to fix your shit is learned helplessness. We communists need to teach people how to fix their own shit, not fix it for them.
Reading and educating are the way to bring about the revolution. For it to happen you need to first exhaust - publicly - all other methods. You need to show the people without reproach that their government and their election system is funamentally broken. Lenin and Stalin wrote that.
Taking out billionaires or CEOs does jack shit for you. There are thousands of them and people dont just shoot them. This happened in germany too about 50 years ago with the RAF. It doesnt help.
I know it seems like if we dont do this and that right now everything will be lost but that is not the case, nor will it help to do this and that right now. You’re panicking, which is okay, but neither is it needed or helpful. Shit is hitting the fan at a great rate and it needs to get even worse. Cpaitalism brings about its own demise. It always does. And with china on the rise, its bound to speed up even more.
What the books say, and what I personally am trying, is to help locally (i run mutual aid stuff) and educate people wherever you can (at work, at the union, etc). What they also suggest and what I’m thinking about is an actual newspaper but I’m still working on that. The most important part imo is to educate yourself to keep from adventurism and keep revolutionary optimism. Otherwise we just lose people to either burnout or adventurism which also doesnt help.
If you havent, please read. I suggest state and revolution by lenin as a first. It is short and pretty good, then the communist manifesto because also short, and then the basics and questions of marxism leninism by stalin. That sums it up pretty nicely and its also a pretty good read. After that, you should have a guide how to topple a government and install a dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course very roughly outlined.
TL;DR: Toppling governments is a difficult process and there is a way to do this. It has been laid out by many great people. Please read.
I totally agree with you. What you pointed is should be put on the walls to warn new arrived comrades.
I also wish you best for efforts comrade; I’d like to help you with building a newspaper. Count me on If I can help you comrade
But you have to realise the soil we are operating on is extremely dangerous the reaction knows how to handle communists ever since Hitler, Franco and Mussolini came to power how can you tell a comrade to organise when the next meeting he goes to could land him in a concentration camp things weren’t this bad previously so its clear that new strategies and methods are needef
I dont have to do anything.
Nobody ever knew how to handle “communists”. They handle all dissent the same.
That is why I STRONGLY advise to organize. Because they will come for you either way and they will kill you, either way.
“Going to a meeting” for example isnt the only form of organizing. If you start reading, you understand that, otherwise you dont.
Adventurism (which is my original point) is the least effective form and the one that gets you killed the fastest. It is pure bougois defeatism to state otherwise. Please read lenin and/or stalin. Both are clear on this.
So depending on your material conditions, you have to make a persec decision what to do and what not. But there is absolutely no argument against organizing. Organizing can mean a lot of things. None of them need to mention the word fascists or communists, nobody needs to fly a red banner. Organizing means you give out soup for example. Helping your community to survive is organizing. There even is a meme on here somewhere that says “resistance needs everyone” and then you see multiple things depicting multiple jobs like medics, cooks, propagandists, etc. That is what is meant by organising.
If you live in a place where working in a soup kitchen can get you killed for being a dirty commie, you need to flee ASAP and not complain to some rando on the internet.
I was trying to raise a point that we need to change our methods If you’re gonna be insulting about it you may as well give yourself to ICE
Feel free to point out insults. I’m ready to learn. What I’m not ready to is getting told what to do and what to think without a hint of evidence. Thats just reactionary nonsense then.
Best answer here. This is 100% correct.
Listen to the episodes 98 and 117
Please first make the case why a dictatorship of the proleteriat is beneficial for the USA.
There’s a significant understanding needed to answer the above question either way. In doing so it will allow one step away from the paradigms of bourgoisie electoralism that traps even so-called socialists from moving forward.
As I see it one of the main impediments for the western left is the comprehensive miseducation of the working class. When the average worker thinks that the way to improve their lives is to work harder and become a capitalist themselves, that poor people deserve it, that bourgeois parliamentary politics is all politics there is, that communism always fails and that all societal ills are caused by the immigrants and the wokes, then organising a mass proletarian movement becomes impossible.
A leftist strategy that doesn’t somehow address the urgent need for basic education and ideological deprogramming on history, economics and politics, will never be able to succeed. Lenin had the newspaper, we need to find out what would be the similar tool in our day and age.
It’s tough because our equivalents, like Tik Tok for the young, Facebook for the old, and YouTube, are owned or bought by the billionaire class. We need alternative media that can bypass their control and be sent and spread directly by the masses, but that means increasing the popularity of platforms like Mastadon, Lemmy, maybe piefied (but it’s dislike of “tankies” makes it an enemy to revolution in my eyes), and finding an alternative to YouTube, which is the toughest because video hosting takes a lot of space and is way too expensive.
The left isn’t divided. Liberals are conflated with actual left wing parties. State actors pretend to be leftist whilst fomenting division and argument.
Actual leaders are attacked and isolated by capitalists, nazis, conservatives, and alleged moderates wanting to maintain the status quo.
Well how does someone become a leader of the entire left. We need someone who can stand up against the capitalists and will not fall to corruption. They also need to be charismatic so they can convince non leftists to become leftists.
There will never be a leader of the entire anything.
People think that the hard right is united, but it’s not true. They have more infighting than the left, it’s just downplayed by the right wing media, aka the mainstream media.
The left isn’t as divided as the right, the misinformation coming hard and fast is either believed by people like you, or actively spread by people like you.
To answer your question: learn to look behind the lies. Ask yourself when reading: Cui Bono? Who Benefits?
The answer will tell you a lot
such a person would be murdered by the state before they accomplished anything bigger than state politics.
Shouldn’t stop us from trying. How can it be attempted at least. If no one dares to stand against the capitalists then no change will be made. A leader is needed and if the government dares to assassinate them would it not provide justification to the public for a revolution.
we’ve rioted when that happens, you can probably think of a few examples, but we don’t have the preconditions for an assassination to kick off the revolution.
Even as an advocator for mass strike, I will say that a vanguard seems to be necessary in such a place as the United States. Good luck, American comrades!
There’s a really good reading guide in the sidebar of this community, and Cowbee has their own here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6218252
I recommend reading through them, because they will cover everything you’re thinking about.
As a quick answer, though:
For those of us living in the USA discussing theory won’t change anything.
Marx himself said “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” and virtually everyone here will agree. However, if you don’t understand the theory then how on Earth can you challenge capitalism? You will be doomed if you do not understand how to apply dialectical materialism to your own country. Marxism isn’t a dogma, that’s why theory is so important.
How should we unite all of the different leftists under one leader so that there can be a united opposition.
You will never get everyone to agree fully, but you can get most people on board by talking about the problems and showing how Marxism can be a solution. If you want to unite people, go spread the word.
Currently we need far more comrades like Luigi to remove the bourgeoisie with violence.
Randomly popping off a capitalist doesn’t actually fix anything you know? They’re just replaced by another capitalist. The system itself needs to be removed. That can only happen when the working class achieves sufficient class consciousness.
Yes randomly killing capitalists changes nothing if it is just one. If enough people did what Luigi did there would be no capitalists to control the government. I agree that this alone is not enough but the fact that many people agree with Luigi shows that people are willing to use violence as a solution but are not yet willing to do it themselves. it is up to us to convince them that we can rise up and overthrow the capitalists. .
@[email protected] gave an excellent reply so rather than reiterate what they said, I recommend their comment to understand why you can’t just pop off capitalists and expect change.
Really truly, although it might feel counterproductive the best way forward is to sit down and read.
Not if they dont know how, aka read.
Constant agitation. The usa is incredibly propagandized so counter propaganda needs to be pushed excessively. The people need to be told the simplest truth over and over until it clicks.
The super rich are the cause of all the preventable ills of the world and they must be destroyed if the rest of us are to survive.
Explain this over and over to every single person who will listen and most of the ones who won’t. When enough people are consciously aware of this simple and obvious truth the rest will fall into place.
They keep us fighting amongst ourselves with their propaganda. I don’t get why most people don’t understand that they need to look up, look at the controllers of our society who exploit them. Realize how no one is ever truly happy with their elected leaders. Realize that the capitalist class controls both parties and that neither represents the interests of the people. Everyone knows that our leaders take bribes and we literally just accept this as a fact of life (this shows how much they control the American people).
They know it. They just need to be reminded of it until they realize it is the only thing that matters.
We won’t. All we can do is organise, educate and help create the conditions so a productive one can come about in the right conditions.
If anyone knew how to just make it happen, it would’ve happened.
The left is far to divided and needs a central leader.
Historically an actual consolidation of the Communist movement had only occured under the deepest of strife where being theoretically or practically incorrect way-laid yourself on the side of the road either completely abandoned or dead in a ditch. The current state of the Communist movement has been arriving to reflect more closely the period of the pre-estabishment of the RSDLP in my guesstimations. The only way to build a party is the hard way, with consistent and constant work to sharpen your theoretical with field work and developing the most advanced theoreticals by studying past actions in addition to analyzing present conditions.
The advantage the liberals and conservatives have are that their parties are not fractured.
I’d disagree with this a bit. Summary of below: the parties entrenched core leadership can exist regardless of their party’s unity.
The closer you look, the closer the cracks within the bourgeois parties can you examine. The primary reason why the reactionary parties function is because they have entrenched themselves into the very political superstructure of the State for a century and seventy-five years with change. The parties core structures can exist separately from the people they purport to represent due to that very fact in conjunction to the fact they’re bourgeois parties. The so-called “rank-and-file” membership of their parties - whom have no political involvement whatsoever with the parties or the state they exist under beyond pulling the vote crank once every few years - can only shit themselves and squeal hard enough to let the other bourgeois party win instead of their own to let their party of choice know their displeasure. Said displeasure is promptly ignored and time continues. Any attempt at all alternative that exists within the duopoly is co-opted by the duopoly; the Tea Party was assimilated. The DSA is a vestigial nub that occasionally itches. As I mentioned earlier the only means to disrupt the parties is by mass politics where the people demonstrate to the politicians that they’re disconnected from their will. This is such a common occurrence that it’s no longer noted by the political establishment or by the masses and it is so because of the political and cultural hegemony of the duopoly political structure as you note in the next sentence
The two party system also prevents any way to win democratically so the only way to do this would be a revolution.
But to have a revolution you must have the people on your side and Americans tend to look at a central leader like a president as the representation of a movement.
Firstly, I think you’re putting the cart ahead of the horse by saying a standard-bearer is a necessity for revolution, secondly its chauvinistic to assert that U.S.Americans are distinctly presupposed to look at standard-bearer as representation of a movement. Simply replying what Foundation does such a standard-bearer stand upon? You do not simply declare “rally around the flag” when you stand on nothing but a soapbox. Build a party, build dual power structures, build a foundation. Build and from the dust of the work leaders will emerge naturally.
How should we unite all of the different leftists under one leader so that there can be a united opposition.
I’m gonna point at the lyrics of David Rovic’s song again playfully but say the serious answer is that there are a mix of serious ideological and organizational differences in all the communist parties in the u.s. not even mentioning the lack of presentation of a democratic congressional structure for creating the electoral field for"unite(ing) all of the different leftists under one leader".
At most I think it may be remotely feasible to try and create some sort of congress of american communists and socialists to at least meet and debate over points of unity to at least try to build a loose coalition. Just trying to do that would be a titanic effort as is, much less even dreaming of trying to get any group to agree on a figurehead.
We also need to get more people to understand that currently America is not a true democracy and that the only way to fix this is with violence.
First part yes, second part no. What did Lenin say about the ultra-left tactic of “The Propaganda Of The Deed”
Currently we need far more comrades like Luigi to remove the bourgeoisie with violence.
I’ll go out of my own Stalinist comfortzone to quote the chief trot on the topic.
In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.
The anarchist prophets of the “propaganda of the deed” can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more “effective” the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organization and self-education.
But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy.
- Leon Trotsky: Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism (1911)
I’ll also throw in that Lenin’s own brother was hung by the neck until dead because he had also aspired to spark revolutionary fervor by “removing the bourgeois by violence”
Lenin said, in What is to be done, about the Russian socialists that many had…
… begun their revolutionary thinking as adherents of Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will). Nearly all had, in their early youth, enthusiastically worshipped the terrorist heroes. It required a struggle to abandon the captivating impressions of those heroic traditions, and the struggle was accompanied by the breaking off of personal relations with people who were determined to remain loyal to the Narodnaya Volya.
Communists are not terrorists. Full stop.
If there are people with nothing left to lose some brave comrade should give them a weapon so they can do something.
It is easier to die for a belief than it is living for one. The communist movement needs living people more than it needs dead martyrs. It always needed the living more than the dead.
For those of us living in the USA discussing theory won’t change anything. Only action will. United we will win, fractured we will fall
Go join a party.
Excellent answer and great quotes!
It is easier to die for a belief than it is living for one. The communist movement needs living people more than it needs dead martyrs.
I could not have said this better myself!
We can grow to be better communists by emulating Stalin’s example as explained in “Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and his Books” by Geoffrey Roberts, (yes I know the title’s
but its actually a very educational book) where G. Roberts notes that Stalin made it a habit of reading the works of his ideological enemies to understand them, adopt what he agreed with, and criticized what he disagreed with.the most heavily featured author is Lenin (243 publications) and there are also numerous works about Lenin and Leninism. The most favoured authors after Lenin are Stalin (95), Zinoviev (55), Bukharin (50), Marx (50), Kamenev (37), Molotov (33), Trotsky (28), Kautsky (28), Engels (25), Rykov (24), Plekhanov (23), Lozovsky (22), Rosa Luxemburg (14) and Radek (14).
Not mentioning that he read as widely as he did deeply.
Winston Churchill’s book about the First World War, The World Crisis; three books by the German revisionist social democrat Eduard Bernstein; two books by Keynes, including The Economic Consequences of the Peace; Jean Jaurès’s History of the Great French Revolution; Tomáš Masaryk’s World Revolution; the German economist Karl Wilhelm Bucher’s Work and Rhythm; an early work by Karl Wittfogel on the ‘awakening’ of China; John Hobson’s Imperialism; Werner Sombart’s book about modern capitalism; some works of the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk; the Italian Marxist Antonio Labriola on historical materialism; John Reed’s Insurgent Mexico; several works by the American writer Upton Sinclair, and the letters of executed US anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Among the many works on economics in the collection is a translation of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations: in his heavily marked copies of David Rozenberg’s three volumes of commentary on Marx’s Capital, Stalin displayed a particular interest in the sections on trade and Adam Smith.
