The way things are going gives me serious doubt that democracy will survive.
I'm sorry comrade, I don't share your optimism.
The left really hasn't had many victories lately.
Socialism is really going through a crisis right now. All our old theories have failed. All our ideas about revolution have been proven wrong.
It seems very hopeless at this moment. Right?
Zizek says now is the time to think. To reevaluate everything. Or how Marx put it,"ruthlessly critique all that you see"
Right? Ideas need to come before action. Plans come before revolution.
What's your plan?
I wouldn't see myself as a Major optimist, i see myself as a Diplomatic Pessimist at best. There have been many failures of Economic systems both from the Left and the Right and i can in some ways understand why Anarcho-primitivists would just want to go backwards in time before all this even happened, however that is not progression. According to Marx humanity needs to progress not regress in accordance to Historical Materialism, so i am of the belief that the left needs to look outside the box of Materialism a bit and look to new ideas without making the old redundant, Anarchists really need to start looking at the old ideas and modernizing them and Marxist-Leninists need to get of their Ideological high horse, since all that will lead to is more pain and torment. Power dynamics in Politics are not straight forward and neither are Economic Systems, there doesn't just need to be educating the masses, but a full scale re-evaluation of the masses. Capitalism in its many forms like Social Democracy, Conservatism, Fascism, and Nazism have shown to be counter-intuitive and massively pointless at upholding and the past attempts of Marxism-Leninism style "Socialist" systems have shown to be although ideologically innocent, the reality of them is not. So my plan is simply to put what we know in a easy to understand format on here then question what we know as leftists to re-evaluate what we need to work on, then once we have consensus on new ideas we can then realize the faults in the old.
You might find the works of Murray Bookchin interesting, he pretty much talks about the same things you are talking about.
He too wants to go past,"materialism" and investigate,"naturalism".
His essay,"Listen here marxist" might be right up you alley.
Which it's a fairly vulgar text, but I think he strikes a really valid point which is that the socialism of the 21st century isn't going to look like the socialism of the 20th century.
Which, with the emergence of the revolution in northern Syria, we might be seeing the beginnings of an eco-socialist revolution. Or the kurds just might get killed, idk, we will see, I think the ecology struggle might be too late, but I hope I'm wrong.
Anyway here is what I want to stress to you, the left is losing now, probably more then ever right? Like fascism might actually take control over the united states soon.
We can't be dividing the left any further than it already is. We need solidarity now, probably more then ever, if we're going to ever get anywhere. The Leninists are socialists, hell even the trots are socialists.
There are people on the left who have different ideas then you, doesn't mean they aren't leftists, they just have a different point of view. You need to understand where they are coming from, don't just shrug them off because the experiment in the USSR was messy. Reality is messy.
Thing you are missing here is i've read bookchin thats where i started when i started to read into Anarchism, the second thing is, i don't shrug MLs and Trots off, its more they shrug me off. I was a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist for ages and i still defend some of what the USSR did, and praise what was done correctly although i might not agree with the principles around it. I've tried my damnedest to talk to ML's but they never ever want to talk to me on equal footing unless i become a ML, which i never will. Just because i don't want to be a ML doesn't automatically mean that i aint up for talking to them as comrades, to me and quite a few Anarchists the shunning of MLs aint coming from us, its them towards us. Plus like i said in a past post, MLs mock Trots for their tactics but a lot of the time the same MLs are actually doing the same shit trots do tactically. I've seen ML parties all over the place condemn the acts of Rioters who are on their side just because they don't wanna be painted badly by an already corrupt media.
Right, okay you've read bookchin. So that whole chapter in ecology of freedom about,"Unity in diversity" didn't strike a chord with you?
Let me ask you this, how much do you work to organize.
In my local food not bombs chapter, there are plenty of Marxist-Leninists, who help with the food line, who donate money, etc.
Like, do you go out, face to face with people(as bookchin wanted us to do) and collborate?
Like online we like to argue about theory, but theory is nothing without praxis, right? Like we could talk all day about what,"socialism" should or shouldn't look like, but if we aren't working for it, what's the point?
You ever been to an anti-war march, in my town, the Party for socialism and liberation( a strictly marxist-leninist party) organizes most of the anti-war activity. Anarchists, socialists, and hell liberals of all sorts show up.
Like yes, the catholic workers do their yearly sacred peace walk, yes there are other anti-war activists, but we all come together when we need too.
That's what we need. Like, you're being an ultra-leftist dude.
Like, I don't like trots either, I think their theory is bad, I think their praxis is bad, because their entire praxis has been, split the left.
But I offer them,"critical support"
Here is the thing, I think you're caught up with the toxicity of the internet.
What the Left needs is to have some sort of unity, we lost the cold war, we lost( in the united states) the political struggle, occupy failed, standing rock failed, Bernie lost. now we are trapped in the rise of the horrid authoritarian right.
Understand our current circumstances, we can argue about specifics when we get some victories. We can't afford to be split. There are children being herded into cages.
Yeah but im not being ultra-left about it, i have tried to get MLs to show up to rallies but they haven't showed face explicitly because "Anarchists would undermine our reasons for being there" and thats verbatim.
There is no part of what i wrote that was explicitly saying that MLs aren't helping the left and those who are vulnerable, the only thing that i have against them is their political supremacy against us. You seem to have this far-fetched idea that i am so against unity on the left that i'll do anything to stop it happening, that's not me that's the MLs here and the MLs that comrades of mine have tried to share a platform with and the MLs in question haven't even given thought to. I have a Maoist mate who organized a rally and invited Anarchists and MLs alike but only the Anarchists showed up so the issue aint with us, its some of your ML buddies who can't be arsed to swallow their fucking pride for a change.
I ain't aiming to split the left anymore than it already is. I've tried and failed, ive managed to get Social Democrats and Anarchists to work together i even got a bunch of Anprims to show up to a rally, even a few left coms, and the MLs didn't even bother their arse. When an MLM organizes something, invites anarchists, socdems and MLS and the MLs are the only ones who actively don't show face it goes to show who actually have the issue with left unity, and it aint the anarchists funly enough contrary to what you seem to think.