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.
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