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No true Scotsman, capitalist edition (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/socialism@lemmy.ml
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[–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

A communist, in my opinion, is someone that both agrees with the theory and tries to move closer to that status in practice. That could mean something like fighting neocolonialism all the way to being a teacher in a socialist country, trying to inform the next generation of communists.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Well thanks for the replies. I still can't square "ideas only exist objectively in practice," which is (IMO, but apparently nobody else's) a critical insight from Marx; and "the theory" being something that is inherently unknowable except in the most abstract lines of comprehension. Communists literally never spend time theorizing what the future society will be like. I don't understand how we are defined by something we can not understand concretely, as well as an activity that not only do we not engage with, but comrades will literally discourage, preferring to engage with actual struggle.

    When I work with a lot of new people who want to get involved in practical work, the way to get them and keep them active, is not to describe the theoretical future, but connect them, their ideas especially, with the present. But when left to their own discussions, they often wax on about how things "should be". So is it practical to connect with them on that level? Absolutely. Is it what makes me and my comrades "communist?" No, what makes us a communist is the work we do, not the dreams I dream. That "work" can be self-development, and it can be development of objective conditions, and at some point self development and development of objective conditions become one in the same.

    But either I don't understand something or other people don't understand me, and I wouldn't begin to know how to tell the difference. The other commenter was just debating me, so I'm not really any further along. But thanks again.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    That's why I bridged the fact that those opposing neocolonialism from a communist viewpoint are still communists, even though they are far removed from such a society. Building communism is what makes a communist, but that act of building is not the same as communism once built. Theory and practice must be united for someone to be a communist, simply theorizing is not communist, nor is vulgar practice without theory communist.

    Does that make sense?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Okay so based on this, the part of my initial statement that was inaccurate would be "communism already exists" in that there are communists, and people building communism, but "communism" doesn't exist because the conditions don't exist for it yet. That is, as long as we are drawing lines between "communism" and something like communalism, which might refer to certain communal living experiments taking place in different parts of the world. Like Marx didn't consider the Obshchina to be communist, but theorized that it could contain some pre-socialist potential (which bore out, at least partially, in the formation of the soviets.)

    I wanted to consider communism as the practical work of communists. But I can see how that, at the very least, confuses the issue. And like the other responder pointed out, Marx was at least blended in his definition of communism, since he did spend time and energy describing "communist society." So in order to be correct, I would have to prove a worthwhile theoretical break between "communism" and "communist society" which, at the very least, confuses people's understanding more than it like addresses a practical shortcoming in our movements, and also seems to piss off other comrades.

    If that tracks, I think I get where you're coming from.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yep, that's pretty much it! There's the process of building communism, we can call "communizing" if you prefer (though I kind of hate this as a verb), and then there's "communism," the eventual abolition of class society. The process exists even if the mode of production does not yet.

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