I often see mentions of the disunity in the left and it being a real show stopper for achieving anything meaningful. Whats your take on that and also do you have any reasons(experiences, arguments etc) for that?
I have a fairly similar opinion to @mambabasa@slrpnk.net, I have no real issue working with anyone on the left, even the more liberal types as long as our goals happen to be aligned.
The only ‘left’ group I would not be able to work alongside in good conscious, are tankies. Every time in recorded history that Anarchists have teamed up with authoritarian leftists, it inevitably went south in some of the worst ways possible.
I’ve never met a tankie in real life, only ever encountering them online, but if I ever did meet one, that would be my line in the sand (at least, if anything meaningful was on the line). There’s no need to repeat that part of history again.
Ironically, I’m cooperating with Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, democratic socialists and other pro-State socialists because we’re pretty much in agreement in opposition to both the so-called dictatorship of the bourgeoisie AND the decrepit Communist Party of the Philippines. On an interesting sidenote, Marxism-Leninism in the Philippines had a bit of a de-Stalinization moment in the 90s (part of the schism and purge with the CPP), so it’s a very different creature from tankies in other countries.
As long as they don’t yearn for a jackboot of olden days, and acknowledge that Stalin, Mao, and other authoritarian ‘communist’ regimes are not something to strive for or apologize for, I wouldn’t mind working with them for the common good and shared goals. 🙂
Since they were de-stalinized, would you say they fall somewhere along those lines?
Yeah, they recognize that Stalin and Mao have important contributions to Marxism-Leninism, but de-Stalinization refers to a rejection of certain features like purges, show trials, stuff like that. Some people like Trotskyists don’t take their word for it and still see them as Stalinists. Really, I’m more concerned about my personal safety than ideological pronouncements. The Rejectionist Left, or the Marxist-Leninists who reject the CPP, developed these critiques of Stalinism precisely because they were targeted for purging and assassination by the CPP. So they’re more conscious than some white ass ML on the dangers of what Stalinism entails. This makes them safer to work with than those ideologically reaffirming the CPP, called the Reaffirmist Left.
As someone who hasn’t ever looked into Filipino politics, you’ve given me some interesting rabbit holes to go down.
Bit of a long shot, but, have your own views ever come up with them? I’m curious if any of them ever explained what they find appealing about Leninism over Anarchism.
Yeah of course. They’ve even read Bookchin and the anarchist authors. It’s not as if anarchism is the one true faith and all it will take is some enlightenment for all to come to it. Different people have different experiences and come with different conclusions. Under a different set of experiences, I could have thought Marxism-Leninism would be the logical conclusion. What makes Marxism-Leninism in the Philippines unique is that unlike Marxism-Leninism in the West, which is often anti-revisionist (and thus Stalinist), de-Stalinization forced a rethinking of principles and experimentation with new ideas. This, of course, happened in the United States as well. Angela Davis, once a staunch supporter of Soviet authoritarianism in Eastern Europe, eventually changed her mind on Marxism-Leninism after the collapse of the USSR and led a non-Leninist bloc within the CPUSA. What makes the US different is that the post-1989 wave of de-Stalinization in Western Europe saw former MLs rebrand as democratic socialists while the true faith MLs kept the ML brand. In the Philippines, the wave of de-Stalinization after the end of the dictatorship saw instead a reclaiming of the Marxist-Leninist brand while repudiating Maoism (but not Mao Zedong Thought).
Apologies for the late response!
Different people have different experiences and come with different conclusions. Under a different set of experiences, I could have thought Marxism-Leninism would be the logical conclusion.
This is something I’m interested in understanding. I think your new Communism community might be a good place for me to explore that topic further, when I have time to write a more compelling question.
See you there then!
In the United States in 2024, the most passionate and dedicated supporters of left unity are the Democratic Party and its supporters.
Most of the American left is in fact unified - behind the Democratic Party.
If your reflexive response is “the Democratic Party isn’t actually leftist” and “no compromise with fascists” and blah blah… well, that explains your perception of disunity. Because the leftists who are willing to compromise their principles in order to accomplish some of their goals are already compromising - under the Democratic Party banner. And the ones who reject that banner are the ones who are the most stubborn about holding their principles and refusing to compromise for the sake of unity. Which explains why they can’t compromise with each other, either.
I don’t think what the democratic party does counts as just compromising. They often expand the awful systems they inherit, or at best just fail to revert the bad policies of their predecessors. There’s a reason for the ratchet theory to exist, or the saying that democratic policy is just Republican policy on a 1 election cycle delay. Just look at our foreign policy - Obama massively increased drone strikes under his term, to say nothing of the atrocities Biden has been funding and providing arms for in Gaza. Why did Obama promise to codify roe v wade on the campaign trail, only to make no efforts when in office? Why did Biden do the same? Why are they now calling for voters to vote blue in November so roe v wade can be reinstated when we already did vote blue, and the guy we’d presumably be voting for is already in office? If Biden as president is all it takes to reinstate roe v wade, why the fuck hasn’t he done so yet?
Honestly for all the infighting, I think plenty of leftists would agree over common ground and change tons of things so long as they’re going in the correct overall direction, despite the specific details being so contested. But they attack the DNC because the DNC is not progressive in any way shape or form, it’s neo liberal.
