Get access to bonus episodes on Patreon at patreon.com/OneDimeIn this episode of the 1Dime Radio podcast, I am joined by Donald Parkinson, co-host of the Cos...

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In this episode of the 1Dime Radio podcast, I am joined by Donald Parkinson, co-host of the Cosmopod podcast and , editor and chief of Cosmonaut Magazine, a non-sectarian Marxist magazine that analyzes revolutionary strategy and encourages open-minded dialogue between communist factions.

Being in the center between ultraleftism and rightist communism, Donald does not fit into the categories of the classic leftist factions and their associated tropes. Avoiding dogmatism while still being an unapologetic revolutionary Marxist, Donald offers a good-faith critique of Marxism Leninism today that MLs and all leftists could learn from.

This podcast serves as a friendly critique of Marxism-Leninism today and the ideology of "anti-revisionism." In particular, we critique ways in which Marxist Leninists and Maoists approach history and questions surrounding the Soviet Union, China, and "Actually Existing Socialism." We critique Marxist-Leninist historiography by critiquing Grover Furr, a writer who is frequently cited by MLs as to why Stalin "did nothing wrong" or that all of the atrocities in the USSR did not happen or were inevitable.

While it is easily to dismiss the rising popularity of Stalinism as just a bunch of online "Tankies" (A term which has been bastardized by liberals), we believe it is important to take Stalinist trends on the left seriously and study history in a way that does not regress into binary thinking.

  • Heaven_and_Earth [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Which critiques do you think are shallow? Also, I don't think they are saying they follow a "pure" Marxism, they seemed pretty non-dogmatic to me at least.

    • Venusta [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      They basically espouse Andrew Yang level let's not move right or left let's move forward, but for "communism" . It's almost comical to go out and claim revisionism is bad, but anti revisionism is also bad, and for that matter anarchism is bad, trotskyism is bad, ML is bad, maoism is bad, left comm is bad, when you say every tendency is bad, there is clearly no room for thought other than your enlightened centrism within Marxism that is pure and untainted by identifying with a coherent set of beliefs. I think most of it just boils down to people don't like the USSR they remember gulags first so we shouldn't talk about it and then goes and lists how every ML head of state was bad and totalitarian and it's dumb to bother with any of them bc ppl don't like them.

      • Heaven_and_Earth [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I don't agree with your assessment. They give clear arguments for all the positions they take. And they aren't trying to trick people into incoherent beliefs through criticism.

        It’s almost comical to go out and claim revisionism is bad, but anti revisionism is also bad, and for that matter anarchism is bad, trotskyism is bad, ML is bad, maoism is bad, left comm is bad, when you say every tendency is bad, there is clearly no room for thought other than your enlightened centrism within Marxism that is pure and untainted by identifying with a coherent set of beliefs.

        This assumes that these current tendencies represent the eternal horizon of Marxist thought. Why is it not possible that all these tendencies are wrong? It seems like you have more of an issue with them criticizing all those tendencies than their actual arguments.

        I think most of it just boils down to people don’t like the USSR they remember gulags first so we shouldn’t talk about it and then goes and lists how every ML head of state was bad and totalitarian and it’s dumb to bother with any of them bc ppl don’t like them.

        This is just wrong. They don't make any appeal to popularity arguments and Parkinson says that communists should accept that the USSR is part of its history. He also says that communists should talk about and critique the USSR, so we can learn lessons for today.

        • Venusta [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Agree to disagree, but listened to a 2nd podcast of 1dime and some of that may have spilled over :vivian-shrug: