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Marxist-Leninist ☭
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2d ago

Iranian state media confirms death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago
One can only hope.

2d ago

Iranian state media confirms death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Iran, or the US and Israel killing Khamenei?

2d ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

I've spoken quite a bit about Katyn, and have not really seen any Marxist saying "the soviets definitely did it" and "that's a good thing." Katyn gets pinned on the Soviets because Goebbels reported on it and it became a useful story, but the execution method was distinctly Nazi, ie killing men, women, and children from behind into mass graves. The ammunition was German-produced in 1941, and the rope used to bind the hands of the victims was German made.

The Soviets absolutely killed Polish soldiers, but the character of their involvement was not anywhere close to what the Nazis reported.

2d ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

♥️

2d ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Workers sell their labor-power for wages. Owners buy labor-power and raw materials, and sell the commodities created by them for a massive amount of profits. Both "do things," but workers live by selling their labor-power, not owners.

2d ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Norway relies on imperialism to subsidize its safety nets.

2d ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Owners do not work for a living, their incomes are not wages but a huge share of profit that comes from surplus value extraction. Doing some work here or there does not explain why their incomes are hundreds to thousands and even more times higher than workers, whose wages do vary but within a much more narrow band.

2d ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Churchill was largely responsible for starving over 4 million Indians to death, and had this to say to defend himself:

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.

On top of this, Churchill was very close with the Nazis, to the point that Hitler was certain Britain would side with the Nazis in the coming war. When FDR and Stalin joked about executing Nazi officers after the war was over, Churchill stormed out of the room, as "those men were defending their country."

As for the soviet prisons, an enormous number of prison deaths occured during World War II, when famine was widespread due to the Nazis storming Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket. On the whole, soviet prisons and the justice system itself were more progressive than their peers, Mary Stevenson Callcott documented it quite well in Russian Justice.

The soviet union, despite having a progressive legal system, was in a state of constant turmoil caused by pressures both external and internal. They couldn't simply delete all previously existing ruling-class people and ideology, class struggle continues under socialism. Further, pressure from the imperialist west, invasion both in threat and in action, and intentional sabateurs meant that the prisons certainly weren't empty. The soviet union never had a single year of normal, stable growth, free from intense opposition on the outside and counter-revolutionary forces on the inside.

2d ago

Fuck the Imperialist EU

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

The EU exports capital to super-exploit the global south for super-profits. The EU lives off of the labor of the global south.

2d ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.

See, once I started working a "Real Job" I saw just how much surplus value was stolen, and turned to Marxist theory to make cohesive sense of it. 85% isn't an over-estimation, especially if we factor in imperialism. Workers in the imperial core are paid more and exploited less than workers in the periphery.

If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.

We will probably all work 30-40 hours a week for the next great length of time even in socialism, but with far greater societal guarantees and a less predatory system of distribution.

2d ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

The only alts I have are ones named "Cowbee" on other instances.

2d ago

Why do you think so many people on the Marxist left defend Stalinism?

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

When people talk about "Stalinism," they usually mean one of 2 things:

Marxism-Leninism, the synthesis of Marxism with the advancements made by Lenin. Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, so this gets called "Stalinism" despite Stalin's minor contributions compared to Marx and Lenin.
The policies of the USSR while Stalin was General Secretary of the CPSU.

The former, Marxism-Leninism, is the largest tendency of Marxism by far. This is because it has proven its utility in practice, establishing socialism in many countries with varying local conditions and contexts. Lenin's contributions to Marxism are near universally accepted by Marxists, and Stalin did not change from them in synthesizing Marxism-Leninism.

The latter, Stalin's policy positions, are largely either contextualized and explained, rather than actively defended, or are genuinely good feats. For example, under Stalin, literacy rates skyrocketed from ~30% to 99.9%, life expectancy doubled, education and healthcare were made free at all levels, jobs were guaranteed, and much more. Genuine faults, like criminalizing homosexuality, are recognized as such by Marxist-Leninists.

As Weng Weiguang says, The Evaluation of Stalin is Essentially an Ideological Struggle. Marxist-Leninists don't idolize Stalin. At the same time, Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, and oversaw the world's first socialist state during its most turbulent period. The CPC rates him as 70% good, 30% bad, and this rating is roughly orbited by most communist orgs. Those who denounce Stalin entirely, also denounce the USSR, and existing socialism.

Stalin was a committed Marxist-Leninist, and oversaw the world's first socialist state for the overwhelming majority of its most tumultuous period. He was no saint, but at the same time was no monster either. He is remembered by liberal historians as far worse than comtemporaries like Churchill who in actuality were far worse than Stalin.

As Nia Frome says, we can either distance ourselves from Stalin, and by extension the USSR and actually existing socialism, or we can fight back against bourgeois narratives about Stalin and the USSR, acknowledging their faults while being able to uphold their tremendous successes as examples of the possibilities of socialism in power. Historical nihilism, and throwing Stalin and by extension much of the early soviet union under the bus, was ultimately what allowed for liberalization within the USSR and partially contributed to the death of socialism in eastern Europe.

If you want an intro to Marxism-Leninism, check out my new basic ML study guide!

2d ago

Dialectical Materalism: How to Think Like a Marxist

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Yep, what's sneaky is that they routinely clip us out of context, because they fear what we say will sway others if presented genuinely. Something on Katyn or the 1930s famine would have probably also been good.

2d ago

Dialectical Materalism: How to Think Like a Marxist

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

🫡

2d ago

Fuck the Imperialist EU

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

They did not use an ad hominem fallacy, they said you explained why being anti-genocide is wrong, and then said that that's typical of Germans. They did not say you were wrong because you were German.

2d ago

Dialectical Materalism: How to Think Like a Marxist

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Based on my experience, PJ will likely just cut your entire comment out if it debunks them too hard, but it might be worth a shot!

2d ago

Capitalist authority vs. worker authority

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

Cool story but I've never spoken to a party member, and the historical books I read aren't from party members either.

2d ago

The problem with socialism

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Cowbee [he/they] @lemmy.ml 2d ago

I always meant that "again" as in "this week," haha. It was my first rodeo, and I wanted to use it to help push me to read it. A new person has run the Capital reading threads each year, for the past 3 years!