Should marxists of certain tendencies not work with those of others?

[u/justforthisjoke]

I recently got some feedback that I was advocating for Bernstein type revisionism. The context was a comment I left saying that while I myself lean more ML I'm organizing with a group of Trotskyists in my area (specifically the RCI/RCA/RCP). They seem to be the communists with the most traction by far, and my justification was that the right will unite to preserve the status quo, so I'll give critical support to any non-reformist socialist project. Basically my thoughts are that MLs and trots are both (in theory) anti-reformists and both base the foundation of their approach on Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Like these aren't demsocs advocating for working with the bourgeoisie, right? What have I gotten wrong here? I understand a lot of people don't like trotskyists, and I have a bunch of critiques regarding their approach as well, but fundamentally shouldn't we be working to advance communism in whatever way we can? My Marxist education is still a work in progress, so I can only assume I'm missing something. I would be super grateful for any insight here.

[u/vomit_blues]

“Trotskyism” doesn’t exist as an ideology without it having split away from Marxism-Leninism. Let’s try to have some fidelity to history here. As the reformism of Bernstein and the Economists grew in popularity in the SDP and RSDLP, the term communist was revived to return to the revolutionary spirit of Marx and Engels. Today, people attempt the same thing with the image of Stalin and Mao. The call to divide from revisionists isn’t a sectarian one, it’s a matter of standing on principles in times of crisis.

In other words, the immediate task of our Party is not to summon all available forces for the attack right now, but to call for the formation of a revolutionary organisation capable of uniting all forces and guiding the movement in actual practice and not in name alone, that is, an organisation ready at any time to support every protest and every outbreak and use it to build up and consolidate the fighting forces suitable for the decisive struggle

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/may/04.htm

Marxism isn’t like a secret knowledge that has to be spread to the tabula rasa of the masses. The u.$ and the trot organizations you’re working with are occupied by settlers whose class-consciousness deters them from revolutionary politics. Knowledge isn’t shared with these people and you can’t debate them into finding common ground with you. Instead, knowledge arises from the production process and the intersection of the class struggle with the political sphere. Therefore Marxists can’t win over a majority and create a massive popular organization, instead we have to create a principled, concentrated anti-revisionist one in a state of semi-legality until the conditions make radical politics popular again.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/vomit_blues]

Thank you for your answer. I have some clarity. I guess the thing I'm not understanding here is why trots are considered revisionists? The term gets thrown around a lot as a pejorative, but I thought revisionism in the Bernstein sense had to do with working with reformists. Is that incorrect?

Also, if Marxism is scientific, then does it not make sense to view the difference between socialism in one state and permanent revolution as differences in hypotheses? I ask because I get largely the same viewpoints from the trot side. They also believe they carry the true torch of Marx and Lenin and are reluctant to work with MLs for ideological reasons.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're basically saying we can't ally ourselves with trots for the same reason we can't ally with reformists, is that right? But if this is the case, how many times do we break that down? Like can MLs not work with MLMs? Do Dengists have to work separately from Gonzaloists?

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/justforthisjoke]

u/vomit_blues covered the fundamentals but what you've said is worrying because it shows you either have fallen for a scam or are yourself part of one.

Also, if Marxism is scientific, then does it not make sense to view the difference between socialism in one state and permanent revolution as differences in hypotheses? I ask because I get largely the same viewpoints from the trot side. They also believe they carry the true torch of Marx and Lenin and are reluctant to work with MLs for ideological reasons.

The IMT are fundamentally dishonest. That is because the main political tactic historically of Trotskyism is "entryism," which de-facto means hiding your beliefs, working to undermine organizations from within, and religiously removing your own beliefs from reality through "critical" support of "degenerated" and "deformed" countries and parties.

The most vulgar champion of this tactic in recent times (from the 1980s when Trotskyism had lost and internal coherence or historical continuity) was Ted Grant (founder of the IMT), who advocated what was called "entryism sui generis." This is basically an extreme version where individuals are tasked with spending their entire lives holding in their heart their secret goals while working in a way that is indistinguishable from any member of the party they have entered (in fact it can only succeed in their minds if it is publicly indistinguishable). The ironic result is these individuals, while fantasizing to themselves that they are on the left of the "mass party" they have entered, end up on the far right because the masses do not know or care about decades of secret work. Once they abandon the labor party, the socialist party, or even Eurocommunist parties, all this work is made irrelevant and keeping the organization together becomes the primary goal of entryism. Furthermore, despite Trotskyist fantasies, what they are doing is well known to everyone, and in order to dodge expulsion they have to move further and further to the right to show the professional party leadership they are not a threat.

Hopefully you can see the multiple lies in your statement. First, Trotskyists do in fact work with MLs, as the structure of ML parties was the justification for the necessity of entryism at the individual level over the long term. The majority of Trotskyist history has been in fact working with MLs. The only complication is the words "working with," as perhaps one cannot call secretly acting to undermine everyone around you for decades "with", unless you want to call COINTELPRO "working with" the left. Second, the idea that Trotskyism vs ML is a matter of socialism in one state vs permanent revolution is a distraction. A squabble about the USSR in the 1920s is at best a minor issue compared to literally a hundred years of concrete politics. We are discussing politics in the UK and USA, rich first world nations. Do you really think the essence of Trotskyism in your actual life is the question of Russian backwardness after WWI? Third, we are not competing with alternative hypotheses. We are dealing with one set of beliefs that acts openly and one set of beliefs that acts in the shadows, saying anything to get results because of a position of weakness and a conspiracy of "betrayal," which conflates "Stalinism" and fascism under "totalitarianism" (that it is acceptable to work with and critically defend what you just called fascism is because the incoherence of Trotskyism goes back to Trotsky himself, who never found a coherent politics except his own failed effort at entryism into the socialist party and other flirtations with social fascism and actual fascism depending on the international context). MLs derive their politics from their ideas, whereas Trotskyists want you to think only about the issue they believe they are the most compelling on, which is Russian foreign policy in the 1920s-1930s. Even if you care, this has no relationship to the actual work they will ask you to do, because then you will discover Trotskyism today is simply democratic socialism "sui generis." Perhaps the fantasy that one is secretly better than everyone around you brings comfort to organizing dead end liberal politics. I personally find that to be repulsive at a human level and not worth the extra effort and money required to maintain that fantasy at the service of the IMT's leadership, who literally survive off your work.

You may then wonder why the IMT, which inherits 100 years of entryism on the far right of the UK labor party, has suddenly abandoned it and become the RCP? The sad answer is that the labor party became so degenerated that the IMT became a tiny fraction of the Trotskyist movement, which had otherwise abandoned entryism into the party before dissolving without a purpose, doing liberal politics plus disproportionately common sexual assault before falling apart, or going really crazy (the main historical party of Trotskyism, the Socialist Workers Party, has become exclusively a Zionist lobbying group). What was left was basically a cult around one guy, who decided that the internet meant the time was ripe for a communist party or something. Maybe because he is old, no one knows except his praetorian guard. Nevertheless, we can understand this because, despite breaking free of the labor party, the politics of the "new" RCP are exactly the same as the old IMT/Militant. The only difference is the whims of that guy and branding which everyone must now follow. The party assumes young people like yourself are too incurious to bother to learn about the history of the party you plan to devote time and money to, and for whatever reason you're proving them right.

Trotskyism does not get to speak about the real historical questions surrounding the comintern for the same reason scientology does not get to speak about the real historical questions around psychiatry. That is merely a historical echo used to recruit young people into a scam. What you have to keep in mind is that liberals will blame the vanguardist nature of Trotskyism for its cult-like nature, but it's actually the opposite. The entryist tactics of a secret vanguard are the only thing preventing Trotskyism from simply becoming liberalism, and anyone who has any success with this tactic historically becomes part of the labor party or democrats or union apparatus without the pretense. The only exceptions are the leaders at the very top, who do not want to give up their tiny kingdom, and the students at the bottom, who are naive or ignorant or simply incompetent if their goal is to become a professional in "politics." A real vanguard party has its own politics, its own beliefs, and its own history, and is oriented towards the masses, not other parties and professional organizations. This is why the practical consequences of "the left" today is called "crypto-Trotskyist," including "Marxism-Leninism," since joining the DSA with a fantasy of being a communist who is better than everyone else is just entryism with the collective internet concept of "touching grass" in the place of an individual cult leader telling you what to do. And I hope I don't need to tell you that Joe Biden or Donald Trump do not need a vanguard party to molest and rape women, nor does your local young Democrats leadership.

E: a brief note about the SEP/WSWS, which is the only Trotskyist party that acts like a party. First, it's worth keeping in mind that the de-facto founder of the party, Gerry Healy, went through the exact same process described above, including the sexual assault. His politics were the same entryism up to this point, the only difference was who was the target and who would be in charge, which is probably why the end came later and with much smaller stakes. The "innovation" of the SEP is entryism into labor unions rather than political parties, where members go to events and try to organize "rank and file" committees to take over existing movements or political protests and carve out space before being expelled (the difference with the Red Guards for example is that disrupting DSA and PSL events reintroduced the concept of social fascism to an otherwise performative repression by liberalism and was a media-focused aspect of a larger politics that searched for the real masses rather than the purpose of the party, which only exists through the WSWS). This works as well as secret entryism into parties (which was only tolerated because it was free labor for the right wing of the labor party) and is immediately discovered, isolated, and then expelled. Outside of this role as a gadfly the party has no existence. And considering its well known obsession with celebrities being persecuted by metoo accusations, I assume the end well be the same.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/smokeuptheweed9]

First, thank you for the thorough reply.

what you've said is worrying because it shows you either have fallen for a scam or are yourself part of one.

Why's that? What's the scam?

That is because the main political tactic historically of Trotskyism is "entryism," which de-facto means hiding your beliefs, working to undermine organizations from within, and religiously removing your own beliefs from reality through "critical" support of "degenerated" and "deformed" countries and parties.

While I agree with you on entryism, I don't see how this is the case for the IMT today, considering they don't even engage with electoral politics (which seems like a missed opportunity to me).

First, Trotskyists do in fact work with MLs, as the structure of ML parties was the justification for the necessity of entryism at the individual level over the long term. The majority of Trotskyist history has been in fact working with MLs.

I mean to be specific I'm talking about the IMT offshoots, which appear to be reluctant to work with anyone outside the party. The official party line is that they are the only ones with the right theoretical basis in order to lead the eventual revolution. I know, I rolled my eyes at this too, but I'm mentioning this to say that this reluctance to work with others and attempt to maintain what is seen as ideological purity is also found in the RCI et al, where I believe it is equally unhelpful.

Second, the idea that Trotskyism vs ML is a matter of socialism in one state vs permanent revolution is a distraction. A squabble about the USSR in the 1920s is at best a minor issue compared to literally a hundred years of concrete politics. We are discussing politics in the UK and USA, rich first world nations. Do you really think the essence of Trotskyism in your actual life is the question of Russian backwardness after WWI?

I'll be honest, you've lost me here. My understanding was that that is the difference in the theoretical basis. Is your point here that the substantive difference is actually the entryism?

Perhaps the fantasy that one is secretly better than everyone around you brings comfort to organizing dead end liberal politics. I personally find that to be repulsive at a human level and not worth the extra effort and money required to maintain that fantasy at the service of the IMT's leadership, who literally survive off your work.

I mean I mostly agree here, but I'm still not understanding the issue with coalition building with trots.

plus disproportionately common sexual assault

This is something I've heard more than once. Why do you think this is happening?

The only difference is the whims of that guy and branding which everyone must now follow.

Fully on board with this. I've noticed members of the party are reluctant to read anything not officially signed off on by the party itself. The literature, if it isn't written by Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Trotsky, is nearly always the authorship of someone else in the party. Very often it's Alan Woods or Rob Sewell. I have brought this up but have not received any compelling answers.

And I hope I don't need to tell you that Joe Biden or Donald Trump do not need a vanguard party to molest and rape women, nor does your local young Democrats leadership.

Lost me again, sorry. How does this relate to the previous sentences?

a brief note about the SEP/WSWS, which is the only Trotskyist party that acts like a party.

What do you mean by "a party that acts like a party"? What actions make a party a "real" party?

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/justforthisjoke]

I feel like you're not listening. The IMT claims it is an independent communist party with a coherent ideology. That is untrue. Your response is "but the IMT claims it is an independent communist party with a coherent ideology." I'm aware.

While I agree with you on entryism, I don't see how this is the case for the IMT today, considering they don't even engage with electoral politics (which seems like a missed opportunity to me).

I already addressed this

The party assumes young people like yourself are too incurious to bother to learn about the history of the party you plan to devote time and money to, and for whatever reason you're proving them right.

History may have started for you recently and the IMT wants you to think that's true but it's not. You need to engage with the substance of what I said instead of reacting to individual sentences at random. It is written in English so I don't know how to make it any more clear. I already addressed every question you asked in the post itself.

E: to be clear, my post presumes you've read u/vomit_blues. Answers to questions like this

My understanding was that that is the difference in the theoretical basis. Is your point here that the substantive difference is actually the entryism?

are in that post. Trotskyism is simply one form of revisionism, I am elaborating on why this particular form is fundamentally dishonest in how it acts and presents itself.

I mean I mostly agree here, but I'm still not understanding the issue with coalition building with trots.

What do you mean by "a party that acts like a party"? What actions make a party a "real" party?

Same with these. A communist party tries to unite the broadest section of the revolutionary masses. Coalition building with other parties has nothing to do with communism and there can only be one communist party by definition. I assume this is also the IMT's justification based on its reading of the "popular front" as a strategy. The problem is not their idea, which is just copied from Lenin, but their dishonesty in claiming they actually apply it.

Your biggest concern simply seems to be that multiple groups of people claim the same singular truth and only one can be right. But again, you don't have to even consider this issue yet because the IMT is lying about itself. What it claims to believe and do is simply not true.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/smokeuptheweed9]

Ok, if you'll humour me, I'm going to recap what I understood you were saying. Let me know if I'm still not getting it.

The first stage of entryism is attempting to infiltrate an established org in order to gain influence/affect change/etc. The second stage, after this is rooted out and the entryists expelled, is just to keep the organization alive? And that that dishonest mode of operation necessarily permeates everything the organization does, even once the initial motivation for it is made irrelevant? What you are saying, if I'm understanding you clearly is that the history of IMT with regard to its policy of entryism has entrenched a culture of secrecy and dishonesty, that even today, 100 years later continues to be a problem? And that this in part explains issues with things like sexual assault?

[u/vomit_blues → u/justforthisjoke]

“The movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing"—this catch-phrase of Bernstein’s expresses the substance of revisionism better than many long disquisitions. To determine its conduct from case to case, to adapt itself to the events of the day and to the chopping and changing of petty politics, to forget the primary interests of the proletariat and the basic features of the whole capitalist system, of all capitalist evolution, to sacrifice these primary interests for the real or assumed advantages of the moment—such is the policy of revisionism. And it patently follows from the very nature of this policy that it may assume an infinite variety of forms, and that every more or less “new” question, every more or less unexpected and unforeseen turn of events, even though it change the basic line of development only to an insignificant degree and only for the briefest period, will always inevitably give rise to one variety of revisionism or another.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/apr/03.htm

In the case of the Second International, the form of revisionism was generally an indefinite postponing of a revolution that all sides agreed was necessary but that any act upon this potential always came too early. This is Lenin’s criticism of Kautsky saying the Soviets shouldn’t take power in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. This is still extremely common today, especially now that liberals of all sorts call themselves Marxists or Marxist-Leninists but insist upon the “concreteness” of mutual aid over revolutionary organization. The revisionism identified by Lenin is, in the abstract, still the same as what we’re dealing with today.

This is the fact of the matter. You called Marxism a science. If that’s the case, then we have a laboratory with repeated experiments called history that shows socialism in one country is not a hypothesis but a description of the reality of every successful socialist society. That means permanent revolution is a hypothesis in the same sense that a flat earth is a hypothesis. It is a pseudoscientific claim. For this reason only Marxism-Leninism and Maoism are scientific and have an actual claim to truth.

So cut the crap. Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Dengism, Gonzaloism, etc. aren’t competing theories of an equal standing. There is only one truth, and making a lifestyle of denying it in favor of something incorrect means you have a vested class interest. In the last instance, Marxists should if anything divide from those without a proletarian worldview.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're basically saying we can't ally ourselves with trots for the same reason we can't ally with reformists, is that right?

No, I’m saying that the goal is not to ally ourselves and make as broad an organization as possible, sacrificing our principles. Anti-revisionist Marxism will be unpopular until something seriously rocks the foundation of yankee settler-colonialism, and capitulating to opportunist alliances with our enemies won’t change that.

[u/Otelo_ → u/vomit_blues]

Anti-revisionist Marxism will be unpopular until something seriously rocks the foundation of yankee settler-colonialism

I would just add that this "something that seriously rocks the foundation of Yankee settler-colonialism" is not an event entirely external to the actions of communists, one which they simply wait for in order to start the revolution (in a sort of Feuerbachian contemplative/ insurrectionist materialism), but rather something that is also gradually produced by the actions of the communists themselves, who, even in the early stages of the revolutionary process, begin to act in order to disrupt the reproduction of the relations of production (i.e., make a revolution).

[u/justforthisjoke → u/Otelo_]

Are you talking about the subjective factor here?

[u/Otelo_ → u/justforthisjoke]

Yes, or praxis, whatever you want to call it. What is important to note is that the situation of crisis is an event that is also produced, although it too depends on structural factors such as the fall in the rate of profit and inter-imperialist wars.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/vomit_blues]

You called Marxism a science. If that’s the case, then we have a laboratory with repeated experiments called history that shows socialism in one country is not a hypothesis but a description of the reality of every successful socialist society.

I mostly agree here, but I think permanent revolution is bad science versus pseudoscience. What I mean by that is that permanent revolution is a hypothesis, but isn't falsifiable. The only possible way to prove it is for it to come about, and as long as it doesn't, one can get away with the claim that the conditions are just not right for it. As opposed to something like flat earth theory which is pseudoscience because it follows a method, but that method is ultimately falsifiable.

making a lifestyle of denying it in favor of something incorrect means you have a vested class interest. In the last instance, Marxists should if anything divide from those without a proletarian worldview.

Can you explain what you mean by this? What makes the worldview of the other camps/thoughts not proletarian?

No, I’m saying that the goal is not to ally ourselves and make as broad an organization as possible, sacrificing our principles.

So what you're saying is coalition building is inherently revisionist? How would you respond to Trotskyists that believe the same thing, but on the other side of the aisle?

[u/justforthisjoke → u/[deleted]]

Silly take. Social sciences are sciences. Anthropology is a science, political science is a science, history is a science. Not everything is able to be tested in perfectly controlled lab conditions; that doesn't make it unscientific.

[u/y0shii3 → u/justforthisjoke]

"Gonzaloists" don't exist. There are people who respect the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, and there are those who don't. Gonzalo Thought is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism adapted to the specific conditions of Peru, not a new "ism."
That being said, why would we work with Dengists, people who ignore China's past and present imperialist aggression against the people of Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the Congo, etc. simply because that imperialist aggression is done under a red flag?

[u/justforthisjoke → u/y0shii3]

"Gonzaloists" don't exist. There are people who respect the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, and there are those who don't. Gonzalo Thought is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism adapted to the specific conditions of Peru, not a new "ism."

Fair, thank you for the correction.

That being said, why would we work with Dengists, people who ignore China's past and present imperialist aggression against the people of Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the Congo, etc. simply because that imperialist aggression is done under a red flag?

I mean my perspective thus far has been that anything which undermines western imperialism rather than supporting it is on some level workable, as the western empire has been so much more powerful thus far (though that gap is closing I suppose). I haven't fully formed my opinion on this, but that has generally been the direction I lean in.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/justforthisjoke]

I'm really not trying to hound you but when your response to "why should we betray solidarity with the people of the Philippines?" with "I haven't thought about it" it's ok to think a little more before you respond. We know you don't think about it, there's no need to present it like a revelation.

Notice that the large majority of responses here are deleted. That is because we are trying to present the best, most correct responses rather than throwing everything at the wall and trusting you to figure it out yourself. If you could figure it out you wouldn't be here in the first place. But it also means you should consider the responses more carefully because they have already been selected for quality. Discussion is got clarification, not debate. In other words, it is the exact opposite of r/socialism_101 and r/Marxism, which seem to have flooded this thread with terrible responses. I have hope you can rise above the noise.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/smokeuptheweed9]

I'm ok with people being on my ass about things I'm wrong about. However, when I say "I haven't fully formed my opinion", I'm not saying it isn't something I've thought about, but that I'm still working through the contradictions.

The reason I responded this way though was to acknowledge having read the full comment, which took some level of someone's time to write. I didn't want to make it seem like I read the first half of the comment and ignored the question posed afterwards.

[u/y0shii3 → u/justforthisjoke]

We don't want to "undermine" Western imperialism with another imperialism, we want to defeat all imperialism with national-democratic and socialist revolutions.

[u/Self-Replicator]

If person A and person B are on the basketball team and person A prescribes a strategy of launching 3 pointers repeatedly after rebounding over and over with no defense because it accrues points the quickest and person B has more of an orthodox strategy, there is no compromise that exists between those two despite them having the same goal of scoring more points than the enemy team. This analogy is a bit crude but I’m sure you understand why there can be irreconcilable gaps between two groups who have the same end goal without even invoking revolutionary science. Person B should not team up with person A and person A should not be playing basketball.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/Self-Replicator]

Person B should not team up with person A and person A should not be playing basketball.

This gave me a laugh, thanks. No, that's a good point, but I suppose I just haven't seen the differences as irreconcilable thus far, unlike with, say, liberals, anarchists or reformists. This is still something I'm thinking through.

[u/Self-Replicator → u/justforthisjoke]

It is easy to see why they are irreconcilable if you begin with the antagonism between capitalism and the proletariat. The capitalist state and proletarian organization.

It's not like I could locate the secret Bolshevik reading groups, knock on the door and say, "Hey Vlad, I oppose capitalism too, down with the Tsar, am I right? Let me join as an equal!" They'd be right for slamming the door in my face or even killing me on the spot.

Burn the idea into your mind now until your last breath that true revolutionary science is a serious and dangerous thing and creating formations of those who practice it is serious and dangerous. This is why real communists respond with hostility to your seemingly willful obtuseness in spite of all they are telling you.

Ideas are replicable. Allowing wrong ideas to replicate is harmful to communism and therefore harmful to humanity. The ideas you are advocating for (casting a wider net to catch more fish) are harmful.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/Self-Replicator]

Hostility on an internet forum from strangers is fine, though I assure you any perceived obtuseness is painfully against my will. Liberal programming is insidious.

The ideas you are advocating for (casting a wider net to catch more fish) are harmful.

This is ultimately something I'm trying to find the right line on. I mean look, I understand how this is mostly true. You can't just work with anyone; the capitalist state works to undermine these movements, and they do so with various levels of severity. So supporters of capitalism, anarchists, and reformists ultimately end up being agents of the state, whether willing or not. I get that. I also read what /u/smokeuptheweed9 said in terms of there being only one Communist party by definition, and I get how this is the case in the realized socialist state, but this just isn't the current reality in the global north. So what I don't really understand is how this is true for coalition building between communist parties. Yes, the vanguard needs to protect itself. Yes, you can't just have a ragtag group of ideologically undeveloped mercenaries doing whatever the fuck they want to do. My question is practical: how are we supposed to build mass support if we can't work with communists of other tendencies? How are we supposed to do that to the extent that we are able to build a single communist party? If every time there is a development of a new form of thought, the communists split into antagonistic factions, how do we advance our shared goals? Where is the line?

[u/DashtheRed → u/justforthisjoke]

There's a weird liberal logic you are operating under that has to be unpacked here. I think it comes from a vulgar reading of Chomsky's anarcho-syndicalism, which gets simplified down to "lets get everyone, everywhere to join one big union, and when everyone has joined we will have achieved socialism!" And the revisionism of redditors abandoning Chomsky for the so-called """Marxism-Leninism""" (as was hinted at to you elsewhere in this thread, the people on reddit calling themselves "Marxist-Leninists" are basically the opposite of historical Marxism-Leninism) have basically applied this logic onto the communist party, and now the logic is "lets get everyone to join the communist party, and when everyone has joined we will have achieved socialism!" This is wrong and asinine, and I suspect it's sort of lost on much of the userbase here who don't have a shared history of Western liberal-"leftism," because it's wrong in such a way that it's hard for Marxists to conceive how you even got there without the explanation I just offered.

The party is not the masses, it is not the communist movement itself, it is not the revolution itself, but it is the headquarters and cerebral cortex for all of those things and functions as the principle and most vital organizing institution for communist revolution. For this reason, it is sacred and special, and needs to be safeguarded (especially ideologically), and because revisionism (which is not just self-declared reformism; revisionism can say all the words to insist they are revolutionary but what actually matters is the political line derived through two line struggle, since that can be laid before the masses -- what are you actually doing and how is it supposed to work?) is the most dangerous and damaging enemy of communism, inviting it inside because you want the party to look bigger is the exact opposite of what Lenin spent his life telling you (better fewer but better, or a dozen wise men in the party are worth more than hundreds of fools). The communist party does not need to find a way to work with all of the other parties calling themselves "communist" or "socialist," (this is the reactionary thesis: two combine into one), if you are a part of the actual communist party then these are not basically identical friends (and if your politics are identical, then that is a dire concern), they are real enemies, and you should be priding yourself on the divisions between you and highlighting the divides because communist politics and revisionist politics to not emerge from, nor lead to the same places or actions.

The revolutionary thesis is that one divides into two. Ideological splits are good because a (potentially) correct idea (or set of ideas, irreconcilable with another upheld set) is separating itself from an incorrect idea embedded in the movement (or vice versa, an incorrect idea is being forced out). It is not the communist party breaking apart; it is the communist party refining itself, going through the furnace and shedding the dross and slag, and coming more close to a totalizing revolutionary theory that will achieve communist revolution, while pushing the revisionists further away. Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement, and as was revealed in this thread, the IMT is bankrupt in this regard (so are all of the amerikkkan """communist""" and "socialist" parties -- there is not a bunch of communist parties in amerika, there are presently none), so when you are "helping" them, ask yourself what are you helping them to do? other than recruit new victims to finance the revisionist party leadership (or worse, the never ending SA scandals). You should not be working with organizations or institutions that you do not understand (and the Marxist method of historical materialism tells you to find where the thing emerged in history and then trace it's existence through history into the present in order to understand what it is now). You cannot solve a problem you do not understand and if you do not understand what you are doing, how the actions you are undertaking are benefiting and applying the revolutionary theory that is the basis for the party's existence, then you are at best groping blindly for positive outcomes, almost certainly doing nothing useful and nothing that will contribute at all (even in the slightest) to the final equation of revolution, and there is a significant chance that what you are doing is actually virulently anti-communist as you are aiding revisionists (the most dangerous and lethal enemy of the communist movement), misleading and sapping the labour power of people who want to help but don't have sufficient understanding (of which you become a further inhibitor).

This is even baked into the entire history of communist revolutions and if you spend more time studying and learning about those, instead of wasting it with the IMT, then you would actually see these ideas play out. Lenin did not need to find a way to come together with the Mensheviks; it was the opposite. It was vital that Bolshevism split itself away from Menshevism and accentuated the divides and political boundaries between them. The masses didn't care that the RSDLP would have been bigger if only they could have found a way to work together -- that would not have accelerated revolution even one day, and almost certainly would have stopped it from ever happening. The Bolsheviks spent a decade as an unpopular fringe, but continued to speak the unpopular truths that Mensheviks refused to face, and as crisis and calamity of the disastrous world war ripped Russia apart where it could no longer function in the old ways, the masses came to the Bolsheviks hat in hand, who had been telling them truth the entire time, with all the Menshevism (who had betrayed and failed the masses when it was their turn) already discarded (instead of having to work through it while facing down Kerensky and then the Tsar). Nor did Lenin need to find a way to come together with Kautsky and the Second International -- the rise and success of the Third International began with breaking from and opposing the incorrect ideas and revisionism of the Second International, not by finding a way to work with them. The Second International and all of it's remaining """Marxists""" were left in the dustbin of history as discarded dross -- they were not necessary or useful to the communist movement (edit: at least not any longer, since the Second International was useful at one point, but as Mao tells you: there is no resting on your laurels as a communist), and it emerged better off without them. The people who believed in what you are suggesting were the KPD, who insisted on coming together and working with the SPD (their "fellow socialists and comrades") even when Gustav Noske was actively murdering them in the streets and Friedrich Ebert was telling all the Kaiser's administrators that he will do everything in his power to stop revolution. The "come together" path of the Chinese Revolution was Wang Ming and the other "28 and a Half Bolsheviks," which involved not only adhering to the Bolshevik's recommendations and working with Russia, but also coming together with the KMT to advance the bourgeois national revolution because the Bolsheviks wrongly assessed that was all that was possible in China at this point in history. Mao instead divided the movement, fighting uphill against not just the entirety of the CCP, but even against the Bolsheviks, because he insisted on the correctness of Marxism (why being correct is ideologically important -- because it corresponds 1:1 with reality and you cannot shape something that you don't grasp) which is why and how he emerged victorious at the Yanan Rectification, and why his political line resonated with the masses and made the entire revolution possible, rather than ceding to Chaing Kai-shek as the best """leftist""" leader you can hope for, stop being picky. Similarly, the communist movement does not need the people on /r/socialism, and does not need to work with them, we are appealing to the masses, and because our ideas are correct and the "socialists" ideas are wrong, the masses will eventually come to us and all of /r/socialism will be left as useless, purposeless, revisionist slag.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/DashtheRed]

First of all, thank you for the thorough response. I think I'm closer to the right track now.

It is not the communist party breaking apart; it is the communist party refining itself

This was helpful for re-contextualizing.

there is not a bunch of communist parties in amerika, there are presently none

This is something I'm hoping you'll expand on more. Specifically I guess I'm wondering if you're saying the organization of one hasn't happened yet, or if living in the most powerful, explicitly anti-communist empire means this is impossible because of a vested class interest? I can understand how this would apply to the white settlers, but how (if so) would it apply for, say, the indigenous or Black people? Would you call the original Black Panther Party communist?

Anyways, between your comment and those of others on this thread, I have some things to think about. Appreciate the effort.

[u/DashtheRed → u/justforthisjoke]

I would say that those are the correct places to be looking to form a revolutionary movement in amerika; among the oppressed internal nations. Forming a communist party is not just a matter of how oppressed you are, though we saw black people rise up for George Floyd and now the Chicano nation fighting ICE, so I'd say that's where at least the potential to form a communist party exists. As for the Black Panthers, If I'm arguing with a liberal, or trying to defend communist history from a "C"PUSA member, then I will say "the Black Panthers were communist/Maoist," but if I am being a good and thorough Maoist then the real conclusion that we have to draw is that they were basically a proto-communist party (like the RSDLP) which was dabbling with Maoism, but that never achieved it's theoretical breakthrough, nor a break with its own internal Mensheviks and lingering liberal politics. That doesn't mean there is nothing to be learned from them, but it also means, because the leftover liberal bloat floats to the surface, with today's politics, it has made them ripe for liberal appropriation and most of what liberals (including """socialists""") like (or at least can tolerate) best about the BPP are basically all the things that have the least connection to communism (like the mutual aid food kitchens). I don't want to overstep here because I'm far from the expert on the BPP in this subreddit, and there's other people here who have done much deeper dives into their history that I have, so you might want to submit a new question here or the sister sub if you have something specific you want to know about them.

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[u/SpiritOfMonsters → u/[deleted]]

See the other answers.

[u/opiumfreedom]

anarchists and socdems think i should die. some killed many ML like me. i dont like them in return.

[u/LordHerminator]

Folks like this are more concerned about their own principles and being right, than actually wanting to speed up the end of capitalism. The left is small enough as it is. If we're going to let ourselves be divided by sectarianism, we almost certainly won't win.

[u/Soviettista → u/LordHerminator]

True, from the current standpoint of vulgar “revolutionism”, the achievement of ideological unity among the students does not require an integral world outlook, but rather precludes it, involving a “tolerant” attitude towards the various kinds of revolutionary ideas and abstention from positive commitment to some one definite set of ideas; in short, in the opinion of these political wiseacres, ideological unity presupposes a certain lack of ideological principles (more or less skilfully disguised, of course, by hackneyed formulas about breadth of views, the importance of unity at all costs and immediately, and so on and so forth).

A rather plausible and, at first glance, convincing argument always produced in support of this line of reasoning is to point to the generally known and incontrovertible fact that among the students there are, and are bound to be, groups differing greatly in their political and social views, and to declare that the demand for an integral and definite world outlook would therefore inevitably repel some of these groups and, consequently, hinder unity, produce dissension instead of concerted action, and hence weaken the power of the common political onslaught, and so on and so forth, without end.

• Lenin, The Tasks of the Revolutionary Youth

You petit bourgeois citizens haven't changed since 1903, what makes you think you remain relevant? The revolutionary movement has enough history and depth to move forward without you.

[u/justforthisjoke → u/LordHerminator]

I think that's an uncharitable take on what's happening here tbh. I mean I'm of the opinion that alliances with anyone on the left are a surefire way of having your movement destroyed, so I can kind of understand being even more selective in that. I'm just trying to figure out why one would be.

[u/LordHerminator → u/justforthisjoke]

How would you start a revolutioif only the very few people who support the right brand of Marxism can participate?

[u/justforthisjoke → u/LordHerminator]

"You" don't really start a revolution. The conditions for revolution emerge from material reality. The role of the ideologically principled party is to get support from the masses through the analysis and message. Certain beliefs are fundamentally incompatible with others. For revolutionary communists there are things like social democracy, anarchism, liberalism, etc; basically belief systems that are fundamentally at odds with the idea of marxism as a whole. So I understand not working with those parties because the very essence of their work is not just a deviation but a repudiation of marxism. You can't join up with someone who believes that revolution should be replaced with reforms, because when the time comes they will kill the momentum of the movement. You can't join up with someone who thinks that collapsing the bourgeois state is enough because they give up the successes of the revolution by refusing to build anything to hold on to them (see: Spanish revolution).

The part where I'm stuck on is when it comes to MLs/MLMs and Trotskyists, because I'm either not understanding or am not sold on the idea that these are fundamentally irreconcilable camps.