Marx the Reformist

Alternatively reform can provoke a Thermidorian Reaction in the vein of Pinochet, which can be prepared for and used as a pretext for a major crackdown on reactionaries and the consolidation of socialism.

Wew this really BTFOs ML twitter

Read Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. His idea of how to approach parliament is extremely different from your dogshit opportunism.

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It is blasphemy to misinterpret Prophet Marx (pbuh).

It's pretty clear (to me) that modern bourgeois states are far different than democratic republics of Marx's day. For one thing, the machinery of state (the "state apparatus") was far more limited back then. Contrast that with a modern state apparatus possessing unfathomable powers of surveillence that and massive bureaucracies. Marx and Engels would have seen democratic republics differently if they would have been alive to witness COINTELPRO and so on.

that excerpt is literally FROM LWC you fucking shitposter
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm

That's literally the work I quoted. I have read the entirety of it, multiple times. In it Lenin shows a much more nuanced and rational consideration of the tactical question "should communists participate in bourgeois parliaments?" than the average ML of today, who reflexively shouts "opportunism" like a fucking moron whenever electoralism is discussed (and at the same time imagines him/herself to be upholding the true Leninism or whatever).

I literally just quoted the work you're talking about. I didn't put any spin on it or inject my own "opportunism" into it. I don't know what point you think you're making. In case it was aimed at the other person you replied to: you're salty someone on Zig Forums criticized ML twitter? You need to go back.

To be fair though there’s a distinction between tactically using electoralism to further revolutionary goals and trying to bring about socialism through reform. Lenin advocated the former but rejected the latter.

Yea, I never implied that Lenin was a pacifist who thought communism would be achieved by electing a communist president of the United States.

Why do you guys think you know so much, just because you quote? It doesn't make you right to quote a thinker, even if you quote the thinker to a follower of that thinker. You could have misinterpreted them, or the other user could have misinterpreted them. In the end, arguing through the proxy of the thinker is a big fucking waste of time when you could be arguing with something that actually matters, the living. Or, at the very least, you could actually describe the thinker as a whole and try to show why you think this is a clear, necessary part of their beliefs, and thusly the follower's beliefs as well.
Anyways, I am going to do exactly what I preached against, and I am going to laugh at all of you stupid, stupid bourgeois worms and your stupid, stupid insistence on being cock-goblin reformists.
Interesting that this has a spelling mistake… I wonder what context this was in.
This is literally the very first bit of text before the first quote OP pasted, and here is where I got this from.
marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm
Allow me to peel the parts I think are particularly salient from this quote.
In here, Marx CLEARLY states that opportunistic elements in the Social-Democratic press want to suggest that the political system will develop Socialism, when in reality it will require revolutionary force to do so. Unless, of course, a crab breaking from its shell is just the sort of violent imagery Marx thought appropriate to describe electing Bernie Sanders 19th century edition.
Sorry for reddit space but the post feels unreadable and I must take drastic measures.
Now, how about the context in and fter the quote. Here is the actual text starting from "the U.S.A".

In this, Marx is saying that the government has all the power to itself, and that it is an illusion that there is representation, and that by advocating for people to "advance Socialism" in these institutions, they are becoming the illusion of power themselves. They are an opiate to people's issues. Why be mad at just the government when you can be mad at those dumb hicks who didn't vote Hillary am I right?
So far, none of these quotes show Marx to be a reformist. There is nothing here where Marx says "Reform>revolution". In fact, the only quote that even hints at that point of view is this one
But, and this is obvious to anyone who sits down and reads instead of mindlessly jerking and shitposting, Marx clearly says it is possible to "concieve" the old society devloping into the new. He has not actually said "I believe this to be possible" or amything like that.

Now, I hate to do this, but I will skip ahead to another quote from the OP, as it comes very nearly after in this text. For the sake of continuity, it must be skipped towards.

Hahahahaha, my god. I am beyond stupid. Here I was, thinking "God, you are so fucking stupid and dishonest". I was really just rip-roaring along, annotating this text for argumentation. It is really simple work even though it is timeconsuming. But, you know what is SO funny about this? Here I am, annotating this text by Marx about his philosophy, you know, just having a go at it. I am looking at the source for this letter and guess what I see, hanging above it, laughing at me.
Works of Frederick Engels 1891
THIS ISNT EVEN MARX. This is EIGHT years after his death in 83'! I am absolutely tickled that I just read a letter by Engels that someone was using to show what Marx thought! I am truly the lowliest creature of man, only above the radlibs of the Earth, woe is me.
On that note, I give up. I am tired, and, honestly, I feel like it is quite evident these quotes aren't reformist. If you think these quotes are reformist, guess what, you are stupid! (And I am certain of this from personal experience as a dumbass)

bumpo

Read Critique of the Erfurt program. Marx and Engels believed that revolution was necessary in Germany because of Germany's semi-autocratic government.

This is pretty much what I think socialist revolution would look like in a middle or high-income country. For examples of something like this, you could look at Spain in the '30s, Venezuela in the early '00s, or even abolition in the United States. I'm mainly drawing from Ralph Miliband's essay on the Pinochet coup, particularly his view on the escalation from class struggle to class war.

A party should first build a mass base of working-class support by making bread-and-butter populist demands and integrating with the labor movement. From the real experience of struggle, this base becomes more conscious of the need to destroy capitalism outright. When this hegemony has been built and the party gets a stint in power, it can start pushing for its "transitional demands"–that is, reforms which are reasonable on their face and popular, but are unacceptable to the ruling class. Sooner or later the capitalist class will use violence to resist these reforms; this kind of aggression both radicalizes the working class and gives the socialist government a clear casus belli and popular mandate to destroy its mortal enemy.

Whoops forgot the link
marxists.org/archive/miliband/1973/10/chile.htm

based and redpilled

LWC answers the question: if you already have a strong communist party with popular support, should you participate in parliaments or not? The Bolsheviks in the years leading to the Revolution were electable, they appealed to millions. They had the ability to pressure the bourgeoisie both through peaceful and violent means. They could literally conjure up armed workers' militias just by having Lenin make a speech at a factory. The RSDRP was the second largest party in the Constituent Assembly. Obviously, refusing to participate in parliaments in such a situation would be quite moronic.

But nowadays most Western communist parties are pathetic succdems or unelectable newspaper cults, and most people have been taught to think that communism is when gorillions starve to death because of equal wages. There exists NO movement currently for which Lenin's advice would be pertinent right now. If you have no power, you don't get a choice of how to use it. When le ☭TANKIE☭s rail against electoralism, they mean there's no point in trying to "entryise" shitty succdem parties. First we need to organize a REAL communist party, and only THEN we can debate reformism vs. revolutionism. If the Bolshevik Party didn't exist and Lenin's only choice was to vote Cadet to reduce daily peasant beatings by 1,5%, he sure as hell wouldn't be agitating for that.

How do you organize a party and gain the support of a large part of the working class without having a political strategy?

Yes. I believe the working class can only be radicalized into open revolt through political experience. You can't just scream 'Rosa Luxemburg' or 'Allende' at people and expect them to accept your dialectical wisdom about the futility of Reform. People, the masses organizing for their class interests, have to experience firsthand the truly undemocratic nature of the state to become Revolutionary.

This is why i also think Cockshotts idea of holding a Referendum on abolishing Exploitation is good.