Since reading Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution and discussing with my wife about it, we both got to the conclusion that a party should have its goal in their laws and executive actions to get rid of capitalism instead of making it “livable” under it, like the Northern countries.
Now, that is mostly clear to me, and I kinda also understand what Lenin spoke of in Left-wing communism (haven’t finished reading it). But how would one go about doing so?
I also recognize that having a mix of both reformist and revolutionary laws before the revolution might be advantageous and a worthy tactic to raise the class consciousness in the short term and starting to lay the foundation for the revolution on the long term. But this is very abstract and I can’t quite fully understand how this would be measured and which law would have to be reformist or revolutionary.
My interpretation of revolutionary is anything that is inherently anti-capitalist. This can either impede exploitation of a sector of the current economy (like abolishing the ability of landowners to own more than 2 homes or outright banning corporations of buying homes and subsequently appropriating their homes) or make it impossible to extract profits (collectivization of national industries and running them on non-profit basis).
Am I missing something here tho? Are there any other useful tactics or strategies to apply in the European imperial core?
Preaching about “moral scruples” is anti-revolutionary. The same way youre comparing socialist extremists to “right deviationism” is the same way Stalin has been demonized by being compared to Hitler.
Every year capitalism causes tens of millions of deaths and immeasurable suffering. The bourgeoisie has already thrown all scruples out of the window,
I’m sorry, what? What do you think the purpose of a communist revolution is for? Simply to hold power for the sake of it?
Demonizing Stalin isn’t bad because “moral scruples.” It’s bad because it’s a dishonest narrative pushed by anti-communists who are looking at mistakes or questionable decisions made by a generally honest and well-intentioned system under siege (the USSR), or straight up making up things about what it did. And then trying to make that comparable to the murderous intent and follow-through of an intentionally genocidal regime (Nazi Germany). And they do so via superficial and politically illiterate buzzwords that mean nothing about governance.
As I alluded to in my other post, I am not here to go back in time and rake AES efforts over the coals for every questionable decision they made when they were struggling to survive against assault. However, that does not mean that as as general principle, we should be promoting a view like “by any means necessary” and “make a totalitarian government.” Which is not what the (often laudable) AES efforts have done in history and is not how they accomplished such dramatic improvements in quality of life.
It would seem that some people look at the violence part of revolution and hyperfocus on that, while leaving out the part where communists tend to be principled and disciplined as an effort when they were/are successful. Hell, even Iran is principled in the middle of war and it’s not even communist; the US/israel bombed its hospitals but it did not do the same to israel. This does not mean being tolerant in the liberal sense of things or being a pushover in war (and again, using Iran as example, they are far from acting like a pushover).
So your solution to fix this is for the working class to also throw out all moral scruples??? I know revolution is no dinner party and I’m familiar with the poignant Mark Twain quote and point about terror, but come on. The context in which this is valid is that revolution is not exactly a friendly exchange of power and you won’t win it via a game of rock-paper-scissors with the bourgeoisie. That still doesn’t mean you throw out any and all sense of morality, and you would be hard-pressed to find such behavior as representative of communist revolutions in history. Are you thinking concretely about how dark no moral compass can look? Torture? Child killing? Targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure like hospitals? This is the kind of evil shit colonialism and imperialism gets up to regularly. Communists do not need to imitate that in order to have power.
First of all. English is not my native lenguage so i apoligize for my broken english.
I meant that Stalin was demonized with the pretext of moral scruples, not that it was bad to demonize Stalin with the pretext of moral scruples.(tbh this lowkey dosnt make any sense)
What i was trying to get at its that the show the other cheek mentality is what leads moderates and liberals to demonizes Stalin and Mao. Wich i dont think their being dishonest about, the NKVD did do a whole lot of morbid work. Wich of they did too litte, just look at the destalinization campaing. Krushev should have been executed way before he got anywhere close to Chairman.
I dont think we should be using iran as an example of anything. They are just a convinient ally against The Fourth Reich.(the enemy of the enemy is my friend type shi)
Torture its just not worth the trouble.
Morality is based on intent: If a surgeon dismembers a patient because the patient got gangrene, hes not an evil sadistic monster. Hes a savior.(i hate that this reads like chatgpt)
I 100% believe that the end justify the means. And i think trying to keep a moral highground is damaging to the revolution.
Well this is why I use Iran as an example. Iran has conducted warfare, there is no doubt about it. They are not acting like pacifists, refusing to do violence and getting themselves massacred in the process. But they still have lines they don’t cross.
The liberal conception of moral high ground is more akin to pacifism, in my understanding of it. Though it is also kind of nonsensical and contradictory because it’s the liberals who don’t have power who most seem to preach it and the liberals who do have power definitely don’t wield it like pacifists when it comes time to enact imperialist policies and the like. Liberalism in general has a lot of self-deceit and deceit of others going on.
When I speak of morality, I am thinking more like Iran than I am thinking like Michelle Obama’s vapid “when they go low, we go high” (while her husband was ordering drone strikes).
I see no reason why revolutionaries should not exercise restraint and, in fact, among revolutionaries who do not exercise restraint, what I would expend to see is a lot of adventurist random violence that does not coherently contribute to revolutionary goals and wastes energy and resources in the process. This doesn’t mean I’m going to go preachy about every person who is being exploited and takes matters into their own hands. It does mean that I’m not going to promote conducting revolutionary goals in that way and I’m going to push back against language that suggests boundaries don’t matter.
In short, I would agree that the liberal conception of moral highground is damaging (and is more often just nonsense). I would insist, however, that there is such a thing as real moral highground and that disciplined revolutionaries are perfectly capable of practicing it and have done so at times in the past. This does not exclude conducting warfare when under attack; even liberals would usually agree that war as self-defense is morally justified. War is always going to be somewhat ugly, but it doesn’t have to be no holds barred conducted as brutally as possible to maximize civilian death and suffering as the imperialists do.
I mean if what you are getting at is that violence for the sake of violence or sadistic pleasure is wrong i 100% agree.(punctuation left the chat)
But i cant help to feel theres some sort of miscommunication in here, thats why i would like to know how you feel about Dresden.
Dresden? You mean the bombing of the German city during WWII?
The fire bombing i mean
From what I can find on it, it was carried out by British and US forces, so I’m not sure what it has to do with the practice of communists. Not trying to avoid the question either, I’m just not sure where the connection is. It looks like indiscriminate targeting of civilians to me, which is typical for colonial forces like them (and the US did similar to imperial Japan - worse when you consider the atomic bombs).
I wish to know whats your moral stance on the Dresden Fire Bombings(considering that the end goal was to defeat the nazis)
Big K on the mic:
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice”