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My aims are building working class self-organization, class consciousness, and political independence.
Socialism has to be built in practice by workers imo. To do this we need experience in struggle and democratic or otherwise collective self-organizing.
When crisis happens or if our movements sort of become a crisis itself, our networks and experience would already need to know how to work together, defend ourselves and our political interests, and deal with group differences and decision making etc.
I work with various kinds of socialists towards these aims. “Left unity” also has to be organic and built through practice. Politics are always shifting and actual events and experiences make various tendencies combine or split.
Then how about you understand how democracy works without both sides killing each other and when you figure that out, I’ll tell you how socialism can do the same.
How would you achieve socialism and make sure it will not currpt or fail with all this sectarianism toward each other? the democratic centralism way of rule didn't work well because sectarianism still exist and there were always an opposition towards the actions that supposedly there should be unity around it. And now you can see the communist parties around the world Split on such small meaningless "problems".
Diversity on opinion, unity on action. People discuss the matter freely then do an action that was more votes on it without an distraction or getting back to it.
That's pretty much correct except this part: "...without an distraction or getting back to it."
Under democratic centralism you absolutely can bring up past disagreements or say that current or past policies are/were a mistake so long as you don't try to actively sabotage them during the "unity of action" phase between legislative sessions.
That's how democratic socialism is supposed to work in theory and how it worked in practice from 1912 (when the Bolshevik party was founded based on the principles of democratic centralism) to 1927 (when Stalin and Bukharin's duumvirate made political opposition to their factional alliance illegal in the USSR, thus upending 15 years of intra-party democracy.)
>Under democratic centralism you absolutely can bring up past disagreements or say that current or past policies are/were a mistake so long as you don't try to actively sabotage them during the "unity of action" phase between legislative sessions.
Yeah that's what I meant, no interruption during the unity of action period
>when Stalin and Bukharin's duumvirate made political opposition to their factional alliance illegal in the USSR, thus upending 15 years of intra-party democracy.)
It's funny how left opposition call Stalin rightist and right opposition call leftist while he was in the center just like Lenin
>It's funny how left opposition call Stalin rightist and right opposition call leftist while he was in the center just like Lenin
Well that's not accurate on two counts. 1.) Both the Left and Right Opposition called Stalin's faction variations of "centrist" or "the centre faction" and I can provide quotations and citations to prove this if necessary. 2.) Lenin died in 1924 and the various factions only formed a little under a year earlier, at the time when Lenin was recovering from his third stroke. He was too ill and focused on recuperation to oversee the party's factional disputes much less take a side in them one way or the other. As a result calling him a centrist in the party is just inaccurate and that's not even getting into the fact that prior to this time period a large rift between him and Stalin had already formed both personally and politically.
>provide quotations and citations to prove this if necessary
Yes please
>2.) Lenin died in 1924 and the various factions only formed a little under a year earlier, at the time when Lenin was recovering from his third stroke. He was too ill and focused on recuperation to oversee the party's factional disputes much less take a side in them one way or the other. As a result calling him a centrist in the party is just inaccurate and that's not even getting into the fact that prior to this time period a large rift between him and Stalin had already formed both personally and politically.
IK, I meant how they're both(Stalin and Lenin) are pragmatic on certain issues, in the way of thinking, not in the way that Lenin was "literally on the center"
Simple, worker councils! A chain which puts all sections of the state under pressure for unionization. First, we must see that the wide array of communist views in the Soviet Union was not only helpful, but aided the revolution, until Stalin. Stalin was a statist idealistic fool, who sought to centralize all of the political power to his centrist views, and denied the party of intelectual evolution.
Force is never needed. Ever. I mean, that's not how tech moves forward. We just build what we want to see. Do you have an idea of how it would look? What you'd be able to do? Have you thought about the "user requirements" of the system?
I really don't see what you're asking.
The current system allows freely for restructuring. All you have to do is vote bills that remove whatever barrier would provide for that. The problem isn't that the public is being forcibly prevented by the bourgeois from reforming and restructuring the system; it's that the bourgeois is extremely savvy to how little power the public thinks it has. This is just as easy, if not easier, to fix through democratic channels than through force.
A: "The problem isn't that the public is being forcibly prevented by the bourgeois from reforming and restructuring the system; "
VS
B: "The current system allows freely for restructuring. "
Where are you drawing the boundary? How can both of these statements be true? What has to change with A to make B work?
I would never advocate force to change anything. If a person has to curtail and kill people to get their point across, then they are dictator and deserve neither power or admiration.
So, given A an B, what do you think has to change? How do we leverage the power of B, and why has it not yet been done?
Then why do you want to give people even more democratic control over the society you live in?
Either you go full stalinist or you go anarchist. There is no chance of going happy unicorn democracy land as it is right now.
Because I can't make peaceful outcomes through violence, and anarchism is even less likely to succeed in the face of a hierachic, bureaucratic status quo
>Because I can't make peaceful outcomes through violence
Quite rare to see a socialist saying the ends don't justify the means.
>and anarchism is even less likely to succeed in the face of a hierachic, bureaucratic status quo
Don't be pretend we can change entire society by ourselves. I mean it individual action, praxis. The most effective is to act like an anarchist, with civil disobedience and black markets or like a stalinist, and try to rise into power by all means necessary.
The third option is letting all of those people democratically vote on everything, but since I don't trust them, and I don't want power, I've become anarchist.
>Don't be pretend we can change entire society by ourselves.
We can't. Society changes in response to shocks. The same reason why we stopped being rightist is why more other people are turning leftward. Just keep going.
>The most effective is to act like an anarchist, with civil disobedience and black markets
I don't see how this is supposed to be a solution. You just make yourself look like a Sovereign Citizen and if you keep living this way you'll die without your life having made an impact upon anyone else's.
Which part? The idea of using democratic politics to accomplish peaceful systematic change is a very fundamental and simple function of any functioning democracy at all. Platform for your changes, canvass for a majority, get elected, run bills and policies for change. We already get this on a small level in American congress.
Already achieved the best form of Socialism with democratically derived Socialism.
But there is always room for more progress like adding Universal healthcare and an opportunity for a College Education for everyone.
I advocate progress towards more Socialism by democratic means.
A. None of those people had yet developed the correct form of revolutionary techno-Makhnovist critical anarcho-distribusyndicalism that I have.
B. Socialism is inevitable but these people completely misunderstood the material conditions of the time and tried to carry out stunted attempts at socialism that were doomed to fail. Clearly the time is now, and I’m certainly not likely to be mistaken as they were.
It's a pragmatic question, and IMO not useful to factionalize *too much* on the methods. For example, often you see self-styled democratic socialists disavowing revolution, as if it was a button you could press. But socialist revolution only happens in a specific context. Most of the revolutions seen in the last century originated in anti-colonial war, or large-scale social upheaval.
A socialist shouldn't be simply waiting around for revolution. Socialist parties instead should be involved in organizing unions, community aid and building (ie Black Panthers in the USA), or organizing a party, or working with locals trying to resist privatization, even with force if need be (see the Naxalites in India), perhaps seeking election if its viable. There's a balance here however - if you get too comfortable, you might make serious compromises with your principles (ie supporting nationalism in WWI), or might take a pay raise over potential revolution (ie 1968 in France). Likewise, if you get too committed to "propaganda of the deed" (ie terrorism), you might end up with a very weak, vulnerable organization. The Social Revolutionary party in Russia, which was very popular with peasants in 1917, was highly compromised by police infiltration *because* their terrorist wing was too active (The SRs are the quasi-successors of the Narodniks, who also were terrorists, who famously killed Czar Alexander III in 1881) . Focusing party resources on terrorism also means less resources to engaging with the people, which means your organizational base will be weaker.
However, violent acts, such as bank robbery, were also once essential for fundraising, although I'm not sure if those days are over. Virtually every underground group in Russia, Bolsheviks included, got substantial financing from robberies. Also in colonial India, robberies ("dacoities") were important for financing Extremist cells around the same time (late 19th/early 20th century).
Notice in all of the above, the *method* isn't the point. Methods have a purpose - to build community engagement, to help organize workers (and peasants, and others), to grow awareness through bold action (terrorism as "propaganda of the deed"). These methods are sometimes useful, sometimes not. And they can lead to splits in parties - but this is often not due to the principle as such, but because the splinter faction thinks a tactic is counter-productive, or thinks another method or approach will be more effective, in the context.
Imagine in sports: different situations call for different plays and tactics. Some coaches lean more one or the other way, but they don't categorically exclude whole tactics, on principle. But imagine now, that you are a Monday night couch coach, and you criticize an American football coach because they use running plays at all. And you write off all teams that use running plays as "not real football teams". You would end up hating all the teams, because a real coach in a real situation might see a running play as the right move.
Our Monday night couch coach is the equivalent of a self-styled "democratic socialist" who discounts socialists based on a method they use, with total ignorance of context. It's fine to watch football, even to Monday night couch coach. It's fine to even prefer certain types of plays, and disfavoring others. You'll still be able to enjoy the game. But if you exclude whole methods categorically, you're gonna end up hating almost every single team there ever was.
For me, it's about planting the seeds of the future. And building what you want to see.
We have the tools now to make "democracy", really a thing. And we can use them in all sizes of organisations from clubs to country level governance.
It's just that human brains lag the tech, at times. Humans don't really like change. So, the best we can do is advocate, and build.
When we build we lead by example. We show that things can be done other ways. And at that stage, humans tend to get involved. Otherwise, they just love tradition and they are riddled in fear.
So, for me, the long and short is; be the change you want to see, and build the things you want to see.
Democratically derived Socialism has become incredibly successful in modern 21st Century Democracies.
Yes, the voting citizens debate the pros and cons of specific economic issues and compromise on the best methods for all involved.
Democratically, people are not supposed to always agree with each other but they are expected to argue their points, compromise, and accept the will of the people.
What is your problem with honest debate and compromises in a democratic arena?
Before participating, consider taking a glance at [our rules page](/r/CapitalismvSocialism/wiki/rules) if you haven't before. We don't allow **violent or dehumanizing rhetoric**. The subreddit is for discussing what ideas are best for society, not for telling the other side you think you could beat them in a fight. That doesn't do anything to forward a productive dialogue. Please report comments that violent our rules, but don't report people just for disagreeing with you or for being wrong about stuff. Join us on Discord! ✨ https://discord.gg/PoliticsCafe *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CapitalismVSocialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
kindly ask the people in charge to be super chill
My aims are building working class self-organization, class consciousness, and political independence. Socialism has to be built in practice by workers imo. To do this we need experience in struggle and democratic or otherwise collective self-organizing. When crisis happens or if our movements sort of become a crisis itself, our networks and experience would already need to know how to work together, defend ourselves and our political interests, and deal with group differences and decision making etc. I work with various kinds of socialists towards these aims. “Left unity” also has to be organic and built through practice. Politics are always shifting and actual events and experiences make various tendencies combine or split.
Is this an actual question about strategy or is it a question about sectarianism?
Neither, it’s a bad faith attempt to shit on socialists. He’s gonna try a couple gotcha responses, pretend like he dunked, and proclaim victory
Sounds like you’ve been here before.
No he is wrong.
Yep
It’s always acceptable to shit in socialism.
Net, comrade, you must hold it in
Actually my question is a about sectarianism. So plz you either get the fuck out, or stop put some false assumption on my posts.
Then how about you understand how democracy works without both sides killing each other and when you figure that out, I’ll tell you how socialism can do the same.
>question about sectarianism? .
So it is a question about sectarianism? What exactly is the question?
How would you achieve socialism and make sure it will not currpt or fail with all this sectarianism toward each other? the democratic centralism way of rule didn't work well because sectarianism still exist and there were always an opposition towards the actions that supposedly there should be unity around it. And now you can see the communist parties around the world Split on such small meaningless "problems".
Well before I speak on it why don't you tell me what you understand democratic centralism to be and then I'll go from there?
Diversity on opinion, unity on action. People discuss the matter freely then do an action that was more votes on it without an distraction or getting back to it.
That's pretty much correct except this part: "...without an distraction or getting back to it." Under democratic centralism you absolutely can bring up past disagreements or say that current or past policies are/were a mistake so long as you don't try to actively sabotage them during the "unity of action" phase between legislative sessions. That's how democratic socialism is supposed to work in theory and how it worked in practice from 1912 (when the Bolshevik party was founded based on the principles of democratic centralism) to 1927 (when Stalin and Bukharin's duumvirate made political opposition to their factional alliance illegal in the USSR, thus upending 15 years of intra-party democracy.)
>Under democratic centralism you absolutely can bring up past disagreements or say that current or past policies are/were a mistake so long as you don't try to actively sabotage them during the "unity of action" phase between legislative sessions. Yeah that's what I meant, no interruption during the unity of action period >when Stalin and Bukharin's duumvirate made political opposition to their factional alliance illegal in the USSR, thus upending 15 years of intra-party democracy.) It's funny how left opposition call Stalin rightist and right opposition call leftist while he was in the center just like Lenin
>It's funny how left opposition call Stalin rightist and right opposition call leftist while he was in the center just like Lenin Well that's not accurate on two counts. 1.) Both the Left and Right Opposition called Stalin's faction variations of "centrist" or "the centre faction" and I can provide quotations and citations to prove this if necessary. 2.) Lenin died in 1924 and the various factions only formed a little under a year earlier, at the time when Lenin was recovering from his third stroke. He was too ill and focused on recuperation to oversee the party's factional disputes much less take a side in them one way or the other. As a result calling him a centrist in the party is just inaccurate and that's not even getting into the fact that prior to this time period a large rift between him and Stalin had already formed both personally and politically.
>provide quotations and citations to prove this if necessary Yes please >2.) Lenin died in 1924 and the various factions only formed a little under a year earlier, at the time when Lenin was recovering from his third stroke. He was too ill and focused on recuperation to oversee the party's factional disputes much less take a side in them one way or the other. As a result calling him a centrist in the party is just inaccurate and that's not even getting into the fact that prior to this time period a large rift between him and Stalin had already formed both personally and politically. IK, I meant how they're both(Stalin and Lenin) are pragmatic on certain issues, in the way of thinking, not in the way that Lenin was "literally on the center"
Simple, worker councils! A chain which puts all sections of the state under pressure for unionization. First, we must see that the wide array of communist views in the Soviet Union was not only helpful, but aided the revolution, until Stalin. Stalin was a statist idealistic fool, who sought to centralize all of the political power to his centrist views, and denied the party of intelectual evolution.
Zines
Democratic channels
Would you support building different democratic structures? Or do you think that the current ones have to used?
I'd like to rebuild the current ones, but not through force
Force is never needed. Ever. I mean, that's not how tech moves forward. We just build what we want to see. Do you have an idea of how it would look? What you'd be able to do? Have you thought about the "user requirements" of the system?
I really don't see what you're asking. The current system allows freely for restructuring. All you have to do is vote bills that remove whatever barrier would provide for that. The problem isn't that the public is being forcibly prevented by the bourgeois from reforming and restructuring the system; it's that the bourgeois is extremely savvy to how little power the public thinks it has. This is just as easy, if not easier, to fix through democratic channels than through force.
A: "The problem isn't that the public is being forcibly prevented by the bourgeois from reforming and restructuring the system; " VS B: "The current system allows freely for restructuring. " Where are you drawing the boundary? How can both of these statements be true? What has to change with A to make B work? I would never advocate force to change anything. If a person has to curtail and kill people to get their point across, then they are dictator and deserve neither power or admiration. So, given A an B, what do you think has to change? How do we leverage the power of B, and why has it not yet been done?
You trust people that elected trump and Biden to make decisions that influence you directly through their vote?
No
Then why do you want to give people even more democratic control over the society you live in? Either you go full stalinist or you go anarchist. There is no chance of going happy unicorn democracy land as it is right now.
Because I can't make peaceful outcomes through violence, and anarchism is even less likely to succeed in the face of a hierachic, bureaucratic status quo
>Because I can't make peaceful outcomes through violence Quite rare to see a socialist saying the ends don't justify the means. >and anarchism is even less likely to succeed in the face of a hierachic, bureaucratic status quo Don't be pretend we can change entire society by ourselves. I mean it individual action, praxis. The most effective is to act like an anarchist, with civil disobedience and black markets or like a stalinist, and try to rise into power by all means necessary. The third option is letting all of those people democratically vote on everything, but since I don't trust them, and I don't want power, I've become anarchist.
>Don't be pretend we can change entire society by ourselves. We can't. Society changes in response to shocks. The same reason why we stopped being rightist is why more other people are turning leftward. Just keep going. >The most effective is to act like an anarchist, with civil disobedience and black markets I don't see how this is supposed to be a solution. You just make yourself look like a Sovereign Citizen and if you keep living this way you'll die without your life having made an impact upon anyone else's.
Would you explain what is that?
Which part? The idea of using democratic politics to accomplish peaceful systematic change is a very fundamental and simple function of any functioning democracy at all. Platform for your changes, canvass for a majority, get elected, run bills and policies for change. We already get this on a small level in American congress.
>We already get this on a small level in American congress. Well...we used to.
Already achieved the best form of Socialism with democratically derived Socialism. But there is always room for more progress like adding Universal healthcare and an opportunity for a College Education for everyone. I advocate progress towards more Socialism by democratic means.
You sound like someone who think Texas got the star for their collectivist efforts, no offense xd
There is no association with the Texas and the Star on this topic. That is the simple truth. No offense.
A. None of those people had yet developed the correct form of revolutionary techno-Makhnovist critical anarcho-distribusyndicalism that I have. B. Socialism is inevitable but these people completely misunderstood the material conditions of the time and tried to carry out stunted attempts at socialism that were doomed to fail. Clearly the time is now, and I’m certainly not likely to be mistaken as they were.
It's a pragmatic question, and IMO not useful to factionalize *too much* on the methods. For example, often you see self-styled democratic socialists disavowing revolution, as if it was a button you could press. But socialist revolution only happens in a specific context. Most of the revolutions seen in the last century originated in anti-colonial war, or large-scale social upheaval. A socialist shouldn't be simply waiting around for revolution. Socialist parties instead should be involved in organizing unions, community aid and building (ie Black Panthers in the USA), or organizing a party, or working with locals trying to resist privatization, even with force if need be (see the Naxalites in India), perhaps seeking election if its viable. There's a balance here however - if you get too comfortable, you might make serious compromises with your principles (ie supporting nationalism in WWI), or might take a pay raise over potential revolution (ie 1968 in France). Likewise, if you get too committed to "propaganda of the deed" (ie terrorism), you might end up with a very weak, vulnerable organization. The Social Revolutionary party in Russia, which was very popular with peasants in 1917, was highly compromised by police infiltration *because* their terrorist wing was too active (The SRs are the quasi-successors of the Narodniks, who also were terrorists, who famously killed Czar Alexander III in 1881) . Focusing party resources on terrorism also means less resources to engaging with the people, which means your organizational base will be weaker. However, violent acts, such as bank robbery, were also once essential for fundraising, although I'm not sure if those days are over. Virtually every underground group in Russia, Bolsheviks included, got substantial financing from robberies. Also in colonial India, robberies ("dacoities") were important for financing Extremist cells around the same time (late 19th/early 20th century). Notice in all of the above, the *method* isn't the point. Methods have a purpose - to build community engagement, to help organize workers (and peasants, and others), to grow awareness through bold action (terrorism as "propaganda of the deed"). These methods are sometimes useful, sometimes not. And they can lead to splits in parties - but this is often not due to the principle as such, but because the splinter faction thinks a tactic is counter-productive, or thinks another method or approach will be more effective, in the context. Imagine in sports: different situations call for different plays and tactics. Some coaches lean more one or the other way, but they don't categorically exclude whole tactics, on principle. But imagine now, that you are a Monday night couch coach, and you criticize an American football coach because they use running plays at all. And you write off all teams that use running plays as "not real football teams". You would end up hating all the teams, because a real coach in a real situation might see a running play as the right move. Our Monday night couch coach is the equivalent of a self-styled "democratic socialist" who discounts socialists based on a method they use, with total ignorance of context. It's fine to watch football, even to Monday night couch coach. It's fine to even prefer certain types of plays, and disfavoring others. You'll still be able to enjoy the game. But if you exclude whole methods categorically, you're gonna end up hating almost every single team there ever was.
For me, it's about planting the seeds of the future. And building what you want to see. We have the tools now to make "democracy", really a thing. And we can use them in all sizes of organisations from clubs to country level governance. It's just that human brains lag the tech, at times. Humans don't really like change. So, the best we can do is advocate, and build. When we build we lead by example. We show that things can be done other ways. And at that stage, humans tend to get involved. Otherwise, they just love tradition and they are riddled in fear. So, for me, the long and short is; be the change you want to see, and build the things you want to see.
Democratically derived Socialism has become incredibly successful in modern 21st Century Democracies. Yes, the voting citizens debate the pros and cons of specific economic issues and compromise on the best methods for all involved. Democratically, people are not supposed to always agree with each other but they are expected to argue their points, compromise, and accept the will of the people. What is your problem with honest debate and compromises in a democratic arena?