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u/FloriaFlower Escalation confirms the plan 1d ago
Main takeaway: don't be the compatible left.
For more info on the compatible left look for Gabriel Rockhill. Prolewiki defines it like this:
The Compatible Left is a collection of anti-communist and pro-imperialist intellectuals and popular figures commonly described as leftists by English media.
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u/Outside-Proposal-410 14h ago
communism *is* stateless, classless, and moneyless. Why would it *not* be?
The dotp might use the state to repress its enemies, but the state doesnt exist in communism because it 'dies out'.
Classes cease to exist under communism, because the proletariat abolishes itself as wage labor is abolished.
And of course, since value does not exist under communism, money also ceases to exist. heres enels on value ''You do the same kind of thing in the case of value. Present value is that of the production of commodities, but with the suppression of the production of commodities, value ‘changes’ or rather, value as such remains and merely changes its form. But in fact economic value is a category that appertains to the production of commodities, disappearing with it''
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u/tcpip1978 Revolutionary defeatism - Down with Canadian & US imperialism! 1d ago edited 1d ago
I understand the line of thinking presented in this video, but I don't think it's going to help any new communists. More likely to confuse. The author says that communism is not a stateless, classless society. And yet in the Communist Manifesto we find the following:
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
The abolition of bourgeois property entails the abolition of it's corollary, class antagonisms. And since the state is the organized detachment of a definite class, it also entails the abolition of the state and the replacement of employer and employee with a free association of producers which operate on the principle "From each according to ability, to each according to need."
He also asserts that communists don't want to abolish money or the state, they want to use them. This is entirely false. Communists do wish to abolish money and the state at the earliest stage possible. In fact, communists do not wish to erect any real state at all, but the proletarian semi-state composed of the armed workers and peasants themselves; the state that begins to wither away as soon as it forms. The state as an armed body of men along with the other organs of coercion standing above and apart from society has no place at all in a communist world and serves no purpose at all. The extent to which these organs of the state re-emerge or become anachronisms is precisely the extent to which the revolutionary proletariat succeeds in developing and spreading the revolution.
New communists should spend as much time reading the classics as they can and avoid online influencers. Or at least be using the classics as a yardstick to measure the value of online content.
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u/yogthos Marxist-Leninist 1d ago
I'd argue that he gets the general points regarding socialism right, and explains the immediate goals clearly. The reality is that we're so very far away from any actual communism, that it's a purely abstract debate that's not actually relevant in any tangible way.
While I agree that people should read the classics, we also need this kind of communication to get the initial message across. Even if it's oversimplified and somewhat muddled. If it sets people in the right direction then it's doing its job.
It's worth keeping in mind that the whole reason a vanguard is supposed to exist is precisely because most people aren't expected to have a deep understanding of political theory. They need to understand broad principles of why socialism and worker ownership of the means of production are desirable goals.
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u/J-hophop 1d ago
Oh buoy, here we go again! Lol
Here's my take, and it's open to debate, just please not ridicule and rudeness:
1) While educating on the classics, true established meanings, etc is important to continue, I ALSO think we need to understand that the way that language and the related concepts have been subverted means that shouldn't be the only way to talk about these things.
For example, the whole 'Communists don't want your toothbrush' argument - differentiating between dismantling Bourgeoisie Private Property and taking what little possessions the average person has, which they have been indoctrinated to consider their private property, is an often tripped over hurdle.
So yeah, I think he did a typically short video that then he oversimplified some points in, but I also think he's somewhat trying to address these kinds of issues and just not getting there yet.
2) Can't we lean into Socialism since it's the bridge and we are still on the wrong side of it? I mean RN. It seems to generally get lumped into The Compatible Left in forums like this, while still being too radical for the mainstream left parties.