Debunking NATO propaganda and consent manufacturing means massively massively more than your personal relationships and comfort. I don’t want to hear how hard it is to be called a ‘shill for Putin’. People should have already been calling you a shill for Assad, for Kim Jong Un, for Xi, for Castro or you have been fucking NEGLIGENT AS LEFTISTS. If you’re in the imperial core your primary fucking duty is to anti imperialism. Clearly a lot of you haven’t been doing this. Now there are possible nuclear consequences and I see a great deal of you still too fucking chicken shit to stick their necks out for people living under the thumbs of America and NATO. Investigate the situation thoroughly and have an informed, consistent take based in Marxism and historical materialism and then REPEAT IT LOUDLY AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND LET IT BE KNOWN THAT THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD DO NOT STAND FOR THIS. This is supposed to be a board of principled communists, act like it.
Read Combat Liberalism
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
- Mao Zedong, Combat Liberalism
Yeah, I’ve read combat liberalism already. It needs to be interpreted differently by a westerner in 2022 than by the Chinese peasants it was originally written for, because our material conditions are different from theirs, namely we have drastically fewer and less secure social bonds. The fact that this needs to be explained is baffling, honestly.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. […] This is one type of liberalism.
If you really took that to heart in America in 2022 and tried to follow those words exactly you would be shot in less than a week. Shut the fuck up
III. OPPOSE BOOK WORSHIP
Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, “Show me where it’s written in the book.” When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from “a higher organ of leadership” but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.
The method of studying the social sciences exclusively from the book is likewise extremely dangerous and may even lead one onto the road of counter-revolution. Clear proof of this is provided by the fact that whole batches of Chinese Communists who confined themselves to books in their study of the social sciences have turned into counter-revolutionaries. 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. Many who have read Marxist books have become renegades from the revolution, whereas illiterate workers often grasp Marxism very well. Of course we should study Marxist books, but this study must be integrated with our country’s actual conditions. We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.
How can we overcome book worship? The only way is to investigate the actual situation.
