After the fall of the USSR we are left in a situation were the major communist parties of Europe and other parts of the world turned full revisionist, while revolutionary parties are either too small or nonexistent.
How do we explain problem this and how do we overcome it?
this problem*
Governments conditioning people to not support them which is why under republics communism won't come into power.
Because Capitalist society pushes anti-Communist propaganda, which a lot of people take as fact e.g. "Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions of people."
Nation state today is just too strong for a revolutionary party to thrive within. Hell, even socdem seems too radical to exist nowadays.
My personal guess is to repeat Lenin/Mao in a non-dogmatic way, figuring out a dynamic that is neither just the state, nor the market.
I don't think this is nothing more than a simple observation. Of course capitalism will use propaganda to maintain its dominance, does that mean the communist movement is exempt from criticism?
Can you be more cryptic? Please explain.
I was answering your question on why most parties turned into shit while revolutionary one's turned non existent. Real one's are kept under wraps. The only way of overcoming it is destroying the system it's in.
How do you even do that without a vanguard in the first place?
Well it's not like they pose a direct threat to liberal democracy by being the single strongest analytical tool at critiquing the inherent contradictions of democracy under capitalism….
In other words, it threatens the ruling class so they try to suppress it.
If you want socdems are your only choice join or die along with society. t. sockdickgang But otherwise there isn't much of a way to look at.
Having lived in a communist country, it's pretty easy to see why it's not a popular ideology. But most of you wouldn't get that since you didn't live the life I lived. 25 years in a communist socialist humanist country was enough for me.
which country
Socdems are reactionary.
That was true at the time of Marx and at the time of Lenin, it didn't stop from organizing.
All parties are name one that isn't.
You lived in a revisionist corrupt caricature of communism.
Most people in Lenin's and Stalin's time were hopeful for the future and saw the potential of the system.
Revolutionary communist parties all over the world.
I'm trying my hardest not to be an asshole but holy shit you're making it easy. Name a specific revolutionary party.
KKE in greece, although they have made mistakes and I don't agree with their views on imperialism, it isn't reactionary.
because capitalist "Democracies" were smart about the spread and control of ideals.
the Russian revolution is the best thing that could've happened to the post-war West
Supression by the state is so obviously not the primary reason communist parties are unpopular in the west at the moment. I've participated in Marxist-Leninist study-groups organized by a communist party, that had permission to hold their little study-group in a (government owned) university building. The communists are pretty much completely free to organize and spread their propaganda in my country, but are still unpopular and ineffective, because they're a bunch of fucking idiot LARPers. Communism will stay dead in the west for as long as communists are more interested in discussing how many marxist angels can dance on the head of a surplus value, than actually engaging in politics.
Even then their chances are slim because of what me and others have said.
Meanwhile the majority or at least the plurality of people in Russia and other post-socialist countries think life under socialism was better
This is still a simple observation, not an analysis.
The problem is why are those communists LARPers, not that they are.
I can't give you a good explanation for why that is just off the top of my head, but I can say that, at least in northern Europe, state supression is not a primary reason for communism being unpopular.
State suppression doesn't only take form of directly banning parties and sending jackbooted thugs to bust reading clubs user. Neolib propaganda and manipulating discourse until leftism means safe spaces for agendered otherkin are also tools of porky.
Yeah, also social democrats like Syriza, who pretend to be the moderate left, when elected turn into the worst neoliberal dogs of the EU.
speking from experience, in the east (most of the ex-soviet block) communist parties are pensioners' clubs. Young people, including me are extremely demotivated from joining a communist org because it's hegemonically ruled by old fucks who don't actually care about socialism, just about their nostalgia shots.
in the west (Europe, US and Canada), from what I have heard they are either alzheimers' expos, like in the east, or idpol infested borderline cults, neither of which are very inviting environments.Very few countries have actual popular and influential socialist/communist movements, mostly in east asia and latin america, but even there they're few and far between.
The solution in my opinion is to create a "new" communist agenda (same as the old agenda in essence) that rids itself of shit that keeps the movement in the past, like USSR aesthetics, participation in bourgoisie politics, and pointless sectarianism and splitting.
I agree with everything except participation in politics. Participation in politics should be judged by every party for itself it isn't intrinsically negative.
It is a platform that allows you to reach more people as long as you don't fall in the trap of trying to get elected.
I mean, is there any alternative to participating in electoral politics in the West?
Union work is useless as unions have been fully integrated into the neoliberal machine. Student work is even more useless for obvious reasons. Militant resistance? Getting yourself killed or imprisoned while despised by the entire population doesn't sound like a good idea either. Internet shitposting might unironically be a good option at this point.
This is why I'm not opposed to the Stalin LARPing the CPGB-ML pulls. It gets them into the headlines despite being smaller than the CPGB. Bad press is better than no press, old saying.
Militant resistance of a sect never works. If the people don't follow there's no point.
Uncorrupted worker unions are hard to establish.
Participating in electoral politics gives the wrong message to both the people and the party members. It gives hope of true change within capitalism. I guess it depends in what country you are in, but in the west, I don't see any communist party getting elected in government and even if it does, it has a neoliberal economy to control.
Its just like what happened to Syriza, there were people in that party that believed they could change things for the better. When they got elected, reality hit their door, Varoufakis was fired, the left wing of the party was deleted and they started accepting the neoliberal policies the EU had planned for Greece.
what I mean by not participating in politics is that I would prefer if communist organisations spent their time and resources on actually supporting woring class people in their everyday lives, isntead of running in elections. This way it's a lot easier to build up popular support , and only after said popular support is achieved should they consider running in electionts/overthrowing the government, depending on how effective reformism seems to be in their situation.
Communism has never been alive in the west in the first place, it never stood a chance. Communism only occurs in the most backwards of countries, like feudal Russia, feudal China, or basically third world countries in general. Western countries, or countries on the top of the hierarchy of wealth inequality between nations would prefer to resort to fascism to preserve their position. The Western countries only have a history of fascism not communism. The only type of revolution that has occurred in the West is the kind that happened in 1933. The recent crisis will only have the effect, and has only had the effect of creating new far-right populist and fascist movements in the western countries.
In the backwards countries, perhaps the most important recent development is the Nepalese revolution which overthrew the monarchy, but which was unable to go beyond that. The Naxalites in India seem to be in a stalemate with the Indian state, and they are in no position to lead a revolution to overthrow them, they can only control their own areas. The FARC were in a very long insurgency against the Colombian state that led to nothing so they just gave up. Revolutionary communist parties can fight in insurgencies, but their is no guarantee they will make gains.
The surviving communist parties already power in third world countries like China, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba have opened up to capitalism somewhat because the world is increasingly interconnected and 'globalized' and in doing so they have relieved some of the imperialist pressure that would otherwise be placed against them. So they are generally revisionist.
yeah shit sucks but what is the way forward then?
KKE is popular and
is wrong if you mean the CPCh and the CCP also I think most of the parties in en.wikipedia.org
antidepressants
You answered your own question, the USSR has fallen, so people are not going soon to repeat the same thing.
Fuck off with that defeatist shit
I don't see why it would be that way, communist alway managed to agitate many people around them in the case of a crisis
The surviving communist parties already power in third world countries like China, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba have opened up to capitalism somewhat because the world is increasingly interconnected and 'globalized' and in doing so they have relieved some of the imperialist pressure that would otherwise be placed against them. So they are generally revisionist.
No you fucking imbecile. Their economies where destroyed after years of war and/or economic decline. So they opend their market up so the productive forces get developed wich is essential for building socialism.These countries still maintain the heights of the economy under the control of the Workers and work torwards an advanced stage of Socialism, read Lenin. I hate people like you, who only lean back, criticise Socialist countries who have been struggeling for Years with Imperialism and really put an effort into buidling advanced socialism but do nothing for in way in regards of building socialism.
The Idea that people only get agitated when they eat shit is so beyond me. The way of Agitation is way more important that the living conditions. For example people in Idia now live for years in extreme poverty but Idia isn't fully socialist yet ( I know there is Kerala and the big CPI(M) but it isn't fully socialist wich is questionable since the living conditions there are so miserable, if we follow your logic of course) this narrative is straight up denying that there are crisis in Capitalism that occur and that Workers in first world countries aren't oppressed or that they don't have miserable working conditions. We see everywhere in western capitalist countries that the wages stagnate, that the state rather spends money on profitable things like weapon exports instead of what people need, that there is unemployment, poverty,hunger etc. Capitalism is not any more fair in western countries than it is in the third world so fuck off with this excuse so you don't need to join a party and really start fighting for what you want. You rather LARP on the internet with pictures of the NPA and big talk about why capitalism is bad but you won't do anything about it. You romatizise Socialism and let others do your work while you sit in your Chair and wallow yourself in pity.
medium.com
Yeah, unions in the USA were strong as fuck. Like they got into actual wars with the Government.
Then this shit happened.
The right is too united, and have been using operations like COINTEL to cause sectarian infighting within socialist circles for 100 years. The left wastes time trying to reorganize as opposed to responding in kind and causing sectarian infighting within the right. If they were smart enough to run their own COINTEL style operations on the right, and smash right wing blind patriotism, mob loyalty and negotiated platforms.. dialectical synthesis would be well under way.
Communists refuse to denounce globalism, feminism, traditionitism so of course it's not popular.
people are content with social democracy
Which is dying right now and people are voting right wingers out of fear because there is no alternative prepared on the left. See: Sweden, Austria, Finland etc.
But what if communism actually supports egalitarianism and not matriachism and it utterly despises neoliberal's exploitative devil's game known as globalism (which is in no way identical to socialist internationalism)?
Capitalism IS globalism, idiot. Marx and Lenin "denounced" it centuries ago. What does Zig Forums think globalism is?
...
So when will communists denounce feminists and globalists?
Marx was ironically pro-free trade my dawg, read up.
They are. See the French revolution.
okay so you're retarded
because ML's have permanently tainted any hopes of mass socialist appeal. Socialism is now synonymous with authoritarianism. And yes, Capitalism is authoritarian- but that's besides the point. The damage has been done.
It's a mixture of propaganda, infighting, infiltration, lack of organisation, and action.
In regards to propaganda, the media is often quick to subject us and commodify a spectacle of communism breeding poverty, producing death tolls in the millions, and being a super-power state as opposed to establishing a stateless, classless, moneyless society. It's similar as to how people view anarchism to be "ay lmao smash everything, listen to punk rock and chuck molotovs while drawing edgy A's"
Even though there are various refutations to the black book of communism, by historians and the like, it hasn't stopped it from being the go-to book for right wingers. It's a very effective propaganda tool conservatives and liberals are quick to start preaching on their soap boxes, while they shill for a system which relies on the exploitation to keep itself afloat. Even if you were to disprove lies told about the USSR, and how they exaggerate its death toll, approaches to ML communist parties are still going to be taken with a grain of salt, especially when they hold figures who are demonised by the west in high regard. Other contemporary examples is the propaganda pieces told about the DPRK, especially when you have known escapees who are paid to lie about the DPRK and spread propaganda.
I think you covering the infighting based on revisionism is also another thing. While I'd offer immediate support for a Hoxhaist militia to bunker down against revisionist Dengists, there is still the propaganda aspect you have to look into. And that's not dispelling the fact that you might have cointelpro deliberately screwing with your actions.
In regards to overcoming the problems, shifting the overton window to the left is certainly a goal. Creating propaganda of your own can certainly help dispel notions of Stalin being a "communist" or Marxist Leninism being a dead ideology. If you really want to go fully into it, Cockshott's economic system would be a step in the right direction as it deals with the material conditions as they are now.
Go out and hang out with other leftists, see how they operate, what they believe, argue and socialise where you can. More often than not, they'll fill you in with what's going on NOW and what YOU can do to act on it. Go to meetings that cover strategies on how to protest and riot. Verse yourself in how to organise grass roots movements. I recently got invited to a FLAAC meeting and they'll be teaching me some tactics to use in direction action when dealing with mining companies.
If you can train yourself how to fight, do so. It could help in the long run. Also, look into other forms of praxis. It's highly unlikely that the revolution will go your way. Learn to be adaptable. There's a huge anarchist movement in Europe, learn from them, and what they do and adopt their praxis into your own where you can.
Which ones? If you're talking about liberal feminists, then that's been done before.
I really love you totally absolve the burger propaganda apparatus of any responsibility for that, as with they wouldn't have tried to smear other tendencies with a negative reputation. But yeah communists unironically defending moderators(which is an issue with Ancoms too) probably doesn't help with PR
You do have a point there, but that has more to do with the material conditions if the first world than anything. Mind you that christcom is an unironic third worldist so your words may not dissuade him from your position
Because these Communist parties also support the ethnic replacement of the native working class. Because modern feminism (women should be like men) doesn't appeal to working class people. Because the normalization of transsexuality and other mental illnesses alianates them.
Because ethnically replacing the native peoples of white/european countries, feminism etc. is more important to them than fighting for the rights of workers.
I'm Norwegian, and our proper Social Democratic (Old school) party, "Red", are growing a lot because they don't focus on these issues. If they started opposing them, they would skyrocket to 20% of the votes instantly because this party has really placed themselves on the side of the working class.
ALL feminists, including the over a dozen US military bases in Syrian ones, who seem to preach more sermon more than actually fighting (leave it to the US operators).
They were leftists, and were supported by Marx later on.
Dude
Nazis are not working class
If i liked nazi lumpens i whould not vote communist
While a big part of working class dislikes immigration(mostly 40+ petit bouj fags think migrants will replace them tho)
Most proles dont give a shit about trans people
And no one dislikes the fact that women vote
The phenomeno of working class voting right wing populists up north ,mostly indicates the lack of any actual communist parties not the dislike of them
T.fellow europoor that lives in a gehtto
There are nazis who are workers.
Why does no one on Zig Forums seem to know what "lumpenproletariat" means?
Why aren't communist parties popular
Because most of them are communist in name only
i thought all of them were neet incels that go outside only to kick puppies and spit on real people
What do you mean? I have a feeling you think communist parties would start getting popular if they were more "anti-revisionist", which is a total fantasy.
I'm German and I wish there was a party here that would do likewise and I'm pretty sure it would be very successful.
What we have now is a split between those who are pandering to migrants and those who also see problems with immigration - we also have a few voices of left-wingers of the latter category (such as Sarah Wagenknecht, who is hugely popular here), but it is way too few.
Whatever you do you either alienate some of the migrants (and all the pro-immigration idpolers with them) or alienate those in the indigenous working class who are fed up with a segment of the immigrant population that doesn't want to integrate into society.
Those immigrants who want to or did integrate into our society would and are not alienated by it, by the way, it is the Islamist and criminal scum that is causing those problems and frankly needs to be dealt with - the left must stop turning a blind eye to that problem ASAP.
I can't say for sure about Germany, but in Sweden there's not really a shortage of immigrants who themselves are sick and tired of our retarded ass immigration policies. At this point, a new left-wing party that's critical of Swedish immigration policy of the last 20 years* would alienate white upper middle class radlibs to a much greater extent than immigrants themselves.
*being critical of the way immigration has been handled by the conservative and now socdem government does not mean you have to be some swedish chauvinist or crypto-nazbol.
Agreed.
Wow I didn't knew Sherlock Holmes and Watson browsed here
Which was also a factor I should have mentioned. However, culture still does play into our perception of what communism is. We're not immune to propaganda or the spectacle.
At this point, I'm convinced anarchists will have more success in the first world considering they're the ones who are organising strikes, riots and occupy movements. The praxis against ICE in America has certainly been an improvement since OWS, and the an-coms providing help to the homeless/refugees in England and Greece has certainly been a big boon.
While I could talk about the An-Syns in bangladesh, it rains clear that the MLs are the ones who are taking the fight in the third world for the most part. Will they be successful? I'm skeptical. I think that should the national liberation of the third world come to pass, the first world must have a revolution on its own. No amount of third wordlism will stop the UN from placing embargoes on a new communist country, especially with America (though the UN seems to be growing ever more tired with the US)
now you know
Exactly, and yes, you have a lot of immigrants who speak out against our immigration policies here, too. You even find videos of interviews where immigrants say they'd vote for NPD (nazi-party in germany) and AfD (who have some immigrant members).
It is really fucked up.
Show me a socialist country that allowed criminals to roam the street, fucking imbecile
Tbh we need to split right wingers
Nazis that think jews follow the devil and that hitler was the avatar of visnu are neither lumpen or workers but people with a lot of free tine and a few friends
So maybe petit bouj or NEETs
They either vote for some occult nazi party or attempt weird entryism to end judeobolshevik christianity
Populist parties are not really nazis ,they just want power and most importantly money
So yes due to the nature of populism ,they are workers that vote right(up in north mostly)
Maybe they are some true nazis in the working class ,but turn lolcow to easy to have a job for long
?
???