I'm not a hardline ML, nor am I a trot. I find myself attracted to theory from both. There's a lot of very valid criticism of Trotsky, Stalin, ML states, and Trot organizations. There's reasonable critique for all. But there's also good praise for all too. I've long tried to figure out what kind of marxist I am. I find myself drawn to Trotsky's transitional program, but also to the more (in my opinion) realistic idea of socialism in one country. When it comes down to actually organizing does it really matter? If there's a full ML movement going strong I'll join that. Or if it was a trotskyist movement going strong, I'd join that. I just want to see marxism advance. Much of the infighting feels like the narcissism of small differences. I guess I'm asking is it ok to be a heterodox marxist?

  • CountryRoads [fae/faer,it/its]
    ·
    4 years ago

    A lot of the ~material conditions~ of the past still apply today though! There's really no need to reinvent the wheel except out of narcissism. Yes, you have to adapt and build, but the framework of how Capitalism and bourgeoisie democracy work really has not changed all that much in 100+ years.

    Matt on Chapo loves to mention that Americans have a very, very short collective memory. That's why reading theory is so important because when you read Lenin talking about how 5 families can buy up Parliament and Social Democrats spend their time pushing for Universal Suffrage as the cure for all the working class's ills, it should send chills up your spine

    The petty-bourgeois democrats, such as our Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and also their twin brothers, all the social-chauvinists and opportunists of Western Europe, expect just this “more” from universal suffrage. They themselves share, and instil into the minds of the people, the false notion that universal suffrage “in the present-day state” is really capable of revealing the will of the majority of the working people and of securing its realization.

    "JUST VOTE" has been the Left-wing* strategy in the US going back decades and decades. Even in the 60s, what was most Civil Rights activism based on? Voter registration!!!

    * For all intents and purposes, liberals are the American Left, and have been since the 50s purges. Walter Reuther was considered an insane radical, and when Khrushchev met him, he said "we shot people like that in 1917", just for comparison

    • ElGosso [he/him]
      1·
      4 years ago

      Sure, I didn't mean to imply that they aren't, but there are enough differences that we will have to assemble a school of thought that addresses them.

      • CountryRoads [fae/faer,it/its]
        1·
        4 years ago

        Why? Capitalism works the way that Capitalism works. That's the beauty of Marxism-Leninism - the broad strokes still describe how Capitalism and the State work, even over a century later in a new environment. Yeah, the details change, but that's always been the case. There's no reason to re-invent the wheel unless you're some wrecker who just wants to "fuck shit up" or have delusions of grandeur.

        The idea that the new movement will "not necessarily resemble Trotskyism or Marxist-Leninism or Anarchism or anything else" is complete bullshit, built on a lack of understanding of history and general narcissism.