• KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    Do I even want to know what an ultra is?

    As I understand it it’s basically the late 20th century equivalent of the early 20th century’s leftcoms, with the difference that at least some of them actually did some things (bad things, generally, but still actual material things). It’s an umbrella term covering a number of niche tendencies like Hoxhaists, Gonzalites, and the sort of Maoist that’s stuck in a protracted people’s war against the local DSA book club.

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        They come from the same tendency that split from MLs over Khruschev’s revisionism, and then split again over China’s revisionism as part of the collection of tendencies that turned into like Maoist Third-Worldism and whatnot. “Ultra” doesn’t necessarily mean “wrong about everything,” it’s just a catch-all for all the “too-ideologically-pure for this world, and so at odds with anyone who’s ever made a concession to material necessity before” tendencies, if maybe a bit less than leftcoms are that same thing. Like the Hoxhaist critique of China’s geopolitical strategy is cogent and accurate, if maybe a bit too harsh since there are material reasons why China has done what it’s done. The Chuang Collective are ultras and they wrote and published a detailed history and analysis of Chinese economic development and labor movements and the material conditions China was dealing with post-revolution, for all that they then bookend it with flowery denunciations of “the CCP” [sic] for not being sufficiently ideologically pure and ridiculous calls for China’s destruction to bring down the American economy.

        • TheGenderWitch [she/her, she/her]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          Hoxhaists are MLs, Maoists are also MLs, and general anti-revesionist types are MLs, they just have a different line on these types of issues which i can respect. Calling them ultras requires a misunderstanding of their ideology. Maoists themselves have many ongoing insurrections in several countries, and have the longest one in historical record. There is something to what they say if they’re able to keep from going reformist and stay revolutionary for so long.

          You admit yourself they made a good analysis of chinese history and the economy, remember, they just have different conclusions than you.

          Leftcoms are ultras, trots + bukharinists are revisionists ultras, MLs and their adherents are on the correct line.