Yep! All the people that shy away from the name “communist” or “socialist” purely due to optics end up hurting their legitimacy. They’ll get slandered as such anyways, and disconnect themselves from the working class.

More of a fan of The Principles of Communism though if we are talking introductory theory. The Manifesto of the Communist Party is good, but more of an agitprop leaflet than an actual work of theory.

Yep, that’s why I try to keep my discussions around Marxism-Leninism free from large quotes. Used to do that, but people just shut me out, so I adapted and now I just recommend my intro Marxist-Leninist reading list if I think it’s relevant, and instead focus on explaining the relevant concepts as concisely and as best I can.

I think it’s more that Lemmy.ml is naturally a really good spot for agitprop, normally, for Marxist-Leninists. It isn’t really an echo chamber, because it’s one part on the fediverse in the English speaking world, it’s not like Marxists can just shut out the rest of the english speaking world and the liberalism it has.

Plus, not sure what you mean by “Stalinist” as opposed to Marxist-Leninist. “Stalinist” is just a pejorative for Marxist-Leninist largely used by those wishing to invoke western fear of Stalin, Stalin’s own theoretical contributions to Marxism-Leninism are minimal compared to Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

That’s not really an accurate view of the Soviet Union. Lenin didn’t take power away from the soviets, they were still the driving force of decision-making. Thanks to achieving a socialist system, life expectancies doubled, literacy rates tripled, healthcare and education were free and high quality, working hours lowered, vacation days increased, housing and employment were full or nearly full, and they went from feudalism to space in half a century.

Lenin didn’t “kill all of the other communists.” The vast majority sided with the bolsheviks, and others fought against them and lost in the civil war. It wasn’t like Lenin pushed a “kill everyone who disagrees with me” button, there was an active civil war with people killing bolsheviks and the Red Army as well.

The Soviet Union also didn’t really fall apart simply due to Khrushchev, Gorbachev, or Yeltsin alone. They contributed by undermining the socialist system and introducing parts of government meant to work against each other, but the soviet union still functioned well until it was illegally dissolved.

All in all, you have a very inaccurate view of Lenin and the Soviet Union, I’d say. It was the single most progressive force in the world throughout its existence, and figures that you list like Castro directly owe at least some of their success to Lenin and the Soviet Union.

Fantastic essay, even have it in my reading list. Really helps nail down why formalizing groups actually helps with transparency, it’s like casting a spotlight.

You’d be wrong on both accounts.

Management and administration is usually referred to by anarchists as justifiable hierarchy, because pretending management isn’t a form of heirarchy is fringe among anarchists, in my experience. Secondly, states are not used that way in socialist systems.

I didn’t say the Donbass was majority Russian, I said it’s largely Russian, which is true. This is especially important considering it was added to Ukraine by the Soviet Union, and wasn’t considered Ukrainian beforehand.

Secondly, the civil war between Kiev and the Donbass region has been widely recorded and reported on. The advent of the Russo-Ukrainian War put that into the background, so that the west can pretend history started in 2022, but that’s false.

Third, the war is not about “liberating the Donbass region.” It’s about Russia securing the biggest land bridge into their territory, the Donbass region, and ensuring NATO neutrality. Demillitarizing Ukraine is a secondary goal for that second goal. Getting more territory than the Donbass region and destroying as much millitary equipment as possible ensures that Russia’s stated goals are met, and improves their bargaining position.

This isn’t a war of good vs evil, the world doesn’t work in such Marvel terms. Russia has consistent and clear goals, it isn’t some evil group of evildoers doing evil.

No, Marxists do not think Russia is still socialist. At the same time, it’s abundantly clear that this isn’t about oil, it’s about defending against NATO encirclement. If it was about oil, then it’s clear that losing customers by going to war would backfire, and that was clear before the war. There’s no evidence that this is a war for extraction, despite what the pro-NATO crowd protests.

E-man is always seen as the Luigi of the Marx and Engels duo.

I don’t get it.

It’s the other way around, “Stalinist” is just slang for Marxist-Leninists used by those trying to invoke western fear of Stalin as slander against communists. Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, but outside of some good advancement of the Marxist theory of the nation, Stalin’s own contributions to Marxism-Leninism are extremely minimal, the vast majority is Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

The Donbass region is largely ethnically Russian, and has been systematically oppressed by Kiev, including erasure of the Russian language, and outright massacres following the secession of Donetsk and Luhansk post-Euromaidan.

Additionally, the USSR never colonized Ukraine, neither did the Russian Federation. The Banderites that took over Ukraine in 2014 are far-right nationalists, and as such are useful for NATO.

Thanks!

Put simply, capitalism is a control system that selects for whichever is the most profitable. It centralizes and coalesces into fewer and fewer hands. However, alongside this, as labor becomes less of a factor in production, the rate of profit falls, and overproduction results in large amounts of unsold commodities. This results in crisis, which is opportunity for the working class to assert its aims and even revolt if the conditions are right. Capitalism is deceptively weak, in that the ruling class is few in number and the workers are ever growing, and capitalists need workers to have a profit to begin with.

Imperialism pushes the worst of this crisis into the global south, but more global south countries are asserting their own independence, such as Burkina Faso. They are also aligning more with Russia and China, becoming less entrenched in western imperialism in favor of better loans and development opportunities. This further weakens the west.

We aren’t cooked, a better world is possible, and it takes organizing. Educate, agitate, organize!

Bingo.

Her pronouns are she/her.

All states are “authoritarian,” the difference is which class is the ruling class. In capitalism, that’s the capitalist class, but in socialism, it’s the working class. The state is simply the instrument by which the ruling class in any given society resolves class conflicts in favor of the ruling class. That’s why in socialist countries, metrics for the working class have skyrocketed, but they largely stagnate or decay in capitalism.

It’s just a funny ML joke using the common GNU/Linux copypasta, I think it’s actually really creative and funny for a communist meme, as someone who enjoys those.

Good bit, lol!

Lenin’s advances on Marxism are largely in analysis of imperialism, and practical revolutionary tactics such as democratic centralism, as well as to combat the revisionism of the second international. Trotskyists often try to call themselves “Leninists” to differentiate themselves from Marxism-Leninism, or “Marxist and Leninist,” but their own theory diverges from Marx’s.

Lenin’s contributions are not diversions from Marxism, but additions and updates to follow the development of imperialism, which pushed the contradictions Marx thought would lead to revolution in Europe into the global south, and all the new questions that added.

For anyone that wants an intro to Marxism-Leninism, I made an intro ML reading list you can check out!

Depends on how you critique the CPC, for what reasons. If they are from a position entrenched in liberal viewpoints and US state department lines on China, then it’s fair to say they are liberal. However, there are legitimate ways to critique China from the left. They are slow to adopt widespread LGBTQIA+ rights, for example, and while this is improving, I’d personally like it to be going much faster. Saying the CPC is doing organ harvesting is not legitimate critique.