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.
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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...
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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)
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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.
took me some time to realize all encompassing, radical direct democracy is not the solution to states under siege from every attack vector in existence
in isolation this kind of direct democracy would likely not have "saved" the Soviet Union. would more democratic accountability have helped? possibly, i'm not educated enough to say
doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it. i believe libertarian socialism/communism/marxism is a transition state that we should absolutely strive for in the post, final-conflict era.
once socialism is dominant and capitalism is on the ropes it would be criminal not to work towards it on the way to advanced socialism and full communism
liberation should be in totality
'libertarian' is a word too poisoned to used for me. thats like calling things 'authoritarian stage of socialism' when that doesnt actually describe anything going on. Its like a horoscope for ideologies.