Recently, I found out that Left-Communists largely do not believe in dialectical materialism. This viewpoint sounded preposterous to me, enough so that it piqued my interest to learn more about them and attempt to understand their positions. I came to find out that Left-Communists do not believe in supporting national liberation struggles. Naturally, I wanted to know what they thought about the most pressing national liberation struggle of our time, so I googled “Left-Communism Palestine” and I found this absolutely horrific article.
Just disgusting. I don’t think I need to explain why. The issues begin at the title, and it just gets worse as the article keeps going. There’s no need for me to debunk all its lies, it should be clear to any knowledgeable Marxist-Leninist and anti-Zionist.
This article really got to me, what an insult to all the martyrs who fought against the genocide of their people.
It boggles me that people follow this worthless ideology. It has not done a single thing for the emancipation of the world proletariat. Thankfully, it’s nearly completely relegated to online spaces.
Free Palestine, and victory for the Palestinian struggle.
Against everything but the perfect revolution that only exists in my head. 😔
Basically Maoism but way worse (at least the socialist countries they support existed at some point in the past… even if the ones they criticize today are “impure” versions that they do not claim as socialist).
An Infantile Disorder
True communists dress in brown robes, chant Marxist prayers, and flagellate themselves in the evening.
No they read Gonzalo and say Maoism is the best path forward for the proletariat.
Anathema! Marx (ﷺ) commanded us to wear red robes.
So, you’re a red robe heretic, not a true left communist like brown robers.
Woah, does that Arabic actually mean something? Or is it art?
It means “May God send peace and blessings upon him”. you’ve probably heard or seen it before as “Peace be upon him” or “PBUH”.
PBUH sounds funny (the acronym). The message seems nice.
Wow, these guys don’t even fuck around with Trots.
Apparently they want to adhere to an ideologically pure version of Marxism. It’s the same shit that Gabriel Rockhill rails against in his work and Domenico Losurdo wrote extensively about these type of Marxists and how they are traitors to the revolution. Apparently this is Losurdo’s main contribution to theory according to a forward I was reading in ‘Stalin a critique of the black legend’ as a fun fact.
Hmm, honestly, these purist types of Marxism are pretty annoying to me. They push idealist Marxism (which is honestly not Marxism at all in my opinion), and they expect that their idealism will gain them favors with the proletariat dealing with material contradictions? Also, are they so bad that not even Trotskyists will bother with them? That is kind of funny.
If you go read their about section, they swear off Maoist, Stalinism, Trotskyiam as revisionist.
I imagine trots would still be ok with these guys based on their use of “stalinism”
Ew, a mention of stalinism: a telltale sign that the person you are talking to is either some capitalist dog or some social-opportunist. No one that upholds Marxism-Leninism should use the unscientific term Stalinism (it just means “evil Georgian man” policies and theory based upon their false impressions of Stalin).
Have left-communists ever done anything or been relevant historically? I cannot say that I have ever heard of them doing anything important.
No, it’s just another dead-in-the-water ideology. The left-communist worldview is in truth quite depressing, imagine believing that in nearly 200 years since the founding of the communist league, communism has achieved practically nothing but a few concessions.
Not that communism is in a favourable position at present, but there was a very real chance that socialism could have won in the 20th century.
I thought Maoism was depressing (no current countries that exist are considered socialist) with their denouncement of existing socialist countries, but being a left-communist is much more depressing (imagine being an orthodox Marxist, though… you would basically be stuck in the 1800’s and would have a poor understanding of imperialism as explained by Lenin).
Why do left-communists reject Lenin? Unless they have some bizarre bourgeois conception of Lenin as the evil authoritarian revolutionary, I have a hard time seeing why they would disagree with Lenin’s theory (I feel like I read something about the leftcoms not wanting to participate in elections and trade unions… or something like that?).
Edit: Ok from what I read from procapra, left communism is a diverse set of ideologies that are not as unified as I thought (and I also heard that Dutch and Italian left communists differed slightly), but still, I do not doubt that neither are relevant.
orthodox Marxist
It’s even worse, every time someone claims they are “orthodox marxist” it’s always either someone so far off reality they couldn’t recognize theory even if it kicked them in the ass or a modern kautskyite who quotemine Marx to support succdems.
Bruh I thought Kautskyites died a hundred years ago after Lenin murdered the man with words so many times (Lenin did the equivalent of stomping on his grave with 500-ton boots, so I assumed no one took Kautsky seriously anymore… I guess not). Why would anyone genuinely be a Kautskyite? There are so many other reactionary or opportunist ideologies without someone so thoroughly chewed by Lenin’s sass.
Honestly, if you are not a newly-developed communist, there is no reason to be an orthodox Marxist. Orthodox Marxism is just sad.
Sadly they still exist, probably because the very core of socialdemocracy is the inability to learn anything. Though there isn’t many of them, succdems are also not known for remembering their theory so they just moved with generations to embrace the teachings and especially praxis of more modern succdems like Tony Blair.
Social-democrats really have messed up the social-democrat label so badly that they caused Lenin to not use it anymore (not actually sure if this is why, but it is funny to think of it as happening that way), so you know they are not good. Who is Tony Blair?
Tony Blair was leader of the British Labour party and PM in 1997-2007 who became symbol (together with German chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder but Schroeder is less remembered) of the complete collapse of any remaining embers of principles in western socialdemocrat parties, their ultimate betrayal of the working class and turn into the neoliberalism and US servilism which happened in entire Europe and prepared the way for current fascist resurgence. People like Kid Starver or Murder Merz or USula van der Lakai are his direct ideological descendants.
So imo he deserve to be the 4th head on succdem banner after Lasalle, Bernstein and Kautsky
Nope.
Then I guess we can just consider them a fringe group of people that are not worth taking seriously.
On an unrelated note, what should I read to understand left-communism? I am curious about what they propose as an alternative to the Leninist additions to Marxism.
Edit: Ok, I read a line from Bordiga (“Dialogue with Stalin”, Bordiga 1952), and I immediately smell something fishy with a quote they take from Marx, which says “'The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities’” (Capital). Bordiga says that any commodity production whatsoever means that the society is not a socialist one, yet quotes a piece from Capital that is subtly not relevant to defining socialism in any sense: it says the “wealth of those societies” expresses itself by the “immense accumulation of commodities”, but wealth does not determine whether or not a society is under a capitalist mode of production, right?
Lenins “Left-communism: A infantile disorder”. While he wrote it about the dutch and italian strains, it applies today as well. YOu’ll notice while reading, they have not really developed new arguments during the last century.
Oh ok thank you! I really need to read that because it is one of those Lenin works I have not gotten to reading.
I also wonder what works talk about socialism in-depth (I know what socialism is, but I cannot say I know where my understanding of it came from outside of a vague collection of sources that I cannot even link the socialism’s definition).
For the fundamental terminology stuff: Engels “Communism: Utopian and Scientific”, in it he explains basically everything.
A handy short guide for communism: Also Engels “Principles of Communism”
For the excellent combination of theory with practical examples (and lots of sass): Lenin “State and Revolution”
For getting what Imperialism is: Lenin “Imperialism: The Highest stage of Capitalism.”
For wtf DiaMat and HiMat is: Stalin “Historical and Dialectical Materialism”
Party organisation and practical application of Lenins teachings: Stalin “Foundations of Leninism”
Haven’t read Maos stuff beyond the Red Book, uncle Hos longer works, other works of Marx, Engels and Lenin yet. Those are still on the unread book mountain next to my bed. Parenti is also neat, but that’s on the history side of things.
Much appreciated, comrade. I wish I finished Engels’s first work up there, but I only got around a hundred or so pages in before I forgot to finish it lol (though from what little I remember, it is an excellent and maybe slightly underrated work amongst Marxists).
Would you say Hoxha has anything worthwhile to read? I saw a few Hoxhaists upholding him, but I also think he might have been a dogmatist. Oh, and I always appreciate Lenin’s sass (it is a plus when reading his works).
Dunno about Hoxha. You can always give him a try. At worst you wasted some time reading.
oops, my bad. I’ll post it again there.
Well at a glance, that article looks like it’s the “I don’t see color” of class solidarity. “All lives matter” type shit. Almost certainly something drummed up by white people who want to pretend there isn’t a vast and violent system of white supremacy; who want to pretend colonialism is trivial next to class exploitation; who see working class solidarity like a magic spell rather than a dialectical process. The driving force behind this kind of thing (when well-intentioned, setting aside when it’s straight psyop shit) is being among the more privileged in the racialized/settler/gender hierarchy. It’s easy to focus solely on class when one is not among those who can face abuse, imprisonment, or death in an instant for having the “wrong” skin color, being the “lesser” gender, being indigenous on colonized land.
I agree, I think this type of thinking comes from a place where your class position is the only oppression you experience. It’s a complete flattening of Marxism. The proletariat of imperialist countries do indeed benefit from imperialism, likewise the colonizing proletariat (such as it exists in Israel) do indeed benefit from colonialism. This is not to say that revolution in imperialist countries is impossible, it’s just an acknowledgement of a real hurdle that cannot be ignored.
Yeah, the settler and imperial contradictions have to be dealt with somehow. Living in the US myself, I think about it sometimes with regards to settler stuff. It’s a weird situation cause the indigenous are pretty marginalized (though also very much still here, just not often talked about in media) and the settlers are many of them generations in, with nowhere else to go, but it doesn’t change the fact that people born of settlers like myself are on indigenous land that is not ours. It’s not like some situations historically where working class liberation is synonymous with liberation of indigenous people. It should be, but the settler aspect of things means it doesn’t come easily. If it was just a matter of reaching out to indigenous nations and building solidarity, that wouldn’t be so bad, but a lot of westerners are pretty racist/chauvinist since they benefit from the setup in one way or another. So that makes it harder.
On a lighter note, something I find funny: I wrote my original response without looking at the website itself. I just read the preview text of the website, along with your description of it. Just now, I looked on the website’s About Us and at the bottom, it has a Contact Us. The contact emails are all “white” western places: UK, Italy, Germany, US, Canada, France. It’s pretty much exactly what I would have thought.
White people have been getting MORE racist/chauvinist in recent years, it’s ridiculous, and its a large impediment towards class solidarity and socialism. It’s like they follow marching orders from the bourgeoisie; the bourgeois press tells them terror stories about xyz group, and they just eat it up.
On latter part, just LOL, but quite unsurprising really. Left-Coms are FRINGE even in imperialist countries, meanwhile they’re practically non-existent in imperialised countries.
Communist theory without tying it back to the material.
Left communism is a pretty diverse set of ideologies, much like MLism or trotskyism, there are different branches and microtendencies. (gonzaloists and hoxhaists differ from typical MLs, posadists differ from cliffites, etc). Taking one parties stance on the topic isn’t really going to give you the full picture.
ICT is damenite, an italian leftcom tendency, admittedly I don’t know a whole lot about their modern day line. Damen opposed the cominterns line on national liberation so it checks out though.
Bordiga (who is the competing ideologue on the italian left) did uphold natlib. While the various ICPs (bordigist parties) don’t necessarily apply natlib the same way as leninists do, I still think the difference is significant. In this article by the ICC (Which is another leftcom tendency) the ICT line on palestine was spared criticism and seen as acceptable, whilst the bordigist parties were critiqued for their “obsolete” natlib lines.
That being said, yeah imo this article sucked. It sucked when they made it in 2002, it sucks now, and their new articles on the topic are not much better.
Interesting. Though maybe not as egregious as this article, I find it a rather sizeable issue that they by-and-large reject the comintern’s line on national liberation. Not that it matters really, Leftcoms are not exactly an influential group.
There are dozens of leftcoms! Dozens!
im not sure but i am a maoist and theyre WAYY too friendly with me
Maybe they think that you would be buds with them because of the “anti-AES countries” that Maoists and leftcoms have.
Any clue why? I would have expected them to be even more hostile towards Maoism
