How exactly should reactionaries who don't necessarily participate directly in oppression but reproduce its ideology be reformed?
For example, I had a lot of Jewish friends in high school whose families were very extreme Zionists. They weren't settlers nor did most of them even live in Israel/occupied Palestine yet they still held to a pretty vile ideology. But, aside from that they were very nice people. Calling them my "enemies" and demanding that they be punished seems kind of upsetting to me (and yes, I'm fully aware this is an appeal to emotion on my part, but calling it that doesn't make this concern of mine go away).
I also grew up around a lot of black and Latino people who had pretty horrid views on women and LGBTQ. It's not uncommon for men of color to talk a lot of shit about how much they hate women, or throw around homophobic slurs, for instance. But are these people truly our "enemies" or are they - like the Zios - just misinformed?
Don't even get me started on the "white working class" and how fucked up their social views are, especially in regards to race.
At what point do we give someone with a reactionary mindset a second chance to reform themselves vs. just giving them gulag or the bullet? Even Huey P. Newton said he'd prefer a racist white prole to a black bourgeois on the basis that the racist white prole was able to be reformed, whereas the black bourgeois would always be an exploiter.
this is literally what reeducation is for. also, did you really investigate all these zionist friends of yours to be sure they were innocent? where do you think they went in the future– you're sure they didn't join the military, the police, weapons research, etc? how about their parents? and what about when the revolution comes? right now everyone's all talk. but the reactionaries will start to replace their words with action. finally, Combat liberalism marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm
I can't say since it was years ago. Either way, to what extent is it my responsibility to railroad their lives, especially since I have no resources to do so?
Brody Watson
I should mention, they were middle class American Jews who really didn't have many resources themselves. It's not like their parents were porky AIPAC members or whatever. I'd equate their Zionism very much to how the white working class is unconditionally patriotic. I don't see much of a difference there TBH.
Austin Perry
i don't know any jews or even talked to zionists online but i know this guy from a youtube channel which is basically a vlog, he sometimes talks about his israeli dad and how hard the situation in Palestine is, however he never really denounces it, he seems like you could have a nice conversation with him and with research convince him to denounce, so my solution is to debate with them or some shit idk.
also come on man, don't start with this bullshit, you don't believe they exist?
Adam Bennett
The problem is, you can't really debate someone out of their prejudices. Ideology is reproduced the most intensely within the family/household, which is one reason why you see so many smug reactionary students claiming they're at war with their "Marxist" professors (most of whom are just liberals but for a right-wing nutjob anyone to the left of Reagan is a "Marxist"). You can't undo social conditioning with a simple debate.
Levi Watson
Reform through Labor program for those we know we can comfortably save without massive efforts. They will build infrastructure in Alaska and become new, better men. Or a wall. Those are our realistic options.
Ryder Reed
What's the standard for deciding who is/isn't "saveable"?
Easton Howard
Every human has been the worst person to ever live at some point. If given absolute control of a powerful nation, the policies I would've implemented back when I was infested with anticommunist ideology would have made me one of the most maligned men in history. The difference between a Hitler and a petty asshole is just power.
So let's not get all up-in-arms moralizing over this crap. We were all anticommunists at one point. The world is not a struggle between good and evil, but a struggle between opposing self-interested groups.
Gavin Price
Good insight.
Ethan Allen
Wrong. Capitalists are literally evil and if you disagree you're one of their sympathizers and are going to hell.
Tyler Butler
you ask this like it's a mystery. if they don't learn to stfu or reform, they get repressed. if they take up arms or sabotage against the dotp, they die. there is a century-long history of how socialist states will deal with the reactionaries. it's not a mystery.
Daniel Morales
Go figure.
Luis Scott
Truth.
The Bolsheviks were working with a Russian proletariat/peasantry that was extremely patriarchal, antisemitic, superstitious, and loyal to the royals. No one arrives at the barricades as a morally perfect subject.
Wyatt Harris
Are you sure about that? i remember reading nazi germany attemps to incite the same antisemitism from Germany in Russia failed basically because the people in Russia couldn't give less of a shit, i don't know if it was because they came from poor peasant background but they simply recognized the problem in Germany was from the entire german people, in other words their own ignorance (of race superiority bullshit) saved them from nationalism and racism.
John Watson
Russia was far more antisemitic than Germany in the early 20th century. It's why that Goldhagen guy was full of shit.
Noah Hill
i was probably thinking of another time in Russia's history then, i found this on /marx/ and thought it applied to something else:
"Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda drew a weak response in the former Soviet Byelorussia: we encounter complaints in Nazi documents that, 'it is extremely hard to incite the local populace to pogroms because of the backwardness of the Byelorussian peasants with regard to racial consciousness.' Another view of the cause of the racial attitudes in Byelorussia was given in a secret memorandum by a collaborator to the chief of the German army in August 1942. He wrote: 'There is no Jewish problem for the Byelorussian people. For them, this is purely a German matter. This derives from Soviet education which has negated racial difference . . . The Byelorussians sympathize with, and have compassion for the Jews, and regard the Germans as barbarians and the hangman of the Jew, whom they consider human beings equal to themselves . . .'"
(Allen, V.L. The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism. Shipley: The Moor Press. 1987. pp. 144-145.)
Wait, i found it, there was some anti-semitism among russian workers:
The problem is that not every worker has the same degree of political consciousness. I recently read an article on anti-Semitism in Russia during 1917 and it points out how there were various instances of workers and soldiers identifying with the Bolsheviks while also denouncing Jews. Kerensky, a gentile, saw the following slogan on a wall as he was fleeing from Petrograd: "Down with the Jew Kerensky, Long Live Trotsky!"
From another source, on the Civil War, "There was some killing and more robbing of Jews by undisciplined units of the Ukrainian Red Army. But the Soviet authorities prescribed the death penalty for pogroms and strictly forbade the circulation of anti-Semitic literature; and the Jews were safer from murder and outrage under the Red regime than under any other." (W.H. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution: 1917-1921 Vol. II, p. 228.)
Parker James
It was a different kind of antisemitism imagine nigger or gypsy hatred or the hate directed at flyover country
James Jenkins
That's not true.
Liam Cruz
Huh that's interesting. Also I imagine a lot of ire directed at the ultra-Orthodox community which to this day is notoriously pigheaded and insular.
Jayden Powell
holy smokes cringe
you are all cringe
Colton Flores
Wtf who let the redditors out of their cage?
Ayden Morales
I don't see how setting a different standard between Zionist Jews and racist white working class Americans is at all useful. There are plenty of white burgers who think immigration needs to be restricted to whites only, or that whites shouldn't live around people of color. Unless you want to mythologize "Zionism" as some horrible, unspeakable evil worse than any other ideology out there, your assertion doesn't get us very far.
Not to mention, being a "Zionist" doesn't mean anything unless you're willing to do something to enforce your beliefs. It's the difference between being attracted to women vs. raping a woman.
Josiah Harris
...
Nolan Wood
I love how 90% of the time, "COMBAT LIBERALISM" is used in a way Mao never meant.
It's just what I've encountered the most. I was a Maoist from 2012-2016 so I know the drill very well.
Joshua Smith
well I'm not a self-proclaimed Maoist, I just think Mao was a great guy and his essay Combat Liberalism is relevant ITT. And yes, I definitely fail to meet the standards he outlines in it. mainly because I would have to fruitlessly argue constantly with everyone around me if I followed it to a T in my current situation. however, it is still a good code and relevant to OP's question.
Aiden Brown
I don't believe Mao was very materialist TBH.
Jonathan Peterson
You can railroad booj life with nothing more than a sharp stick, user.
But to what extent is it my responsibility to keep tabs on these people?
Have YOU ever done such a thing? Do you know what it actually entails? I have my own life, I can't be monitoring the lives of people whom I haven't spoken to it almost ten years.
Robert Walker
Nobody is saying you should 'keep tabs'. Just the occasional sabotage.
Jeremiah Cruz
In what context is sabotage useful or even necessary? "You have the wrong beliefs so I'm going to attack you" is a very shaky premise.
Daniel Howard
reactionaries like fingers in their ass
Angel Adams
Is it though?
David Butler
Depends. If it’s some random burger who said “God Bless America.” It really isn’t an issue. If it’s someone arguing racial realism than there’s the problem.
Benjamin Hughes
Former reactionary here. As in I fell in line with the alt-right train of thought for a while, considered myself at least something of a white nationalist, and honestly wanted Communists to be persecuted.
So from my perspective it's entirely possible to reform people who believe in fairly repressive things, though people talking about "reeducation" conjures up some rather disturbing images of prison camps. We have a surplus of psychologists these day, given most extreme reactionaries have underlying psychological issues it'd be best to just put them on a kind of one on one probation and have them discuss their issues with others. I know I only changed because of the patient efforts of a few leftists who were nice to me.
This happens often, like how you can't enter a conversation about circumcision screaming about how it is horrible and how ruined cut guys are, instead you show them studies and then let them reach their own conclusions, no sass needed.
Jaxon Myers
Ehh, yes and no.
I think the left puts far too much faith in reason and the like, while the right implicitly understands the power of emotional appeals. I'd spent a lot of time arguing with leftists. A few years in fact. As I did, I became more and more heavily right wing in response, until I reached a climax where I was further to the right then I'd ever been and yet also, simultaneously, more aware of leftist arguments than ever before. I could accept for a while that they were fundamentally right, but still opposed them and considered myself an anti-communist because I "hated leftists".
I somehow made some friends on the left in spite of that, because they were nice to me and friendly even while I was calling for state sanctioned attacks on leftists. Eventually I came to realize that I was engaging in the mentality of a death cult and pulled myself away from it.
