Im starting to become more revolutionary and almost don't really care about reforms that much. Most parties I see that are "revolutionary" suck, they are mostly protest groups that have a couple of niche issues they protest, idpol obsessed, or old trots. Democrat Cops of America is basically an arm of the democratic party and hence the state. I want a pure marxist class party that doesn't cuck to the state or reformist. Where do I go? (america)
Reform or Revolution?
Marxists utilize all methods of struggle, you are lapsing into ultra-leftist error.
Just listen to the advice straight out of Marx's pen.
Why are you larping as a 1850 socialist? Move on, political and material conditions have changed. You're not going to have an insurrection.
DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION NOW!
The irony of this post combined with that Marx quote you posted
This. Reform vs revolution has devolved into one of the most bizarre false dichotomies since authoritarian vs libertarian. It's hard to overstate how useless weenies like OP and this weenie are to the cause. All you need to do is deviate from their perfect strategy even a little and they'll start squealing about you're not a real communist or w/e. Just isolate them before they can do any harm and ignore this thread.
surprised I got the responses like the ones above, I thought leftypol was more anti establishment than that. Anyways someone in another forum told me about the Marxist center, will be checking that out.
lol yeah because if you take american institutions, customs and traditions into account you definitely think "maybe a communist revolution?"
Easy now, kitten.
Kill all liberals and dissidents then revolt harder. It's the only way forward.
The American institutions are still viewed as legitimate by a vast majority of people, that is the reason why they should be utilized by communists in gain politic power. But, like I said earlier in this thread, Marxists utilize all methods of struggle. What methods will be used depends on a detailed examination of the conditions in America. Marxism learns as well from mass-practice. In the current stage the democratic institutions are a place that should be worked towards, but to exclusively limit ourselves to operating within the bourgeois state is right-opportunist. You are proposing that revolution should be jettisoned wholesale for reformism and playing the role of the "loyal opposition" to the bourgeoisie and American oligarchy.
Why are you surprised that this board is against ultra-left childishness? Zig Forums is a Marxist-Leninist board
Ok so you are saying I should work for revolution and get reforms as a by product, and not work as a reformist and kill the revolution as by product
use A to facilitate B.
Revolution can only happen under certain conditions, which come and go based on forces outside our control. Under non-revolutionary conditions agitating for violent revolution is bound to fail. Instead the best coarse of action is to maintain a principled anti-capitalist critique and position, improve your organizational and theoretical skills, and perhaps most importantly establishing yourself as a true ally of the working class. This means fighting and winning battles which improve the lives of workers in an immediate sense, so that when conditions change and revolution becomes possible, communists are known as effective fighters for the workers, not some fringe clique of literally whos.
OP mentioned the D.S.A. so to piggyback off his question, has reformism using bourgeois/socdem parties ever worked? This is surely distinct from having a M-L party which employs electoralism as one of many tools.
No, it has never worked to my knowledge. Look at Allende for one good example. They don’t understand or either ignore the class-character of the state and need to read The State and Revolution
It's been long established by Marx, Engels, Lenin and countless other successful revolutionaries that both methods are required. Reform, or rather demands for political and economic rights for workers to strengthen them, and revolution as the threat to gain them. One day it all comes to a head when the bourg refuse to further march to the beat of the proletariat's drum.
People here need to know that Lenin only used parliaments tactically as a concession to the rest of his party, and never advocated for them as a method of struggle. He used them to make a case from an offical position and analyzed them in a materialist way - their objective effects over social conditions. This meant constantly insulting the elected wing of the RSDLP, who were mostly Mensheviks inspired by the *newly* created State Duma. They knew it functioned as a concession strategy with no real power, and if it did, it would work to serve capital and only ploy workers into trusting it. Guess what Marx's wonderful American Democracy of 1850 (a degenerate white supremacist state that lowered property restrictions for white workers, but increased it for blacks) turned into?
This is objectively not true, and American voting participation is low, even among people who are registered. Call this either people who really don't give a shit because their lives are fine, or because they genuinely don't think they do anything. Elections for the party are also expensive as shit, making the Democratic and Republican parties effectively run as businesses with capital inputs, where the tactful capital inputs and marketing strategies win, which revolutionary organizations have access to in the hundreds or thousands of dollars at most, and political parties have at the hundreds of millions each year. Any revolutionary party is immediately investigated by the FBI, which is known to carry out literal assassinations of revolutionary leaders such as Fred Hampton, special in the BPP because he was one of the people *NOT* to advocate for flashy armed paramilitary squads going around.. The Left (I use it with a capitalization, because it can be completely divorced from the exemplary communist tradition, as an ideology of completely platitudinous bullshit) is not prepared to deal with these things. There are Leftists who think that the vague and drab way of explaining Marxist theory is to defang it of subversion so it's "easier to understand" or "easier to access" like it's some sort of children's book, so far as to get rid of using "capitalist" or prefacing "capitalism" with crony. The newest iteration of this is using "neoliberalism" for modern capitalism. For many youngsters, even including myself 2 years ago (I am actually working class and only have a high school education), this was fucking boring. Use "the rich" in propaganda, sure, just don't become a Chris Hedges. Revolution is the ultimate form of subversion and authority. The Left commands none of it, partially because of its ahistorical insistence that participation in bourgeois elections are a Marxist thing, despite every Marxist party that systematically tried this slowly turning into the "pro-war bonds, kill communists, take marxism out of your manifesto, let's introduce austerity" party. Social-Democracy was never just "capitalism with a human face" you guys. It was literally the party name of the Bolsheviks and the German/French Communist resistance in WW2 before after split in 1914. It was systematically turned into that. This is why there is a necessity to rejecting DELUSIONS plaguing the American communist, the same ones that led to their suicide by New Deal in 1932, and the eventual purging of their temporary allies (FDR Democrats like Wallace) in the Second Red Scare. Who weeped? No one, because a bunch of white proles just got a consumerist lifestyle of a Godlike dream, while the poorer (mostly Black people effected by jim crow) got to continue to live as paupers. Then the dissolution of trade union power in the 80s and 90s, you know the rest. Not only independent action, but independent *creation of proletarian institutions* is necessary. We are not at the vanguard stage of instilling a revolutionary attitude from without. It's delusional to think otherwise and dilute this with electoralism.
"But you don't want free healthcare? Wouldn't supporting it give us popularity?"
I want a healthcare system that I have a say in. I don't want it to be defunded by some mandatory elected hack from a hack two-party system. Just look at how many Democrats and Republicans oppose it. Just look at pensions and social security in the U.S. *Some* of you are only differentiated from Democrat Cops of America strategy by your lip service.
Effortpost done.
By the way OP, just join your local ANTIFA group and see if there's any Marxists there. Most of them already have experience challenging class enemies on a local level. They're not a party but it'll be a good learning experience. Be safe, always.
It's time to pick up a gun and start revolutionizing. Stop being a brain and start being a soldier. And if the enemy captures and plans to execute you don't cry like a bitch and beg for your life like that pansy Che. He made us all look bad.
Reform isn't possible and I don't understand how any one could even begin to think it is. The capitalists are not just going to relinquish their position.
This was written in the early times of democracy before the bourgeoisie got their hands on the state apparatus. Reform is essentially impossible in modern day USA
A peaceful reform into a better society is always better, but a revolution is a more realistic way to change things