Critically, the working classes were in charge of Chernobyl. Their mistakes were mistakes made by workers. The worker is not infallible.
The working classes were the dictators of production and distribution in the USSR, production was collectively owned and democratically planned.
How is the definition I gave wrong? You keep stating this but offer no actual explanation. Further, again, you dodge my question regarding anarchists and liberals called "tankies" for supporting socialist states, and just call me stupid for doing so. Why can't you answer? I can't imagine this attitude is useful for your real life organizing efforts, assuming you do actually organize.
I never equated tankies with all leftists, I gave a fully valid interpretation of the word that should satisfy both of us. You haven't actually engaged with that, just doubled down on insult for no apparent reason. I can't imagine this attitude is useful for the organizing work I assume you do.
The domestic labor movements across the US were heavily inspired by the recent successes of the Bolsheviks, and the capitalists were terrified of the same repression the workers bestowed upon them in Russia happening across the US Empire as well. The Russian Revolution fundamentally changed the entirety of labor struggles around the world.
Those are all parts of Marxism-Leninism, and the basis of Marxism-Leninism is dialectical materialism. Here's Lenin outlining the basics of Marxism in The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism:
The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defense of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.
Later on, he describes the philosophical section:
The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century in France, where a resolute struggle was conducted against every kind of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of democracy have, therefore, always exerted all their efforts to "refute," undermine and defame materialism, and have advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to the defense or support of religion.
Marx and Engels defended philosophical materialism in the most determined manner and repeatedly explained how profoundly erroneous is every deviation from this basis. Their views are most clearly and fully expounded in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-Dühring, which, like the Communist Manifesto, are handbooks for every class-conscious worker.
But Marx did not stop at eighteenth-century materialism: he developed philosophy to a higher level, he enriched it with the achievements of German classical philosophy, especially of Hegel's system, which in its turn had led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The main achievement was dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest, deepest and most comprehensive form, the doctrine of the relativity of the human knowledge that provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. The latest discoveries of natural science—radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements—have been a remarkable confirmation of Marx's dialectical materialism despite the teachings of the bourgeois philosophers with their "new" reversions to old and decadent idealism.
Marx deepened and developed philosophical materialism to the full, and extended the cognition of nature to include the cognition of human society. His historical materialism was a great achievement in scientific thinking. The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in views on history and politics were replaced by a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops—how capitalism, for instance, grows out of feudalism.
Just as man's knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man's social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that the various political forms of the modern European states serve to strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.
Marx's philosophy is a consummate philosophical materialism which has provided mankind, and especially the working class, with powerful instruments of knowledge.
It's incredibly difficult to summarize an entire ideology in a short definition, especially one made by non-MLs.
We can see already that people do not tend to hoard that which isn't scarce, and further even if someone tried, we do not need to allow it.
I don't think people hoarde what they do not need to. Hoarding is driven by scarcity.
Why on Earth? Communism is the logical conclusion and subsequent beginning of human history.
What do you mean "migrating from?" ML aligned instances are fine. Some instances have defederated from them, and they can admit to being anticommunist if they wish. Really confusing messaging on your part.
Also strange behavior to assume I won't reply just because you've blocked me, I'm commenting more for others than I am for you. Others can still see your crashout.
The USSR was undoubtedly the most progressive force of the 20th century. Hundreds of millions of workers received much better lives, they defeated the Nazis, and supported anti-colonial revolutions all across the global south. It wasn't a utopia, but no place is, and such a requirement for a state to be worthy of support is pure idealism.
Lemmy.world doesn't pitch itself as a non-ML space. If Lemmy.world is anti-ML, then they should advertise as such, but presently it at least claims to be a generalist instance. I know de facto it is pretty overwhelmingly anticommunist, but this is changing over time. Further, MLs may want to interact with communities primarily on Lemmy.world, and should not be gatekept from that.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45041279
Stolen from r/Marxism_Memes
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43729189
Stolen from r/marxism_memes
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43730786
Often times, Marxists use the term "material conditions," and "dialectics." What does this mean? Why do Marxists care so much about material conditions? The answer is that Marxists seek materialist explanations for observed processes as opposed to idealist, and do so dialectically, as opposed to metaphysically. In other words, Marxists apply dialectical analysis to find materialist explanations for phenomena. Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the proletariat as a class, and serves as the most vital ideological tool for overthrowing capitalism.
In order to understand dialectical materialism, we need to understand its component parts, materialism and dialectics, and their historical predecessors, idealism and metaphysics.
Idealism is, in short, to put ideas prior to matter. Idealism has been used by feudal lords to justify their position above the serfs, forming the ideological basis for feudalism. The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:
Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual
Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, "above," or "beyond," or "behind" what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.
Common idealist arguments are appealing to a supernatural "human nature," or "good vs. evil" explanations for processes. Materialism arose over time, as people grew to understand the world more deeply, and especially as a tool to overthrow the feudal aristocracy that justified its existence via the church. In other words, materialism rose to help the bourgeoisie. The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:
Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.
The type of materialism that overthrew the feudal lords was still underdeveloped, and metaphysical. The bourgeoisie needed an explanation for why the feudal lords were illegitimate, but still needed to support their own static, permanent rule. This was called mechanistic materialism, for the bourgeois scientists saw the world as a grand machine repeating simple motions forever. Mechanistic materialism, therefore, makes certain dogmatic assumptions:
That the world consists of permanent and stable things or particles, with definite, fixed properties;
That the particles of matter are by nature inert and no change ever happens except by the action of some external cause;
That all motion, all change can be reduced to the mechanical interaction of the separate particles of matter;
That each particle has its own fixed nature independent of everything else, and that the relationships between separate things are merely external relationships.
This, of course, has proven false. History did not end with the dissolution of the USSR, despite what modern mechanistic materialists claim. Mechanistic materialism relies on metaphysics, seeing everything as a static abstraction, devoid of its context. It has no explanation for how new qualities emerge, and ultimately fell to idealism to explain the "first mover," ie "God." Dialectical materialism holds instead:
The world is not a complex of things but of processes;
That matter is inseperable from motion;
That the motion of matter comprehends an infinite diversity of forms which arise one from another and pass into one another;
That things exist not as separate individual units but in essential relation and interconnection.
This became remarkable for the proletariat, as it sees nothing as static, and therefore marks the eventual downfall of the bourgeoisie. Putting it all together, we get the following:
- Dialectical materialism understands the world, not as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which all things go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away.
In other words, when analyzing events and contextualizing them, we must always viee them as a struggle between the rising and the falling, the old and the new, for example the concentration of capital in markets and the rise in socialize labor.
- Dialectical materialism considers that matter is always in motion, that motion is the mode of existence of matter, so that there can no more be matter without motion than motion without matter. Motion does not have to be impressed upon matter by some outside force, but above all it is necessary to look for the inner impulses of development, the self-motion, inherent in all processes.
In other words, all movement is a result of contradiction. Your foot presses on the Earth, and the Earth presses back on you.
- Dialectical materialism understands the motion of matter as comprehending all changes and processes in the universe, from mere changes of place right to thinking. It recognizes, therefore, the infinite diversity of the forms of motion of matter from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher.
In other words, dialectical materialism recognizes that development exists as a change of quantity into quality. Addition or subtraction gives way to qualitative change. A balloon is filled with air, until at a given point it pops due to pressure buildup. Water goes from liquid to gas at its boiling point, and back into liquid when cooling down to said point.
- Dialectical materialism considers that, in the manifold processes taking place in the universe, things come into being, change and pass out of being, not as separate individual units, but in essential relation and interconnection, so that they cannot be understood each separately and by itself but only in their relation and interconnection.
In other words, everything is connected, and must be analyzed in context to truly understand it. A worker isn't just an individual, but instead part of a social class of many workers. Wages are not something invented brand new every time, but instead are set by societal standards, controlled by the ruling capitalist class.
Karl Marx created dialectical materialism by turning Hegel's idealist dialectic into a materialist one. Then, he applied it to the progression of society, creating historical matetialism. By analyzing social structures and progress as a dialectical process based in materialism, we can learn from history and analyze where it's going. This is scientific socialism in progress.
If you keep these in mind, you can do your own dialectical materialist analysis. Always seek explanations based on the material, not the ideal, and always do so by contextualizing the processes, analyzing their contradictions, the unity and struggle of opposing tendencies. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative development, and progresses as a result of the conflict or struggle of opposite tendencies. There's much more to dialectical materialism, but this should help serve as a simple overview!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43732471
Rest in peace, comrade.
For those who haven't read or seen Parenti speak, I highly recommend both the "Yellow Parenti" Speech and Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook both litanies against anti-communist mythos, an examination of the real successes and struggles in the USSR, and an analysis of fascism.
Michael Parenti's Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media has always been better than Manufacturing Consent. Considering Chomsky's appearance in the Epstein files as being good friends with billionaire pedophiles, On Chomsky is also a fantastic read for why the left should reject him.
Parenti has turned countless westerners into Marxists, and was vital in my own journey to the left. May we carry on his legacy.
Thumbnail is Marx's manuscript for The German Ideology. Summary below is a compilation of my notes I wrote when reading Materialism and the Dialectical Method by Maurice Cornforth, along with general knowledge from reading various Marxist authors.
Often times, Marxists use the term "material conditions," and "dialectics." What does this mean? Why do Marxists care so much about material conditions? The answer is that Marxists seek materialist explanations for observed processes as opposed to idealist, and do so dialectically, as opposed to metaphysically. In other words, Marxists apply dialectical analysis to find materialist explanations for phenomena. Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the proletariat as a class, and serves as the most vital ideological tool for overthrowing capitalism.
In order to understand dialectical materialism, we need to understand its component parts, materialism and dialectics, and their historical predecessors, idealism and metaphysics.
Idealism
Idealism is, in short, to put ideas prior to matter. Idealism has been used by feudal lords to justify their position above the serfs, forming the ideological basis for feudalism. The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:
-
Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual
-
Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
-
Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, "above," or "beyond," or "behind" what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.
Early Materialism
Common idealist arguments are appealing to a supernatural "human nature," or "good vs. evil" explanations for processes. Materialism arose over time, as people grew to understand the world more deeply, and especially as a tool to overthrow the feudal aristocracy that justified its existence via the church. In other words, materialism rose to help the bourgeoisie. The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:
-
Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
-
Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
-
Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.
Shortcomings of Metaphysical Materialism
The type of materialism that overthrew the feudal lords was still underdeveloped, and metaphysical. The bourgeoisie needed an explanation for why the feudal lords were illegitimate, but still needed to support their own static, permanent rule. This was called mechanistic materialism, for the bourgeois scientists saw the world as a grand machine repeating simple motions forever. Mechanistic materialism, therefore, makes certain dogmatic assumptions:
-
That the world consists of permanent and stable things or particles, with definite, fixed properties;
-
That the particles of matter are by nature inert and no change ever happens except by the action of some external cause;
-
That all motion, all change can be reduced to the mechanical interaction of the separate particles of matter;
-
That each particle has its own fixed nature independent of everything else, and that the relationships between separate things are merely external relationships.
Moving from Metaphysics to Dialectics
This, of course, has proven false. History did not end with the dissolution of the USSR, despite what modern mechanistic materialists claim. Mechanistic materialism relies on metaphysics, seeing everything as a static abstraction, devoid of its context. It has no explanation for how new qualities emerge, and ultimately fell to idealism to explain the "first mover," ie "God." Dialectical materialism holds instead:
-
The world is not a complex of things but of processes;
-
That matter is inseperable from motion;
-
That the motion of matter comprehends an infinite diversity of forms which arise one from another and pass into one another;
-
That things exist not as separate individual units but in essential relation and interconnection.
Dialectical Materialism
This became remarkable for the proletariat, as it sees nothing as static, and therefore marks the eventual downfall of the bourgeoisie. Putting it all together, we get the following:
- Dialectical materialism understands the world, not as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which all things go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away.
In other words, when analyzing events and contextualizing them, we must always viee them as a struggle between the rising and the falling, the old and the new, for example the concentration of capital in markets and the rise in socialize labor.
- Dialectical materialism considers that matter is always in motion, that motion is the mode of existence of matter, so that there can no more be matter without motion than motion without matter. Motion does not have to be impressed upon matter by some outside force, but above all it is necessary to look for the inner impulses of development, the self-motion, inherent in all processes.
In other words, all movement is a result of contradiction. Your foot presses on the Earth, and the Earth presses back on you.
- Dialectical materialism understands the motion of matter as comprehending all changes and processes in the universe, from mere changes of place right to thinking. It recognizes, therefore, the infinite diversity of the forms of motion of matter from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher.
In other words, dialectical materialism recognizes that development exists as a change of quantity into quality. Addition or subtraction gives way to qualitative change. A balloon is filled with air, until at a given point it pops due to pressure buildup. Water goes from liquid to gas at its boiling point, and back into liquid when cooling down to said point.
- Dialectical materialism considers that, in the manifold processes taking place in the universe, things come into being, change and pass out of being, not as separate individual units, but in essential relation and interconnection, so that they cannot be understood each separately and by itself but only in their relation and interconnection.
In other words, everything is connected, and must be analyzed in context to truly understand it. A worker isn't just an individual, but instead part of a social class of many workers. Wages are not something invented brand new every time, but instead are set by societal standards, controlled by the ruling capitalist class.
Conclusion
Karl Marx created dialectical materialism by turning Hegel's idealist dialectic into a materialist one. Then, he applied it to the progression of society, creating historical materialism. By analyzing social structures and progress as a dialectical process based in materialism, we can learn from history and analyze where it's going. This is scientific socialism in progress. Human thought is shaped by our social experience, forming class consciousness and ideology. How we produce and distribute determines our ways of thinking.
Socialism and communism also have their own contradictions as well, and just because we progress on to socialism does not mean we cannot fall back to capitalism. The dialectical materialist world outlook understands that nothing is static, and there is always new contradiction and new movement from that.
If you keep these in mind, you can do your own dialectical materialist analysis. Always seek explanations based on the material, not the ideal, and always do so by contextualizing the processes, analyzing their contradictions, the unity and struggle of opposing tendencies. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative development, and progresses as a result of the conflict or struggle of opposite tendencies. There's much more to dialectical materialism, but this should help serve as a simple overview!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43729189
Stolen from r/marxism_memes
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43728612
Stolen from r/Marxism_memes
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43726548
Stolen from r/Marxism_memes
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