Gibbonstrength posted:

i dont understand how a position on stalin would influence your organising. im not talking about the correlation between liking stalin and having cool non-retarded views. thats fine. im asking, how exactly does a position on stalin (were the purges a good idea, were the five year plans a good idea, did he over-bureaucratize the USSR, etc) relate to our circumstances at this moment? nobody is going to be faced with the same context/problems as stalin or the USSR, so im critical of the position that it really matters for revolutionary practice.

How can you distinguish which principles of past experiences of building socialism are generalisable into universal guiding principles and which are merely contingent historical relics, without extensive study? simply assuming none of these questions would have relevant answers is theoretically unjustified and intellectually lazy

Clearly some of the problems faced in building the USSR are broadly applicable, otherwise Marxism-Leninism is meaningless as a revolutionary strategy. you can't determine which of these experiences are worthwhile to learn from and which aren't relevant to your particular case without some form of investigative heuristic, and that involves drawing these kinds of lines. effectively every significant revolutionary leader has repeatedly underlined the necessity of cadres studying these historical accounts extensively

blinkandwheeze posted:

Petrol posted:

is it important to take a position on every aspect of comrade stalin's life and work before one begins one's own? i will leave the answer as an exercise for the reader

There's clearly a huge gap between this and deciding none of these questions have any value at all

You're right, there's clearly a huge gap between the question I jokingly posed, and the question you humourlessly pose. Really makes you think.

marlax78 posted:

i was going to write something short in response to this post, but figured it would derail the thread when it began to be longer than expected. so i'm going to put it here:

sometimes i like to remind people (as if american conservatives don't do it enough, lol) that the US helped arm the USSR during WW2. i say this understanding that the KCK-affiliated organizations have abandoned the science of marxism-leninism/are capable of being wrong unlike stalin, and that daesh are not fascist, let alone imperialist - but i think the point remains. if the YPG want to accept support from the US, knowing that the US will later betray them, then hey, I think that's smart as hell. but let's ask some questions to help us reach an understanding of how to think about the YPG & daesh.

first, are daesh fascist? this term is used to describe daesh by both the pro and anti-YPG left. maybe it seems at first the wrong question to ask, and is totally irrelevant, but it opens an interesting avenue of discussion by making us ask some other questions.

we know fascism can be imposed by the first world onto the third world, so we can set aside the question of an alliance of the petty-bourgeoisie with the non-dominant sector of monopoly capital because, if the petty-bourgeoisie in the third world is being declassed, it is not by either the crushing phenomena of internal monopolization (it goes without saying that the continued reproduction of underdevelopment by imperialism hinders the 'organic' centralization of capital, and thus internal monopoly capital cannot emerge in the capitalist third world) or the shock of a sudden loss of monopoly access to oppressed nation markets (it goes without saying that iraq & syria ARE the markets in question). we can erase the centrality of internal class if one will; this is fair enough because, from what i've seen, daesh foot soldiers from iraq & syria are typically proletarianized peasants. if they're 'mercenaries', as is often alleged, then their price is low and they must be desperate. their leaders are typically professionals or former officers (petty-bourgeois), and foreign recruits are typically an alienated petty-bourgeoisie (Muslim convert failsons). thus the leadership and the rank and file have contradictory interests with regard to US imperialism. but this, again, isn't relevant at all. (what matters, as discussed below, is the dependence of the leadership on the rank and file remaining loyal.)

so what relationship does daesh have to US finance capital? this is the question that those who would seek to call daesh fascist or prove that they are agents of US imperialism would ask, and it is thus an important question. that is to say, are they "mercenary proxies" acting on behalf of a moribund US imperialism, as the namesake of this thread, molly klein, would imply? okay, let us say they are, without realizing it themselves. in their own words, they would disagree - and they wouldn't be claiming responsibility for terror attacks in Europe & America if this was not the case. US imperialism, to be expected, doesn't like it when its own agents target "it's" civilians.

does it then matter that they are an essentially 'homegrown' movement as they are, as Mr. Kerry in his own words admits, only 'indirectly' aided by the US, and *only insofar as they are dismantling, as far as we know, Syria and not Iraq*? remember that daesh began in iraq, achieved enough support to make them non-irrelevant after the US invasion, and *then* invaded syria. this is unlike a pinochet: a direct, foreign imposition of US imperialism. the purpose of pinochet was to prevent contradictions in Chilean society from being expressed in the internal class structure (i.e. to prevent the constitution of a national, 'patriotic' bourgeoisie and to hinder the development of a proletariat), and not along national lines, i.e. he represented a sort of "neocolonialist colonialism", evidenced by the fact that there were advanced elements of the proletariat in chile that were calling for the overthrow of allende - and not simply for supporting him against US imperialism.

moreover, what relationship does Iraq have to US imperialism? to understand their position in the capitalist world-system, one would need to analyze the role of the iraqi ruling class in facilitating the flow of surplus-value from Iraq, and especially their role in maintaining US hegemony vis-à-vis petroleum. are the maliki-ites and barzani-ites compradors or are they a patriotic national bourgeoisie? it seems that resistance axis-aligned sadrists believe that the government the imperialist press call "sectarian shi'a" is a puppet of US imperialism, whereas molly klein et al. believe that iraq's ruling class is a patriotic national bourgeoisie, aligned with russia, and russia is not imperialist. (i consider it to be obvious that the barzani clan act on behalf of US imperialism & turkish expansionism.) how about militarily? we know that the US directly aids the iraqi army, the so-called "sectarian shi'a militias" even, whereas the US has generally been either too afraid of turkey or of the kurds themselves to directly aid the YPG. i pointed out earlier that the SDF was created by obama to help manage the YPG. let us also address the issue of the 'homegrown' character of daesh. MIM wrote that popular, mass fascism, i.e. fascism which is not explicitly imposed by US imperialism, is a movement of the labor aristocracy. does it matter that iraq and syria do not have labor aristocracies and that this is the movement of proletarians/people in the process of proletarianizing, and a petty-bourgeoisie which is not in fear of declassing? as far as i'm aware, molly klein et al. do not uphold Third Worldism.

now for the YPG. does the YPG accept support from, and cooperate militarily with, the US? this is true. but so does iraq, which molly klein et al. regard as pure enough to support. does the YPG expect future support from the US when the war is over? no, and this isn't unimportant. does the YPG consider itself to be an enemy of the government of syria, if in words if not in action? yes, unfortunately - but they also regard the "rebels" and daesh as the greater evil.

is the YPG objectively aiding in the dismantling of Syria by seizing territory? hmm, territorially, is "Northern Kurdistan" part of "Syria" or does it belong to the Kurdish nation? this question is best not left WhiteBoys on the internet, but i think the Kurds of Rojava have strong feelings on this. moreover, has the YPG even seized any territory that was de facto controlled by the Syrian Government? while one could say "this is like al-nusra taking territory from daesh, both are illegitimate", the difference is that the YPG will go to the negotiating table with the syrian government and neither daesh or al-nusra will.

but how about militarily? who are the YPG fighting? they're fighting "rebels" and daesh, not the government, and have only ever done so sporadically and for short periods of time (with no transfer of control of territory resulting from these 'battles'). does the YPG militarily cooperate with the Syrian Arab Republic/Army? has the Syrian Arab Republic materially aided the YPG? does russia aid them in various ways? ding ding ding, yes. afrin canton would not still be around and the aleppo offensive would not have succeeded if this was not the case.

ok, you say, but when the "rebels" and daesh are taken care of, will the YPG fight the SAA on behalf of US imperialism? one can never predict the future, but i doubt either sides want to continue fighting when this war is over. YPG isn't nearly as strong as their supporters think they are, and we know that the SAA has been beaten down hard by this war. russia's seeming willingness to, for instance, get the Syrian Arab Republic to drop the 'Arab' in the name, implies that there will be post-war negotiations to get the Kurds to remain.

and then there's the issue of Turkey. Will the US abandon Turkey as a NATO ally if it is really in danger of being split apart by the PKK and HBDH? Will the US quietly allow the Rojava Revolution to "spread" into Turkey? The Turkish nationalists are quite accurate in claiming that the PKK and YPG are different in name only. If Turkey decides to crush the Kurds of Rojava once daesh are out of the picture (and believe me, this is extremely likely), who will the US support? you'd have to be nuts to claim they wouldn't go with turkey.

okay. let us say that both daesh & the YPG are proxies of US imperialism anyway. how come 99% of the YPG's battles have been against daesh or other "rebel" groups and not the government of Syria? wow, the long con! the imperialists must be ingeniously playing both sides! (in reality, just as capitalists can't think beyond the single business cycle, or the single cycle of Department II infrastructural construction, the imperialists are actually fairly clueless. even when they do try to plan for the long-term, when things don't then go according to plan, they typically do not react as one would expect ingenious and cunning PlannersOfEvil would.)

we see here that molly klein et al. are, in fact, anti-semites. from what i've seen, a great deal of their work is spent dealing with identifying and discussing covert operations, cultural PYSOPs, calling pisspiggrandad a USAID/Zionist/CIA agent, calling the YPG an "ethnonationalist militia" (marxists dont commit to an ontology of ethnicities, and to deny the Kurds are a nation is chauvinism), associating non-Israeli Jews with Israel (while Israel may claim to be the "protector of all Jews", this does not make a non-Israeli Jew axiomatically an agent of Israel, and to suggest otherwise is pure anti-Semitism), etc. conspiracy theorism is, by its nature, anti-semitic. why do i say this? it is the logic of what klein et al's beliefs are reducible to: "the syrian body would be healthy if it wasn't for the intrusion of foreign Zionist agents on behalf of a foreign government". this is even a sort of orientalism - all Syrians are the same and internal contradictions cannot even emerge under the project of ba'athism! the only issue, again, in an otherwise harmonious society is the intrusion of a hostile alien parasite. and anti-semitism is by it's nature irrational: just as it only makes sense for the anti-semite that the Jews are Bolsheviks, big "globalist" capitalists & petty hucksters and usurers, so it makes sense for the anti-semite that the CIA is behind daesh, the YPG and the coup in turkey! they even draw upon as evidence to support their views - not only with regard to syria, but on other things - what is clearly fascist propaganda, and get twitter likes, etc., from neo-nazis. when you call everyone you dislike a Zionist, believe that the Jew Soros is pulling the strings of the color revolution in Romania, that protesting against Trump is objectively playing into the ruling classes hands, i'm sorry to say, but like attracts like.

i want to make another point that is sometimes brought up by Marxists and pseudo-Marxists of any stripe only to be forgotten. when US imperialism, or Zionism, is at its most aggressive, this does not indicate that the imperialists are geniuses, but rather that they are wildly striking out. the TPP, for instance, represented the decline of the American Empire, i.e. a decline in the imperialist profit rate and thus the need to construct a tariff wall around China, and not a "Globalist plan" to enter a New World Order. while the imperialists looked very strong conquering Asia and Africa, and amassing huge armies, Lenin correctly pointed out that imperialism was the moribund phase of capitalism because it was the internal contradictions of capitalism forcing the bourgeoisie to employ this 'policy', and this 'policy' could only last for so long. in other words: violence is, after all, the way of expressing what one is unable to otherwise articulate in words. and as Lenin & Trotsky would point out in regard to the spontaneous violence of the Anarchists: this is the atomized violence of the defeated - a sign of the impotence of the Social Democratic movement. let us not be confused by the enemy and attribute the qualities of the genius to their actions... they're paper tigers.

The proletariat, unlike the philistine petty-bourgeoisie, demand a more systemic analysis of the social world, in order to get past the surface appearance of phenomena and to their essence. But in order to change the world, one must understand the world first. We, unlike the fascists, are not lazy intellectually. The fascists, in their lack of discipline, regard being passionate about political projects as "cringeworthy", and thus put an ironic distance (meme culture, "umadbro", "it's just a joke") between themselves and their politics. We instead demand discipline and owning up, before Universal Reason, to what we Post™. Again, it is within our material interest to understand the world - unless we are paper communists who have merely consumed this identity. If you are here to LARP, do not call yourself a communist because it is a betrayal of the geniuses of our tradition & a misuse of the super-profits your privileged petty-bourgeois existence depends upon. Molly Klein et al. seek the easy answers provided by anti-Semitism, they are just very good at concealing this fact.

another question unrelated to this thread but worth asking: is neocolonialism/globalization/contemporary mutipolarity actually the aufhebung of imperialism? to be honest, it's quite compelling for me to say yes. trump, le pen, brexit, etc., are a reaction by the 'national' petty-bourgeoisie against 'global capital' - "globalism" (alex jones)/"bourgeois internationalism" (MIM). capital today is indeed rootless, as it were. a Saudi oil tycoon can invest in NYC real estate in a Luxembourgish company, driving up real estate prices to the dismay of the settler labor aristocracy, without any issues posed by the government who acts on behalf of this same settler labor aristocracy, to capture for himself some super-profits stolen by American monopolies in the Third World, which then flow back to the KSA through the Cayman Islands tax-free, commanding the labor of Nepali migrant-slaves. however, this lends itself to terrible praxis, as platypus1917 shows. there's even some weird 'paradoxes'. is turkey an oppressed or oppressor nation? they're getting screwed by unequal exchange, no? i.e. their economy is structured to the benefit of the global metropoles? but what about what the PKK calls turkish colonialism in northern kurdistan? and even in a multipolar world, we might see the contradiction between US and japanese imperialism not express itself so long as china (another question: does social-imperialism exist?) is competing with the two for access to southeast asian markets. so more thought about contemporary imperialism and neocolonialism is required.

this post is universally liked here? goddamn yall

swampman posted:

my stance, idk if it's common, is that ppg as an idividual is irrelevant and not interesting, and that it's not my business to judge the YPG until they come into conflict with the Syrian army. is that DSA madness talking through me? Has the SAA told the YPG to disband & go die? No, they are currently cooperating, as a united front. Is there any poster here would would love to see a truly democratic, egalitarian socialist Kurdish-led demsoc society founded atwixt rebels & regime? No i think a united Syria is still the forums wide belief chief.

right and there's a propaganda aspect to this social media focus on YPG in what seemed like a war close to being finished that alerts a lot of suspicions, as well it should

animedad posted:

right and there's a propaganda aspect to this social media focus on YPG in what seemed like a war close to being finished that alerts a lot of suspicions, as well it should

well sure. But i also think that the situation in Syria is more inconvenient for the US&UK than many of the previous imperialist projects. Our contras were humiliated in Aleppo, actual NATO advisors were captured, but western media engines are still sticking to the formula. just because the YPG fills the role of native, armed opposition movement in the story that justifies imperial intervention, does not mean they want that role, or will be willing or able to perform it.

I'm suspicious too but as you say, we should support Syria & the SAA; those groups are currently willing to let their suspicions of the YPG slide, so should I be willing. My unfounded hunch, borne of noobery, is that the YPG will not be interested in seceding from Syria while Turkey is still doing Turkey stuff

#BREAKING - First footages from the ongoing clashes in #Sinjar between our #Ezidi #YBŞ fighters against the attacking #KDP Rojava Peshmerga pic.twitter.com/HDqXvAyxEg

— Iraqi PMU English (@pmu_english) March 3, 2017

#BREAKING - #Iraqi #PMU will now consider new operations to remove ALL illegal #KDP and #ISIS sieges on the #Ezidi people in #Sinjar pic.twitter.com/OLPdoNAq8K

— Iraqi PMU English (@pmu_english) March 3, 2017

animedad posted:

I can't speak for what the imperialists want other than what's in their docs and especially their history, which doesn't support the sovereignty of a strong oppositional state.

nobody is questioning this, but it's a bizarre inference to take from this that a group which is intent on coming to a peaceful arrangement with the sovereign syrian state is a genuine threat to such. what the u.s. desires them to be is irrelevant to what they actually are

it's also highly questionable whether u.s. imperialist designs actually believe this to be true - on balance, it seems clear that the u.s.-turkish imperialist bloc is by far the most oppositional power to the ypg in the region. the limited support they offer the ypg is not univalent but mediated by coordination with russia and the saa, while they are simultaneously directing support to the "moderate rebels" and turkish intrusions the ypg are struggling against. russia is explicitly a far greater ally to the ypg cause than the u.s. imperialists

this skepticism is just becoming increasingly absurd when the ypg is currently actively cooperating with russia and ceding leadership to the saa in order to bolster the defensive again turkish incursion. i don't know how anyone could consider them somehow pro-imperialist under these circumstances without their heads collapsing in on themselves

animedad posted:

As for why people are focusing on YPG, it's as simple as: there are US mercenaries in it!!

are there?

tears posted:

at last, a video that properly explains the situation in syria

Who is the guy on the left with Asad, Nasrallah, and Putin in front of the flags? edit: @1:00

marimite posted:

Who is the guy on the left with Asad, Nasrallah, and Putin in front of the flags? edit: @1:00

It looks like Nabih Berri, chairman of the Amal Movement and the Lebanese speaker of parliament

ilmdge posted:

animedad posted:

this for starters

so we have @pisspiggranddad @macergifford @tigersun88 @kimmieslife ... bunch of anglos shilling & killing for empire

— Leila (@ainiladra) February 26, 2017

those are volunteers not "mercenaries" and theyll probably all be on US terrorist watch lists for the rest of their lives

how is the ypg actually harming the syrian state, can you explain that instead of juts saying that some eccentric americans left their country to join them thus discrediting their whole project? i mean that's a total red herring, that should never be your take when you can talk about how they get actal US military support if thats the critique you wanna make

yeah that's completely incoherent. you just dont suspect manipulation, that's fine, but dont try to make others feel bad about their investigation.

aerdil posted:

that so-called investigation is carried about mostly by right-dev wreckers like molly klein and phil greaves who spend all their time attacking other leftists, including activists from this very rhizzone of ours!, instead of actual imperialists. so forgive me if i think it's ridiculous and wrong to pursue a strident doxx campaign of a hipster florist from san francisco that joined the ypg to prove he's cia instead of worrying about more important things lol

um well let's have a communist party worth a shit and then we can talk about right devs and wreckers

animedad posted:

aerdil posted:

that so-called investigation is carried about mostly by right-dev wreckers like molly klein and phil greaves who spend all their time attacking other leftists, including activists from this very rhizzone of ours!, instead of actual imperialists. so forgive me if i think it's ridiculous and wrong to pursue a strident doxx campaign of a hipster florist from san francisco that joined the ypg to prove he's cia instead of worrying about more important things lol

um well let's have a communist party worth a shit and then we can talk about right devs and wreckers

well sounding like a crazy person on twitter by attacking pisspig for being cia and obsessively defaming other leftists who are out there organizing probably isn't going to do much to help establish a communist party. i think it's okay to express some good will to the weirdos who engage in adventurism for a marxist cause without reflexively accusing them of being cia because they're from the imperial core and have dsa-like politics. it's certainly not evidence that the ypg is cia. in any case it's odd to me that this is the hill these people decide to die on, instead of actually getting out there and organizing with the PSL or the WWP. in fact it's the latter folks they also attack. interesting. which one is going to bring us closer to a broad radical party i wonder.