This incident and the molotov-ribbentrop pact must upset tankies. I love upsetting tankies, as much as I enjoy upsetting any other right-wing group.
I’m not an ML, but you don’t have to agree with MLs to understand that they are fundamentally leftist and opposed to Capitalism.
“Leftism” isn’t a synonym for “good,” it’s a broad, diverse range of ideologies supporting collective ownership and opposing hierarchy. This can be done well, this can be done poorly, and it is important to recognize both the good and the bad to learn and build, not to dismiss everything as “not true leftism” if it isn’t what you personally want.
When someone supports fascist regimes and spouts fascist talking points they are what they are, no matter what they like to call themselves. The Nazis called themselves socialist, too.
That’s not correct, though. MLs don’t support fascist regimes.
MLs have a long history with deep theoretical frameworks, which is why just calling them fascists and right-wingers gets you exactly nowhere with them, and ignores their genuine Proletarian perspective.
Even this post, for example, has people correctly pointing out how the USSR kept the Nazi scientists on a tight leash, then deported them after they had sufficient intelligence, while the western states kept the Nazis and allowed them into important offices.
If you want to genuinely combat MLs, then you have to appeal to them from a materialist perspective, and showcase sound theoretical basis to defeat Capitalism and Imperialism globally.
If you just dismiss MLs as right-wingers, you genuinely showcase a lack of understanding of leftist history in general, and don’t actually succeed in combating ML mindsets.
That’s not correct, though. MLs don’t support fascist regimes.
Well, some people who call themselves Marxist-Leninists do. Those are Tankies.
A rational ML person won’t support fascism, but there are a lot of so-called ML adherents who yearn so greatly for the trappings of the USSR to the extent that they don’t even care about its founding ideology; they care about putting a man into space, about strong nuclear arsenals, and about dismantling the corrupt West. Hence why so many Tankies fall in line behind the Putin regime for no reason other than that he is aesthetically “the glory days of Russia” and has made himself an enemy of the West, despite all of the fascism which fills the gaps.
MLs argue that socialism can’t be used to mobilize an economy as a way of justifying the actions of Lenin, Stalin, etc. this is a fundamentally anti-socialist stance.
That’s not really accurate to what MLs argue, they believe that you can’t have Communism without having built it up via a Socialist state beforehand. They still strongly support worker ownership and oppose Imperialism and Capitalism, which is my point, because the foundational beliefs are good, they can be reasoned with.
The Proletariat in general can be reasoned with, that’s the entire purpose of class consciousness. Reactionaries found in the petite bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie proper are not capable of truly being reasoned with at a wide level, but fellow proletarians can be.
Socialist state
The thing that MLs consider a “socialist state” is capitalism where the state is a universal employer, which is decidedly not socialism.
They still strongly support worker ownership
Lenin destroyed the worker’s councils, and I’ve met multiple MLs who consider co-ops to be a bourgeois institution in disguise.
oppose Imperialism
That’s a common story, and also an outright lie. See: literally every time they defend Russian imperialism.
they can be reasoned with
Only if they’re honest in their delusions, which most of them aren’t.
Collective ownership of the Means of Production via a Worker state is in fact Socialism, and not Capitalism. If you eliminate the bourgeoisie, it is no longer Capitalism. It isn’t Anarchism either, but it’s still leftist in structure.
Lenin opposed the Worker councils and replaced them with a Union system. This is not the same as an outright replacement of a Socialist system for a Capitalist one, but a decentralized Socialist system for a more centralized Socialist system. This is still leftist, even if it’s more centralized. You disagree with it on the basis of centralization, not on whether or not it’s leftist.
As for Imperialism, Lemmygrad has a wiki where they go over why they don’t believe the current Russian Federation meets Lenin’s definition of Imperialism. I agree that it doesn’t meet Lenin’s definition, but I disagree with them that this justifies critically supporting Russia against NATO, which is Imperialist according to Lenin’s definitions. This, however, is a take based on Lenin’s analysis and a framework to oppose Imperialism and Capitalism, and can be argued against based on effectiveness, unlike fascists that enjoy Imperialism being Imperialism like the GOP.
I’d say they are in fact honest, and can be reasoned with. If you attempt to understand their views, you can more effectively take down some of their worse takes, like on Russia.
I disagree that a worker state is a thing that can exist at the scale envisioned by MLs. The defining feature of capitalism is the prevalence of the employer-employee relationship, which the USSR preserved; the state employed the workers who were alienated from their labor and had little say in the operations of their workplace. That’s not socialism.
