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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

The whole article is quite funny, especially the lists of most used tankie words, or the branding of foreignpolicy as a left-wing news source.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pretty much all of lemmy outside lemmygrad is a lib space, especially now after the influx of reddit users. Lemmy.ml admins for example are Marxists but the majority of the users are just libs.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 year ago

"slava peroyam" lmao

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

They might but at least right now that doesn't seem like the main trigger for this event.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Maybe there is some US influence but the key factor seems to be the plans by the Russian government and the ministry of defense specifically to nationalize Wagner and include it into the Russian military officially.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 year ago

That source is just pure lib speculation and just takes whatever US imperialists say as true with no critical thought. It seems to just be pro-democrat propaganda.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago

It is federated but you have to access the thread through Lemmygrad. Go through the communities page on Lemmygrad to find the lemmy.ml community and then the post.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, hahaha, although I actually never played Hollow Knight but my friend was really into it when I was making my account here. As he was showing me the game, I liked the Mr. Mushroom picture so I just decided to use it here.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

While some of the people caught up in those movements may really be clueless, I don't think that applies to the leaders or actual ideological fascists. At some level they know what they're saying is bullshit but they continue lying to themselves and everyone else because they're invested, similar to this also liberal analysis. That's why you can't just convert these people away from fascism by providing them with the actual facts and context or debunking their claims.

The situation in this meme is not identical to but it reminded me of a recent article in a local newspaper here. The article said that "the biggest act of treason in my country was the giving away of some territories to Italy during world war 2" while conveniently ignoring the fact that my country was at the time a Nazi puppet state eagerly participating in the holocaust. Many libs were praising the article as anti-fascist and were saying that it might bring some people away from fascism by countering the fash claims about a strong pure nation etc. by showing that past fascist leaders didn't really care about the countries territories but this misses the point completely by buying into the fascist/liberal idea of a strong pure nation as something inherently good and a goal to strive towards. This cedes far more ground to fascism than it claims to take away.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Correct, however, even if we only limit ourselves to Lenin, we can quote his work A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism (1916) where he gives us general principles to analyze any conflict which again strengthens our position here on Lemmygrad and that of many communist parties (especially in the 3rd world) which give critical support to Russia:

How, then, can we disclose and define the “substance” of a war? War is the continuation of policy. Consequently, we must examine the policy pursued prior to the war, the policy that led to and brought about the war.

For the philistine the important thing is where the armies stand, who is winning at the moment. For the Marxist the important thing is what issues are at stake in this war, during which first one, then the other army may be on top.

The situation today is not the same as it was in World War 1, and we need to adjust our analysis accordingly.

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[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately, the situation is largely the same in many countries. Especially the previously socialist European countries that are now in EU/NATO.

I mostly just go to second-hand bookshops where a lot of the good older books can still be found.

[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The Lenin quote given at the start is taken entirely out of context. It looks like he just searched for a Lenin quote that would fit his flawed analysis.

Here are a few more quotes from the very chapter Rainer takes his quote from. Note that these are quotes from '"Left-wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder' which was written after the revolution in 1920.

About the necessity of the struggle against the reactionary leadership of trade unions:

The Mensheviks of the West have acquired a much firmer footing in the trade unions; there the craft-union, narrow-minded, selfish, case-hardened, covetous, and petty-bourgeois “labour aristocracy”, imperialist-minded, and imperialist-corrupted, has developed into a much stronger section than in our country. That is incontestable. The struggle against the Gomperses, and against the Jouhaux, Hendersons, Merrheims, Legiens and Co. in Western Europe is much more difficult than the struggle against our Mensheviks, who are an absolutely homogeneous social and political type. This struggle must be waged ruthlessly, and it must unfailingly be brought—as we brought it—to a point when all the incorrigible leaders of opportunism and social-chauvinism are completely discredited and driven out of the trade unions. Political power cannot be captured (and the attempt to capture it should not be made) until the struggle has reached a certain stage. This “certain stage” will be different in different countries and in different circumstances; it can be correctly gauged only by thoughtful, experienced and knowledgeable political leaders of the proletariat in each particular country.

About working where the masses are:

If you want to help the “masses” and win the sympathy and support of the “masses”, you should not fear difficulties, or pinpricks, chicanery, insults and persecution from the “leaders” (who, being opportunists and social-chauvinists, are in most cases directly or indirectly connected with the bourgeoisie and the police), but must absolutely work wherever the masses are to be found.



Rainer's idea of allying with the movements he proposes is flawed in two parts. First, he doesn't call for the struggle against the incorrect and harmful ideas of those movements. He points out some flaws in some of the socialist parties in the US which do exist but his analysis here seems to favor the reactionary parties over said socialist parties. To me it sounds like he's just trying to send "the masses" to these reactionary movements without considering the level of organization, class consciousness and political involvement of "the masses". The situation is not the same as at the start of the 20th century or at the end of World War 1. The working class then was a lot more organized and various communist and reformist parties existed with actual mass support. Today, especially in the West, this is not really the case.

Second, he doesn't really talk about reaching the masses. He talks of allying and supporting these reactionary movements which he just assumes have some mass support already and he assumes that the support they have is from working class people. Neither of these can be taken for granted.

The movements he wants to support are not actual reformist movements, they don't propose any significant reforms to the system, they barely even propose particular policies that they want to adopt. Reformist movements, while flawed, have historically had genuine mass support. The support of the working class that had at least some consciousness and wanted to systematically improve it's conditions. These types of movement can be useful for communists but again, a proper strategy needs to be made. Blind support doesn't lead anywhere.

Movements like RAWM also aren't working class movements. They fall into a group of astroturfed movements that are supported by various right-wing elements. I don't know much about Cornel West specifically, but from what I saw since he announced his campaign, he isn't really supported by the working classes of the US and I don't think he's really connected with them either. He's a (relatively) privileged life-long academic and is now attempting to approach "the masses" from above. "The masses" didn't choose him so they won't be radicalized when his attempts at "reform" fail. As far as I can tell, he also doesn't really have any reforms in mind, just calls to empty phrases like "truth", "justice", and some calls for policies like "a living wage" which aren't elaborated on at all.

Two very timely short threads by Roderic Day on this "purity fetish" phenomenon:
Thread 1
Thread 2

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Kids these days... (lemmygrad.ml)
[-] cucumovirus@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

I played a bit today with @Jonathan12345 and moved into one of the free apartments. It was fun playing Minecraft again after a few years and I'll probably be playing more in the upcoming days as well.

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cucumovirus

joined 2 years ago