where do you stand on the socialist spectrum? i’ll start: my socialist views are a fusion of market socialism, welfarism, georgism and left-libertarianism - i took the leftvalues quiz (as shown in the photo attached in this post), and i got “centrist marxism”. you DON’T have to take the quiz though.
EDIT: i just added the link
Good to know my understanding to this point has been correct! And as for dialectics, I’ve been trying to figure out good examples on how to apply it to understand a situation but did not understand how. Based on your comment, are dialectics in Marxism only really used for Historical materialism, or is it used for more applications? If so, then I see I was wrong in trying to understand dialectics without looking at historical materialism 🙃
And the class struggle explanation makes sense. Just a question, do the labor aristocracy count as petite bourgeoisie, or are they the non capital/land-owning equivalent? That would explain on why more middle class people I meet (even the progressives/leftists sometimes :/) are more likely to support imperialism / liberalism to preserve their own material conditions, at the cost of others. And I’ll read the two texts, thanks
Thank you very much for the suggestions ❤️ I’ve always wanted to read wretched of the earth/how Europe underdeveloped Africa, but I knew I should at least get familiar with Marxism first, since both books are Marxist, the majority of national liberation movements are Marxist. These books/facts are very important to me personally, since before I even considered myself a socialist, I was still firmly anti-imperialist/anti-colonial since that’s the only solution the turmoil in the middle east, and the rest of the global south.
And yup, Stalin and Mao are the ones I take issue with. I used to do so too for Lenin, Castro (not a huge extent but there is still a lot of BS around him, unfortunately) but my views toward them softened, since Lenin’s work emphasizes democracy but the USSR was in big turmoil, but it was the very first, and only in its time Marxist state that had to face WW1 which they suffered hugely + a devastating civil war where there was a huge coalition against the reds, the economic turmoil due to both these wars and new governance at once and that he had an assassination attempt on his life, it’s easy to see why things turned the way they are for his time. Ultimately though the USSR under Lenin was incredibly progressive in comparison to the Tsar a few years ago, and the strides in literacy, healthcare and him giving more rights for the minorities in the Union was very admirable despite all his faults. I have the same opinion here about Fidel, lots of errors but the CIA was constantly attempting to kill him, the bay of pigs, and worst of all the embargo, comparing him to Batista the difference is astonishing. The mark twain quote about two reigns of terror applies pretty well.
But Stalin? From what I’ve heard, i don’t think much good of him. I will read the book you recommended about him, though! As for Mao, I think the same reasoning applies above too somewhat, but the mismanagement of the cultural revolution, great leap forward and four pests campaign is hard to ignore. I definitely haven’t done enough reading on these events and hope I’ll learn more soon.
This Soviet world, along with the book “Soviet democracy” I see you comment a lot about definitely sound like good books to get hands on. Thank you! And damn I love Parenti. I listened to his ‘Imperialism and Drugs’ speech and fell in love immediately lol. I haven’t watched the yellow parenti speech (yet) but I adore the quote about how countries are rich, not underdeveloped; its their working classes that are overexploited :)
Good questions!
First off, dialectical materialism is the single greatest tool of Marxism. Marx used it when writing Capital, it’s critical to class struggle, it’s why we have historical materialism. Dialectical materialism is a way of thinking about forces and change, and the motions of change in the world. Not to keep sending book recommendations, but Engels’ work Dialectics of Nature goes over the immense applicability of dialectics to everything (though this is a more advanced text IMO, and quite lengthy). Same applies to Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.
Mao’s On Practice & On Contradiction are critical for understanding dialectical materialism because the former goes over the dialectical materialist approach to understanding the unity of theory and practice, and the latter helps us understand the nature of contradiction. Contradiction is what compels movement, in a way, and by identifying imperialism as the primary contradiction, it’s useful for identifying what movements to support in overthrowing that, such as Palestinian liberation.
As for the labor aristocracy, they are ultimately the upper stratum of the proletariat. They are kind of like a subclass, if you will. Petite bourgeois relations push towards individualism and fascism as they fear being proletarianized, but the labor aristocracy are already proletarianized, just bribed by the spoils of imperialism into supporting it, or opposing anything that meaningfully represents an alternative. A good look at class ideology is the incredibly short essay Stalin’s Shoemaker, which traces a worker that finds himself in different occupations and thus his mindset changes until ultimately being proletarianized and naturally adopts a more proletarian mindset.
Your third paragraph is excellent, and Ho Chi Minh’s The Path Which Led me to Leninism describes exactly why so many anti-imperialists come to Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism’s strong stance on national liberation struggles and effectiveness in leading them is exactly why it is so prevalent. Both Fanon and Rodney are excellent reads, great choices.
One thing about Lenin and the progressive achievements of the USSR under him is that Lenin died very early on, and it was ultimately Stalin that had to take on that task. Sverdlov, the most likely candidate for General Secretary, was dead, and Trotsky distrusted the peasantry and had menshevik tendencies towards splitting and infighting. For all of Stalin’s faults, it was ultimately Stalin that carried on Lenin’s legacy in the midst of siege and incredible turmoil. The CPC rates Stalin and Mao both at 70% good, 30% bad, and I think that can help contextualize that we don’t idolize these figures just because we agree with much of what they wrote and did. There’s also much to critique.
For Mao, the CPC is very negative on the Cultural Revolution and Four Pests Campaign. The Great Leap Forward is more mixed, but the prior two were seen largely as mistakes even if the reasoning for attempting them were solid. Marxist-Leninist-Maoists uphold the Cultural Revolution and believe it universal to successful socialism, they just believe Mao failed. I’m not an MLM though, and neither was Mao, Mao was an ML. Hope that tangent made sense!
I love that you love Parenti, haha. The “Yellow Parenti” speech is honestly responsible for creating countless MLs, as is Blackshirts and Reds. Anna Louise Strong wrote This Soviet World in the 1930s, so it’s a good look at what the early USSR was like, as was Soviet Democracy. A good intro though to some of the history and context of AES are the Prolewiki pages on The USSR and on The PRC before you delve deeper into these.
Awesome work on your journey so far!
Thank you very much for your kind words and guidance ☺️ I’ll definitely try out the suggestions and recommendations!
Besides the writers of the works themselves, you’ve probably been the single most influential person to me in my learning lol. As always, have a great week! C:
That’s way too kind of you, in reality it was your own willingness to learn that’s been the primary mover. See, that’s the fun bit about dialectical materialism, you can’t just shout theory at someone and have them desire to learn it. Your environment shapes you by responding to that which is internal to you. A seed only becomes a tree because it’s placed in soil with good water, nutrition, and light, but placing a stone in the soil won’t create a tree no matter what conditions you put it in.
Just a cheeky example of Diamat, haha.
Have a great week, and thank you so much!