My roommate has been educating himself on communism, and we have been having many great conversations on theory and what have you. He says he is a communist. However, he has come to some very different conclusions to me, and I have been going back and forth on his talking points a lot. I was wondering what you guys would think of his talking points since I have to hear them and discuss them with him a lot.

  1. Vanguardism/council republics are inherently flawed and undemocratic. He admits that there is democracy within a Marxist-Leninist government, but says it is not good enough because you don't vote directly for the president, etc...

  2. Says that vanguardism is "elitist" and that the core of the idea is that the working classes are stupid and only the intelligentsia knows right. He said he liked Lenin but he was too "mean" and didn't speak as kindly of the peasants as he wanted. (lol)

  3. Attributes the fall of the USSR entirely to the democratic organization of the government. Says that if the Soviet Union had allowed a more "libertarian" "democratic" structure what happened wouldn't have happened. I've also notice he attributes a lot of China's problems historically to the way their government is structured.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]A
    ·
    2 hours ago
    1. Vanguardism/council republics are inherently flawed and undemocratic. He admits that there is democracy within a Marxist-Leninist government, but says it is not good enough because you don't vote directly for the president, etc...

    Every system is inherently flawed and undemocratic in some way, shape, or form. Any that claims otherwise is an untethered utopianist theory disconnected from concrete reality.

    Saying something isn't "good enough" isn't an explanation, especially when I'm willing to gamble that this person really doesn't understand how a communist party functions when it organizes the State, therefore I'm including this evergreen article on exactly that so people can enrich their knowledge on the topic

    1. Says that vanguardism is "elitist" and that the core of the idea is that the working classes are stupid and only the intelligentsia knows right. He said he liked Lenin but he was too "mean" and didn't speak as kindly of the peasants as he wanted. (lol)

    The overwhelming majority of the leadership of the communist parties around the world are proletarian. Stalin was a fucking peasant, Khrushchev was a metal worker, Brezhnev was a metallurgical engineer, etc. Also Lenin saying mean words is a liberal nitpick in contrast to his material actions of saying anyone that slacked off and caused an urgent delivery of grain to a village of starving peasants is to be shot. One can be critical of a historically reactionary and backwards class yet move heaven and earth to save them.

    1. Attributes the fall of the USSR entirely to the democratic organization of the government. Says that if the Soviet Union had allowed a more "libertarian" "democratic" structure what happened wouldn't have happened. I've also notice he attributes a lot of China's problems historically to the way their government is structured.

    Meaningless buzzwords with no substance behind them. Go study what the hell you're trying to criticize before trying to say you can do better from your armchair