Leftist Infighting

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This is sort of a "work out your frustrations by letting it all out" community where different leftist tendencies can vent their frustrations with one another and more assertively and directly challenge one another. Heated arguments are OK but pointless hostility is not (see instance rule 3).

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Self-styled “anarchists” decrying revolutionary violence as “authoritarian” and “oppressive” are so on my nerves. (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 2 years ago by calcifiedNeurotic@lemmygrad.ml to c/leftistinfighting@lemmygrad.ml

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Do they think the Catalan Anarchists had no bourgeois blood on their hands? Do they think the Makhnovites never executed counterrevolutionaries? Fucking idiots. I preferred it when anarchists actually threw pipe bombs.

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[–] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 2 years ago

That being said, there’s merit to the idea that lockstep dogmatism to a 175 year old definition of a political model isn’t necessarily a successful model for any given present day era.

Theory is useful to learn how to figure out what to do. Some of Marx's predictions ended up being wrong, most notably his prediction that the already industrialized countries would be first to revolution. However, his work on how to understand how society works and how to change it isn't outdated. To make an analogy, any scientific theory may be proven wrong, but the scientific method will always remain a valid tool for understanding the world.

This is why I’m wary of “read theory.” Sure, read theory, but don’t treat it like a Bible. Expand, adapt, update, adjust.

Coincidentally enough, there is theory about this very issue. Dogmatically following theory when it is not applicable to your material conditions is a problem Marxists regularly grasp with.