"This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence of a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported -- what the rich countries said, rather than what they did.
That group was annihilated." - Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method
**EDIT:
On a personal note, the big breakthrough for me when it came to some of this shit was learning about Colonia Dignidad in Chile.
CW Sexual Violence, disgusting
Something about learning that the capitalists would literally rather have people like me anally raped by dogs than grant basic social-democratic reforms, really outlined the stakes for me.
This quote pairs really well with a certain Red Sails article, the one about most of the left - or “the left” - only backing losers (in the literal sense)
I think this outlines a crucial issue in leftism is that given it's desire for human dignity, empathy, and designing a far more equitable world it forgets that the forces of capital are anathema to that and by their existence will do any and all deeds no matter how vile to continually perpetuate themselves as the dominant societal force. The bourgeois do not have souls nor empathy and will employ individuals that if not enjoy the suffering they commit will at minimum wordlessly conduct a genocide for scraps handed to them by western capital. This means that, when facing capital and those it employs one must not think of them the same way a leftist would view debating a individual human being, another leftist, or individuals bringing up logical systemic critics. This is not debate club nor a local town committee, it is the face of capital and it has come to murder everything you love.
The hardliners had their states implode (SU eastern europe), gradually opened up to capitalism (China, Vietnam, Cuba) or are stagnante with usually very low living standards (North Korea also Cuba).
The whole 20th century is the history of the failure of social democracy as well as Leninism.
Many L's have been taken, and compromises made, but at least socialism still has a foothold in those places. It will take a few more decades to see how that will translate to a global effect. It does seems that as imperialist structures are slowly chipped away at and weakend, there may be a bit of room for democratic socialist movements (Bolivia?), but it surely will take more than just that to usher in a global socialist economy of any kind.
"This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence of a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported -- what the rich countries said, rather than what they did.
That group was annihilated." - Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method
**EDIT:
On a personal note, the big breakthrough for me when it came to some of this shit was learning about Colonia Dignidad in Chile.
CW Sexual Violence, disgusting
Something about learning that the capitalists would literally rather have people like me anally raped by dogs than grant basic social-democratic reforms, really outlined the stakes for me.
This quote pairs really well with a certain Red Sails article, the one about most of the left - or “the left” - only backing losers (in the literal sense)
I think this outlines a crucial issue in leftism is that given it's desire for human dignity, empathy, and designing a far more equitable world it forgets that the forces of capital are anathema to that and by their existence will do any and all deeds no matter how vile to continually perpetuate themselves as the dominant societal force. The bourgeois do not have souls nor empathy and will employ individuals that if not enjoy the suffering they commit will at minimum wordlessly conduct a genocide for scraps handed to them by western capital. This means that, when facing capital and those it employs one must not think of them the same way a leftist would view debating a individual human being, another leftist, or individuals bringing up logical systemic critics. This is not debate club nor a local town committee, it is the face of capital and it has come to murder everything you love.
The hardliners had their states implode (SU eastern europe), gradually opened up to capitalism (China, Vietnam, Cuba) or are stagnante with usually very low living standards (North Korea also Cuba). The whole 20th century is the history of the failure of social democracy as well as Leninism.
Many L's have been taken, and compromises made, but at least socialism still has a foothold in those places. It will take a few more decades to see how that will translate to a global effect. It does seems that as imperialist structures are slowly chipped away at and weakend, there may be a bit of room for democratic socialist movements (Bolivia?), but it surely will take more than just that to usher in a global socialist economy of any kind.
Leninism has had more success than any other form of socialism by orders of magnitude. This is just ultra cope