Legit Lenin said to use guaranteed-to-fail-in-bourgeois-democratic-chambers communist positions to demonstrate what is possible only through revolution and point fingers at those standing in our way, albeit as part of stating that you first need a mass of class conscious workers - such as those disappointed by anticapitalist reformism (itself promising and failing to deliver such things by necessity).
Is there a good Lenin compilation? I read the one thing he has about the State (I have brain damage from sleep deprivation so I don't even remember if it was State and Rev) but I'm always amazed at how clever and insightful the snippets I see are
Hmm. I think his main writings are so straightforward and of reasonable length that I'd recommend those instead. State and Rev, What Is To Be Done, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, and of course this essay, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
He was indeed highly insightful, particularly as someone who led an organized revolution. I think some of the best theory building one can do is to use these experiences and insights as a template that you then criticize and update based on salient differences between modern + local conditions and those of Tsarist Russia, Humiliated China, and Colonial Cuba.
Yeah Rosa said something similar, essentially use elections to lose while standing on a soapbox and agitating. The moment you concern yourself with if you win or get a loss or gain, you've failed
https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1898/09/30.htm
And only under these conditions do we fight in the sole permissible way for what is at any time ‘possible’. Now if one says that we should offer an exchange – our consent to militaristic and tariff legislation in return for political concessions or social reforms – then one is sacrificing the basic principles of the class struggle for momentary advantage, and one’s actions are based on opportunism. Opportunism, incidentally, is a political game which can be lost in two ways: not only basic principles but also practical success may be forfeited. The assumption that one can achieve the greatest number of successes by making concessions rests on a complete error. Here, as in all great matters, the most cunning persons are not the most intelligent. Bismarck once told a bourgeois opposition party: ‘You will deprive yourselves of any practical influences if you always and as a matter of course say no.’ The old boy was then, as so often, more intelligent than is Pappenheimer.[A] Indeed, a bourgeois party, that is, a party which says yes to the existing order as a whole, but which will say no to the day-to-day consequences of this order, is a hybrid, an artificial creation, which is neither fish nor flash nor fowl. We who oppose the entire present order see things quite differently. In our no, in our intransigent attitude, lies our whole strength. It is this attitude that earns us the fear and respect of the enemy and the trust and support of the people.
Precisely because we do not yield one inch from our position, we force the government and the bourgeois parties to concede to us the few immediate successes that can be gained. But if we begin to chase after what is ‘possible’ according to the principles of opportunism, unconcerned with our own principles, and by means of statesmanlike barter, then we will soon find ourselves in the same situation as the hunter who has not only failed to stay the deer but has also lost his gun in the process.
We do not shudder at the foreign terms, opportunism and the art of the possible, as Heine believes; we shudder only when they are ‘Germanized’ into our party practice. Let them remain foreign words for us. And, if occasion arises, let our comrades shun the role of interpreter.
The Communist stance on shit like this is pretty fucking clear.
Legit Lenin said to use guaranteed-to-fail-in-bourgeois-democratic-chambers communist positions to demonstrate what is possible only through revolution and point fingers at those standing in our way, albeit as part of stating that you first need a mass of class conscious workers - such as those disappointed by anticapitalist reformism (itself promising and failing to deliver such things by necessity).
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch09.htm
But most importantly look at these widdle cheeks. :lenin-laugh:
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Is there a good Lenin compilation? I read the one thing he has about the State (I have brain damage from sleep deprivation so I don't even remember if it was State and Rev) but I'm always amazed at how clever and insightful the snippets I see are
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Man Lenin hated Kautsky it was weird reading a classic Marxist trash talking someone and having actually heard of them
Hmm. I think his main writings are so straightforward and of reasonable length that I'd recommend those instead. State and Rev, What Is To Be Done, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, and of course this essay, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
He was indeed highly insightful, particularly as someone who led an organized revolution. I think some of the best theory building one can do is to use these experiences and insights as a template that you then criticize and update based on salient differences between modern + local conditions and those of Tsarist Russia, Humiliated China, and Colonial Cuba.
Yeah Rosa said something similar, essentially use elections to lose while standing on a soapbox and agitating. The moment you concern yourself with if you win or get a loss or gain, you've failed https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1898/09/30.htm
We do not shudder at the foreign terms, opportunism and the art of the possible, as Heine believes; we shudder only when they are ‘Germanized’ into our party practice. Let them remain foreign words for us. And, if occasion arises, let our comrades shun the role of interpreter.
The Communist stance on shit like this is pretty fucking clear.
Interesting, thanks for the link.
-7DeadlyFetishes