The left's main vulnerability is splitting and infighting. We are terrible at it. This is known.
To build revolutionary change, a revolutionary party is needed. It must do its work and carry on its work. In the military, they taught me that the number one priority is preserving your ability to fight. It's ok if you have setbacks, lose equipment or men or tactical position or advantage; but it's a catastrophe if you lose the capacity to fight.
Leftist infighting is what robs the movement of its ability to fight on. It kills the movements. (The Buddhists know this, and consider 'creating a schism in the sangha' the supreme sin. That's a tangent, but the Buddhists have maintained an ideological movement for 26 centuries so they're doing something right.)
We need to mock people who shame other leftists for impurity, who insult them for making mistakes. Liu Shaoqi said: "The attitude of some Party members towards these shortcomings and mistakes and towards those comrades who have incorrect ideas is one of “bitter hatred and gall”. They lightly sever all relations with comrades who have committed some mistake and whom they attempt to expel from the Party outright."
It is ok for comrades to make mistakes in action, and to have mistaken beliefs. That's the completely normal, inevitable part of having a movement. In fact, that's all a movement is: listening to people's beliefs, listening to their wrong beliefs, correcting them, unifying the thought of the party, unity makes strength. It is not ok to have incorrect ideas of “bitter hatred and gall”, and lightly sever all relations with comrades who have committed some mistake.
MAO MADE 30% MISTAKES, INCLUDING CAUSING THE BIGGEST FAMINE IN HUMAN HISTORY!!! If you can forgive that, you can forgive someone who made an off-colour tweet when they were a teenager.
People who try to cancel comrades for stuff they did/said in the distant past, or for non-core differences of opinion, are dong the imperialists work for them: dismantling the socialist movement.
PS: the aim is always to have a cohesive, united, strong movement with the correct views. Anything that serves the aim is good. Anything that wrecks the aim is bad.
A key motivator to splits is the desire for power, the need to be The One Person Calling All The Shots. People crave power, amd when there is a ladder of command, they wish to climb it.
Any organization that distributes its roles of power, and eliminates the concept of overall stratification, is going to make itself less prone to splits.
Having multiple ladders of power to climb, separate domains of expertise that are not ranked against each other, such as theory and analysis, recruitment, propaganda, facilitation and mediation, will allow people to fulfil their human nature* by pursuing distinction, while not stretching anyone too thin, nor putting all the party's eggs in one basket, nor limiting how many people can wield a personal influence on the group as a whole.
*Yes I said those words. Pursuing distinction and social value, broadly, is one of the few things that can truly be said to be universal human nature rather than frequent human tendency.The PRC did embrace Lysenkoism after the USSR had abandoned it, possibly out of fervor or possibly out of contrarianism, and along with other factors this was one of the causes of the famines in the 60s. By that time the PRC was by far the most populous country in history, and a few % dying puts it in the highest of absolute numbers.
I still think it's bad that wrecker-jacketing is now no longer allowed. There's so many obvious wreckers that just get away with shit because people don't think about it anymore.
Can't even post
anymore. Because of woke >:(I love how leftists will agree on 99% of things, but become sworn enemies with other leftists over AI or the ideal brand of masks or outdoor cats or some shit. I love purity testing and infighting so much, and COINTELPRO has been great.
Knew a guy who wouldn't volunteer at a soup kitchen because it was run by trots and he was an anarchist. Such a weird hangup. Like, okay dude they think society should be structured this way after the revolution and you think it should be that way? Okay, what does that have to do with making soup for the houseless?
This comrade gets it.
It's about the economic base. If you believe in worker-control, you are a comrade.
I do not care if someone is "good" or even a socialist. I care if their actions will contribute to our aid socialism. I don't care if Norman Finkelstein is transphobic. I don't care what George Galloway said about this, that, or the other thing. I don't care what any historical figure said about gay people. If they work to contribute to socialism, they are a comrade.
I don't care if Norman Finkelstein is transphobic.
😳
would you care if he were racist or misogynistic? where is the line?
Norman's use is his academic work and knowledge about the history of Palestine. Once his other beliefs start to become more known or overshadow his usefulness, that becomes a problem. However, as it stands, his most know and most widely published content is on Palestine and is helpful. For someone who serves as a knowledge base on Palestine, the line where he becomes counterproductive would be Zionism.
I love how leftists will agree on 99% of things but become sworn enemies with other leftists over AI or masks or outdoor cats or some shit.
I don't care if Norman Finkelstein is transphobic.
What the fuck are you talking about, your other comment is about outdoor cats, now you talk about transphobia as if both are remotely the same thing. You have zero credibility if that is how you see the world.
Building socialism by supporting opinions that directly harm the people you want to help. The most generous take here is you're completely lost.
[Y]our other comment is about outdoor cats, now you talk about transphobia as if both are remotely the same thing.
They aren't. That's why they are two different comments. If I wanted to compare them, they would be one comment instead of two.
People who upbear the reply to my comment but don't upbear my comment are wreckers
Hear me out hexbears, we have an infighting problem, therefore we should infight the infighters.
I agree we should forgive comrades more for making mistakes. I disagree that a philosophy of 'bully the bullies' is a sustainable approach to maintaining a community.
That would require self crit and personal growth and I’m just not about that.
The Chinese Famine of 1906 - 07 was probably larger from a mortality standpoint, though it didn't last as long. The so-called Great Chinese Famine is only the greatest if you take maximalist anticommunist numbers, and recent scholarship is generally in the direction of it being significantly overestimated. Both that death toll and Mao's "30%" (while he did make serious mistakes, let me be clear) are things that were basically encouraged to be exaggerated even in China itself because of the Dengist revolt and new orthodoxy needing to discourage support for Mao-era policy.
What I'm saying is that your anti-wrecking post contains wrecking.
My basic point is Mao made massive huge gigantic mistakes, but we judge him on whether he pushed socialism forward on balance.
What I'm saying is that your anti-wrecking post contains wrecking.
In a nutshell what vampire's asking for is some sort of hexbear party line, which if taken seriously would yet again lead to a big site-wide argument and probably bannings because its trying to take what isn't a serious website in a serious direction.
my god, we've argued over stacking fucking rocks and are currently in a cold war over rule 8 of the dunk tank. I do not want to even remotely want to touch contentious theoretical topics - such as the sino-soviet difference on the concept of the national question and the right to self-determination. Also shut the fuck up we're not even going to talk about it, that's just something that would open pandoras box if the most arsonistic people got their hands on the concept - and have a gigantic shitflinging fest to end all gigantic shitflinging fests until in the name of wrecking wreckers for wrecking we stumble ourselves into a new gigantic shitflinging fest.
So you're saying we should have this argument, the website shuts down, and we all go touch grass, right?
tldr, this is a shitposting website. Taking strong stances on minute specifics and labeling anyone who disagrees goes against the whole picture of hogs with shit on their testicles thing.
Unsurprising fence sitting cowardice from a man who stood around doing nothing while a portal to the realm of Mehrunes Dagon was shitting out monsters right next to his city.
I’ll mark you down as anti-struggle sessions in the struggle sessions struggle session then
We should try to stick together and not quibble over little stuff
You misrepresented Mao and are actually wrecking
It's almost like that first sentence isn't what I was responding to
Alphabet infiltration of leftist movements has been incredibly successful historically speaking.
If you wanna know what kind of behavior to be on the lookout for, or what kind of behavior to watch yourself for (it's easier than you think to accidentally help your enemies) check out the sabateurs guide hosted by our alphabetic friends themselves.
Infighting, spurred by capitalists, has historically weakened and destroyed leftist movements very successfully. In order to have any chance cohesion is paramount.
Alphabet infiltration? Like the google parent company?
They're pretty chill with each other (compared to protestants and catholics)
communist city guard EXPOSED as HYPOCRITE!
LOOK AT THE TIME! 
