Bolshevik avant la lettre

20s - genderfluid - amateur historian in training - actually a marxist, not a shitpost - revolutionary history & politics - sideblog of @the-frosty-mac

[robespierrist-maoist]

My basic thesis is that internationalism is indispensable for constructing a movement within the borders (that is, there can be no revolutionary movement in a given country without regular, comradely, both critical and supportive, interaction with revolutionaries outside of it). And internationalism requires actual interaction, advice, feedback, sharing, not just vague pledges of “solidarity.”

The fact is that a lack of correspondence is historically unusual for marxists. From the 1860s onwards, it was a universal phenomenon that revolutionaries all knew each other or of each other and regularly maintained correspondence, even across borders. There was rarely a truly clean separation between the revolutionary movement of one place vs another, even when in opposition (like after the revisionist turn of the Second International).

You would think that the internet would have made this more true than ever, but it’s exactly the opposite. Partly due to secterianism, but it’s more than that. Perhaps because it’s easy to convince oneself that they are engaging in internationalism when they are merely following accounts from other countries and proclaiming support on social media, instead of doing the hard work of forging real connections. At any rate.

Until we can start struggling to create a real internationalism which goes beyond collections of social chauvinists having meetings once a year, we are cutting ourselves off from an entire world of allies and collaborators, and we’re cutting them off from our help too. There exists no real, revolutionary International today. We need to begin the process which may eventually culminate in one. Because until we do, “conferencism” passes for internationalism and our struggle remains lost. We must not lose sight of the bordered nature of the struggle, of course, but the dialectic of internal and external is hugely important.

I really do consider the long path of internationalist communication and collaboration with global comrades, towards the constitution of an anti-chauvinist, anti-eurocentric International, to be a key matter. This is something I will try to write on at length soon.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Death to American imperialism. Uncompromising solidarity with the working and oppressed people of Venezuela.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Defining “sex” as based on gametes is a self-defeating position. Gametes serve no socially necessary role. Their one sphere of influence, reproduction, is overdetermined by unrelated traits, and so they are insufficient for determining social being. Gametes are socially irrelevant in isolation.

This is what happens to any attempt to define sex through any one single abstract example of biological variation. Indeed, that variation exists, but no single trait is sufficient for explaining any given social relation. And yet such social assumptions are always smuggled in. When this is pointed out, those invested in non-socially determined definitions of “sex” attempt to move to more abstract definitions. From genitals to chromosomes, and from chromosomes to gametes. But they always fail to confront the actual contradictions in the reasoning itself, and so no higher reasoning is possible.

One COULD claim that sex is purely a measure of gametes. But if one does this, the only internally consistent conclusion one can come to is that sex is insufficient for determining any given aspect of social being, thereby undermining the whole point of such a definition. Indeed, the more abstract these definitions get in order to avoid the simple fact that sexual dimorphism is a scientifically problematic notion, the less explanatory power they have over concrete reality. Gametes become empty abstractions, nothing more.

As such, there is no dialectical analysis of gender and sex which does not undermine transphobia, and any “marxist” who trades in anti-trans talking points is not thinking dialectically, no matter how much they repeat the word “materialism.” It is, on the other hand, insufficient to be pro-trans based purely on normative moralism. The pro-trans position is correct, but because it is correct, not because it is nice. You have to study. Anything less will lead to an analysis of jenga blocks, easily knocked over.

[sailatina]

To put the whole thing concerning the topic of veterans very simply: this is not a game. This is not a hypothetical or some non specific "mistake" that someone does. This is human life. Full complete human beings are slaughtered by US soldiers as they enforce genocide, war, rape and death. This is not something to take lightly, it is murder. Politcally and often racially charged murder. And every single member/former member of the yanqui military has either committed this murder or was complicit in it.

You can grow all you like, I dont care about taintted morality or whatever. But absolutely no one is obligated to forgive you or be nice to you. Your hands are stained in blood.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Unfathomable levels of petty bourgeois energy is blasting at me, dealing incredible amounts of psychic damage

[robespierrist-maoist]

Many people get their intellectual kicks critiquing the status quo but are terrified of what it would take to overturn it. Of course, if you have the time and energy to intellectually stimulate yourself that way, you’re probably not the one most crushed by the status quo. Nobody working in a sweatshop has the time to read Keynes. And if you aren’t the one under the boot, what interest do you objectively have in lifting it? Hell, if you live in the imperial core, you’re probably one of the cells of the body WEARING the boot. So of course, notions of actual practical revolution would disgust you.

[gertrudedeathlight-deactivated2]

Ok? This is just kind of a nasty thing to say that deincentivizes people from actually caring about the Revolution. What do you want them to do? Die?

[robespierrist-maoist]

I want them to reject their class interests in maintaining the status quo, and become class traitors in favor of the global proletariat. I’m generally fairly patient and nice about this, much more than many who share my stances. I know that it’s not an easy process. However, last night, I had a long and annoying conversation with someone who takes petty bourgeois consciousness to the extreme, going so far as to imply I’m a fascist, so I felt like explaining why this sort of phenomenon happens. I’m not even making a normative moral judgment here, just explaining the phenomenon. It’s blunt, but not cruel.

[robespierrist-maoist]

You have to understand that I’m the last to expect people to jump on immediately. Especially given objective class interests in the imperial core. Any non-strawmanned understanding of Leninism and especially Maoism should make that fairly obvious. But there *are* cases where bluntness is earned. I’m not gonna be an asshole, but I’m not gonna sugarcoat things either.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Unfathomable levels of petty bourgeois energy is blasting at me, dealing incredible amounts of psychic damage

[robespierrist-maoist]

Many people get their intellectual kicks critiquing the status quo but are terrified of what it would take to overturn it. Of course, if you have the time and energy to intellectually stimulate yourself that way, you’re probably not the one most crushed by the status quo. Nobody working in a sweatshop has the time to read Keynes. And if you aren’t the one under the boot, what interest do you objectively have in lifting it? Hell, if you live in the imperial core, you’re probably one of the cells of the body WEARING the boot. So of course, notions of actual practical revolution would disgust you.

[gertrudedeathlight-deactivated2]

Ok? This is just kind of a nasty thing to say that deincentivizes people from actually caring about the Revolution. What do you want them to do? Die?

[robespierrist-maoist]

I want them to reject their class interests in maintaining the status quo, and become class traitors in favor of the global proletariat. I’m generally fairly patient and nice about this, much more than many who share my stances. I know that it’s not an easy process. However, last night, I had a long and annoying conversation with someone who takes petty bourgeois consciousness to the extreme, going so far as to imply I’m a fascist, so I felt like explaining why this sort of phenomenon happens. I’m not even making a normative moral judgment here, just explaining the phenomenon. It’s blunt, but not cruel.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Unfathomable levels of petty bourgeois energy is blasting at me, dealing incredible amounts of psychic damage

[robespierrist-maoist]

Many people get their intellectual kicks critiquing the status quo but are terrified of what it would take to overturn it. Of course, if you have the time and energy to intellectually stimulate yourself that way, you’re probably not the one most crushed by the status quo. Nobody working in a sweatshop has the time to read Keynes. And if you aren’t the one under the boot, what interest do you objectively have in lifting it? Hell, if you live in the imperial core, you’re probably one of the cells of the body WEARING the boot. So of course, notions of actual practical revolution would disgust you.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Unfathomable levels of petty bourgeois energy is blasting at me, dealing incredible amounts of psychic damage

[robespierrist-maoist]

The issue of being an outright marxist-leninist, and indeed a maoist, encountering those who study of the French Revolution, is finding that the very same people willing to look past politically motivated slander against figures like Robespierre and Saint-Just will be unwilling to do the same for figures like, say, Stalin, or Mao. Certainly, both were flawed men (Mao once said Stalin was 70% right and 30% wrong, which sounds like a reasonable if simplistic estimate to me). But the narratives surrounding them are overblown to a comical degree, and even anti-soviet scholarship of recent decades acknowledges that, their criticisms growing less and less historical and more and more ideological.

The truth of the matter is that the slanders of Stalin and Mao are exceedingly similar to that of the slander of Robespierre, those slanders coming from the same political camps, the same historiographical schools of thought, and sometimes even the same individuals. There is a reason the narrative that Robespierre was the first “totalitarian” and prefigured Stalin exists. Indeed, the parallels in the approaches to these figures is not an accident of history at all, but rather one single political project put through a fractal across the centuries. It is Thermidor yet living, yet breathing, not metaphorically but materially. Once Jacobinism was replaced with Bolshevism, Thermidor changed targets. Reaction, simply put.

The comparison to Hitler, who is certainly as bad as his reputation implies, is arguably more influential on the public perception of Stalin than any actual things Stalin was alleged to have done. Far more people know that Stalin is associated with “dictatorship” than know the term “holodomor,” much less what that actually means and the (highly contested, and heavily Nazi-filled) historiography of the concept. In this way, an association is made between Hitler and Stalin not through actual similarities, but through sheer word association. And then Robespierre is compared to Stalin, and the same occurs to him. And so you have “totalitarianism,” a system by which society is ruled by fear, conveniently leaving out the fear of starvation and homelessness which drives wage labor under liberal capitalism. This is the project by which every leftist leader is associated, through a bizarre bacon number funhouse mirror word association game, with Hitler and fascism. Understanding this rhetorical process, the process by which Robespierre is turned into Stalin and Stalin is turned into Hitler, is as important to understanding the historiography of the French Revolution, especially in the anglo world, as anything which actually occurred during the Revolution itself. It is the cultural project by which the ruling class intends not only to prevent socialism, but also seeks to peel back the progressive accomplishments of liberalism which the French Revolution itself prefigured.

I want to make it clear that just as Robespierre was hardly perfect, neither were Stalin or Mao, as should be obvious. I am not asking you to declare that they did nothing wrong, as some edgy first-year marxists sometimes do, and as some far more experienced marxists say as a joke. Just that, as with Robespierre, we are not talking about an unbiased history, and in fact, the historiography is many times more ideologically hostile towards communist leaders than it ever was against the Jacobins.

[bonebeautyart]

You have an excellent point, and it refers to how the most important leaders and spokespersons of the revolutions are sold as totalitarians.

And even in political science, it has limited them to impressive levels, giving some mental somersaults, where in a supposed apory, emancipation becomes impossible, justifying resignation and the return to the cycle of class struggle. (Something very present in the historiography of the French revolution by the Furetism, which is still the trusted old of conservative historians and political scientists).

At any historical figure, we must think critically. I find all the hatred I usually see against socialist leaders, interesting, because I rarely find such negative content against war criminals like the vast majority of US presidents. At least that should generate curiosity in people, whom should try to investigate more deeply about history and how the should comprehend it.

But it's not usually like that. Defending any revolutionary figure will always be the subject of controversy. The day they are not, that day there will be a change.

[robespierrist-maoist]

The issue, unfortunately, of defending revolutionaries is that quite a few of the arguments we make sound similar, on the surface, to arguments made by neo fascists to reappraise fascist historical figures. So people see it as equivalent. But that’s merely aesthetic. The difference is, of course, that when we do this with a leftist figure, we are generally backed up and vindicated to some extent by historical evidence, whereas the same is not true for fascist historical figures. But the average person does not think that deeply about what makes an argument legitimate in one case and illegitimate in another. They see a refutation of a mainstream narrative in regards to a figure presented as a villain, and see it as all the same. This is why I’ve always felt that people should be taught historiography before they’re ever taught any actual history narrative, even in school.

[robespierrist-maoist]

You do realize that Robespierre would have rebelled against Stalinist Russia or Maoist China, right? Communism is everything that the Revolution despised - illiberal, undemocratic, authoritarian, and aristocratic (in the sense of the Party forming a new aristocracy, not the old aristocracy being powerful.) Stalin was closer to Louis XVI and saying he was anything like Robespierre or Saint-Just is an insult to everything that the Revolution stood for.

To anyone else reading this post, assuming this Bolshevik ever answers this ask - we should be working together to keep fascists and reactionaries out of this fandom, not welcoming them the moment they wave a red flag and add “the people” to their vocabulary. A Nazi is still a Nazi, under whichever colours he chooses to fly.

This, your ask, is literally just how pop history talks about Robespierre. Even just a cursory understanding of Marxist theory will brush past like 95% of this. There is a *very* good reason reactionaries have spent so long literally claiming Robespierre was a precursor to Stalin. That Jacobinism was a precursor to Bolshevism.

In fact, the first revolutionary communist in the modern sense, before even Karl Marx, was Gracchus Babeuf! A French Revolutionary! One who took inspiration from Robespierre and wanted to revolt against the Directory! Look up the Conspiracy of Equals!

Minor point, but I don’t advocate for “the people.” I advocate for the workers and oppressed peoples of the world. On that account, I’m even critical of those like Robespierre for not being left enough, technically. We don’t talk about class struggle because it makes for a good slogan y’know. And keep in mind that “class” is about relationships to production, not power over the government.

“Illiberal” only in the sense that liberalism is unable to actually achieve liberty, equality, or fraternity.

“Undemocratic” towards the exploiting class, perhaps, but significantly more democratic in the workplace. Plus, fun fact, communist parties have internal factions with opposing policies, just like “liberal democracy,” just within one party rather than in two. Whichever policy wins more votes goes into effect, regardless of the “leader’s” opinion on it. It’s called “democratic centralism.” I have my critiques for how these systems have worked in some cases, but it would be deeply silly to act like democracy didn’t exist at least to the same extent as, say, America, where we get to vote for which exploiter will exploit us to which extent every few years. Here’s a good book:

Amazon.com

“Authoritarian” only in the sense that no society where classes still exist can be anything BUT. You as a revolutionary government don’t suppress the exploiting class without the authority to do so. You think the Committee of Public Safety would disagree with that? Look up “On Authority” by Engels for a basic outline.

As for the charge that the party can form a new ruling class, yeah! You wanna know who warned against that? Mao Zedong! That’s what the Cultural Revolution was all about! That’s what that was! Him literally encouraging the people to rise up against his own party to prevent that potential outcome! The execution was late and chaotic, granted (revolutions rarely aren’t chaotic), but your concern about the party was literally the thing “Maoist China” as you call it was trying to address! Here’s a great podcast on the Cultural Revolution created by an acquaintance of mine:

Here’s a good GENERAL starting place to understand where I am actually coming from, in terms of Marxist theory, instead of regurgitating nonsense from the same people who absolutely *insist* that Robespierre was a bloodthirsty maniac who singlehandedly performed the Terror

Socialism 101

Socialism 101

Also, read “Blackshirts and Reds” because it’s a super short book which doesn’t require much background info. Michael Parenti is a bit libbed up but that’s ironically what makes him a good defender of the USSR for purposes such as these.

[iskranw]

Basics of Marxism

Marxism is a political theory developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid to late 1800s. The theory emerged out of the philosophical tendency of Hegel which was based on dialectics. From his study within the Young Hegelians, Marx went on to develop dialectical materialism.

Dialectical Materialism, in short, is the idea that the world can be understood through the actions of opposing forces. These forces are material in nature.

The materialism is well described as follows: “the Marxist philosophical materialism holds that matter, nature, being, is an objective reality existing outside and independent of our consciousness; that matter is primary, since it is the source of sensations, ideas, consciousness, and that consciousness is secondary, derivative, since it is a reflection of matter, a reflection of being; that thought is a product of matter which in its development has reached a high degree of perfection, namely, of the brain, and the brain is the organ of thought; and that therefore one cannot separate thought from matter without committing a grave error.”

Materialism is best understood against its opposing force, idealism. Idealism believes that the external world is subjective and based on the force/spirit that makes up consciousness. Unlike materialism, idealism believes that the matter of the world depends on consciousness to exist.

Viewing idealism and materialism in context with one another is a good example of dialectics. They are two opposing forces which exist within the philosophical question of "what is reality". These two tendencies are mutually exclusive and opposite. The differences between them are known as contradictions.

Marx understood that because the material creates consciousness, so too does the material create human society. The main material component of human society that must be grasped to understand human sociology is the creation and allocation of resources. The overall system of creating and allocating resources is known as the mode of production and makes up the base/infrastructure of society. Built upon this base, the superstructure of society is formed: religion, culture, law etc. In such, the economic system of society not only infiltrates but in itself creates the society.

In order to change society (its cultures, its laws, its religion) to a significant degree, the mode of production must change.

The mode of production that we have now is known as capitalism. This was the case at the time of Marx, and has been the case in the "west" since the feudal period ended (there is a lot more to say on this but this is where it'll be left for now). In capitalism, the powerful are those who make up the class of the bourgeoise. The bourgeoise are those that own the means of production (the factories, tools; all the non-human items needed for production). Their ability to own the means of production make them the only place the proletariat (those that sell their labor as a commodity for, usually, a wage) can go to in order to gain the resources needed for survival. Not only is there an inherent power imbalance, but the bourgeoise class gets access to vaster wealth through the exploitation of the class of the proletariat.

The proletariat, which create the value the bourgeoise sells, are exploited through the imbalance between their wage and the profit the bourgeoise earns. In essence, if the owner of the company you work for is making a profit you are not being payed the value of your work. All the profit earned comes from the worker's added value to the raw resources. The owner (bourgeoise) must make more than you in order to expand their ability to exploit more workers (grow their business).

This greater wealth comes in the form of capital. Whereas the proletariat spend their money to buy commodities, the bourgeoise are able to take the value they extract from the workers and use it to make more money. Money that is used to create more money is known as capital.

Your boss is entitled to this extracted value due to the fact that he has made a contract with you to buy your labor power. Your boss now "owns" your work. Your boss also owns the means of production. A change in this system of exploitation will require a change in the idea of private property, which is the ideological framework that gives the bourgeoise the right to own these things.

This is why Engels described communism as: "the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat." (Engels, Principles of Communism).

This is also why Marx explained that "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." (Marx, The Communist Manifesto).

The role of private property has moved beyond the ownership of things and onto the ownership of abstract money. It is possible to own debt, to own parts of a company one does not manage, etc.

"The capitalist right to property reaches its most complete development in capital held in the shape of shares and industrial credit" (Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution).

This type of private property has become a critical feature of modern capitalism. Capitalism has moved beyond an economy based on the exchange of things and into the realm of finance. Credit, stocks, bonds, and other forms of monetary abstraction have become a key aspect of the economy. This is known as finance capital.

"...the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still ‘reigns’ and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the ‘geniuses’ of financial manipulation." (Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism).

This stage of financial manipulation, the division of the world, and monopolies is known as imperialism.

Under imperialism, there are countries which reap the rewards. These countries are known as the imperial core. The imperial core extracts resources from less developed nations and keeps them in a state of dependence through colonialism, unjust loans, and a reliance on the imperial states to have a global market. These exploited nations are known as the imperial periphery or periphery countries.

This unjust system is a feature of capitalism that will not end until the base of society changes.

Communism is the next stage in development of the mode of production. Communism, once achieved, will be a classless, stateless, moneyless society. This society will be made possible through increased automation, an abundance of the necessities of life and a focus on producing them, and the removal of the profit incentive. This future will reduce working hours to the minimum required for the production of what is needed in society which will allow for creativity and intellectual pursuits to blossom.

This is a beautiful and possible future, but it will not be the immediate future after capitalism has ended. First, socialism must be introduced.

Socialism is the intermediary step between communism and capitalism which will eradicate the bourgeoise and their ideological impacts and lay the groundwork for the future communist society. Although Marx wrote often about Communism, he spent less time on developing the ideas of how to get there (with the notable exception of Critique of the Gotha Programme). Lenin, a later theorist who would become the leader of the Soviet Union, spent more time developing these ideas.

A note on the term socialism: Socialism is both a broad umbrella term for an ideology that favors socially owned means of production, and the name of the intermediary step between communism and capitalism in Lenin's theoretical writings. Many communists use the term socialism exclusively for that intermediary step. Many non-communists do not even know this difference. In this writing, socialism means the intermediary step.

Unlike communism, socialism will not be stateless. Socialism will require a strong state to ensure the bourgeoise and their interests do not rise again, to defend itself against external capitalist states, and to manage an economy.

This state is often described as the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat is best understood through the difference between it and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The dictatorship of the bourgeoise is what we have now - a state which exists to enforce the class interests of the bourgeoise. The dictatorship of the proletariat will be a state which exists to enforce the class interests of the proletariat.

Lenin defined the dictatorship of the proletariat as follows: "the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors".

In order to ensure the dictatorship of the proletariat accurately reflects the interests of the proletariat, democracy will be needed. This type of democracy is known as a workers democracy and contrasts with the current democratic system, a bourgeois democracy.

In order to reach the stage of socialism, a revolution will be necessary. Those who understand the necessity of revolution are revolutionary socialists/communists. Those who do not believe a revolution is necessary for the achievement of socialism are known as reformists. Many reformists are in favor of reaching socialism through elections, a strategy known as electoralism. Reformism and electoralism are flawed as they do not understand that we exist under the dictatorship of the bourgeoise and the state will not allow socialism to be achieved as it goes against the interests of the class it was designed to protect.

Revolution will require the proletariat to achieve class consciousness, which is an understanding of their interests as a class and how to achieve them. It is the goal of revolutionaries to raise class consciousness so that the people will make revolution happen. The revolutionaries who study and work to raise class consciousness and the party they belong to are known as the vanguard party. The vanguard party is a group of dedicated organizers who devote much of their time to bringing about revolution. They must be highly organized and knowledgable in order to lead the people to revolution because the vanguard party is not large enough on its own to make the revolution happen.

A note on the vanguard party: There is a common misunderstanding that the vanguard party believes itself to be better than the people and exists as a group separate from them. This is not the case. The vanguard party is simply made up of those who have devoted their time to revolution and are the most knowledgeable. Any person may join the vanguard party so long as they are willing to put in the time and effort. Once revolution happens, the vanguard party will be in the position (due to their knowledge and study) to lead the people in achieving their own interests. The vanguard, however, must understand the critical role the people will play in their own liberation.

The vanguard party must be highly organized in order to achieve its goals. This is achieved through democratic centralism. With democratic centralism, the party votes on the positions it will take and strategies it will use. Once the vote has happened, those in the party must act in support of these positions and strategies regardless of what their original stance was. Votes can be redone after a certain amount of time if the organization determines that there is enough of a need for it. Democratic centralism does not exist to quash dissent, but to organize dissent allowing for a unified party and the raising of key issues.

The vanguard party must also be highly knowledgeable in order to raise class consciousness. This knowledge comes through reading, or in some other way learning, theory. Theory is the intellectual tradition of marxism and it is how ideas from expert thinkers are communicated and right ideas are conveyed. It is mostly made up of books and pamphlets written in the past. It is not possible to be a member of the vanguard party without reading (or listening to) theory. Any communist must read theory.

It is important for the reading of theory to not become "book worship". Ideas must be understood, but flexibility and critical analysis is required.

"When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a "prophet" but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalisation of mystical notion as that of "prophecy" ever enters our minds...We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation." (Mao, Oppose Book Worship).

Theory is essential but it is not enough, praxis is also needed. Praxis is action. Theory gives the tools to act correctly, but action is needed as well. The overall goal should always be to raise class consciousness through praxis, but the question of the effectiveness of different types of praxis is a divisive one. Part of the reason for the divisiveness is that the particularities of time and place will change what type of action is the most effective.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Folks don’t understand that if the parasite state thesis (ie, the majority of the working class of imperialist states are labor aristocratic via labor arbitrage) holds true, worsening living standards in the imperial core will make them more *reactionary,* not necessarily more revolutionary. Of course, the subjective factor plays a big role here, which is why political education is important, but when your ability to even just survive relies on superprofits, you will be materially inclined to defend those superprofits. The reproduction of imperialism will be fueled by the working class which is allegedly suffering (but in truth benefiting) from it.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Really, a big part of the issue of the revolutionary intelligentsia is that we fundamentally are not all on the same page. After 1953, a big portion declared Leninism dead. After 1991, a big portion declared Marxism in general dead. Some of them were never on the Marx train in the first place, instead being anarchists, radical feminists, or some eclectic combination of all three. Not to mention the Trotskyists.

Only just now is the revolutionary intelligentsia in the metropole even beginning to take Maoism seriously, despite it being at the fore of actual revolutionary movements for decades now, and that’s still held back by an insistence either of some kind of “orthodox Marxism” without Lenin, ignoring the fact that it is through revolution that assertions of our science have a chance at being proven, or Leninism without any lessons learned. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, in so many words, is niche in the west, despite being THE landscape of revolutionary practice right now.

Part of it is, perhaps, that Maoism currently lacks easy answers. It is a theoretical terrain still being mapped, and those partaking must put in genuine critical thought in order to come to positions instead of simply citing Lenin or Engels abstractly. In short, we (as in, those who are explicitly theorizing in the Maoist terrain) ARE the Lenins, and Bernsteins, and Kautskys, in this moment. We are the ones forging the theoretical path. And that’s a lot harder than just riffing on an already internally consistent and mapped out theoretical terrain by throwing some Althusser on top.

[robespierrist-maoist]

The Wounded Knee Occupation, aka the Second Wounded Knee.

In 1973, over 200 members of the Oglala Lakota people, alongside members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupied the location of the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, in the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. The occupation was in protest of tribal president Richard Wilson, who was a corrupt and abusive comprador leader on behalf of the American state. The people had previously attempted to organize through the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization to impeach him, but the legal route had failed them, so they became militant.

Importantly, with respect to the overall goals of AIM, the occupation was also highly critical of the US government and its consistent refusal to respect the sovereignty of indigenous peoples, including on the basis of failing to follow previously created treaties.

The federal government worked closely with Wilson and the closely associated Guardians of the Oglala Nation paramilitary group to break the occupation, which lasted almost two and a half months. 3 protesters were killed and 14 wounded, while the government and its allies only saw two injuries.

The occupation officially ended in a truce after 71 days. Following the truce, however, violence ramped up significantly on the reservation, with Wilson and the federal government repressing the people harshly. There are over 60 unsolved murders from this period, although the FBI claims only 4 (a number not taken seriously by either indigenous people OR most historians).

The 81 year old Leonard Peltier remains a political prisoner from this backlash, falsely convicted of killing two federal agents.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Some general issues of marxist feminism arise from the attempts to universalize particulars. This is to say, the strict division of labor into productive men and reproductive women exists, but only in a certain geographical and historical context, not universally across all peoples and across all epochs of class society. So while there is great need to analyze reproductive labor and the value it produces for little-to-no pay, one must keep in mind that this is an analysis of a particular state of affairs which encompasses only some women, not all women generally and historically.

Even insofar as a society with such a division of labor goes, bourgeois women can opt out of many of the actual tasks of reproductive labor, instead hiring non-bourgeois individuals, usually also women, to perform those tasks instead. Surrogacy, child care, etc. In this way, a bourgeois woman exploits a non-bourgeois woman’s labor. And that is just the lightest example of how this is not a particularly universal experience.

That there is no universal experience of “womanhood” across all of history and all of society undermines virtually all transphobic attitude out there on a rational level, it should be noted, as trans women become simply one out of a myriad of experiences of womanhood which do not align with the traditional, often white imperial core labor aristocratic and petty bourgeois, visions of radical or marxist feminism.

This is only a very broad theoretical overview of this criticism, of which there are in fact many nuances, but it’s something to keep firmly in mind when exploring feminism more broadly. There inherently can not be a single one-size-fits-all feminism for all peoples, in the same way there can not be a single one-size-fits-all step-by-step tactical plan for revolution for all societies. It is all historically contingent. Feminist theory, even when dialectically materialist, must be subject to an understanding of bias, social and class analysis, and historiography, in order to understand where to weed the universal, if anywhere, from the particular.

One must, of course, remain a dialectical materialist. It is simply necessary to apply dialectical materialism to particular material circumstances and conditions insofar as the oppression of women goes, rather than attempting to impose an overly rigid system derived from one experience over all contexts. This is the basic principle of proletarian feminism.

What does all of this mean? Firstly, that the division of labor between men and women is insufficient to explain the patriarchy, and thus reproduction is insufficient to explain the patriarchy. Indeed, anthropology largely backs this premise up, as, historically, those who reproduced were often held as equals, if not revered, in at least some primitive communist societies. So if the division of labor is insufficient to explain the patriarchy, and is even sometimes not strictly present as such in societies which are still patriarchal, what is the root cause of patriarchy? The answer can only really be class, taking advantage of otherwise benign factors in order that oppression and exploitation occurs.

[robespierrist-maoist]

Book haul! First, a historiography book on how the French Revolution was interpreted by early German and Austrian Marxists, and the latter about Gracchus Babeuf, obviously an important figure to revolutionary history beyond even his own actions.

[robespierrist-maoist]

The thing about a functioning constitutional monarchy is that it only works if the monarch’s ability to be a monarch is made to be dependent on the success of the bourgeoisie. This subjugates the crown under the bourgeoisie in practice, turning the contradiction non-antagonistic. If the monarch’s interests are not firmly dependent on bourgeois interests, the constitutional monarchy will be unable to function, its internal contradictions too great.

Of course, subjective matters are still relevant. Louis could well have been such a King had he kept his mouth shut and allowed himself to become subjugated in such a manner. His interests aligned with doing so, and yet he didn’t. But that got his head lobbed off.

In the English context, that contradiction continued to exist, albeit in a fairly non-antagonistic manner, until the crown became what is now practically a pure figurehead. There remains a contradiction but it’s one which will almost certainly remain inert without big changes. Just know that if King Charles III tried to pull some shit, he would not have any actual ability to do so. No material basis for power outside that which the bourgeoisie grants him.

The implication, of course, is that a constitutional monarchy can only exist, even in its most unstable form, if capitalist production has at least begun to take hold. France is a good example. That such a system was put into place in the first place implies the growing power of capitalist commodity production. That Louis could have resisted (were he more competent) implies it was not yet so dominant that it did not require a revolutionary break from the ancien regime.

An important consequence of this is that England was firmly capitalist by the 1770s. The English crown had not used its veto power in decades, and if it had tried to, it may well have been abolished by parliament, resulting in an outright British Republic. The crown de jure owned the colonies, but de facto did not. This is important to note because it brings into focus the fact that the American Revolution was not really a revolution at all, at least in the Marxist sense, but rather an intra-class war for independence. Insofar as the term “revolution” is used in the marxist sense of “the overthrow of one mode of production in favor of another,” the American Revolution would be more aptly described not as a bourgeois revolution, but a settler revolution, making firm the settler relations and leaving the settlers the dominant political, and thus economic, class. Obviously, settlerism is not a mode of production in and of itself, but it IS distinct from normal capitalism.

[robespierrist-maoist]

I should note that 1770s English capitalism was not quite capitalism as we would recognize it. Industrialization was still in its very early phases and the Industrial Revolution proper would not take off for another handful of years. We are talking a far more mercantile, trade-based capitalism. Commercial capitalism. Nevertheless, capitalism it was, and had been for some time.

It should be further noted that trade-based exploitation remains relevant in the age of industrial capitalism, particularly in the realm of unequal exchange, so this is not a form which has died out.