I know I am going to look like that tanky I am but critical support of current socialist movements is important. (key word critical, not just gulping all their shit as law)

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 31 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

This isn’t directed at you personally, your comment just animated some thoughts in me.

I think the phrase critical support has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any in the English language. The problem is it wrongly centers ideology instead of the material obstacles to the worker’s revolution.

What was originally meant by critical support is that the essential question is whether an action or policy materially advances the revolution. And since we live in reality, the subjects enacting those advances will be imperfect; they will be fraught with contradictions. The critical part means to critically consider the whole dynamic before deciding on a policy. But the western liberal, habitually adopting the colonizer’s penchant to correct “primitive” cultures, jumps at the opportunity to publicly criticize, in an ultraleftist manner, the ideology of those who they (now reluctantly) support.

The point isn’t to criticize while supporting, but to criticize internally as a means of evaluating policies.

Critical support can mean supporting e.g. social-democratic organizations if, after careful analysis of the entire situation, they further the revolution.

For much of the global south, the primary contradiction is not the wage relation. The primary contradiction is imperialism. Hence many socialist revolutions say little about capital, and much more about national sovereignty. But if one appraises those movements on the basis of Capital Volume 1, one might conclude that they are too conciliatory toward capital and too nationalistic. That would be a wrong application of critical support.

[–] Dirt_Possum@hexbear.net 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

We do need to be critical of our organizations, but that's not what this is. This is using radlib bufoonery to scare would-be comrades away. There is also the difference between internal criticism within the framework of democratic centralism and external criticism literally saying "this organization is bad for the movement." PSL is not "bad for the movement" (quite the opposite) and none of these are even reasons why it would be. This "infographic" is something a .world lib would make to try to keep their flock from visiting the scary tankie instances.

[–] Revolutionary_Apples@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

Any truly leftist political party that is allowed to operate in the USA is going to be infiltrated to shit's head with feds. Because of that I think that PSL is quite likely controlled opposition and is dangerous to get involved with.