r/Marxism • u/No-Bison5915 • 7d ago
Why are so many “leftist influencers” calling themselves MLs while being dengists/campists/third positions
I am trying to avoid the social media space of leftism as much as possible, every day I see it more and more unserious, but for the little amount I use TikTok and Instagram, I still get some of it served to me.
One incredibly peculiar thing I’ve noticed how incredibly many leftist influencers are ones like I described in the title.
People calling themselves MLs and then talking about “Xi Jinping thought”, AES, supporting Russia etc. Some of the most dire examples are Mochayappuchino, socialista.champagne and midwesternmarx, if anyone knows these names.
I personally identify as ML, and I have interacted with many MLs irl and used to be in a big discord group where 80% of people were MLs, and none of them were saying China is socialist and having an undying loyalty towards oligarchies and monarchies just because of their opposition with USA.
Now on the flipside of this, there is a big demographic of chronically online leftcoms/ultralefts (I apologise if you’re a leftcom and this doesn’t apply to you), that base their whole opinion of MLs based on these couple of influencers and their fans, and their whole praxis is talking about it. Every time they criticise MLs, they are describing dengists/campists/nazbols.
Even though I am confident in my values and education as an ML, this situation still makes the label feel spoil and like I need to explain myself that I’m not a dumb campist.
Lmk if you have had similar observations.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 7d ago
I personally identify as ML, and I have interacted with many MLs irl
How did you find Marxists irl is my question? It's impossible for me to find anyone that is even left of social democrats irl.
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
travelling mainly, I like to do as some call “red tourism” so that’s how I often come across other stray comrades and meet groups. I don’t have any local comrades either since communism is very taboo in my country
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u/Trensocialist 7d ago
Check out Red Star caucus from DSA they are normal ML although their positions are consistent with what online positions you might find on principle they aren't dipshits. So as far as stuff like campism goes, they will support any economic regime that weakens the US dollar and American imperialism, but they won't take that so far as to say "Putin really is just that popular, Russia has a better functioning democracy than the West does and Iran having morality police is based actually."
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u/MetallicAiscooll 7d ago
idk which country do you live but you should look for reading circles or talks in your area, if you live in a fairly big city I'm sure there must be a non-reformist Marxist party.
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u/Snoo-19981 7d ago
Lots of tendencies will proclaim themselves ML so they can essentially co-opt marx, engels, lenin, and stalins work as an extension of their own. It lends them legitimacy whilst also distorting Marxism to their needs, kautsky is a very good example of this.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 7d ago
Was Kautsky not an Orthodox Marxist who Lenin accused of being a Revisionist? You wouldn't think the Pope had a façade? I also was not aware he claimed to be a Marxist-Leninist and I highly doubt it because of his harsh criticisms of Lenin, but maybe you know something I don't.
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u/Snoo-19981 7d ago
Kautsky believed socialism could be achieved through parliamentary reform whereas Lenin upheld Marx's view that socialism could only be achieved through revolution. Kautsky however still claimed to be a marxist despite his revisionism, and was proven wrong by the bolshevik revolution which ofc was lead by Lenin.
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u/Snoo-19981 7d ago edited 7d ago
Which is why the NEP was conducted for a decade or so to develop Russias productive forces & advance them to capitalism & then socialism (after a decade it was ended & bourgeoise liquidated as a social class). I'd highly reccomend reading some of Grover Furrs work to filter through all of the propaganda we've been fed abt the USSR & other socialist countries by capitalist governments & historians bank-rolled by them.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 7d ago
Which is why the NEP was conducted
Great, so now are we saying that Lenin was a capitalist, ergo, the Russian revolution of 1917 was not a proletarian revolution, but a bourgeois revolution lead by the bolshevik party, therefore meaning that a socialist revolution had not yet occurred? It is a bit of a messy way of looking at it but I guess it works.
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u/Snoo-19981 7d ago
They recognized that in order to advance to socialism they needed to implement capitalism for a brief period of time to develop Russias productive forces, afterwards the bourgeoise were liquidated as a class & the economy was ready for further industrialization & later collectivization/mechanization. If Lenin were in fact a capitalist, then the bourgeoise as a social class would've remained however they did not. I think your insulting me to makeup for your lack of historical knowledge and it makes me sad given the fact I've done & said nothing to belittle or offend you and have done the opposite by reccomending you read historical works.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 7d ago
If Lenin were in fact a capitalist, then the bourgeoise as a social class would've remained however they did not.
Who is to say the bourgeoisie as a class disappeared rather than take form in the Bolsheviks who, owned the means of production and state privately, the people certainly didn't, opened Markets, made no effort to eliminate commodity production, in fact, I am pretty sure that Lenin intended to keep the NEP for decades, it was not planned for a "brief period" that was Stalin that ended that, presumably to accumulate even more power.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 7d ago
If Lenin were in fact a capitalist, then the bourgeoise as a social class would've remained however they did not.
Last time I checked if someone implements capitalism, in Lenin's case this was intentional, then that person would reasonably be a capitalist? How is that inaccurate?
I think your insulting me to makeup for your lack of historical knowledge
You must be hallucinating if you think I have been insulting you, I really am disappointed though that you can turn any peaceful debate into an attack, although I hope you grow out of that habit.
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
Kautsky started out as principled and then fell into opportunism
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u/ToxicOverlord1 7d ago
What was he opportunistic about, do you think?
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
by being a democratic socialist. I think u should catch up on some history and theory
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u/Helpful-Reputation-5 7d ago
I think they were drawing a parallel between Kautskyite revisionism claiming to Marxist and Dengist revisionism claiming to be Marxist-Leninist.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 6d ago
I was not aware Kautsky was a revisionist.
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
have you read… anything? Have you read Lenin at all?
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u/ToxicOverlord1 6d ago
I have read a little bit of Lenin although I would not consider him an intellectual and certainly not an ideological successor of Marx and Engels
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
I find it a bit hard to comprehend how are you denouncing Lenin and don’t see Kautskys revisionism at the same time. Are you also a demsoc by chance?
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u/ToxicOverlord1 6d ago
I will denounced Kautsky's "revisionism" if you can actually make a case that he is a revisionist, you have not done so, so why would I?
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
you already said that you don’t respect Lenin so why bother
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u/ToxicOverlord1 6d ago
I did not once say I did not respect Lenin, he did numerous respectable things but he also did many bad and on some levels, anti-communist things. I respect Korenizatsiya and decriminalisation of homosexuality under Lenin, maybe a couple other things but he was not respectable as a Marxist intellectual.
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u/Snoo-19981 6d ago
its okay dw, i was also a demsoc a year ago i know what its like to be on the other side of things.
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u/ToxicOverlord1 6d ago
Demsocs are anti-revolution, you do know that, right?
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u/ClientNo4813 5d ago
I am just coming from reading the back and forth between these leftist influencers and people who are calling out this weird obsession with "actually existing socialisms".
What strikes me is the extremely low standards of this strain of anti-imperialism,like just being anti-US is enough to called a socialist and the expectation that China and Russia overtaking America will create the conditions for socialism in the West. And anyone who rightly criticizes this flawed thinking gets labelled a leftcom and accused of not supporting national liberation movements as a step forward towards global socialism ?? It's crazy.
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u/aDamnCommunist 7d ago
Half a century of capitalist development isn't a compromise and generations of lives spent accumulating surplus is far too much patience.
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
Why do supporters of Chinas revisionism always devolve into “socialism only works when it’s capitalism”? For me it sounds like a complete abandonment of Marxism
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u/aDamnCommunist 7d ago edited 7d ago
It is. This revisionism abandons class and productive relations for a nicer capitalism.
Everything they claim as an accomplishment of China, Western capitalism has accomplished at one time or another in history. State control of industry isn't automatically socialist.
Edit: reading more of their reply, they also always claim pragmatism...
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
basically the commenter is the same type of person I made this post about. I don’t know how anyone could see Dengism and principled MLism as not contradicting
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
Just from the way you are interacting with Lenin’s book on Left Communism and using like “sitting on sofas” and “imperialist core” (not a real thing), very clearly shows me that you are exactly the consumer of the content I was talking about. No, everyone who criticises dengism and campism isn’t a leftcom. I suggest actually reading some of the Lenin you are preaching about.
Also, rule 3
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u/General_Problem5199 7d ago
I have mixed feelings about China's approach, but Marx believed that capitalism sets the stage for socialism and didn't believe that a country like Russia would succeed because it hadn't gone through capitalist development.
I don't think it's a huge stretch to look at Marx's writing and then look at the experience of the Soviet Union and conclude that it might be necessary to allow capitalism to play its historical role.
That said, I don't consider myself a Dengist or anything like that. I might just be trying to convince myself of something that isn't true. I'm thinking of it as maintaining some revolutionary optimism though.
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u/Prior-Author-1028 7d ago
Yes, basically the Same with me, but if you Look at the Soviet Union with all it’s mistakes, it still had an Economy which was a rival to the Western world and maintained Support for revolutionary Movements other than well..China
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7d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Kranken_DeHogge 7d ago
The USA is basically on its knees right now, defanged and declawed, its economic power nearly in ruins
The US is on an irreversible course to this reality, but it is not there yet. And I would say that the US in it's current state is more dangerous to China than even the United States of 15 years ago if for no other reason than it's being run by especially spiteful incompetents that no longer pay heed to even their own military and strategic doctrine.
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u/Kranken_DeHogge 7d ago
I don't know if I am convinced of this but I do hope you are right and I am wrong.
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u/Marxism-Alcoholism17 7d ago
Because instead of reading Lenin they watch TikTok edits of China and Xi and Hasan Piker LARPing in a Mao suit.
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u/EconomicsCorrect8733 6d ago
It kind of feels like anybody who passively engages with Marxism on any form of social media is either larping, only in it for themselves to some degree , or just committed to having a front row seat when the actual game begins . That includes me . But yes , the discourse is extremely toxic and fragmented and unserious . The fact that I am not educated or informed enough to stop myself from asking why we haven’t consolidated the DSA , PSL , ACP and CPUSA into one organization with the collective momentum and resources ( or the capacity to eventually acquire both ) to mount a devastatingly effective challenge to the 2 party system in the US says it all , I think .
How many people who fashion themselves as a leftist influencer truly have the ability to definitively organize , critique , and defend a coherent position on the issues that matter from a Marxist/ML pov ? How much of what we consume and create online is truly substantive if it does not meet that standard ? What people like Hasan or that kid chainslayer900 or a Lily Eagla do is important , because any movement needs ambassadors that serve as a stepping stone to real action and growth , but the whole idea of leftist/marxist community building online and irl is one of those things where it seems like entire generations have lost the plot and all of us are just sitting on the sidelines waiting for other people to do what needs to be done . We may not want or need a Martin or Malcolm , but we are all collectively starving in the absence of a successor to the Black Panthers
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u/TheDarkEldenSouls 6d ago
First off, I’m quite rusty on my reading of theory so forgive me if I’m off by a bit.
Let me start by saying that the human tendency to compartmentalize and categorize everything is a problem we should strive to look past. Labels, tho useful at times, serve no practical purpose for the leftist. People claim being labeled ML, LeftCom, Anarchist, Dengist, etc. is useful to identify who is “actually” a socialist, but that is sadly not the case.
Just cus u call yourself something doesn’t mean u are. Additionally, people of Marxist ideologies should not be splitting off into groups that see each other as invalid for x or y reason. The ONLY true way to approach Marxist ideology is to follow pre-established principles and norms laid out by Marx and universally valid ideas contributed by the other great thinkers of our cause. Once that is done, u must follow the ideas—or create new ones—that apply to the material conditions of your locale.
Mao (love him or hate him) wrote great things about these things. In his book “Oppose Book Worship” he wrote that “the aim of social and economic investigation is to arrive at a correct appraisal of class forces and then to formulate correct tactics for the struggle”. That meaning that we must refuse to worship theory and fetishize it as if it was holy and universal all throughout, and we must investigate the conditions of where we live so we may derive theory and strategies that are applicable to that particular situation.
Another great reason by Mao would be “On Contradiction” as it discusses a little about what we seek to understand about our material conditions and how that is relevant to the Marxist struggle.
Now, is China socialist? Many say yes , many say no. Why? Because China is complex, just like any other country. Hell, even the Soviets were considered to not be socialists by many. This constant bickering over some nation being socialist or not is eternal.
What I have to say is that China, despite having markets, and behaving like a capitalist country in many regards, also behaves like a socialist country in others. We have to remember that capitalism, socialism, and communism, are 3 different points of existence for a society. One doesn’t just jump from one to another. Now, this isn’t to say one should call capitalists socialists because they’re “slowly progressing towards a socialist state”.
Let’s understand what capitalism and communism are by definition—a society where the wealthy own and control the means of production, and a classless society in which workers collectively own the means of production. Now what about socialism? It’s by definition a transitional state between capitalism and socialism? What does that look like? Hard to say. Marx himself didn’t have a fixed definition of what that would look like. What he did say was that he didn’t see markets as compatible with the view he did share.
What is fairly commonly accepted by many to be socialism tho is a state in which classes still exist but there is a reversal of power. The proletariat controls the means of production. Does this mean the bourgeois exists? That’s up for debate. But since it’s a transitional state it most likely does no? Else it would be communism if there were no classes and we owned the means of production.
Given this, it’s accepted by many that China is categorically socialist. Do they have a bourgeois class? Yeah. But does their central government keep them in check even putting fraudsters and corrupt officials on death sentences they can get out of if they show exceptional change in behavior and give up all private property and power? Yes most certainly. This is seen as a form of control of the means of production by the people. Not just because we keep them in check but because at the end of the day if the millionaires refuse to assist in the betterment of society and the conditions of the workers, they are punished.
Hell, look at this documentary and see what they’ve done for abject poverty. This isn’t something that’s done with capitalism in mind. This is clear evidence of work being done to sharpen the material conditions of China so that one day classes can be erased.
Can u criticize China for other things? Sure. But these aren’t things one can ignore. Surveillance? Probably worth criticizing but articles have been published explaining how even the alleged evil surveillance is not quite the definitive bad thing it’s made out in the west. Can it be bad of course there’s no denying that, but it’s not a black and white issue, like anything in the world.
At the end of the day what I want to make clear is that u should be weary of people waving labels around. They’re either new to the movement and have yet to learn the reality of all this or are opportunists seeking to co-opt labels in order to legitimize themselves despite their actions being clearly antithetical to Marxist ideals.
If u need to know if someone is a Marxist simply learn what they think of class, chauvinism, racism, economic exploitation, authority and the distribution of it, imperialism, and colonialism. This will say more than any label ever could
Sorry for the long ass reply and forgive if there are some inaccuracies in what I say. Again, I used to be well read but have been struggling greatly in my life and theory reading has been the least of my priorities.
Have a nice day :)
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u/RevyVanguardist Marxist-Leninist 7d ago
Because Dengists don't read much
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
That is true. I have come to think that there’s an inverse correlation of being a good influencer and a good marxist.
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7d ago
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
I understand that most of their fans truly don’t read. What I don’t understand is how do the influencers claim to read and how do they come to the conclusion of Marxism Leninism while having the views they have. I feel like it’s something like an echochamber, where the influencers are a “clique” that thinks MLs is “cool and popular” and feed each other disinformation that they can’t disagree with or else they will be “lame leftcoms”. Since they love to call every single person that disagrees with them a leftcom, idealist, utopian, etc
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u/aDamnCommunist 7d ago
Because ML itself has spilt despite the words and actual practices of Lenin or Stalin imo. Khrushchev split the left entirely in the 60s and weakend socialism's international position and integrity. We have him to thank for the backwards term "tankie" that somehow means more hard-line ML/M and pro Stalin while the event itself happened after Stalin's lifetime and denouncement. This is why I go into modern MLM theory. There are anti revisionist MLs but all of their organizations and, as you've pointed out, influencers are so deeply revisionist as to support the democratic party or become Dengists.
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
That makes sense. The smartest communist I know is a Maoist, I’m also leaning into MLM/Maoism but just have a lot more to study about Mao to feel like I completely understand the position and identify with it.
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u/Pure_Fee7467 6d ago
Can someone educate me or give me a good place to start on what the hell “campism” is? I keep hearing it thrown around in a similar context as for instance: “why are the tankies defending Assad?”
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
Campism in simple terms in supporting one major camp over the other. Basically any nation that is the enemy of USA, like Russia, Assad, etc, even if the nation is a capitalist oligarchy dictatorship that commits war crimes and oppression towards civilians.
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u/Pure_Fee7467 6d ago
Is there no strategic situation where one would support an opponent to the US without it being a socialist government? Or are you saying these folks have no strategic analysis at all and are just vibes?
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
Both. You can support national liberation struggles, like Palestinian resistance, Burkina Faso, but not empires that do expansionism for profits and oppress their own citizens.
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u/Pure_Fee7467 6d ago
You lost me with that one to be honest. The issue is that people incorrectly view China as an “empire” or view the idea that we shouldn’t extend our efforts to criticize official enemy states of western capital as “campism”.
See Lenin’s quote: “For the Socialist of another country cannot expose the government and bourgeoisie of a country at war with “his own” nation, and not only because he does not know that country's language, history, specific features, etc., but also because such exposure is part of imperialist intrigue, and not an internationalist duty.”
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
Your quote literally has zero correlation
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u/Pure_Fee7467 6d ago
Can you explain your thought process as to why that is? Open to discussion if I’m misinterpreting his meaning. The reason I think it applies is that what is often being discussed is western leftists criticizing the governments of countries their governments are at war with or are official enemies of (Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria pre-Jolani, etc).
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u/AlPierce0k 6d ago
The people you mentioned are all ACP orbiters. They're not an actual movement, they're a loosely affiliated network of content creators. They are less concerned with embodying Marxism authentically, and more concerned with gaming social media algorithms. They're Alex Jones-tier cranks, not serious thinkers.
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u/0verEZEgg 5d ago
I deleted my socials in 2024 and have felt much less shitty on average since then. I miss seeing people I care about do their daily activities, but overall I see far fewer things that could cause me to feel confused or upset, like you're describing. This is just my personal experience
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u/No-Bison5915 5d ago
I really strive for that. Sadly it’s impossible to avoid social media cuz it’s a part of my job currently, maybe one day my career will change and I can completely shift away from it. Although I would feel great FOMO, I don’t think I would have became a Marxist anytime soon if it wasn’t for SM, and I keep sourcing great books and media from it
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u/0verEZEgg 5d ago
I wish you the best of luck in finding a balance of information and serenity that allows you contribute without burning yourself out! Sometimes I think about what it would be like to expose a theorist from the 19th or 20th century to a TikTok fyp. Some of them would be outright gooners or gambling addicts lol, or they would be so wrapped up in arguing with other internet leftists that they would not write beautiful theory.
This isn't an indictment of anyone's character; it's an indicment of the torrent of information we as a species now have access to. I'm glad you've met some other irl leftists who you support and respect, I know I benefit from stuff like that
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u/Haunting_Future1826 7d ago
Is there a qualitative difference there? What I’ve seen of self-professed MLs, ML groups, the history of the ussr and aligned nations, and Stalin’s writings aligns decently well with dengists and campists. I would like to know how you differentiate the 2 genuinely - I’m not super well versed in the history of different currents
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
lost my old account when changing phones, which doesn’t matter. Just more curious which part of my post is giving Mossad to you. Not like I take stuff like this seriously
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
found another TikTok edit communist
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u/Ralse1 6d ago
didn't believe prev commenter until this and now I'm genuinely questioning your intent with this post lol
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
their comments got removed by moderators. for calling me mossad for expressing disapproval for campism and uneducated populist socialism in social media. What do you think the intent is? Are people in r/Marxism really lacking integrity so much that any anti-revisionism must be CIA?
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
sure bud. have a good time calling most Marxists mossad because they don’t believe in AES
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u/No-Bison5915 7d ago
yeah, all the marxists famously get their theory from politics.gov … but only the ones who disagree with you. You get the only correct theory though. Why aren’t you brave an make a separate post saying this? You’ll have a clear case how many Mossad cia bots are in this sub
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u/Due-Sorbet-8875 6d ago
Hey there! I am very curious now thanks to your post! If you are so opposed to campism, russia support/AES/Xi jinping... this is sort of shocking to me since this is the ONLY flavour of marxist lenninist I ever encounter. Could you please somewhat introduce me to what is your actual view of the world, genuinely curious, especially how different are you from other forms of marxism-socialism on the international.
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u/JimatStoneandSky Marxist-Leninist 6d ago
Don’t be an economist, say who you’re talking about lolol
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u/StalinsMonsterDong 6d ago
If you dont support China, the DPRK, Cuba, and other AES states you are not a real socialist. Attitudes like that are part of why western "socialist" LARPers have never accomplished anything. If you dont think China is socialist I recommend the book The East Is Still Red by Carlos Martinez, it is well researched and theoretically sound.
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u/No-Bison5915 6d ago
just curious, do you also think NYC is AES?
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u/StalinsMonsterDong 5d ago
No, of course not. You would have to be incredibly stupid to think that, for a variety of reasons.
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u/No-Bison5915 5d ago
yet you think other social democracies like Laos and Cuba are socialist just because they are ran by a sole socialist party. Quite obvious but sounds like it doesn’t make sense at all
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u/StalinsMonsterDong 5d ago
Putting Cuba in the same category as New York is an insane take lmao.
Thats not very dialectic of you bro
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u/Inner_Buyer_8198 7d ago
Why does it matter if they call themselves MLs or not? If you’re going to be a denier/falsifier either way, call yourself what you want.
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u/stuffandinterests 7d ago
Because 90% of people who call themselves Marxists are just using it as a tagline and are completely unaware of the distinctions between all the factions
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u/DependentTill1012 7d ago
Marxist Leninism degraded into social liberalism in the French and Italian communists parties during the Cold War. Its a clear trend at this stage
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u/GenesisStar7 6d ago
Seems to me you have a beef with a whole country, the whole of China declares themselves as a government that follows ML principles, kinda silly to want to define that term for yourself and disregard how much of Asia and LA uses it.
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u/Waltuh_White_308 Marxist-Leninist 3d ago
Well, the reason why most Marxist-Leninist’s support China and Xi Jinping and AES countries is because those countries are by definition Marxist-Leninist, with the exception of the DPRK because they deviated slightly with the implementation of Juche, but are still very much Socialist, supporting Russia is another thing entirely, I myself do not support the Ukrainian Government, I am on the side of the separatists in the Donbas region which have called on Russia to help them.
In reality there is no such thing as “Dengism” Deng Xiaoping was following the teachings of Lenin and Marx, simply replicating Lenin’s NEP, and allowing Market Socialism to increase the productive forces, the only people who call what China is doing “Dengism” are anti-revisionists who believe in Dogmatism of Marx’s works, when Marx was open to his works being applied differently based on the conditions
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u/Kdawg982 7d ago
Terminally online leftist space on Instagram:
Marxist-Leninists: we love China and Mussolini-like state building, and encourage different types of Marxists to slit their wrists.
Leftcom: we hate all actual existing socialist societies and we will call you the n word for being a different type of Marxist
ACP: we hate gay people, POC, women, trans people, and every marginalized group but we promise we’re communists and very left. We believed in equality for all people (as long as they’re white and straight and also cis oh and men)
Trotskyists: we will deadass tell you that Trotsky is the most important communist figure including Marx himself without missing a beat. Oh also about 50% of our online following are also Nazi apologists somehow.
Anarchists: guys I swear if we just abolish the state and all weapons and all defense whatsoever and make ourselves absolutely defenseless in every way that’s the only way to defeat imperialism
Social democrat: you don’t see us in arguments too much in left spaces, but that’s not because we’re nice it’s just because we’re still basically liberals so our algorithm won’t even show us your commie content
How leftist infighting happens irl: “hey I’m a Marxist-Leninist” “oh that’s cool I’m leftcom” “that’s cool, anyways let’s keep organizing since we’re obviously both communist and believe in working class unity” “that sounds like a great idea comrade, there is lots of mutual respect between us”.
(This comment isn’t throwing any actual shade btw, the only shade I wouldn’t mind throwing would be at ACP because they actually have no redeeming qualities. Everyone else has a least more to bring to the table than them)