getfiscal posted:you talk about socialism like you're talking about strikers for the guntfordshire united footie club.
actually existing socialism, mate
your either boring or stupid
but simpsons is on now and i just got my fish and chips cos its friday
SovietFriends posted:your either boring or stupid
* you're
While the left was facing "defeat" under neo-liberalism in the 80s, the revolutionary people's wars in Peru, the Philippines, Turkey, India, and Nepal were their most successful. Though socialists talk of great waves of revolution, the Cuban revolution was from 1953-1959, the Burkina Faso revolution (an LF favorite) was from 1983-1987, both periods of "socialist retreat". And though SovietStranger says Cuba is the last existing socialist state, Nepal actually exists and is decked out in all the old language, symbols, and theory despite all the whining from the left about "new solutions" and "21st century socialism".
The economic crisis of 2008 may be the general crisis that destroys the capitalist system, but it already happened in the 90s in asia and in the early 2000s in Latin America. One could say that Keysnian capitalism can never leave crisis, just displace it. The chickens of crisis may have come home to roost in the west, but the world socialist revolution clearly balances on the revolutions in India and China, the major world markets for increasing profitability and displacing excess surplus value. Both of which are struggles rooted in the maoist 'long march' of the 80s, building bases of support and consolidating the revolutionary forces while the 'world revolution' was flailing about in defeat and post-modernism.
The material world is radically open, revolutionary possibilities are always available just as a revolution can be set back or defeated at any time. This is the essence of maoism imo. Though maoism has it's own problems, the MIM fell apart and the RCP became a cult. But it's clear to me that it is the theoretical body that gets the most correct and sees both the future and the past, the only tradition which has eliminated the hegelian ghosts of 'empiricism', 'historicism', and 'trotskyism' (meaning any talk of fake socialism, the fundamental proletariat as the 'correct' revolutionary force, and simultaneous world revolution).
A series of thoughts inspired by SovietStranger's post...
" but the future does not determine the past. Revolution can be defeated at any time, and the relationship between crisis and real revolution is like between value and price: determinate in the last instance. Calling the USSR a failure makes no sense, the revolution was clearly a victory as were many of the aspects of building real socialism. It was defeated, but the revolution will always have victories and defeats. History is a process, why would revolution be any different? Only a Hegelian would see communism as 'success', doesn't Marx say that communism is only the beginning of history and not the end?
Forgetfulness is a property of all action; just as not only light but darkness is bound up with the life of every organism. One who wished to feel everything historically, would be like a man forcing himself to refrain from sleep, or a beast who had to live by chewing a continual cud. Thus even a happy life is possible without remembrance, as the beast shows: but life in any true sense is absolutely impossible without forgetfulness. Or, to put my conclusion better, there is a degree of sleeplessness, of rumination, of "historical sense," that injures and finally destroys the living thing, be it a man or a people or a system of culture.
To fix this degree and the limits to the memory of the past, if it is not to become the gravedigger of the present, we must see clearly how great is the " plastic power " of a man or a community or a culture; I mean the power of specifically growing out of one's self, of making the past and the strange one body with the near and the present, of healing wounds, replacing what is lost, repairing broken moulds. There are men who have this power so slightly that a single sharp experience, a single pain, often a little injustice, will lacerate their souls like the scratch of a poisoned knife. There are others, who are so little injured by the worst misfortunes, and even by their own spiteful actions, as to feel tolerably comfortable, with a fairly quiet conscience, in the midst of them,—or at any rate shortly afterwards. The deeper the roots of a man's inner nature, the better will he take the past into himself; and the greatest and most powerful nature would be known by the absence of limits for the historical sense to overgrow and work harm. It would assimilate and digest the past, however foreign, and turn it to sap. Such a nature can forget what it cannot subdue; there is no break in the horizon, and nothing to remind it that there are still men, passions, theories and aims on the other side. This is a universal law; a living thing can only be healthy, strong and productive within a certain horizon: if it be incapable of drawing one round itself, or too selfish to lose its own view in another's, it will come to an untimely end. Cheerfulness, a good conscience, belief in the future, the joyful deed, all depend, in the individual as well as the nation, on there being a line that divides the visible and clear from the vague and shadowy: we must know the right time to forget as well as the right time to remember; and instinctively see when it is necessary to feel historically, and when unhistorically. This is the point that the reader is asked to consider; that the unhistorical and the historical are equally necessary to the health of an individual, a community, and a system of culture.
-On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, Nietzsche
Describing the differences between the Trotsyist and the Communist, and Hegelian historicism vs. Marx's dialectical-materialist history
These are very primordial thoughts obviously...
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
in india the people's war is almost entirely limited to the forests and their tribal peoples and is specifically a reaction to megaprojects like giant mines. it looks intimidating on maps but it actually only directly affects a very small percentage of the population. kashmir and the associated muslim-hindu attacks across india is a much more obvious site of struggle but it doesn't have the same vaguely leftist veneer so no one in the west cares i guess.
did the people's wars in peru and the phillipines actually achieve anything positive. like a lot of people died and that's pretty metal i guess but there's nothing else much to show for it. meanwhile social-democratic parties across latin america have had stunning successes, like chavez, morales, etc.
also you identify cuba but let's remember that maoists don't consider cuba socialist and never have. they considered it a soviet revisionist neocolony.
getfiscal posted:i am both boring and stupid, a simple slave to allah, guided rightly by faith.
You seem to have picked up a funny habit. Might I suggest another?
getfiscal posted:it'd odd you'd pick nepal as a representative of old theory existing in the here and now when the leading maoist party (the bhattarai-prachanda line) has clearly adopted social-democracy through their support of multiparty liberal-democracy and a clear promise to retain capitalism. there's a small rump orthodox-maoist party but it remains to be seen what they'll do.
in india the people's war is almost entirely limited to the forests and their tribal peoples and is specifically a reaction to megaprojects like giant mines. it looks intimidating on maps but it actually only directly affects a very small percentage of the population. kashmir and the associated muslim-hindu attacks across india is a much more obvious site of struggle but it doesn't have the same vaguely leftist veneer so no one in the west cares i guess.
did the people's wars in peru and the phillipines actually achieve anything positive. like a lot of people died and that's pretty metal i guess but there's nothing else much to show for it. meanwhile social-democratic parties across latin america have had stunning successes, like chavez, morales, etc.
also you identify cuba but let's remember that maoists don't consider cuba socialist and never have. they considered it a soviet revisionist neocolony.
Impper posted:eat my dick bitch
sure. come to montreal. no gay stuff just bros having a good time.
Impper posted:no u come here ho
getfiscal posted:i don't think most people here know what they are talking about at all.
Ok you trolled, no one bit, time to let it go.
Nepal Maoists to change ideology, hint at giving up anti-India stance
By Shirish B. Pradhan
February 1, 2013
In a major policy shift, Nepal’s ruling Maoists will adopt a new path to socialism through capitalism and may also give up their anti-India stance at the upcoming national convention of the party.
Some 2,500 delegates of the ruling UCPN-Maoist will attend the six-day general convention, to take place after a gap of over 20 years, starting on Saturday in central Nepal’s Hetauda Municipality in an attempt to revamp the guerrilla group-turned-mainstream political party.
“We will follow ‘the path of capitalism’ to achieve communism instead of pursuing ‘New Democracy’ as propounded by chairman Mao Zedong,” said Narayan Kaji Shrestha, vice-chairman of UCPN-Maoist and deputy prime minister.
“Opposition to India cannot be a basis of national politics,” Shrestha said, hinting at a change of the Maoists’ anti-India stance of the past.
“Good relations with our neighbours India and China could be maintained without compromising national independence and securing our authority to decide our fate by ourselves”, he said.
The Maoists took up arms in 1996 to fulfill their 40-point demands. Their demands included scrapping of the Nepal-India Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950 and banning Indian vehicles and Hindi cinema in Nepal.
Shrestha underlined the need to reorient the ideological course of achieving “socialism through new-democracy” as propounded by Mao in China to achieving “socialism through capitalism”.
“We have come to the conclusion that it was not possible to achieve socialism via the model of new democracy in the current global political context,” Shrestha said.
As the society has preferred capitalism the party has decided to change its ideological course, he said.
“To achieve this national policy and programmes should be framed and implemented as per the social democratic way while maintaining the spirit of communism,” Shrestha said.
“We need to maintain the communist spirit, but programmes should be social-democratic so that we can achieve socialism through capitalism,” the Maoist vice-chairman said.
babyhueypnewton posted:The only thing of possible interest in your post is the insinuation that 'Maoists' do not consider Cuba to be socialist. Despite the misunderstanding of what socialism is implicit in the idea (since my whole post is about socialism as a process rather than something that 'is' or 'is not') I would be vaguely interested to hear more about the confrontation between Maoism and Focoism and their descendants.
the entire premise of maoism is that socialism is something that can be prevailing or not, not just that it's an "actually existing process" or something. the latter idea, that there is some sort of imperfect "real socialist process" or whatever, is the definition of revisionism. that's why mao thought that places like cuba weren't socialist, because they specifically didn't have a real planned economy, they had a sort of limited state-directed market where most things were nationalized but still autonomous. otherwise what do you think the sino-soviet split was about. do you think mao really cared all that much about khrushchev talking up peace. he cared that the underlying structure of the economy was being positioned in eastern europe towards competing firms with a new bourgeoisie in the party. this is all like maoism 101.
you seem to be a brezhnevite that doesn't understand maoism but claims to adhere to it because it seems radical and authentic.
getfiscal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:The only thing of possible interest in your post is the insinuation that 'Maoists' do not consider Cuba to be socialist. Despite the misunderstanding of what socialism is implicit in the idea (since my whole post is about socialism as a process rather than something that 'is' or 'is not') I would be vaguely interested to hear more about the confrontation between Maoism and Focoism and their descendants.
the entire premise of maoism is that socialism is something that can be prevailing or not, not just that it's an "actually existing process" or something. the latter idea, that there is some sort of imperfect "real socialist process" or whatever, is the definition of revisionism. that's why mao thought that places like cuba weren't socialist, because they specifically didn't have a real planned economy, they had a sort of limited state-directed market where most things were nationalized but still autonomous. otherwise what do you think the sino-soviet split was about. do you think mao really cared all that much about khrushchev talking up peace. he cared that the underlying structure of the economy was being positioned in eastern europe towards competing firms with a new bourgeoisie in the party. this is all like maoism 101.
you seem to be a brezhnevite that doesn't understand maoism but claims to adhere to it because it seems radical and authentic.
I'm still waiting for the actual Mao or Maoist quotes.
babyhueypnewton posted:I'm still waiting for the actual Mao or Maoist quotes.
it is mainstream anti-revisionism to consider the cuban revolution bourgeois-nationalist and state-capitalist. i don't know if you like MIM at all but:
From the Maoist perspective, Cuba is state-capitalist, not socialist. Fidel Castro took the wrong side in the Sino-Soviet split and bears much persynal responsibility for the failures of the international communist movement since then. Likewise, Che's and Fidel Castro's "foco theory" of military strategy has resulted in failure after failure in Latin America. Castro has proved to be mixed up about Khruschev, Brezhnev and even Gorbachev and Jiang Zemin. He even called Mao a "fascist."
To this day, Castro does not acknowledge that Mao was right in his argument with Castro about the existence of a bourgeoisie in the party and how that bourgeoisie can restore capitalism as it did in the Soviet Union. For this alone, it is simply not possible to forgive Castro as an alleged "communist." We cannot in good faith ask the masses to make blood sacrifices without being straight about subjects ranging from Gorbachev to free market enterprise.
No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society."
-Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
and expanded on by Althusser. This is why Maoism is the most lively ideology as well as the most successful as a revolutionary movement (these, of course, are closely related but that's a whole other can of worms)
The reason I dismissed everything you said was because it didn't have any relevance. I was not talking about any movements or 'fake' or 'real' socialism. Of course socialism exists, and many countries that call themselves socialist are in fact bourgeois regimes. Socialism exists as a series of material realities because all things 'exist' (the essence of materialism). I was explaining that while socialism exists, it exists as a moment in time which must be judged in the present. We're talking here about dialectical change, and how a communist interacts with history and temporarily. We're talking about what an anti-historicist marxism looks like in practice. I have no interest in debating whether Venezuela or Nepal are 'more successful' (undefined in your post of course) or whether the maoist movementin India is 'big enough' (who cares?).
A good Marx passage adressing all of this:
From this conflict of the political state with itself, therefore, it is possible everywhere to develop the social truth. Just as religion is a register of the theoretical struggles of mankind, so the political state is a register of the practical struggles of mankind. Thus, the political state expresses, within the limits of its form sub specie rei publicae, all social struggles, needs and truths. Therefore, to take as the object of criticism a most specialised political question – such as the difference between a system based on social estate and one based on representation – is in no way below the hauteur des principes. For this question only expresses in a political way the difference between rule by man and rule by private property. Therefore the critic not only can, but must deal with these political questions (which according to the extreme Socialists are altogether unworthy of attention). In analysing the superiority of the representative system over the social-estate system, the critic in a practical way wins the interest of a large party. By raising the representative system from its political form to the universal form and by bringing out the true significance underlying this system, the critic at the same time compels this party to go beyond its own confines, for its victory is at the same time its defeat.
Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, participation in politics, and therefore real struggles, the starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.
The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions. Our whole object can only be – as is also the case in Feuerbach’s criticism of religion – to give religious and philosophical questions the form corresponding to man who has become conscious of himself.
Hence, our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality. It will become evident that it is not a question of drawing a great mental dividing line between past and future, but of realising the thoughts of the past. Lastly, it will become evident that mankind is not beginning a new work, but is consciously carrying into effect its old work.
-Marx to Ruge, September 1843
To say that all things are socialism is not to be a tankie or defend the bourgeois when they call themselves socialist. It is to understand that the real movement of history is socialism, and that both the successes and defeats are part of the history of socialism towards a definite material goal (but also beyond that). To describe a defeat as a failure, or to describe the real revolutionary movements of humanity as 'not socialism' is to give a moral judgement of the present on the past, the kind of slave morality Nietzsche is criticizing in the passage I quoted. I wish you would be more serious when you post, cause we can do better.
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
part of the problem is that this is ambiguous even in maoism itself. this ambiguity was exploited by dengists who focused on the development of productive forces, obviously, and sort of suggested that the bulk of the population would simply have to accept modest gains over a long period of time so that the overall national productive forces could advance rapidly. to be fair, that actually happened, and there wasn't actually much damage done to the poor in the process - if anything, most now have access to a few simple appliances, and they are living a bit longer. if it's a success to have some tribal fighters in a forest then certainly a skyscraper is a success.
I'll post some Mao quotes which could give some hints on the Maoist view. It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on friday ~ so I can't respond at the moment, but when I do I might even make it a good thread. Basically, you're asking me to explain my philosophy, and what socialism is. It might be a while. glad we're getting somewhere though, and obviously others should feel free to respond.
All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said, "Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather." To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather. Comrade Chang Szu-teh died for the people, and his death is indeed weightier than Mount Tai. -Serve the People
Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again . . . till their victory; that is the logic of the people, and they too will never go against this logic. -Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle
Of all things in the world, people are the most precious. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, as long as there are people, every kind of miracle can be performed. - The Bankruptcy of the Idealist Conception of History
Without destruction there can be no construction; without blockage there can be no flow; without stoppage there can be no movement. -Directives Regarding Cultural Revolution
Even the transformation from a quantitative to a qualitative change and the negation of negation are both unifications of contradictions. However you argue, they are still struggles of opposites. Dialectics can be made monistic, never pluralistic. Nature and society are full of contradictions. As soon as a contradiction is resolved, a new one emerges. There is no world or society without contradictions. Sometimes we may not be able to name a specific contradiction, but it exists all the same. Contradictions are the motivating force of the development of everything. This has been so in the past, is so at present, and will be so in future. -Directives Regarding Cultural Revolution
The present Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is only the first; there will inevitably be many more in the future. The issue of who will win in the revolution can only be settled over a long historical period. If things are not properly handled, it is possible for a capitalist restoration to take place at any time in the future. -Directives Regarding Cultural Revolution
There are a bunch more, but here's the last one you already know:
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. -The German Ideology
for example, marx criticizes the idea of a "people's state" because it suggest a vague populism rather than a specific historical process that will end in a stateless society. but mao was sort of rehabilitating populism by saying that peasants, professionals, technicians, artists, patriotic businessmen, shopkeepers, etc. were all natural allies. this was important because of how obviously backwards china still was outside a few pockets. even during the cultural revolution, mao was clear that 95% of even the party apparatus were "good".
some people in the FRSO made a good point that "normalization" was actually a mass demand during and after the cultural revolution. like there were currents pushing for a rigorously egalitarian economy, but the centre of the revolution and a lot of people were more, in my view, like cuba today - they support the social gains, they want a strong independent economy that gives them secure work, but a lot of them aren't too worried about material inequalities in the medium term and they see benefits in personal farming plots or consumer businesses. so during the cultural revolution, mao did things like sending students to the countryside in order to calm things down, which was sort of part of a long process of state-led depoliticization which peaked in tiananmen square.
and i think a lot of different policies in that would be sensible. in practical terms i don't see how they can leap to planning any time soon. they have more to lose now. the main problem to me is that they are locked into patterns of growth that are immensely destructive and unequal. the problem is that the policy responses to that are all talked about and broadly endorsed by the government. like if you show up in beijing today and started talking about the widening income gap (why are there lots of billionaires in a socialist country), the ecological crisis (why is china still using coal), the class inequality (why are so many officials connected through families etc) - they not only mostly agree with you, they have a bunch of action plans and modest policies that are addressing each one, especially under hu jintao. the problem isn't really so much about a particular polarizing politics (radical socialism) being able to rebuild an image, so much as just politicization in general, since all these policy issues are seen as technical problems that only experts can solve for win-win outcomes (scientific development concept, for example) rather than contentious issues which require large-scale debates and winners and losers.
so i'd much rather see like social-democracy take root in china than a people's war or something. the problem with that is that there isn't much reason for the party to give up power, and the chinese people overall strongly support some of the worst policies of the government (such as colonizing xinjiang, in my opinion, but really there isn't a mass movement for ending coal use or something).
discipline posted:
:qq:
getfiscal posted:i posted this recently but ranciere pointed out that a lot of the maoist talk about the people and such is not really a complete historiography or strategy but rather just straightforward praising of popular alliances in the service of revolution. like mao's intent was probably more to say "the chinese people are good" and to basically imply that most people could be trusted to follow the revolution. this was partially in reaction to skepticism that a peasant society could build socialism.
for example, marx criticizes the idea of a "people's state" because it suggest a vague populism rather than a specific historical process that will end in a stateless society. but mao was sort of rehabilitating populism by saying that peasants, professionals, technicians, artists, patriotic businessmen, shopkeepers, etc. were all natural allies. this was important because of how obviously backwards china still was outside a few pockets. even during the cultural revolution, mao was clear that 95% of even the party apparatus were "good".
some people in the FRSO made a good point that "normalization" was actually a mass demand during and after the cultural revolution. like there were currents pushing for a rigorously egalitarian economy, but the centre of the revolution and a lot of people were more, in my view, like cuba today - they support the social gains, they want a strong independent economy that gives them secure work, but a lot of them aren't too worried about material inequalities in the medium term and they see benefits in personal farming plots or consumer businesses. so during the cultural revolution, mao did things like sending students to the countryside in order to calm things down, which was sort of part of a long process of state-led depoliticization which peaked in tiananmen square.
and i think a lot of different policies in that would be sensible. in practical terms i don't see how they can leap to planning any time soon. they have more to lose now. the main problem to me is that they are locked into patterns of growth that are immensely destructive and unequal. the problem is that the policy responses to that are all talked about and broadly endorsed by the government. like if you show up in beijing today and started talking about the widening income gap (why are there lots of billionaires in a socialist country), the ecological crisis (why is china still using coal), the class inequality (why are so many officials connected through families etc) - they not only mostly agree with you, they have a bunch of action plans and modest policies that are addressing each one, especially under hu jintao. the problem isn't really so much about a particular polarizing politics (radical socialism) being able to rebuild an image, so much as just politicization in general, since all these policy issues are seen as technical problems that only experts can solve for win-win outcomes (scientific development concept, for example) rather than contentious issues which require large-scale debates and winners and losers.
so i'd much rather see like social-democracy take root in china than a people's war or something. the problem with that is that there isn't much reason for the party to give up power, and the chinese people overall strongly support some of the worst policies of the government (such as colonizing xinjiang, in my opinion, but really there isn't a mass movement for ending coal use or something).
back to bad posting. you need to stop speculating what Mao 'really meant' and what Maoism actually is, this is basically the totalitarian school of "well Mao really wanted to gain more power, ignore everything he actually said cause he was a literal psychopath" and is useless. I'm not a fan of people who spam Marx quotes but your posts need a lot more quoting and a loss less vague, generalizations of what you think a complex historical process was "basically about". also lmao at calling the cultural revolution "depoliticizing", you had to have been laughing when you typed that.
I just talked about how maoism is more than a checklist of material gains. Deal with maoism (and marxism) on its own theoretical terms, even Laclau and Moufee have the courage to do that (or pretend to at least). these vague statements and boring descriptions about social democracy are more tired than the fake christianity. Also your statements about what the Cuban and Chinese people do and do not care about is patronizing, you need to stop projecting so much.
ilmdge posted:how should i respond when peopl say to me "if cuba's so great why dont you move there"
Pack your bags.
jools posted:why do quotes make a difference, does everything have to align with the classics or something
I don't think in all cases more quotes = better. Just in this case, since it would make posts full of generalizations, purposeful misunderstandings, and weasel sentences designed to see if you're paying attention less horrible. Also when you're talking about what Maoists actually believe, it helps to quote Mao (though it's not necessary).