#and even a bit of lenin

[sh3nlong-promakh0s]

I hate petty bourgeois mfs so much it's unreal

Anyway I'll probably work in data entry again smh bc mfs want me to do that and I need extra money fuck

[psychotrenny]

To all the Anarchists who don't read, could you please understand why people would like you to answer basic questions on the principals of how your planned future society functions. You don't have to produce a hundred pages of technical documents and 5 year plans, but at the bare minimum when people ask "Could you produce the things I/my loved ones need to not die badly?" you need a better answer than "Yeah man we'll work something out. I gotta buddy who's really into biochemistry I'm sure he'll cook something up". If you are unwilling or unable to provide said better answer, then it's only natural that people will be unsympathetic to your ideology and getting mad about it only makes things worse.

Like if you wanna pursue Anarchism as like some sort of Philosophy/Lifestyle/Mindset or whatever that's your business, it's not as though I can send you to a re-education camp* or anything. But doing that is not a very effective way to bring about actual change in the world, and you look fucking ridiculous when you act as though it is. You need to take your ideology serious if you want anyone else to

And to all those Anarchists who do read, do keep in mind that the largest and most vocal contingent of self-identified "Anarchists" are the various political illiterates and LARPers who therefore provide most people's primary point of reference for Anarchism. I'm sure it's very infuriating to see all the contemptuous mockery directed towards the the most weak and incoherent version of your ideology, but you have to understand this is mainly a reaction to what people actually experience rather than a deliberate attempt to strike at strawmen. Like if you're sick of seeing this then getting mad isn't gonna do anything either; your only real option is to improve your collective efforts at education and agitprop. And not only towards the "Statists" and undecided, but towards your supposed Anarchist comrades as well. It's worth preaching to the choir when none of them show up to church

[edwad]

marxism (or whatever) theory is way too esoteric to build a mass movement around. i have two years of philosophy formal training and still find some stuff in capital very hard to wrap my head around of. the idea that the average person is going to have politics this sophisticated is just hopeless. before you reflexively disagree with me, consider that to get where you are you've had reading scholarly texts on this topic as your primary hobby for like over a decade now

this isn't a reflexive disagreement but i do think you're wrong. not just because ive had some relative overexposure to marxist texts or because i think 2 years of formal philosophy training isn't even all that much or wouldn't necessarily make reading capital easier as such (besides, i have 0 years of philosophy training and dont read philosophical texts of the sort that i imagine you're talking about), but because i think the history of 20th century social movements basically proves you wrong.

from chinese peasants reading marx in the mountainsides to poor black workers in alabama reading lenin, i think treating marxism as beyond the intellectual scope of the average mind or whatever is demonstrably false. that you can hone in on a particular element and waste lots of ink on some of the more sophisticated bits and pieces doesn't mean that people can't be mobilized by it. i also don't really see myself as somehow outside of "The Masses" just because i've done a lot of the reading (i obviously started reading this stuff for a reason!)

and of course i wouldn't be able to resist pointing out that im not even a marxist, but to suggest it can't do the things it has very obviously done just strikes me as ridiculous.

[apas-95]

Hello, I'm sorry for bothering.

A lot of fellow comrades have been posting quite a bit about anarchists lately and I've noticed that they seem to be the majorly from North America (predominantly the US).

Do you think the heavy anti-communist propaganda in these countries is a big influence on, at least online, people's radicalization into anarchism and the aversion to us as "authoritarian takies"?

I've always felt like anarchism is not demonized as much (most anti anarchist propaganda, if you could even call it that, is the propagation of the rule-breaker rebel teen that cares for no one stereotype) because it simply isn't a threat to the capitalism like socialism and communism are. It feels like they'd prefer that people get radicalized into anarchism as it would be both improbable to have a revolution and if it did happen power would be easily taken back. Am I crazy, or does this make sense?

In general, yes, anarchism is significantly more popular in the imperial core; and during the cold war all sorts of 'anti-authoritarian' currents of thought were promoted by the west states as a means of countering Marxism-Leninism.

The most popular anticommunist works, like 1984, which was internationally published and adapted directly by the CIA and British intelligence, are ones that promote a supposedly 'leftist' opposition to socialism. The bourgeoisie would much prefer to deal with anarchists than Marxist-Leninists, which shouldn't come as anything of a surprise, given the last 100 years have been defined by their existential scramble to try to defeat Marxist-Leninist projects composed of hundreds of millions of politically-conscious workers armed with the most advanced weaponry and industrial bases - and the most successful anarchist projects have been, at best, small states formed in the power vacuums of civil wars led by Marxist-Leninist parties, or, more commonly, some sort of protest camp/community garden that gets destroyed as soon as a single cop walks into it.

Also posting the image to clown around a bit fhfhfh

[sansculottides]

Maximilien Robespierre was executed on July 28, 1794, or the 10th of Thermidor in the Republican Calendar. A conventional textbook may mark the end of the French Revolution with Napoleon’s coup in 1799. But Ralph Korngold, Marxist historian, wrote:

“No one man creates a revolution or carries it on, but the currents of revolution may sometimes range themselves in such a manner that the fate of one man becomes the fate of the revolution itself. ‘We did not realize,’ said Cambon, ‘that in killing Robespierre we would kill the Republic.” (From Robespierre and the Fourth Estate–the “fourth estate” here referring to the budding proletarian class of the time. Korngold gave particular attention to Robespierre’s role in the attempt to enact the Ventôse Decrees, the most revolutionary laws proposed during the Republic which would have expropriated the wealth of counter-revolutionaries to be redistributed to the propertyless.)

Napoleon’s ascent ten years after the start of the Revolution only marked the final stab in a Republic that was already good as dead. The death of Robespierre and his allies was the death of the Revolution’s radical aspirations, and allowed the propertied men to fully take charge. Though I also appreciate the sentiment that we can also mark the Revolution’s end a bit after Robespierre, with the death of Babeuf, the “proto-communist."

Anyway, what I really wanted to do was talk about a phenomenal short film that came out this year (on Robespierre’s birthday), “La mort de Robespierre” by smileyfaceorg/Janelle Feng (who has done so much amazing art about Robespierre and the French Revolution).

The film focuses on the night before 10 Thermidor, before Robespierre’s forceful arrest. This historical episode has been depicted before, in various ways. In the 1989 movie La Revolution Francaise, Robespierre had gone insane at this point, an interpretation that fed off of years of black propaganda. In Feng’s film, Robespierre is depressed, remorseful and self-loathing, an interpretation that does have its footing in historical record. In the months leading up to his arrest, Robespierre was frequently sick from the mental exhaustion of running and defending the Republic.

Mental health isn’t a new thing, though we have admittedly only recently begun to be articulate on the subject. Mental health amongst revolutionaries isn’t new either. Even Lenin died of sickness likely compounded by the stress of protecting the Revolution’s gains. In the 1871 Paris Commune, the commune council was “a working, not a parliamentary body [but] executive and legislative at the same time,” which allowed members to fully dedicate themselves to the cause of building a socialist future, but also burdened them with a punishing workload with little room for rest, and the mental exhaustion that naturally follows. I’m sure every person in any radical movement knows the weight of the struggle, but that’s one reason why it must be a collective effort.

At one point in the film Saint-Just looks at the 1793 Declaration of Rights on the wall and comments “To think we made that.” It’s another historically-rooted moment, as there was at least one eyewitness account claiming he did something like that on that night. I think the presence of the 1793 Declaration also ties the film in with the radical tradition of interpreting the Revolution. The ‘93 Declaration was more egalitarian than the initial 1789 Declaration, signed off by a pressured Louis XVI and also the one more textbooks would remember.

I love the use of comic elements too. Comic devices in film would make me think of stuff like Spiderverse or Scott Pilgrim where it’s fun and wacky, but in this film Feng uses comic devices to contract and expand space and time to an introspective yet claustrophobic effect. Especially the scenes where panels surrounded by negative space hint at Robespierre’s inner turmoil. It works really well; comic elements can work like poetry, after all.

I love stuff like this, art that is rooted in history (with quite scholarly rigor) while also aiming to go beyond academic scholarship. You can’t quite explore things like emotions and human experience the same way you can through art. Art like this film looks at historical facts and tries to fill in the gaps. How did they feel about this, what kind of effect did it have? And it explores how these historical people and episodes were human. More importantly, it does so with empathy and purpose, keeping in the “spirit” of the historical figures depicted. If you truly read Robespierre, you wouldn’t give in to lazy portrayals of a mad dictator. In contrast, Feng’s short film shows so much care and attention for this person in the past.

I’m so happy that someone like Feng is making art about the French Revolution. Most of the films, novels, games, etc that come out about the French Rev usually just follow the boring, very liberal and mainstream narratives, and calumnies about Robespierre being a dictator or various other kinds of monsters (not true). Korngold wrote about this too: “The Red Terror appears unpardonable to the Whites, and the White Terror to the Reds. Carlyle penetrates closely to the truth when he says that the reason the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution has received so much scathing comment, is mainly because it was directed against the privileged classes and their followers and not against ‘the voiceless millions.’”

Like the rest of history, our interpretation of the French Revolution exposes the undercurrents of ideology, conscious or not. Our ideas of who should be in power, who should be listened to. Ultimately, it did end as a revolution of the budding bourgeoisie, but before that defeat, there were revolutionaries who imagined and fought for a new future for all. Not just a political revolution, but a social and economic one. We should remember their revolutionary example. There is a reason, after all, why the Soviets held the likes of Robespierre, Saint-Just and Marat in high regard.

[decolonize-the-everything]

"We currently have a generation of socialists in this country that could so eloquently deconstruct Marx, Engels, and Lenin. And could tell you exactly how the alt-right formed and deconstruct every bit of the alt-right but couldn't for their life organize mutual aid.

We've raised a generation of very intelligent, very theory-centric leftists who can not for the life of themselves tell you what goes into actually organizing. Leftists that read Zizek but don't know their neighbor's name.

And if politics were a multiple choice test I guarantee you we would probably win. But we are losing. And it is because we are not in the streets, on the ground doing actual organizing. For the love of God, please go do mutual aid. Sometimes I sound like a broken record but it's important"

x

I'm going thru tik tok and found a bunch of actually helpful things for this so here, have them.

What can Mutual Aid be?

Why it's so important for fighting systematic oppression

It's as serious/complex as you make it

Best advice? See if your area already has an MA collective (really good thread of videos btw)

Also, I want to add that while a lot of this may seem like a lot or even expensive, the idea behind mutual aid is that your community is helping. Items are ideally donated for distribution. Again, I can't stress the importance of community. Stone soup and whatnot.

[casanova-lives]

If you're going to go to protests, it's better to get arrested on purpose than snatched. Get a burner, but be prepared to lose everything anyways if You're suspected of being a credible threat or if they need to use you as an example. Use a surgical mask+hat/hoodie to cover facial features. If you see police drones, a bb gun can be bought by nearly anyone you know :3. With a bit of know-how, air rifles are even better.

At the march, keep shituational awareness, stay in the front half unless you have business in the back hall. Dress lightly but warm enough to survive the transition to night. Write important numbers on your person. Don't take pictures unless you are press. Don't snitch on yourself on social media by posting pictures near the protest begin/end, we're living in interesting times. Always go with a buddy. Bring water+stuff but don't weigh yourself down. Don't throw punches at the cops unless you know you can win the fight against his friends. Don't even harass them until it's safe to do so. Avoid arrest unless it's specifically for that: Keep your blip off of their radar. Find something to do with your hands.

Don't start sectarian arguments. We must come together in principled unity on the issue of halting, and then punishing, the crime of genocide. Something we should have been doing all along prior to October. Find people you work well with and make an affinity group united in principle on the activities you all plan to get involved in. Some require more ideological unity than others. Regardless, everyone in your AG needs good information security culture.

Two big methods of organizational strategy and tactics that are known to work are Democratic Centralism, and Crew Resource Management. The former you can read Lenin and Mao. The latter has a tutorial on the FEMA website. Use both.

Most importantly, your health and safety are needed to continue doing this for as long as we need to. Put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping anyone next to you.

Palestine will be free.

[hannibalismos-jaaneman]

throw back to when you said richard was smarter than henry. im not disagreeing w you but i /gen wanna know why you think that. bc most people in the fandom would say henry (mostly i think because his aesthetic). i personally have never really thought about it.

anon MULTIPLE reasons. MuLTiPlE-

richard was naturally smarter because he attended high school. why is that? henry dropped out in junior year i believe and that year is so darn crucial, you make most of your friends in that time, you become comfortable in your class, with your teachers and within your family at that point. like your real personality and image starts forming in that year. junior year defines your social status and even tho henry was richer, richard still attended high school which means he was just that more emotionally intelligent than henry.

henry was apolitical and socially unaware. richard being from the suburbs had really been a part of the world and not just been a passive observer, unbothered by shit going sideways around himself because his daddy had money. he is canonically a socialist in 80's capitalist usa that's insane, that means he had an understanding of finance and floating monetary systems which was basically being revolutionized in the 80's. the structure of the us economy was changing, there were socio-cultural revolutions going on, feminism, the end of the black panther party, marxist-leninism, over-consumerism, hippie culture, fucked up geopolitics and the sins of the american government, i could seriously go on about how politics must have fascinated him at that time.

also, can i just say that although he dropped out, richard did about a year and a half (i think?) of pre med, that means he had stem related aps in high school and he must've scored well in them as well as his sat to actually land a pre med college.

richard was actually good at greek, that was actually why julian let him in the class besides the fact that he was prettier than all them pretty bois in hampden.

ONLY PERSON IN THE GREEK CLASS WHO GRADUATES™.

he's actually the only person amidst all of them who realises that they are going insane.

he didn't want this life, he actually wanted to be successful in his life but every twenty-something person makes bad decisions.

he's not completely innocent, nope, but he's incredibly inquisitive and he has a way with people. like all of them tell him something that they wouldn't tell anyone had they not been like him. and yeah most of the fandom still thinks that they were trying to set him up for their crimes but there's a separate explanation for why i think that's not actually true and it's voiced by someone else i'll try to link that here.

richard is also indeniably loyal yet extremely shrewd. as i said earlier, he has a way with people and that's because he understands them and unconsciously his attitude changes towards them, making them naturally trust him. like judy and sophie instantly just trusted him to do shit for them and talked to him. like it was the 80's, every other normal guy was a serial killer but they never really gave a second thought about it. same was the case with francis. like ik francis can be a bit of a dummy but he sure as hell fell for richard's- idk- richard-ness.

he was kinda like this weird glue between the nerds and the rest of the college. like soon after richard joins college, the greek class starts interacting with people outside the group, like, sophie, judy, cloke, bram, jack, spike, laforgue, roland. like idt that they would've ever interacted with anyone but each other had richard not come into the picture and that just makes him like a little bit more of the human element in the group and i believe that indeed does make him smarter than not only henry but the rest of the class as well.

[i-am-dulaman]

petition for that long rant on revolutions here, i really enjoyed the way you laid out your facts and explained the first rant and am not too good at reading theory myself (i am still trying tho) thanks!!

Okay okay so the problem with revolutions is they get messy. Real messy. You get counter-revolutionaries, moderates, extremists, loyalists, and everything in between. One revolution turns into 5, and even if your side wins, its almost guaranteed to have been tainted some way or another along the way.

Take the first french revolution. It started as civil unrest, the estates general initially called for reform of the french state into a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain. Even king louis XVI was in support of this. But extremists wanting a republic and counter-revolutionaries wanting absolute monarchy clashed and things became more and more chaotic and violent. Eventually the extremists won, the jacobin reign of terror ensued, and 10s of thousands of people were executed. Now don't get me wrong, i am all for executing monarchs and feudal lords, but look what happened a few years later; Napoleon used the political instability to declare himself emperor, a few more years later his empire had crumbled, and the monarchy was back with Louis XVIII.

Or take the 1979 iranian revolution. It started as protests against pahlavi, who was an authoritarian head of state and an American pawn. As the protests turned into civil resistance and guerilla warfare it took on many different forms. There were secularists vs islamic extremists. There were democrats vs theocrats vs monarchists. Etc. Through all the chaos, Khomeini seized power, held a fake referendum, and declared himself supreme leader and enforced many strict laws, particularly on women who previously had close to equal rights. Many of the millions of women involved in the revolution later said they felt bettayed by the end result.

Or the Russian Revolution. It started as protests, military strikes, and civil unrest during WW1 directed at the tsar. He stepped down in 1917 and handed power over to the Duma, the russian parliament. This new provisionary government initially had the support of soviet councils, including socialist groups like the menshiviks. But they made the major mistake of deciding to continue the war. Lenins bolsheviks were originally a very tiny group on the fringes of russian politics, but they were the loudest supporters of peace, so they gained support and organised militias into an army and thus began the russian civil war. Lenin won and followed through on his promise to end the war against germany, but its a bit ironic that they fought a civil war, that killed about 10 million people, just to end another war.

Im not saying any of these results were either bad or good. They all have nuance and its all subjective. But the point i am trying to make is that they get messy. The initial goals will always be twisted.

France wanted a constitutional monarchy, they got an autocratic emporer.

Iran wanted democracy and an end to American influence, and well they ended american influence alright but also got a totalitarian theocrat.

Russia wanted an end to world war 1 and got one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

I cant think of a single revolution in history that achieved the goals it set out to achieve.

But again, im not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, just a warning against revolutionary rhetoric and criticisms of reformism. Sometimes revolution is the only option, when you're faced with an authoritarian government diametrically opposed to change, then a revolution may be worth the risk. But it is a risk.

But if you live in a democracy, claiming revolution is the only way is actively choosing both bloodshed and the risk of things going horribly wrong over the choice of peaceful reform.

So when i go online in some leftist spaces and see people claiming revolution in America or UK or wherever is the only way out of capitalism I cant help but feel angry.

I know our democracy is flawed, and reform is slow and can even go backwards, but we owe it to all the people who would die in a revolution to try reform first.

I know socialist reform is especially hard in our flawed democracy where capitalists own the media, but if we can't convince enough people to vote for socialist reform what hope do we have of convincing enough people to join a socialist revolution. Socialism is supposed to be for the people, but how can you claim your revolution is for the people if you can't even get the support of the people?

So what I'm trying to say is; if youre one of those leftists that are sitting around waiting for the glorious revolution, doing nothing but posting rhetoric online - at least try doing something else while you wait. Join your labour union, recruit your coworkers, get involved in your local socialist parties, call your local representatives (city council, senator, governor, member of parliament, whatever) and make your opinions known, push them further left, and keep pushing.

[communist-ojou-sama]

I mean you are right that extrapolating past onto future is not the sure way to find truth, but also the fact that after the downfall of empires what's left is states that inherit their functions and strive to become empires of their own is literally entire human history across the globe

You should really read Lenin's "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of capitalism" instead of having me explain it to you but by bit anon, but you see, there is not an Imperialism Switch in people's brains that makes them crave an empire once their state reaches a certain size, imperialism is driven, even in precapitalist times, by economic concerns, of social pressures of limited resources within one's own borders relative to the drive to grow the economy and have more wealth circulating around. Now that we live in a global society, there is no where to expand on a global level, and believe it or not non-Western economists and governing bodies are not animals and understand this. Short term, debt-based finance incentives slant toward eternal war and imperial competition, but powers interested in securing long-term prosperity are actually capable of recognizing that their interests lie in global co-operation, especially if they don't engender a social milieu of feverish worship of the market and it's mechanics. Therefore as far as I can see there's no reason to assume that in the 21st century there is no avoiding an immediate descent into inter-imperialist struggle. Hope this helps.

[libertineangel]

A history & overview of communist groups in Britain

I've done so much reading into all the different splinter groups here, trying and failing to find one worth joining, that I might as well make all this accrued knowledge useful in case anyone wants to know what the situation is like (spoiler alert, it's a shitshow). I'll put it under a cut 'cause it'll probably get fairly long, and I'll tackle the Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist sides separately 'cause they split in about 1932 and have barely had any crossover since.

I will not be unduly neutral or polite in my assessments, because Mao would call that liberalism and also it's no fun, so get ready to roll your eyes a lot and understand exactly what made Monty Python do the People's Front of Judea bit.

The (ostensibly) Marxist-Leninist side

In 1920, several smaller Marxist groups merged to form the Communist Party of Great Britain, the official British section of the Third International, and immediately set to work arguing with itself about the viability of parliamentarism, eventually adopting Lenin's position on the temporary utility of reformist unions & parties, which led them to spend several years trying - and even succeeding in a couple of seats - a strategy of entryism into the Labour Party, which is a phrase we will all get tired of by the end of this post; when Labour then lost the general election in 1924 it blamed the Communists and banned all their members, which sounds awfully familiar.

The CPGB did gain a fair bit of support & swelled its membership during the general strike of 1926 though, albeit in a handful of specific areas and industries, and then lost most of them again during the Comintern's Third Period because the workers didn't want to abandon their existing trade unions in favour of revolutionary ones. Did a couple of decent things in the 30s, fought at Cable Street and raised a small battalion for the International Brigades; they went back & forth on their stance on WW2 in line with the Comintern, supported strikes, actually reached their peak membership (~60,000, still tiny compared to their European comrades) during the war because they were the loudest anti-racist, anti-colonial voice around who did do a fair bit to raise public awareness of Britain's horrific treatment of India.

In 1951 they issued a new programme, The British Road to Socialism, which is pathetic reformist bollocks that insists peaceful transition to socialism is possible and sensible, and five years later the Soviet suppression of the '56 uprisings caused a massive split that saw a good 30% or so leave the party, causing them to return to the good old tactic of trying to push Labour and the unions leftward.

Nothing material really came of that and the Party declined further with the Sino-Soviet split, after which a minority of pro-China members left to form the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which has since turned Hoxhaist (also surprisingly anti-immigration, and I'm fairly sure they're transphobic). Throughout the 70s they got increasingly Eurocommunist until even more revolutionaries got sick of them, and in 1977 another split saw the formation of the New Communist Party of Britain, which claims to still be anti-revisionist while also having spent the last 24 years insisting everyone vote for Labour (also from what I've heard they don't even email potential recruits back, so I doubt they'll survive beyond their current old membership, not that they'll be much loss because I don't believe they've ever actually done anything). Tensions between the Eurocommunist leadership and the Party membership continued to rise through the 80s until a final split in '88 produced the Communist Party of Britain, which is still extant today and still uses that silly electoral reformist programme from the 50s, and as an indicator of how that's going they earned 10,915 votes in the London Assembly elections this year, the third fewest of any candidate, less than half even of the fucking Christian People's Alliance (also their youth wing the YCL has marched alongside TERFs up in Scotland, they're the party that one author endorsed over Labour).

The CPGB finally folded in '91 and its leaders founded a series of steadily softer left think tanks, while other self-declared Leninists went on to form the Communist Party of Britain (Provisional Central Committee), which is so small and insignificant I can't even figure out when they actually started; nowadays they are, to quote someone off Reddit, "a small and almost entirely male group of Kautsky enthusiasts and leftist trainspotters with a knack for the fine art of unintentional self-parody, who regularly publish articles defending Marxism against the feminist menace."

Entirely separate from all that shit, in 1972 a group of students inspired by Hardial Baines formed the Hoxhaist Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), and honestly I don't really know much about them because nobody online seems to have any idea if they do anything and looking at their website burned my fucking eyes. There's also the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (yeah a different one), formed in 2004 when a bunch of people got expelled from infamous union leader Arthur Scargill's party; they are so rabidly transphobic it makes the CPB look welcoming.

Finally, there's the Revolutionary Communist Group, which surprisingly formed out of the Trotskyist International Socialists (which became the SWP, we'll get to that soon); they're not a formal Party because they don't think the revolutionary situation here is developed enough for one, but they are fairly active in protests and pickets. Unfortunately, back in 2017 they dragged their heels investigating a member's sexual assault and then let the perpetrator back in after a two-month suspension and apology letter.

The Trotskyist side, if you can stomach it after all that bollocks

Modern British Trotskyism descends entirely from the Revolutionary Communist Party of 1944, formed by the merger of two smaller groups at the request of the Fourth International. They split after three years over the viability of entryism into the Labour Party, with the majority correctly seeing it as bollocks. Unfortunately, the majority RCP did fuck all afterward and grew disillusioned enough with the leadership to throw their lot in with the minority breakaway known as The Club, who kicked them all out again and proceeded to never do anything of note whatsoever (they eventually changed their name to the Workers' Revolutionary Party and imploded in about nine different - equally irrelevant - directions in the 80s when founder Gerry Healy was expelled for having serially abused women in the party for decades).

Followers of notable RCP member Tony Cliff (formerly the 4I's leader in Palestine) joined him in his new Socialist Review Group, devoted to Trotskyism but breaking from orthodoxy in favour of Cliff's theory of state capitalism that's silly even by Trotskyist standards that I don't think even the party itself really adheres to anymore. They changed their name to International Socialists in 1962, tried to appeal for left unity and got roundly ignored by everyone except a small Trotskyist group called Workers' Fight, which joined the IS, swelled their own ranks, tried to challenge the leadership and got thrown out again; they still cling onto existence as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, whose existence I had completely forgotten until I saw a poster of theirs down my road and remembered I was in fact at the London Young Labour conference which banned them for refusing to properly investigate the repeated abuse of a teenage boy in their youth faction. The IS still tried to grow, but expelled what would become the aforementioned RCG in '72, expelled the faction that's now Workers Power in '74 (whom I have never heard of, which at least means I don't know of any awful shit they've done), tore themselves in half in '75 when Tony Cliff decided older workers were reformist and recruitment should focus on the youth, and in 1977 they renamed themselves the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP did do a few decent things, like form the Anti-Nazi League and organise Rock Against Racism, but to be honest those had a much bigger impact on the British punk scene than actual politics. Using charities and campaign groups to jump on bandwagons for shameless self-promotion is mostly what they're known for these days, along with making placards for any protest anywhere no matter how irrelevant they are to the party's platform; their membership and image among the left took a tremendous blow in 2014 after the Comrade Delta scandal, in which they were found to have covered up the National Secretary's repeated sexual abuse for years.

Followers of other notable RCP member Ted Grant joined him (after their expulsion from The Club) in his Revolutionary Socialist League, which believed in entryism into the Labour Party, and in 1965 it split with the 4I (because the 4I thought they were shit) to become Militant. They actually managed to take control of Labour's youth wing and successfully pushed the Party to commit to nationalising the country's major monopolies, but when Labour - on a platform of spending cuts and reformist liberal appeasement - lost the election to Thatcher in '79 they blamed it on the Communists and in December '82 they got blacklisted (which sounds awfully familiar). Took a while for that to sink in though, and Militant-affiliated members actually managed to take over Liverpool City Council through the mid-80s - they planned a massive amount of public works building, cancelling redundancies and other such things that sounded good but they really couldn't pay for, and tried to play bankruptcy chicken against Margaret Thatcher, which went as badly as you'd imagine and embarrassed them on the national stage (even if the people of Liverpool still supported them). Their last act was to help instigate the Poll Tax Riots in 1990, but that was one good deed to many for a Trotskyist group and they finally split in '91 - a majority decided they should finally sever ties with Labour and strike out on their own, while the minority insisted that entryism into the Labour Party really could net real national success if we just keep trying come on guys let's stay on the sinking ship history has taught us nothing!!!

The majority formed the Socialist Party, who have done nothing of note ever, and in 2013 they failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment within their ranks. In 2018 their international, the Committee for a Workers' International, experienced a split which it looks to me was over the old established leadership not getting with the times when it comes to women and LGBT+ people, and the majority went off to form the International Socialist Alternative, with the Socialist Alternative being its British branch; just last April the Irish section disaffiliated with the ISA because of its poor handling of abuse allegations against a leading member.

The minority stayed in Labour under the name Socialist Appeal, under the leadership of Ted Grant & Alan Woods, never really doing anything, and in 2021 Keir Starmer's left purge finally banned them, which was totally unrelated to their decision to finally strike out on their own this year as the Revolutionary Communist Party (yeah a different one). They're a money-grabbing newspaper-obsessed cult who've harboured abusers in five different countries, and to be honest I don't even see why they still exist now that they're no longer devoted to entryism considering that was the entire reason they split from the rest of Militant in the first place, they might as well reunify with the CWI or the ISA but far be it from me to expect insular Trotskyist control freaks to make sensible, practical political moves or to ever get the fuck over a split.

[communistkenobi]

Hiiiiiiii Nick, so sorry if you've already answered this somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I was wondering if you have any recs for leftist literature that's somewhat digestible for people who don't usually read a lot of academic papers/journals and the like? Basically, theory for beginners, I guess. I've been wanting to start reading more theory and while everything you posted about The Authoritarian Personality was super interesting, I think that trying to read a 1000 page book right now would kill me 💀

(also definitely don't feel the need to answer, I just thought you might appreciate getting an ask that's not star wars related asjdjdjshdjdhsjdjfj)

oh god yeah do not start with authoritarian personality that thing is insane

There is a Marxism archive that has a page for beginners here (ignore the advice to read Capital. Like try if you want to but it’s not accessible at all in my experience lol, so I would not start there). That website gives you free access to a lot of theory, you can poke around there and see what you might want to read (if you scroll to the bottom of the page I linked it has a link where you can search by subject - so if you want to learn more about leftist feminism, or colonialism, or etc, you can do so). I’m not the most well read marxist unfortunately so I can’t give you detailed recommendations from the lists they give. I have read a bit of Lenin and found him to be quite funny. Also sorry this is skewing communist, I have only read a few bits of anarchist literature and wasn’t impressed with it (not a dig at anarchism in general, I just did not have a good introduction to it and because of my schooling I tend to spend most of my time with more critical/marxist lit). So don’t let that sway you, this is just my own bias and theoretical instincts.

Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton (this is a book, sorry I don’t have a link) is fairly accessible, as is Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher (this is very short, like under a hundred pages).

Also I KNOW I keep bringing this up but Discourse on Colonialism is such a fantastic essay (you can skip past the introduction in this pdf if you like and go straight to the essay). You don’t need to know all the theorists Cesaire is talking about or get all of his references. I think this is a very good introduction to colonialism as a force in the world. Cesaire is a fantastic writer, extremely witty and scathing while being incredibly insightful, truly a level of hater we should all aspire to become

There’s also the communist manifesto, which is very short and easy to read. You don’t have to pay too much attention to the historical stuff they bring up imo. This just answers the basic question of like “so what do communists believe exactly?” Even if you’re not a communist I think it’s useful to see these beliefs articulated in plain language.

If you want a book to read, there is Black Jacobins by CLR James about the Haitian Revolution (~200 pages). This is a history book written from a leftist perspective. I find reading about history very instructive because it alerts you to a lot of the problems with mass organising, all the sticky ways that class conflict manifests at all levels of society, and gives you context to a lot of leftist thought that, when detached from its historical circumstances, may seem weird or abstract.

I hope this helps!

[edwad]

edwad what are some books you would recommend to someone who hasn’t read a book about communism besides state & revolution

i made this thing several years ago and i guess i would still stand by most of it, but it's probably a bit demanding for a newer reader of this stuff and very much oriented around marxs capital rather than communism generally etc. the links are still handy (if they still work, idk lmfao) and regardless id probably recommend heinrich's intro along with chambers' no such thing as the economy book. i think that gives you a pretty good baseline as far as marx-interpretation goes, and maybe it could be dialed up another notch by tacking on WCR's marxs inferno (although i don't love the case he makes for republicanism even if it's probably fine as a marxological claim).

depending on how recently you've read s&r, i think following it up with pashukanis' general theory can be really productive (esp when read alongside foucault's discipline & punish) because it is largely in dialogue with lenin and leninist conceptions via the development of marxs categories in capital. if you're feeling capital-averse (understandable, but id encourage you to join my reading group this fall!) then the heinrich can come in handy as a crutch for some of this, perhaps alongside rubin's essays (pashukanis' soviet contemporary).

if you're looking for something else more specific or general or whatever let me know and i can try to help

[read-marx-and-lenin]

I hope you don't mind my asking, you seem well-read and reasonable so I thought you might be able to help here - I'm a British communist trying to find a good organisation to join, there's tons of communist parties here but every time I search for opinions on one I either find out they're transphobic or see a bunch of people dismiss them as Trotskyist timewasters. Forgive me if the question seems a bit naïve, but how much do you think that sectarianism really matters these days?

I don't presently claim to be any specific form of communist, I've just read some Marx and some Lenin and agree with what they say, and when trying to familiarise myself with the various inter-factional conflicts I'm just not really seeing how relevant it is here - yes, some American Trots in the 50s ended up reactionary, and some MLs are concerningly eager to downplay the harm their favourite leaders caused, and everyone argues over the current state of China, but...how much does any of this really matter to building a revolutionary movement in 21st century Britain? Isn't it better to just find an active group and get to work building class consciousness than to dismiss each other for having the wrong opinions on shit that happened 70 years ago?

I can't recommend any British orgs as I don't live in the UK, but in general, if you find an organization that is actively doing work in your community that you agree with and want to support, then you should consider joining them even if they don't 100% align with your beliefs. Joining an organization is not a permanent life-altering decision, and you can leave if it turns out it's not for you.

I don't think you're conflating transphobia and sectarianism here, but I feel like I need to state that bigotry in general is not petty sectarianism, it's just bigotry. Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise reactionary orgs are not worth your time, even if you like the other things they say or do. We've all seen what happens when supposedly leftist organizations pander to social conservatives.

I don't think an organization has to take a stance on Soviet foreign policy or the events of the Russian Revolution in order to be a good organization. I think an organization can talk shit about Stalin or Mao and still be worthwhile to participate in, even if I think they're parroting Western propaganda. As long as they have are class-conscious, in favor of revolution and are doing good work in the community, then they're already better than the liberals and reformists. Even working with reformists can be a good first step when you're dealing with a lack of decent left-wing organization. I wouldn't work directly with liberal orgs, though, they're dead ends.

No organization will ever match your own personal politics and opinions. Organizations are made up of people who will naturally have a variety of different beliefs and opinions. It is a matter of organizational discipline to be able to handle these disputes and turn them into something productive. Low discipline is what creates splits and factionalism.

An organization that is hyper-focused on one specific and dogmatic ideological line that cares more about ideological purity than about actually doing real work is just as bad as a big tent party that prioritizes raw numbers above a coherent message and platform. Some sectarianism is necessary to ensure an organization even has a point to its existence. If you can't reliably and honestly say "we are not liberals", for instance, then what actually distinguishes you from liberals beyond the color of your rhetoric? Too much sectarianism, and you end up excluding folks who would otherwise be willing to support your cause over petty nonsense.

If an organization isn't dismissing you for ideological reasons and you see that they're doing good work, then I would say give them a shot. If they're not doing good work or they won't accept the help of someone who isn't already in line with their specific ideology, then why should you want to join them?

A counter-productive org is worse than no org, but no org is worse than a less-than-perfect org. Honest mistakes and shortcomings can be corrected over time. So long as the organization is demonstrably dedicated to dismantling capitalism and liberating the working class, then I don't see why you shouldn't consider working with them.

[letters-to-rosie]

okay,,,,, hypothetically,,,,,, if one wanted to get into black power lit where would recommend they start 👀

the way I screamed lmao

first off, I wanna give a disclaimer: I am not the most well-read person in the world on Black Power. I read this sort of stuff as a hobby, and it's not the subject of my own academic work, even though I do write about race a LOT. I just like Black Power lol.

with that said, let's go through some hits!

Huey P. Newton

Newton, along with Bobby Seale, was co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. he was murdered in 1989 and has a bit of a contentious legacy. however, while I recognize that many of Newton's personal issues got in the way of him being the most effective leader he could be, that shouldn't stop us from reading him! we never require perfection of, say, Lenin to consider him important, lol

Newton's Revolutionary Suicide is a powerful but very difficult book. I actually have yet to finish it because of the way he describes his time in solitary confinement. the conditions are literally sickening. but I want to get back to it someday. I also know there's a relatively recent reader on him that might be helpful, but I have yet to find a pdf copy of it :(

Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael

now for one of Newton's archnemeses! lol. Ture was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which hosted other famous figures such as John Lewis. he worked closely with MLK during the Civil Rights movement and was on the ground in many very difficult struggles. he would later become affiliated with the Black Panthers while Newton was in jail, and one of his most famous speeches is from the Free Huey movement. but they wound up not liking each other, mostly because Ture was firmer about not allying with other progressive movements. this caused tension with other Panthers such as Newton and Fred Hampton, who felt like allying themselves with international and local organizations was important, even if those orgs included non-black people. Ture eventually fled the US and lived most of the rest of his life in Guinea. I have a copy of a book of his speeches in the collection and highly recommend it. even when I disagree with Ture, I find him so engaging. he always makes me think. AND! if you're up for it, I'd recommend checking out some of his speeches. he was a very compelling speaker, and a bunch of his talks are uploaded on the youtube channel AfroMarxist

Angela Davis

Davis is perhaps one of the most recognizable names out of the Black Power era, probably because she's still alive, lol. Davis grew up in Alabama, and her church was famously bombed by white supremacists in 1963, killing 4 young girls. Davis would become famous a decade later when she represented herself at trial when accused of having weapons others used to kill cops. her imprisonment sparked an international movement. later on, she'd go on to become a professor, and she's still active as a public intellectual today. of her work, I've read part of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, but I also have Women, Race, and Class and Are Prisons Obsolete? for your perusal! Davis is a leading figure in prison abolition thought, which is very very cool

Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur is known for many things, including: being the first woman on the FBI's most wanted list; being Tupac's godmother; and, most famously, being put in prison after a string of crimes she maybe did but maybe not, being freed by comrades, fleeing to Cuba, and hanging out there until the present (Newton also fled to Cuba at one point; that was a time). her autobiography is really great, though she doesn't tell you how she got out of prison. the writing is really engaging, and I think she does a great job of showing just how fucked up the surveillance of these groups was. she left the Panthers to join the Black Liberation Army, which was a very loose collective of smaller groups, but I'll let her tell the story lol

George Jackson

Jackson is the author of my current read, Blood in My Eye. he was also a member of the Panthers (there's a theme here), but he started his own group, the Black Guerilla Family, while in prison. one of the members ironically killed Newton! what a story lol. but Jackson spent the last years of his life in prison. he maintained a very militant outlook with clear principles. I really like the way he writes and his analysis, even though I'm slowly working my way through the book. he also has a famous collection of letters, Soledad Brother, which I hope to get into someday

Frantz Fanon

Fanon isn't part of the Black Power movement proper, but his writing is so influential to it it doesn't make much sense not to mention him. his main two works are Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth (which is in the collection). Fanon was from Martinique, moved to France, and eventually became part of the Algerian anti-colonial struggle against France. he died in his 30s!!! (Jackson died at 29, and Newton in his 40s; there's a theme here). but anyway, Fanon's brief life has powerful resonances to this day. in Wretched of the Earth he uses his background as a psychiatrist to give a really interesting analysis of the effects of violence on the colonized. Paulo Freire's famous Pedagogy of the Oppressed was actually written in response. and so were a lot of other things lol

Audre Lorde

Lorde was a big figure in the Black Arts Movement, which is associated with Black Power. her writing, along with Davis's, brings much-needed feminist (and queer! both are lesbians) analysis to the table. I've included two of her books, a poetry collection, and a collection of essays and speeches. I loveeeeeee Audre Lorde, and I highly recommend her work

Amiri Baraka

Baraka was the person who coined the term "Black Arts Movement." he wrote on a number of black art forms, but I have only so far engaged with his poetry. I have a collection here I haven't finished (full transparency, haven't finished the Lorde collection either; I kinda like to just go in there and grab a poem or two from time to time) called Transbluency. I would say that compared to Lorde, Baraka's poetry shows signs of its age more. it can get slightly toxic lol. but I find a lot of that resonates with me in it, and Baraka was so prolific that you can see how he shifts over time. someday I will find a digital copy of Un Poco Low Coup, I swear!

also gotta read Elaine Brown, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton, but I have yet to. hopefully I have plenty of time to!

um okay this is a lot of reading!!! good luck!!! lemme know if you have questions!!

click here for pdf copies of most of the mentioned books!

[rei-ismyname]

X-MEN - MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

A lot of X-Men, indeed a lot of Marvel characters, have transformations, alter egos, symbiotes, etc that cause trouble. Jean Grey has the Phoenix, Angel has Archangel, Malice takes over a lot of women (Dazzler, Sue Storm, Rogue, Mirage, Betsy Braddock, and many more), Gambit has Death, Magik and Darkchilde. That short list is really only scratching the surface. So many heroes get transformed or similar once and once it's defeated or overcome it becomes an ongoing trial for them.

Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin made a deal with Cyttorak of Crimson Bands fame for the power of JUGGERNAUT once, for reasons I don't recall right now. I always thought it was a bit of a boring choice tbh - his angsting over being a big dumb monster isolated from the things he loves is already a thing he does. Sure it was fun here and there but it was more of a 'struggling with the Dark Side' thing and Cyttorak didn't have all that much power over him. I think a better choice for a recurring alter ego would have been....

THE PROLETARIAN - WORKER'S HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION! With Vladimir Lenin's face on the chest of his sinister communist red overalls and everything. Obviously the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore but that's even better IMO. What does the Proletarian do after the Cold War ends and capitalism has 'won'? Siezes the MFing means of production for the people, that's what! Does he smash the X-Men too? Probably, they are definitely neoliberal bootlickers who are allied with several billionaires, and while they're not as bad as the Avengers they have an awful lot of faith in the USA as an institution despite it constantly trying to kill them.

Obviously this would never happen. Stan Lee was very anti communist, even if he didn't know a damn thing about it, and Marvel has remained so to this day. More broadly, a century of McCarthyism and Red Scare messaging has done some serious damage. Also, Marvel just does not do anything other than the most milquetoast liberal politics. Anything else is mocked and defeated by the narrative itself. Personally, I think that would make it even more interesting, as being committed to any form of anti capitalism to any degree is soul crushing while living under it.

I'd do anything for a Colossus solo where he interrogates his relationship with Communism, because the man is a true believer despite often defending capitalist interests (as far as he's shown to believe anything.)

This question, for instance. Does his power belong to the state? Xavier handwaves it by saying it belongs to the world (AKA his interests) but it's never truly touched on again. Krakoa would have been a great opportunity, a mostly moneyless society that already had bartering and mutual aid happening. Not everyone's needs were met and plenty of people fell through the cracks - Colossus or The Proletarian would have been the perfect advocate.

It's Kurt and Legion who come closest to forming a commune without hierarchy, and Kurt was working on justice reform. Forge had global poverty and homelessness solved, but ORCHIS and The Fall of X put a stop to that. Lenin's Ghost!

Bring back The Proletarian, you cowards!