As one of the few ML westerners that isn’t a fucking ultra and supports AES countries I can say… Sigh… Yeah, this is pretty accurate.
I’m always amazed how readily the western left discards the experience of the Global South. Imagine thinking that you know better than people who’re actually engaged in the struggle.
Even though they’re self-professed leftists, they can’t get over their racism and western supremacism so easily 🤷
It’s plenty of this, but also plenty of getting sold big changes by liberal politicians and then actually given shit. If that’s your experience, then you hear Xi talk about communism while China has low-wage workers and billionaires, it’s extremely easy to cynically write off the whole project from the jump (especially given the wall-to-wall anticommunist propaganda in the imperial core).
You really have to dig into the details (and frankly look at AES states in a more generous light than western “leftist” projects, which is to a degree warranted) to have a solid “critical support” position.
Easy when you don’t have to actually run a state after a revolution and deal with all the sanctions, counter revolutions, etc. You can just shit on everything and call it ‘not real socialism’ or ‘revisionism’ from the comfort of your western, safe world. But it’s them doing it, your western superior view of socialism is irrelevant to their achievements.
The pure (libertarian) socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
One issue I see is that the language of progress – and I mean real progress, not tiny, crumb concessions – has been so abused by liberals that even a good leftist movement doing good work gets a ton of shit from leftist critics for not immediately smashing the full communism button.
They are also likely to be Anarchists that somehow support NATO. Or is that what Ultras mean?
I had so many terrible interactions with western leftists except those who are ML.
Ultras are basically people who don’t understand the difference between being principled and pragmatic. They see any compromises as a betrayal. For example, ultras denounce China because it has capitalism. Ultimately, they end up being no different from Anarchists in a sense that what they want is not possible in practical terms. So, they just end up cosplyaing at being a communist.
You mean to tell me it’s harder to apply theory in a world that’s overwhelmingly capitalist than in a book? Ridiculous, I demand perfection
🤣
They take a socialist country that exists in a predominantly capitalist world and which has to contend with that reality, and purity-test it against socialism on paper, abstracted from reality
Paraphrasing Parenti, they compare it to the People’s Republic of Heaven.
Whenever I’m met with the misfortune of seeing an ultra, I simply call them a cracker and go to sleep
Call them sun dodgers instead, it’s funnier
I should adopt this strategy.
Whats an ultra? (Serious question)
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism
The article doesn’t seem to mention that they often don’t believe in the actually existing socialist states, and often reinforce the imperial core that almost all of them benefit from.
Thanks. The definition this article gives is very broad, you can fit quite a lot (if not most) leftist political organizations there
If it helps, many of them call us “Dengists” (when they’re not calling us tankies), because we don’t reject China as a socialist state.
- Red Sails: China Has Billionaires
- Gabriel Rockhill: How The Left Should Analyze the Rise of a Multipolar World, China, Russia & BRICS
I kinda get the idea, can think of parties in my country that fit. But its more of a broad characterization and not a scientific definition it looks
a good write up on it from Lenin here https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch08.htm
What about MLMs in the Philippines and India?
If we’re talking about CPI, I think they’ve demonstrated they can get shit done in Kerala. I’d also give the communists in Philippines a pass given that they’re actually still running an insurgency.
I think they were talking about the militant naxalite movement in rural India, they’re real maoists engaging in people’s war in the indian countryside. Although it’s been shrinking for nearly 2 decades.
ah makes sense
There’s 2 major Communist Parties in India, The CPI(M) is the biggest one right now. They are the ruling party of the state of Kerala, in a Left-Front alliance of which the other smaller CPI is also a member.
they both describe themselves as Maoist though right?
No, neither of them do. CPIM are Marxist Leninists and CPI is mostly the same, they have slight disagreements on the method for revolution in India but they both participate electorally.
Ah gotcha, explains why they have actual tangible success then.
They’re somewhat Marxist Leninist…
