Today i had the misfortune of encountering a western “leftist” on Twitter. He stans Podemos (a spanish demsoc party, very liberal and proNATO, they are now in a coalition government with the socdems and they love Zelenski). We discussed the Ukraine War and Russia. I thought he would do the typical “ok the US and NATO are very bad, but Russia is bad too!” so i brought up the NATO invasions of Yugoslavia and Libya to show how the west is manufacturing consent now with Ukraine just like they did with Yugoslavia and Libya, which i assumed he would say were bad. Well the motherfucker goes and says “akchually those invasions were good, we stopped genocides and evil dictators”. WTF. How are these people “leftists”? They are straight up NATOist warhawks. How is this “the left” now? And this is in Europe, where the left is much stronger than in the US! I cant stand this. HOW IS THIS “LEFTISM”? Im so angry right now, what a piece of shit human being, defending imperialist genocides while calling himself a “leftist”. He even had the gull of saying “you arent a leftist, you defend genocidal regimes like the USSR, Putin or North Korea, youre a fascist!”. Fucking unbelievable. Ok rant over.
Oh and he also defended finnish and baltic nazis of WW2 and said “bolshevism is just like nazism”. Plus he said holodomor was real and when i showed him that expert historians on the subject like Mark Tauger, J Arch Getty and Stephen Wheatcroft think otherwise, he said “youre wrong, the historical consensus doesnt agree with you”.
Being pro-NATO or even thinking that they’re a ‘defensive alliance’ is the biggest tell. You have to have your head in the sand to take that position.
If I ever find out who downvoted this, I will send them a very sternly worded letter
And (down)vote them. Voting solves everything
Of course
I’ve realized that unless they specifically say Marxist or ML, chances are they’re just confused liberals.
Even if they claim to be ML its bad. Here the Communist Party of Spain claims to be ML but its 100% liberal. They are in coalition government with these Podemos idiots and the socdems. They love Zelenski, say pootin man bad all the time and support sending weapons to neonazis. While many members of the party are based the leadership are a gang of corrupt opportunists and are destroying the party. Although imo the party was killed in 1975, when they rejected revolution in favor of liberal democracy. Honestly i think the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) is the only mainstream communist party in western europe that isnt 100% social imperialist.
American “ML’s” claim to be ML’s but then they ban you for stepping on their exceptionalism.
There is no label that is actually free of red flags if you ask me. Identifying a certain way doesn’t make a person infallible or even revolutionary.
I mean most people here are ML but yet ive seen people pushing pro-life propaganda. Not something I would have expected.
It’s all because idealism. What mostly baffled me on GenZedong was how incredibly full that sub was of religious apologists. I mean, did those guys ever read anything about the topic of idealism and materialism by idk, such fringe and unknown marxists like Marx, Engels or Lenin?
EDIT: Aw damn, they are here too. Seriously guys, read some Marx, Engels, Lenin. Really.
I mean, i still think tho that we shouldnt supress religion, we should control it, like in China. Religion will fade away with communism, but until then we must deal with it somehow. Supressing it doesnt work (as a pole you sure must know) and its wrong. By controlling it, we remove cults and reactionary branches of mainstream religions and put in its place religious leaders loyal to the Communist Party. China did this great in Tibet. They replaced the proUS Panchen Lama with a prochinese one, and as soon as the Dalai Lama dies the same thing will be done, and it will be the end for the US funded tibetan opposition. Same in Xinjiang, they have religious leaders who respect secularism and are loyal to Beijing. I also think we shouldnt ban religious people from joining the Communist Party as long as they can separate their faith from reality and do a materialist analysis (meaning no creationist type idiots). Thats what i think.
See, this is the think that also irk me incredibly. Why the fuck always when i write “religion is incompatible with marxism”, something that Marx, Engels and Lenin wrote literally few hundred times each, i immediately got accused of wanting to “supress religion”.
What do everyone even means by “Supressing religion”? I feel like for some strange reason everyone always pictures priest hunts like anarchists in Spain did… Which was excessive and every ML should tell you the same. Maybe expropriating powerful, antagonistic and reactionary religious intitutions? I mean, those are the people that have such persecution complex that ANY infringing on their priviledges is ALWAYS treated as total war against “religion”. What to do with them?
Also, what religion is also super important point. Some minor sect which is barely recognizable? Or maybe catholic church with hierarchy, millions of faithful, powerful material support and ties to CIA? Or maybe something like scientology or Falun Gong (just compare what scientology did in USA and Falun Gong did in China).
China can afford controlling religion because religion, and especially single religion, never had very much sway in China and first few decades of PRC seen rapid increase in atheism. They never had something like catholic church rule of souls or calvin fundies or wahhabists. Religions there just listen because they are weak, as religions always do, this is a constant through history, once they get strong, they start to talk strong too. Always. Also Falun Gong again, do note that when they crossed the line, PRC fell on them like a ton of brick, no hiding behind “religious freedoms” bullshit for the dangerous reactionaries.
And about religious people joining the party, you missed. While cooperation with religious people is of course possible when necessary, party should not be mass organization of anyone who could crawl in. Party members should be held to higher standards. And “being marxist” is not even the higher standard, it’s absolute minimum. And “being marxist” include materialism. Not fideism. As you can even see from the CPC and afaik every other communist party of past and current AES, atheism is required, though not necessary militant one, and it’s probably not strictly enforced unfortunately (as a Pole i could tell you this was one of the reasons why Poland went to shit and got explosion of fundamentalism). Then again, it’s hard to say if they keep their faith to themselves, and if they prove they CAN really separate it, why not, it’s functionally indiscernable anyways.
As a Pole i would said to you that church was not even remotely supressed enough. It should be just dissolved with all assets confiscated and all recognition by the law equaled with let’s say chess club.
Again, for practical work of the party, this: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm
I mean, i said what i said because in some socialist countries religion was very heavily suppressed imo, in Albania for example or USSR at times. Getting a Bible or a Quran was very hard and so on. I think assets of churches should be expropiated indeed. Churches should become like a kind of mass organization imo, with all its assets owned by the state and the organization also controlled by the state. The church functions as a church but is subordinated to the party and takes orders from it. Again, i think religious people who can think in a materialist way should be allowed to join the party. Ofc there should be high standard requirements, but if they meet them and are believers, i think its ok. I understand why you think this is impossible, since your country is full of religious nutjobs (no offense), but i can guarantee you its true. Here in Spain religion has much less influence in society than in Poland, and youll find many people who consider themselves catholic but dont appear like it at all. They rarely go to church, follow no restrictions associated with catholicism and dont care about what the Pope says about abortion, gays or some other thing. My mom is like that, shes a scientist so she can apply rational thinking, but she still believes. I often ask her why (im atheist), and she says it makes her feel protected during hard times. I think that these type of people, which believe me are very common here in western europe, should be allowed to join the party.
I also think you shouldnt discard the progressive potential for religion. I think religion is a tool, so its not bad by itself. Sure religion is very often used by reactionaries, but it can also be used progressively. Again what China did in Tibet, they picked a loyal Panchen Lama, and now he uses his strong influence as a religious leader to promote socialism, friendship with the chinese government and fights the tibetan CIA opposition. Indeed, the beliefs of the mainstream religions (islam, christianity, judaism and buddhism) are often quite compatible with socialism, since they promote friendship with others, helping the poor, solidarity, etc. Hell if Jesus Christ was alive today hed be 100% called a “communist” by the libs. Thats where christian socialism and islamic socialism comes into the picture. In countries with strong religious influence it can be a great way to strenghten socialism i think. Ofc you should be able to control the religious leaders for this to work, otherwise the reactionaries can use the religion against socialism. For example i think in Poland it wouldnt work, because the religious leader is the Pope, and hes in Rome so you cant control him. It could work tho in Russia for example, where you have the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church there. You put someone loyal in charge, control him and use christianity to promote socialism. I think its an option as valid as state atheism. Both options could work in the appropiate material conditions i think. What do you think?
I think what you said about China demonstrates the crux of the matter. The right approach that should be pursued depends very much on the particular circumstances of every revolution, the history and the cultural peculiarities of each individual country, and how much of an impediment or a significant reactionary force that the religious institutions in each case represent. I think the more tolerant Chinese approach was right for China, and the more militantly anti-clerical approach of the Bolsheviks was right for Russia where the church had historically been a very reactionary force and was in bed with all the worst of the old power structures.
The role which religion and church serve should be analyzed and studied on a case by case basis. For instance in Cuba it seems that they have managed to overwhelmingly embrace the progressive and socialist side of Christianity. In Libya Gaddafi had done something similar with Islam. In Poland on the other hand i see a situation much more akin to that of pre-1917 Russia unfortunately.
I’m going to go ahead and channel Mao here and say the key is to investigate and try to thoroughly understand the situation before formulating a policy position.
free of red flags
I see what you did there
“Leftists” in my country are just a bunch of idealistic revisionists. Their so called “leftist” stance are simply reduced to issues of environmental/identity politics. They couldn’t care less about the global south or supporting AES. They are too comfortable leeching off the imperial core’s neocolonialism.
Same here in Spain. A lot of talking about “we must leave NATO and the EU” and “America bad” but then when push comes to shove, like now with the Ukraine War, they all rally behind NATO and support the NATO narrative. The Podemos motherfuckers (which includes the Communist Party, yes its that revisionist, eurocommunism killed it) literally did a standing ovation for Zelenski the piece of shit nazi. We are sending millions of euros in weapons to neonazis, but its ok because russia man bad. Oh whats that, you need welfare to not starve? Sorry, no money left for that. Fucking social fascists. Where are you from?
Finland my fellow comrade. I knew it was coming that Finland were applying to join NATO, but when the announcement came today, the anxiety still hit hard.
The pro-NATO propaganda here have been relentless these past few months and there have been no counter-arguments to NATO in the media, not even from public service. At least I read a letter in one of the newspapers today from the Finnish Peace Union (umbrella org for multiple peace orgs), where the writer heavily criticized the NATO decision and that she had heavily lost trust in public service after all this propaganda.
I think Finland needs to think very hard about allowing NATO to place any kind of weapons systems on their soil and remember what happened when Finland in 1939 refused to take the Soviet concerns seriously about the border being too close to Leningrad considering the Finnish alliance with Nazi Germany. Finland back then was being egged on by the British to adopt the most recalcitrant and stubborn position possible and refuse to negotiate with Stalin or even acknowledge the security concerns were valid. Present day Finland should hope that Putin is as lenient as Stalin was when he let them keep their independence after what the Finns did, or i foresee a world of hurt…
PSOE and UP be like: “what is a Marx, in this house we only stan NATO 💪💪”
For real. Then they have the gull to sing The Internationale at their rallies. Literally the definition of social fascism.
Man, remember when the UK Labour Party sang the Internationale in the Commons and went “oh teehee we broke the rules, we’re standing up to the man!”
Motherfuckers, you support imperialism
At the risk of being banned for some sort of -phobia, I have to say that western left movement was fucked the moment euroleft minority activism (tifoil on: fucking CIA-leashed trotskyists tinfoil:off) took over, even if it wasn’t hijacked by libshits. Look at the results - it fractures the working class, and it can’t fight for it’s rights if it’s not united (and problems of minorities are either caused or severely exacerbated by the same old K anyway), after it is fractured certain groups are radicalized the wrong way and you get misandrists, “reverse” racists (just plain old racists) and shit like that and, it’s most ridiculous manifestations give great material for propaganda, because all the right have to do is point and say “Them screeching weirdos over there are marxists, look some of them even say that, do you want to be like them?”, shove horseshoe down people’s throats, that route.
Uhhh no? Identity politics has nothing to do with this. The problem here is western exceptionalism, the belief that “the west”, meaning the US empire, has the right to be the world police and that its political system is the role model to follow. Thats the origin of eurocommunism, which is what killed the western left. The idea that “we must have a democratic communism, because soviet, chinese and third world communism is authoritarian and undemocratic, while western democracies arent” is what killed the western left. The 3 strongest communist parties in Western Europe, the Italian, French and Spanish Communist Parties, were destroyed by eurocommunism. Thats the problem here, western chauvinism and propaganda. Identity politics, no matter what you think of it, has nothing to do with this and is totally irrelevant to my post.
