I was an anarchist for a huge part of my life (most of my teenage years) and kinda began to get more connected with M-L and stuff like that, and I would call myself a marxist. Yet, everytime I talk with other leftist I either get called a tankie or an anarkiddie. If I recommend Das Kapital, I’m a state bootlicker or a left wing fascist. If I talk about how I prefer direct democracy but know that the process to communism is slow and needs some help of a state, I get called an anarkiddie. Anyway, I just find exhausting the infighting. I already struggle a lot with mental health just to be poorly treated by other people that, supposedly, want the same as all of us. Anyway you guys in lemmygrad have been always so nice, thanks btw. Have a nice week and thanks for reading my small rant.
trust me on this comrade, the people that call you tankie or state bootlicker are not left at all. also, socialist countries do have mechanisms of direct democracy.
If the people you talk to reject Das Kapital, they are no Marxists, and not worth your time. Focus on connecting with other Marxists. Left unity is a fantasy: Marxist unity is very doable, and essential to building socialism. Those who reject materialism will have no revolutionary clout and only hinder the unity you seek.
Direct democracy is very prominent on a local level in at least Cuba and China (at least that’s my impression), and probably in the DPRK, Vietnam and Laos, too. Having no elected representatives is completely unfeasible on a national level for any country with more than a hundred thousand or so citizens (and even that’s stretching it IMO – I doubt most people would be interested in keeping track of the effects of policies and events on tens of thousands of other people, especially if that’s not their full-time job), which is why AES countries use representative systems but ensure that officials can be stripped of their positions if their work is unsatisfactory. With that said, a disagreement on that front doesn’t justify insults
(obviously, people who reject you for recommending Capital are just unserious and/or ignorant, likely both)
I wouldn’t take anyone who throws tankie or red fash at you seriously. I roll my eyes when I hear those terms, I’d recommend seeking out some comrades through a local org or at least hanging out on here and hexbear.
I always come back to two things on leftist infighting:
- We all want to get to more or less the same place. It’s like we’re planning a road trip from New York to Los Angeles, and leftist infighting at this stage is like punching out your road trip friend before you even get in the car because you disagree about the route you take after you cross the Mississippi.
- In the imperial core we’re so far away from the material conditions that were present at the start of any AES state that no one can be certain about how we will get from here to a classless society. We all have our educated guesses, but we should also have some level of open-mindedness and humility because we’re in such a radically different environment than anything that came before.
