On April 22nd, 1870, Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov “Lenin,” hero of the Russian Revolution, and architect of the world’s first Socialist state, was born. His contributions to the Marxist canon and to the revolutionary theory and practice of the proletariat throughout the world carries on to this day, in increasing magnitude. Every passing day, he is vindicated. His analysis of imperialism, the right of nations to self-determination, and revolutionary strategy have played a key role in the past century, and have remained ever-more relevant throughout.
He also loved cats!
Some significant works:
Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism
The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!
Cool, he says we can shoot him.
I appreciate what other leftists are doing for the cause. As an anarchist, though, I have to interject.
The idea that a revolution needs to be carried out by a central authority is dangerous, as I’m sure plenty of you know. It doesn’t matter how red your new flag is. We leftists shouldn’t think of our state becoming a “better” state, but rather the abolition of the state altogether. Power concentrated in any form, no matter how well intentioned, inevitably reproduces hierarchy and domination. Our goal shouldn’t be to seize the machine, but to dismantle it and build something radically different: decentralized, cooperative, and rooted in mutual aid. Something we all can get behind.
I’d love to hear a marxist pov on this. <3
Our goal should be to seize the machine. The machine is highly valuable. The means of production. The key to communism is the machine; automation.
Anarchist movements can very easily be hijacked by bad faith actors. Billionaires are reading your literature. But not to become your friend.
You should not confuse leftism as synonymous with anarchy and decentralization.
Decentralization does not work for large scale infrastructure that is needed to make a modern society function. Power concentrated invariably produces hierarchy, but you can still have power divided enough to combat that with a centralized system. Ranked choice voting, sizing your house correctly, and allowing many competing viewpoints to exist through campaign funding laws can stop most of the ills.
It’s a large mistake to assume that smaller groups of people will not still oppress others. Decentralization aids supremacy groups by allowing them to carve out areas where they have greater control, giving them a stronger foothold to take over society at large.
As a Marxist-Leninist, the biggest distinction is that Marxists and Anarchists have different views of what the State even is, to begin with. As a consequence, what a society that has abolished the state looks entirely different for Marxists and Anarchists. We can’t all get behind the ideas you posited, specifically decentralization as the basis for the economy.
For Marxists, the state is an instrument of class oppression, and to eliminate it, you must eliminate class. An important note, class is not hierarchy. There exists inter-class hierarchy, such as bourgeois and proletarian, but also intra-class hierarchy, such as managers and workers. A fully publicly owned and planned global economy is what Marxists envision as “Communism.” Without any property distinctions, there is no class, and thus no need for special bodies of armed men to uphold property distinctions, no need for things like property rights, while things like administration remain.
This is because Marx’s view of Socialism is as it emerges from Capitalism. As Capitalism advances, large industry emerges, and with it cooperative production and increasing complexity in fewer and fewer firms. Marx therefore saw the Proletariat, growing greater in number and the bourgeoisie lesser and lesser as competition dies out, as taking control and directing this new economy in its own interests. It isn’t about reversing trends into decentralized communes, as in Marx’s eyes, this retains class distinctions, as each commune only owns itself, and thus there is no mechanism for equal ownership across communes, and therefore a necessity for a “state” in each commune to protect these rights and competition between communes for production and trade.
For Anarchists, the state is about hierarchy. Tackling this is the primary objective. This is why when Anarchists judge Marxists on their ability to abolish what Anarchists percieve as the state, they find Marxists invariably fall flat. However, when Marxists are judged on their own merits and own goals, we find Marxists to be quite successful.
As a side-note, the vanguard structure is a formalization of what already exists, the politically advanced among the revolutionary class. It isn’t distinct from the revolutionary class. I recommend reading The Tyranny of Structurelessness.
I over-simplified a ton, but I hope this helps! I can also answer any questions you may have. I used to be an Anarchist myself, so that helps smooth miscommunication.
interesting, thanks for writing it down like this.
If you allow the random question, is this persistence of class between communes also the reason you shifted from anarchism to Marxism? Because I think you do make a persuasive point and would like to know what changed your trajectory/mind.
No problem!
To answer your question, I believe the arguments presented by Marx concerning the ever-increasing complexity of production in large-scale industry paving the way for societal progression naturally towards a planned economy to be more than compelling enough for me to question my prejudice against the various existing Socialist states. That spurned on a lot of personal reading on the various Socialist states and more Marxist theory. Strategically, I find Marxism-Leninism has proven itself in theory and in practice, and it continues to get refined and shaped ever further.
Yes I get that. I‘m looking forward to reading the comment and article you have linked and thanks for the insightful perspective. I hope you have a lovely day
No problem! And you too, have a great day!
Hey, I’ve argued this exact stance with my Marxist brothers a few times here and here. They seem sure of revolution and against market socialism. Anyways, I’ve created a community for us to talk more about it here - Collective Cake
And what a coincidence today being a Collective Cake day!
Well said. Anarchism has received horrible press at the hands of Big Democracy but many of our current problems are rooted in the concentration of power, money and influence that capitalist societies seem to produce. On the other hand, can we live without the many products and technology that require large scale effort? It feels like that would be a major challenge for any fledgling anarchic society.
Is that a real trump tweet? That’s scary.
Whether a king is above the law or not is the difference between a democratic or absolute monarchy. He thinks he’s above the law, so I guess he’s shooting for absolute monarchy.
Monarchy is monarchy
Fascism has no ideology. They will just take any varnish that makes them look acceptable in the short term. Just like fake tan, it’s just gold paint over a turd.
Fascism is best described as Capitalism’s mask. When the circumstances Capitalism finds itself in due to its own contradictions endanger the system, it dons the mask and does the dirty work necessary to perpetuate the system. From slaughtering minority groups to crushing worker movements, the inherently contradictory and irrational behavior found in fascism are there to ultimately save Private Capital.
Fascism isn’t a unique system, but Capitalism in decay.
Hi comrade! I am new here. Anyway, what you said is confirmed by History and by liberal theory itself.
Historically, look at Latin America (I am Brazilian). All over Latin America, when people elected leftist (not even communist) governments within the institutions of liberal democracy, the elite (with US support) staged a coup and installed a military dictatorship, effectively saying: no, the people are not allowed to choose socialism. They chose socialism, so we hereby abolish democracy.
And Jacobin covers the justification for this under liberal theory itself:
So, important liberal thinkers insisted as early as John Locke, you can’t tax the rich without their consent. If you do so, you give the victims of these policies a good reason to rebel and use violence against the usurpers. Liberal politics thus had a dictatorial option inscribed in it from the very beginning. And so it became a dogma to assume that the main task of politics is to protect property, and its principal sin to inveigh against it. But of course, that is a very narrow definition of what politics can or should do. And we suffer from that confinement to this day. In a typical Western democracy, you can do many things — as long as you refrain from infringing on private property. [1]
In short: liberal theory itself gives absolute priority to private property (over the means of production). If it conflicts with democracy, then democracy is tossed out the window. Fascism is liberalism’s plan B.
I always clarify “over the means of production” when attacking private property. There is this widespread confusion that communist thugs are going to invade your house and confiscate your bike. AFAIK, communists don’t do that.
Fun fact: in 1989 Brazilian elections, neoliberal Collor terrorized the people saying that Lula would confiscate everyone’s savings. With infamous support from Rede Globo (massive right-wing biased media corporation), Collor won, then quickly moved to confiscate everyone’s savings. Lula was elected in 2002, 2006 and 2022, and did nothing of the sort. Sadly, Lula is not communist, but social democrat.
Welcome, comrade! And thanks for the Brazillian perspective, it’s funny to hear people “slander” Lula as a Communist, I wish that was true as well. As a spooky scary Communist myself, I hope I live to see the US Empire fall, even as a citizen of it.
Would you say that communists should not concentrate our energies attempting to prevent liberal democracy from turning into fascism? Like supporting social-democratic parties to keep fascists away. My understanding is that liberal “democracy” has some temporary advantages over fascism, but is not worth much energy.
Fascism is more acutely violent, but also temporary. Hitler initiated a war against much of the World, which he could not win. He was also incompetent. Out of insane hubris, he bypassed his generals and military strategists, because he was the chosen genius. Allegedly he didn’t have a real strategy to defeat the British Empire. He wanted to win the war by winning battle after battle. Thus he was defeated (largely by the Red Army), and “only” some 80 million lives were lost.
Liberal “democracy”, on the other hand, kills ten million people every few years, for centuries.
Fascism is brutal, crass, and visibly hateful. Liberal “democracy” is sophisticated, less acutely violent, and is falsely compassionate, but is also more competent at preserving itself and making victims.
Social Democracy is the twin of fascism. Both arise as mechanisms to defend against the decay of Capitalism, the former through bribery, the latter through brutality.
In my opinion, it depends on if the country is Imperialist, or Imperialized. If the Social Democratic movement in an Imperialized country is a national liberation movement, and thus moves against Imperialism, it should be supported. Socialism should still be supported over Social Democracy, but critical support for Capitalist countries fighting against Imperialism is important as Imperialism is the primary contradiction.
In the Imperial core, both should be firmly opposed. Social Democracy may be preferable over fascism, but both perpetuate Imperialism and thus both are to be opposed. Both will root out Communism if it poses a threat, with equal or near equal vigor.
Damn right. Socialism or barbarism, either we break the cycle and move on to a better world, or Capital will happily kill us when it needs.
Wouldn’t it be a derivative of oligarchy? Fascism doesn’t care about the free market, only the well being of those at the top. You could argue oligarchy is a derivative of capitalism, but I don’t think they’re synonymous.
Couple things, here:
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“Oligarchy” is a nebulous, catch-all term for any system where only a few have any power. It could apply to many systems, but itself isn’t one. Nobody sets out to “do oligarchy,” nor is oligarchy itself a system in and of itself.
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There’s no such thing as a “free market.” In Capitalism, the state is under the control of Capitalists. These Capitalists use the state as they wish, regulations in Capitalism are used primarily to empower the largest firms and shut out competition.
In analyzing those aspects, we need to analyze where the systems we think of as “fascism” arise. Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, etc were all the results of dire crisis, and the state aligned with Private Capital in extremely brutal manners to root out opposition and protect itself. The conditions for arising and the system in place were all Capitalist in nature.
You using private capital as synonymous with powerful people? Rich people to tend to be powerful, but they’re not the only ones.
And are you saying the treaty of versailles and it’s fallout were part of the conditions for fascism, and were capitalist in nature?
I’m not using it as synonymous with powerful people, fascism has always been tied to private capital. As I already said, oligarchy isn’t really any one thing, just like economy isn’t. Fascism specifically is entirely a product of Capitalist decay, or, rather, is Capitalism when in decay and needs to rescue itself.
The inter-Ally debts causing the allies to squeeze Germany ever-further via reparations in order to pay their debts back to the US was a part of the rise of fascism, but not the only one. There was also rising labor organizing, a need for forced labor via colonial expansion, and more. It’s more complex and nuanced than that.
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Quite simple, actually. If you want to do a thing that violates a law, you modify the law to allow the thing.
Case in point:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (13th amendment)
[…] implementation of the dictatorship [of the proletariat] was clearly defined by Lenin as early as in 1906, when he argued it must involve “unlimited power based on force and not on law,” power that is “absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever and based directly on violence.”
Leszek Kołakowski
1906 was before the revolution. I do sure hope they didn’t follow tsarist law
Lenine is a huge theoricist, but beware of those idolizing him. Neither God, nor Caesar, nor Tribune.
He was also a huge praxisist. The most praxis of praxisists.
We don’t need to dogmatically idolize, but I openly admire his contributions both to the Marxist Canon and to the working class movements in general. His contributions in theory and in practice have been vital for Socialism.
Never idolize anyone. I think the lack of certainty in the number of deaths Lenin was responsible for adds more horror to his decisions. No matter how pretty his ideas were, or how cute he looked with a cat, an oligarch is an oligarch, and as soon as a revolutionary acquires power, they become the oppressor.
its so easy to be a western liberal, you can just de-legitimize every single progressive revolution in history because none go completely perfect and you never do anything because god forbid you commit a single error and thus be literally the same as the people in power who straight up murder people for fun.
“Noo, the revolutionaries will oppress you”, said the current oppressors, projecting their vile deeds onto their enemies
The lack in certainty at the extent of the excesses in the Russian Revolution primarily stems from separating what actually happened on the ground, and what was reported in Western countries via anti-communist propaganda. Revolution is bloody business, and the Tsarists resisting the Russian Civil War fought hard against the newly Socialist society emerging, as well as 14 Capitalist countries that had invaded to shut down the revolution.
All governments are oppressive, what matters is which class is doing the oppressing. In the Soviet Union, the Proletariat had taken control, and wielded the power of the state to shut down fascists, Tsarists, and the bourgeoisie. The outcome was quite positive for the Working Class. Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, immense strides were made.
Free healthcare, childcare, and education were provided. Literacy rates tripled to 99.9%, life expectancy doubled from the 30s to the 70s, and the USSR managed to go from feudalism to space in half a century as a consequence. Women’s rights were expanded greatly. The Red Army also liberated the world from the threat of the Nazis, having been responsible for the taking of Berlin, and 90% of the total Nazi deaths. Wealth inequality shrank dramatically, while economic growth boomed. The USSR also supported national liberation movements against Colonialism and Imperialism, in countries like Cuba, Algeria, Korea, China, Vietnam, and Palestine.
All in all, Lenin indeed was an oppressor from the perspective of the bourgeoisie. However, from the perspective of the proletariat, he was a hero, and is celebrated as a liberator from the oppression of the Tsar.
In the Soviet Union, the Proletariat had taken control
Then why did they kill so many peasants and workers?
The outcome was quite positive for the Working Class.
Except for the ones who are dead.
Can you elaborate?
talking about Kulloks
“Peasants and workers,” I see.
For the record I was not saying they where but that is very clearly what the person you origionaly replied to was refering too… because Westerners
Yea, I was going along with you, lol
Context. If you look at the terrible Allied violence in WWII, without context, you easily conclude the Allies were the villains.
Also, of course, there is widespread capitalist propaganda.
