They claim to have recovered from ML brain rot themselves, and they’re here to save me from the only socialist tradition yet to bear fruit.
Lemmy.ml won’t allow me to write a new reply to the thread, so here you go:
Ok, then I commiserate with you for taking time for trying to understand the texts and not getting the point. The one major contribution of Marx to social sciences that has been consistently proven correct is that, given a social structure that generates social classes with unequality of power, the dominant class will have a strong tendency to stack the cards in their favor and promote their own interests. The leninist state creates a social structure that divides between workers and bureaucrats (or party intelligentsia), as the bureaucrats control the means of production, the law, the military and the police, which means that the bureaucrats have a vested interest in strengthening the state and class divisions, instituting privileges for themselves, keeping the workers in check, and absolutely not to let the state “wither away”. Look at the states that constituted themselves following the leninist model and you’ll find that they have, consistently, through the decades, doubled down on authoritarism, repressed worker unions, and more often than not, brought back capitalism (and privatizing the assets of the state for their own gain), most especially after the initial generation of revolutionaries died or lost enough influence. Marx and Engels envisioned the dictatorship of the proletariat as a short transitional period where workers would have authority over previously existing social classes, not the abomination that turned out to be North Korea.
And now, let your brain work on trying to justify the unspeakable crimes of these states against their own workers, and deny the undeniable evidence that those states are not withering away, because you’re suffering the rot of falling enamoured with red fascism, and you have to find the circle quadrature to satisfy your own cognitive dissonance’s demands, and because you don’t yet really understand that you can be radically communist and still acknowledge that leninism is a dead route for worker emancipation. I know because I suffered that brain rot, too, so here’s the good news: if you’re lucky, you’ll get freed from it some day, and then you’ll thank me, but I won’t be there to see it. I won’t be responding to any further messages.
"circle quadrature" is the most stuffy, full-of-yourself way to say "square the circle" you could possible think of, and I'm a mathematician
Alternatively he might be Polish, a literal translation of “circle quadrature” ("kwadratura koła") is somewhat popular idiom here outside mathematics.
To be fair, it did come prompted:
How do you square the circle of China being an “oppressive regime” and raising 800 million people out of poverty?
He made no attempt to square it.
Here to offer my logic and analysis skills to the betterment of the people and the party
Ask them to make a hexbear account and post their thesis on the hexbear Marxism comm
At first it looked like it would be at least something new, like ultra taking a shit on Marx (though he also do that indirectly), but then it was just the old boring point about ultras not knowing what class is and being just anarchists but even shittier and less paying attention to reality.
I won’t be responding to any further messages.
Classic last word smuglord. But hey at least not the 100 messages
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Smuglord from the get-go in the post thread:
There’s nothing sadder than a self-proclaimed Marxist who is unable to understand how to apply Marxist thought to the leninist state.
I don’t think anyone knows what your smug vageposting is supposed to mean but you.
You would understand if, on top of reading theory, you took the time to understand it.
More vagueposting. You assume a lot. Are you a mind reader? No, you’re a shit-talking dumbass on the internet.
Verbose? ✅
Claims to be the One True Theory Understander? ✅
Waffles on but ultimately says nothing of substance? ✅
Believes every western claim about AES completely uncritically? ✅
Claims to be the expert Marx Interpreter (While also clearly not understanding Marx) ✅
Says the sort of stuff Lenin was calling out as useless and naive a century ago? ✅
Functionally just a liberal? ✅ ✅ ✅ (My smug detector is going off the charts!)
Smugly tells you that you need to work to improve your understanding of Marxist theory while offering no assistance in that regard? ✅
Calls you red fash? ✅
Name drops some obscure Marxist thinker whose work is so vague it can sort of be interpreted to support their position? ❌
Says that someday you will come to understand the One True Form of Marxism and join them, but doesn't even put in the bare minimum effort to help educate you. ✅
My verdict: Baby leftist who tried to read theory, found it too hard and so found an "easier" form of Marxism to think about, one that just so happens to require 0 effort on their part to learn or improve. 4/10
Ultras are no different from liberals in my opinion. Both favor idealism over materialism. The whole point of scientific socialism is to focus on measurable material improvements that can be realistically achieved. Marxism is not an Utopian ideology. People who reject real progress that existing socialist states make are rejecting the only path towards communism that we've found to actually work in practice.
Had a person come at me with a similar assertion. Vanguard party bad because bureaucracy. My response was; Well it worked.
Exactly, once these people can show us a better alternative that actually gets anything accomplished, we'll be glad to talk about it.
Don't you know (from lemmy memes comm which desperately needs to have better moderation team):
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I love how anarchists inevitably pull this trope out as if its some kind of an own. It's like our ideology would've worked so great if only we lived in a perfect world where there was no conflict. These projects are short lived because ultimately they're not able to defend themselves, and anarchist refuse to acknowledge this lesson, so they just complain how unfair life is.
That's so beautifully said. I'll use this comment as my model when debating ultras on tiktok.
I swear to god Ultras are the most annoying tendency and I include anarchists in that number but at least we actually fuckin do shit.
And now, let your brain work on trying to justify the unspeakable crimes of these states against their own workers
I just want the farmers of my country to not have to drink pesticide to take their own lives for whatever reasons.
So much talk about "understanding Marx" and yet they somehow miss the entire concept of Material Conditions.
Marx sure as hell didn't think we'd see full communism spring out of an agrarian Russia in a couple of decades.
Marx and Engels envisioned the dictatorship of the proletariat as a short transitional period where workers would have authority over previously existing social classes, not the abomination that turned out to be North Korea.
This bit really sums up the two main issues with ultras:
- There is no thought put into the question of how to operate a state, much less how to do so when a bunch of capitalist states want to kill you.
- There is no attempt to disentangle principled leftist criticism of AES states from "100 million dead" propaganda.
OK, Im going to ask the stupid question: can someone explain what an "ultra" is?
Broadly speaking it's a pejorative that can mean any communist left of the speaker. Typically only used on people who are overly idealistic, or engage in sectarianism.
"Ultra" is usually someone that takes marxism as a rigid dogma instead of an adaptable science.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism
They call us by a variety of names, including tankies, Dengists, and redfashes. The last one is especially annoying given that actual crypto-fascists do exist.
I expected "crypto-fascists" to be a link to a post by Anarcho-Bolshevik
An ultra is an ultra-leftist: someone who calls themself a leftist but supports essentially no existing leftist projects, especially not AES states, because in an ultra's eyes they have all deviated rightward to an unacceptable degree.
So generally utopian, idealistic, and/or dogmatic, views on Socialism/Marxism?
