getfiscal posted:

people's democracies are administrative and party-led.

What exactly does the 'democracy' in people's democracy then mean?

wasted posted:

God damn those revisionists. Always fucking everything up. Vote hardline outmoded Stalinist party for Greek saviours (just hold tight people, the contradictions haven't given rise for the occasion of our assault).

oh i hadn't noticed that SYRIZA was in power and building socialism yet. do you have a link to this great news?

getfiscal posted:

i read it the other day and i don't think it's well-written to be honest. basically all he says is that maoism has completely failed but at least it had a few successes here and there and there are people's wars to point to, but trotskyism has failed more and therefore is worse. that's pretty lame. normally in his posts he tries to argue basically that people's war is a historical imperative based on the logic of revolutions, which is a completely different argument. also his sense of maoism is really this late take that seems almost trotskyist anyway in its emphasis on mass commune-state democracy, at least blurring the lines. at least people like tony cliff thought there was a tight connection between the chinese ultraleft and his own council-like democracy. so it comes across almost like a militarized trotskyism rather than marxism-leninism. marxist-leninists have always emphasized that people's democracies are administrative and party-led, and arguably hoxha did a better job avoiding revisionism than the chinese cultural revolution.

post this on /r/communism http://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/120qj1/a_great_25_page_essay_by_comrade_jmp_on_maoism_vs/

gyrofry posted:

i just want to see how jmp responds. i suppose you could post it on his blog instead, but i have a feeling he'd just ignore it or delete it there.

jools posted:

i dunno getfiscal, wasn't it a little more that trotskyism couldn't even get into a position to fail?

One way to tell if a revolution is Trotskyist: if it fails, it isn't

jools posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

Interested to hear how he responds on reddit though. That subreddit is a mess lol, based on 5 minutes of looking there's a war with MRA going on or something.

Cause they're communist natural allies right

They don't even exist. MRA purely exists as an "other" to attack, an easy target for somethingawful and now the weak liberal blogs like jezebel. Far more concerning are threads like this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/129qew/rcommunism_is_a_feminist_subreddit/

which are full of anti-communist nonsense.

babyhueypnewton posted:

I actually agree with much of what you said Getfiscal. The "Maoism didn't even exist until 1993" is really weird. It's perfectly acceptable to say Maoism didn't exist until the GPRC, in fact I think this is correct as a bunch of Maoist movements emerged in the 1966-1969 period as a result. I think it's important that maoism and the MIM were able to wage people's wars during a time of general left retreat and neo-liberal war against the working class in the 80s, but to make this the moment of theoretical creation rather than Maoist China is absurd. It's not Trotskyism though, trots avoid the real history of socialism to avoid having to win. I think this is a case like the RCP where they just want to make the MIM seem super important like Avakian's "new synthesis", though JMP does dismiss legitimate criticism of Mao with "Maoism didn't even exist yet/that wasn't real Maoism" as if that's an excuse.

A consequence of this is he no longer has successes to point to, just failures that got closer to winning. Saying that the DOTP can fail at any time because it is a struggle is obvious but important to say to trots, however it doesn't help the rest of us since all of the examples of Maoism (including Nepal which is so poorly understood by the left) are all failures. The most important thing to point out, which I do and he doesn't, is that Trotskyism is above all a pathology of failure, the death drive given power. To battle Trotskyism on the terrain of science is not very important, since as he correctly points out it cannot predict anything, is impotent by nature, and is stuck in the past. He even acknowledges that most Trotskyists no longer follow orthodox Trotskyism and that the scientific flaws of the theory are well acknowledged by "post-Trots". We then need to ask why all of these groups are still Trotskyists, why it is so influential, and what it means to be a Trot if it has nothing to do with Trotsky himself.

Let's remember though, this polemic is not really for us. There are plenty of people who think permament revolution is a good theory and that Stalinism is a thing (and that all socialism was actually Stalinism) because this rhetoric is accessible and acceptable under bourgeois propaganda.

I think you're confusing MIM with RIM. Neither led peoples wars, the difference is the former never claimed to

swirlsofhistory posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

I actually agree with much of what you said Getfiscal. The "Maoism didn't even exist until 1993" is really weird. It's perfectly acceptable to say Maoism didn't exist until the GPRC, in fact I think this is correct as a bunch of Maoist movements emerged in the 1966-1969 period as a result. I think it's important that maoism and the MIM were able to wage people's wars during a time of general left retreat and neo-liberal war against the working class in the 80s, but to make this the moment of theoretical creation rather than Maoist China is absurd. It's not Trotskyism though, trots avoid the real history of socialism to avoid having to win. I think this is a case like the RCP where they just want to make the MIM seem super important like Avakian's "new synthesis", though JMP does dismiss legitimate criticism of Mao with "Maoism didn't even exist yet/that wasn't real Maoism" as if that's an excuse.

A consequence of this is he no longer has successes to point to, just failures that got closer to winning. Saying that the DOTP can fail at any time because it is a struggle is obvious but important to say to trots, however it doesn't help the rest of us since all of the examples of Maoism (including Nepal which is so poorly understood by the left) are all failures. The most important thing to point out, which I do and he doesn't, is that Trotskyism is above all a pathology of failure, the death drive given power. To battle Trotskyism on the terrain of science is not very important, since as he correctly points out it cannot predict anything, is impotent by nature, and is stuck in the past. He even acknowledges that most Trotskyists no longer follow orthodox Trotskyism and that the scientific flaws of the theory are well acknowledged by "post-Trots". We then need to ask why all of these groups are still Trotskyists, why it is so influential, and what it means to be a Trot if it has nothing to do with Trotsky himself.

Let's remember though, this polemic is not really for us. There are plenty of people who think permament revolution is a good theory and that Stalinism is a thing (and that all socialism was actually Stalinism) because this rhetoric is accessible and acceptable under bourgeois propaganda.

I think you're confusing MIM with RIM. Neither led peoples wars, the difference is the former never claimed to

Well he talks about the RIM splitting with the MIM after certain actions of the RCP, which I know nothing of and am kind of morbidly curious about, but he takes credit for the people's wars in Peru, the Philippines, Nepal, as part of the legacy of the MIM.

littlegreenpills posted:

i can't find the anticommunism in that subreddit

Any and all unsolicited comments on a woman's appearance are objectification and sexism. A woman's body is not public property or public installation and you do not have a right to comment on it.

Objectification, property, and rights are all bourgeois concepts (and/or nonsensical concepts) and this is only two sentences. Also good to see "mansplaining" which I assume started as a parody phrase being used regularly.

babyhueypnewton posted:

littlegreenpills posted:

i can't find the anticommunism in that subreddit

Any and all unsolicited comments on a woman's appearance are objectification and sexism. A woman's body is not public property or public installation and you do not have a right to comment on it.

Objectification, property, and rights are all bourgeois concepts (and/or nonsensical concepts) and this is only two sentences. Also good to see "mansplaining" which I assume started as a parody phrase being used regularly.

cmon even the rhizzone has evolved beyond saying "nice tits" to posters, why can't it be a good rule. i mean i do have nice tits but that's my business.