So there can be no question of the will to do it: without the idea that they already have power on their side that makes an impression, leftists feel without credibility. Even if it's not theirs and not the one they want. They saw the cause of socialism less at home in their own activities in their own capitalist society or in the sworn resistance of the masses, but in the global political conflict between the blocs.
Gegenstandpunkt, 3/1992 "Questions that move the world - how can one still be a leftist today?" (from German)
International questions are certainly important, but the reason why they're so much of a focus of the online, Anglo left is that the average leftist has a fatalism of sorts when it comes to domestic politics. Everyone around you is a liberal, communism is shunned and/or forgotten in the wider population, it's seemingly impossible to convince people of the necessity of it because they're all [violent fascists/labor aristocrats/settlers/etc.] so any kind of attempt I'd viewed as unlikely to succeed at best. We've taken L after L after L for the last 30, arguably 40 years so what is left to be done?
Looking outward. Since the work to be done here is so difficult and without perspective - one begins to look outward and sees countries where the cause is or seems to be further advanced than the country we're from. Say Cuba, Venezuela, China, etc. - at the same time, we see that our countries are actively targeting them, so they must be defended. This way, a HUGE chunk of Communist organization activities turn into "Hands off [target of imperialism]".
Mix in the "AES Cheering Squad" nature of such stuff, mix in infighting with that over whether countries are cringe or based
German Organisation example
There was a split in the German Communist Party DKP a few years ago (2018?) over China. The ones that didn't saw it as Socialist left and founded the Kommunistische Organisation (KO). This org split once again this January over whether Putin and Xi were based or if the KKE had the right idea - there are now two KOs. The Pro-Russian one is doing stuff like inviting CPGB-ML people to their conferences while the other hardly does anything I heard about.
Mix in a pessimism of the possibility of socialism in the west and mix in actual hostility over our positions and you get a powerful cocktail of malaise in the western left.
From what I heard from boomer comrades, I believe the European left is worse off than in the 90s, because at least we had more people on our side.
International questions are certainly important, but the reason why they're so much of a focus of the online, Anglo left is that the average leftist has a fatalism of sorts when it comes to domestic politics. Everyone around you is a liberal, communism is shunned and/or forgotten in the wider population, it's seemingly impossible to convince people of the necessity of it because they're all [violent fascists/labor aristocrats/settlers/etc.] so any kind of attempt I'd viewed as unlikely to succeed at best. We've taken L after L after L for the last 30, arguably 40 years so what is left to be done?
Looking outward. Since the work to be done here is so difficult and without perspective - one begins to look outward and sees countries where the cause is or seems to be further advanced than the country we're from. Say Cuba, Venezuela, China, etc. - at the same time, we see that our countries are actively targeting them, so they must be defended. This way, a HUGE chunk of Communist organization activities turn into "Hands off [target of imperialism]".
Mix in the "AES Cheering Squad" nature of such stuff, mix in infighting with that over whether countries are cringe or based
German Organisation example
There was a split in the German Communist Party DKP a few years ago (2018?) over China. The ones that didn't saw it as Socialist left and founded the Kommunistische Organisation (KO). This org split once again this January over whether Putin and Xi were based or if the KKE had the right idea - there are now two KOs. The Pro-Russian one is doing stuff like inviting CPGB-ML people to their conferences while the other hardly does anything I heard about.
Mix in a pessimism of the possibility of socialism in the west and mix in actual hostility over our positions and you get a powerful cocktail of malaise in the western left.
From what I heard from boomer comrades, I believe the European left is worse off than in the 90s, because at least we had more people on our side.
deleted by creator