Flippanarchy

You were just arguing that I should listen to him because he supported your position

I believe if you actually read what I wrote, I did not. I believe my exact words were "Ooh, there are some interesting bits in there".

In fact, I then went on to specify that I don't prop my arguments up of the reputations of dead men. I found it funny that your own snippet of theory was substantially more supportive of my position, but I did not, and do not base my arguments on theory citations. They are based on reason, informed by history and theory, but not blindly.

Lenin can be worth listening to, as long as that point doesn't move, the moment he tries to move that point, he's out. This is entirely backwards from how it's supposed to work, voting for Harris is a conclusion that is predicated on a particular set of premises, the premises are supposed to be the rock solid foundation, and the conclusion (whatever it may be) the least stable and most flexible point.

Correct. My rock solid point is not "Demonstrate ideological purity and ability to cite theory" as yours seems to be. My foundation is "Achieve stable, enduring communism as quickly and bloodlessly as possible". I work backwards from there, broadly to socialism, then to market socialism, then to unions, etc., until I get to the present day.

We're not going to have a successful communist revolution tomorrow, nor a socialist one. That means part of that pathway involves voting strategically to secure the most favorable conditions possible for the development of the vanguard. In the 2024 election, that meant keeping the Project 2025 fascists out of office. The only way to do that, at that particular time, was to vote Harris.

That doesn't have anything to do with my actions outside of the ballot box, except in that it helps increase the likelihood of success of those actions.

I do not blindly follow whatever Lenin says.

I belive you. Your foundation is demonstrating ideological purity, so if Lenin says something detrimental to that purity, you are compelled to selectively choose only that which supports purity.

I think it's important, however, to understand what he did and did not argue for, factually speaking, as is true of any other theorist. In this case, it's just that I find his arguments compelling and think his strategy makes sense, even in present conditions - I do not necessarily envision an open revolution in the same vein of conventional warfare, but I would argue the same principles apply if "revolutionary action" looks less like that and more like mass strikes.

He said himself in this very text that conditions in Russia were not the same as in Western Europe and America. That is proof enough that even if you consider his strategy well suited to the task in Russia, which given the eventual corruption and dissolution of the USSR is itself a very tenuous claim, we should question the efficacy of this strategy in America and Western Europe.

Earlier, you claimed to be able to support your position theoretically. You still haven't provided any, a>!!<nd, having failed to piggyback off my own source, you now seem to be arguing against the relevance of theory altogether. Again, premises flipping from on to the other, revolving around a central coynclusion.

I could, but again I don't think it's a valuable pursuit. I can also belch the alphabet. My basis is reason, not theory. An argument isn't "valid" because a famous theorist wrote it down 100 years ago. I never claimed otherwise, there is no flip, you just don't understand the concept of favoring reason to theory.

And that's why the whole ML movement I see here is doomed. Everyone who questions your favored theorist is a "liberal" and must be shamed. You've elevated ancient theory to sacred scripture, and perverted the rational pursuit for political efficacy into a religious devotion. As Lenin said:

It is obvious that the “Lefts” in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality. That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make.

I regularly interact with the general public, offline. I can say with utmost confidence that I am staunchly to the left of, at minimum, 99% of the population. If I'm too far right to you, you have no people. A handful of terminally online theory-junkies, sure, but nothing remotely close to the consent of the masses necessary for even non-violent revolutionary tactics (a general strike, for example).

We need time to educate them. That's a lot easier to do when fascists aren't disappearing our organizers to Salvadorian death camps. Lenin's strategy was tailored to material conditions in Russia in the early 20th century, before the advent of fascism and modern propaganda, before billionaires (there was one, John D. Rockefeller, but he was the only one and he barely edged over the $1B mark at the end of Lenin's life). And, again, his strategies weren't even effective at securing stable communism. It was never actually communism, and it destabilized in under a century. So not only are his techniques unsuitable for modern use, they weren't even effective at the time.

The world he strategized in was fundamentally different from ours in many ways. Deifying century-dead thinkers is like using a steam engine repair manual to try to remove a virus from your computer. So long as your methods remain buried in the past, so will any leftist success. Adapt or die.