Like seriously, why isn't there at least one single leader or famous person who is uncompromisingly anticapitalist, good at organizing, gives rousing speeches and is actually willing to do illegal shit, get arrested, inspire people, actually writes new, relevant and useful theory and generally be an icon?
I keep reading about how we are entering the one of the most turbulent decades in history. Who do we have to represent us other than socdem politicians, podcasters and journalists? We are letting crisis after crisis go to waste. We are just wasting away...
There is a lot to unpack in this post. Though I understand the emotional fervor and sacred anger dripping out of it. Edit: My break was over, so it will remain only a note to be published in full after the mice ate of it
Point one: The great man theory of history.
Addendum: How even material dialectics don't support a great man theory of history.There is a faulty, not anymore historically recognized theory, called the Great Man Theory of History, to reduce it to its core would be to say: There are (exceptional men) who drive the forces of history and they mold history in their image e.g. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, etc. basically imperialist, chauvinist fuckwits that Nietzsche was horny for.
Some people use terms like meta-historical narratives to frame questions about this theory, class struggle and alike. I just want to underline two points, the first is that everyday life, the people and working persons matter (so there are histories about the people in a village over hundreds of years on one hand and there is a history of everyday life); the second is that the class contradictions of the social relations within the system of society and the power relations within it and onto it e.g. from the global trade system other states etc. matter.
From a historical materialist point the material conditions of the time of Lenin were more relevant than Lenin. The contradictions and thus the consciousness and power of the workers, the precarious, the pressed soldiers, the women and such were ripe. If it wouldn't have been Lenin someone else would've taken his historical role. That isn't to say that people are interchangeable, but that Marx was a product of his time, too, sooner or later there was to be a theory highlighting the class struggle and one analyzing the political economies and practices of the time and of Ricardo, Smith et. al.
However once such persons emerge within the public sphere and have places of power they themselves become material facts within the social relations, that means if they are killed it is a loss - at that time - for the the class movement.Point two: The individual, the class and vanguard as actors.
I believe that Marx and Engels were pretty big fans of a better world and were not only analytically driven by their quest to create theory. That they were driven by a sacred anger to make a better world and reduce toil for the workers and such can be seen in a few things: the eleventh thesis about Feuerbach (1845), the high praise of Marx towards Engel's article about "The Condition of the Working Class in England" which describes how fucked workers are in the industrialized England or "the Communist Manifest".
English: The philosophers of the world just interpreted it differently; however the point is to change it
German: Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kömmt drauf an, sie zu verändern.
This means that Marx and Engels - just like countless others - in specific and that communist action in general is a partisan affair, you are rooting for one team.
However Marx and Lenin (and others actually, this isn't very controversial in Marxist theoretical circles, but it might be in anarchist circles) do believe that you as individual aren't an actor of class struggle. You are just a person and as individually can be replaced within the production process of society quite easily - this is true for every working person and especially the heads of states, but also for the private managerial class - that isn't to say you don't matter, that it is to say that you can only become an actor in something relating class struggle if you do act together with others within collectives. Leninist orthodox even unions that are semi-militant and doing labor struggles or unions that negotiate collective bargaining agreements aren't necessarily doing class struggle. For it to be class struggle they have to act in accordance to the working class - and for that to happen you need a common understanding or a party in which this thought of the working class is created.
The use of the vanguard is to exploit labor struggles, better the situation of the workers and make them see that for every conflict there has to be the goal of revolution somewhere. Other benefits of that organizing is that people get radicalized, get activated, skills are learned and experiences made.Point three: Modern prisons and imperial abilities to suppress dissent (when Imperialism's tools turn from the periphery back to the core).
For the last centuries we have seen that states try their new tools of (violent) oppression in the periphery, within other states against marginalized groups. Even when there were fascist dictatorships openly torturing, killing, letting disappear in the Southern Americas the forces of the US trained them in those tools, the states delivered weapons, tear gas and such. Even in Spain the intelligence agencies of the US experimented with torture of not letting people sleep as interrogation tools and to break the psyches of other peoples. This would later be used in police stations around the country, during labour negotiations in companies or political behind the doors scenes, in Abu Ghraib and other black sites, as well as in wars the US empire fought. Techniques that would later be used against people deemed antifa, being non-white etc.
During Lenin's time there was already a sophisticated police and secret police apparatus in every imperialist nation, however they still were focused more on the body than they are focused on it now.
However plenty of people could escape and only had shorter prison sentences and even if they had sentences they could assume other identities and life under false names more easy than now with personal identification cards, digital tracking and a more effective (and better equipped) police force.
If you want to know what is going to happen in the US, talk with activists and revolutionaries from the Southern Americas, from South Africa, from all the places the US and European (including German) police did teach suppression, also ask older marginalized collectives.Point four: The ignorance of the working class in the imperialist core.
That there are millions of people of communist parties in India, that there are revolutionary actors in multiple countries, that there is intersectional theoretical literature out of experiences of struggle is produced is a fact one often doesn't see in the core.
Point five: Internationalism
Which means we ought to look more out for internationalism in word and deed and organize that we have social relations and channels of communication and knowledge transfer with the people struggling all over the world and deliver material support, enable them to visit other countries, deliver jobs when we can and so on. These principles of collective solidarity are also true for the actions within ones nation.
Point six: The lack of a structures, experiences and lack of a party for the revolutionary working class.
Postponed.
Point seven: The local, personal, the job, urban walkable spaces are political.
Postponed
Point eight: Migration
Postponed
thank you holy fuck, the next time i see someone simping for great man theory on chapo im gonna shit without cumming
If such a person exists he will not be living in the imperial core but in the third world.
This. The elites and the system are still too strong in the core to allow for such a figure to emerge
Another take. :heart-sickle: He is here. The new Lenin is the girl reading this. :heart-sickle:
Fuck what did I miss? am I uninformed in assuming "he/him" and girl was a mistake or is this a reference?
I was making a reference to this thread: https://hexbear.net/post/72043 where TC69 bullied a bunch of people into reading Beyond Pink and Blue (read it today, it's good!), cause your comment didn't carry enough "gender is a fuck" energy lol
It's written by a female-born author who (sometimes) uses he/him pronouns, it'll make sense if you pick up the first couple chapters of the book.
I remember those threads, thanks for reminding me of the book, I should read it yeah
Read it, liberal. Don't make me ask twice. :leslie-shining:
What if the real Lenin was the friends we made along the way?
Lenin spent much of his time exiled from Russia, and himself was put back into the country by the Germans to destabilize their enemy.
So if you want that parallel you’ll need to find some Marxist expat living in say one of the BRIC countries and wait for Biden to fuck shit up even worse.
It’s Edward Snowden lmao.
Snowden is a wonderful guy. Visited me often to pray for the death of imperialism.
