Left-wingers tend to be more critical of certain expressions of authority, whereas sometimes this in excess can be destructive.

Side note on this.

Many leaders and progressive thinkers were awful in their personal lives, especially with relatives or spouses, like comrade Stalin, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein, etc. This is because humans make grave mistakes all the time, irrespective of how correct they are. Except Lenin, perhaps, he was both an impeccable human being and very often correct. Look at your own lives, have you not hurt someone? Were you never selfish, arrogant, insensible? People make those mistakes all the time, to a greater or lesser extent. Why should our leaderships be different? Should we disregard historical figures in the past because of their personal mistakes? Should we disregard current leaderships for that?

I think this is a case by case thing, but sometimes we simply cannot afford to be too much critical. Think of an actual communist, politically isolated, representing a small city in the bourgeois state, or something. If the opposition found out bad stuff about that guy’s past, of course the bourgeois media would create a campaign to hunt them down. In such cases should we join the hunt? This is the challenge of having the correct historical understanding of your time and place, so these choices become clearer. Over the time you start acting based on the political outcome, instead of an abstract moral value which you do not adopt yourself in your life. Then you criticize any mistake in private if possible, outside the eyes of the opposition.

One could argue that being gay in the West specifically is curiously associated with a particular identity, which includes music tastes and style of clothing, manner of speaking… Gay people in Brazil has very similar tastes as gay people in US, like adoring “pop divas” like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, etc.

But I’m not arguing that, I just noticed that it resembles a gender identity on itself, even if in principle is just a sexual orientation.

probably because they restored it

I don’t know PSL, I’m not United Statesian, but I found this trying to find pride parade and PSL, Lockheed Martin, etc.

Lockheed Martin was present in 2023 DC Pride Parade, and PSL was present in 2016 DC Pride Parade, but I couldn’t confirm the presence of both simultaneously, nor do I know what was PSL’s purpose in this corporate event.

Excellent, I share similar views, comrade. The fact that very easily religion “suddenly” became a phenomenon on post-Soviet countries is a testament that even with constant materialist anti-religion propaganda, you’ll just give people reason to be bitter with your regime, even if you give them all they need. Because religion is a matter of identity, something fostered through generations of family lineage, and in summary acquired socially. We can’t change this through intervention, we can only help the political struggle against bourgeois ideology and exploitation in religion

Any religion is welcome. We cannot fight against religion, practice has showed us this. Religion is by definition under the influence of bourgeois control, it follows that there should be a political struggle in the religious camp as well. Liberation theology is one example of that. So if we accept people from different religious origins and beliefs in our party, it’s an opportunity in following the party line on religious places of action, such as churches, mosques, sanctuaries, etc. Churches are already a place where people share an identity, it can perfectly become a place of political organization. This is well exploited by the extreme right-wing in Brazil, for instance.

This is just formalism, it doesn’t matter what you name it, but what you do in practice. This discussion has contributed nothing to it.

Look, I tried to explain it quite often, with no bad intention at all.

So did I, comrade, but I’ve only received insistence, not counter-arguments on your part. Let’s review the conversation.

You said:

I personally only use “Marxist” and this is how I describe myself. Marxist-Leninist is not valid term in my opinion, because Lenin is the continuation of Marx

Many people all over the topic highlighted the importance of Lenin and how it’s not only a “continuation” of Marx, but a massive improvement of his works, and the first time Marx’s theories were put into practice. You seem to only focus on what people responded to you, and seem to be uninterested in the rest of the thread, so you replied,

As I said ML is not a valid term in my opinion and historically it was used after the establishing and banning of the “left opposition”, especially by Stalin.

Simply reiterating your position. Which, by the way, is FALSE, because Stalin did not coin or invent the term “Marxism-Leninism”, throughout the left opposition struggles, Stalin mostly used the term “Leninism”. The earliest instance of “Marxism-Leninism” I could find in a written work was in 1929, after the struggle against the so-called “left” opposition was already won. By that time, some Latin American parties such as the Communist Party of Peru, had already adopted Marxism-Leninism:

El capitalismo se encuentra en su estadio imperialista. Es el capitalismo de los monopolios, del capital financiero, de las guerras imperialistas por el acaparamiento de los mercados y de las fuentes de materias brutas. La praxis del socialismo marxista en este período es la del marxismo-leninismo. El marxismo-leninismo es el método revolucionario de la etapa del imperialismó, y de los monopoilos. El Partido socialista del Perú lo adopta como método de lucha.

Capitalism is in its imperialist stage. It is the capitalism of monopolies, of finance capital, of imperialist wars for the monopolization of markets and sources of raw materials. The praxis of Marxist socialism in this period is that of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism is the revolutionary method of the stage of imperialism, and of monopolies. The Socialist Party of Peru adopts it as its method of struggle.

Notice it was published in 1929, but it was written in October 1928 by Mariátegui, before the earliest recorded usage of “Marxism-Leninism” by Stalin, which as far as I’ve researched, is from December 1928 in a speech The Right Danger in the German Communist Party. It’s possible other Soviet party members apart from Stalin used “Marxism-Leninism” before him. What’s important is that the term developed independently from the Soviet sphere and from Stalin itself, so stop associating the term “Marxism-Leninism” with Stalin, because Stalin mostly used the term Leninism until the late 1930’s.

Let’s proceed with your replies. I explained the importance of preserving the name of Lenin in the political orientation of a party or person, and I said that to claim the term “Marxism-Leninism” is invalid is just ignorance. You only repeated yourself and insisted:

I already explained often enough, that ML is still not a valid term for me, it doesnt even stop by Lenin and goes beyond the developments that occurred after his death.

Later, I argued,

What you call yourself is irrelevant, but to claim the term is invalid is just an spectacle of ignorance.

Does Marxism stop at Marx?

And then you ignored that and proceeded to focus on my tone, calling me mocking and sarcastic. Let’s review the tone you used beforehand:

Do I? Where? By saying that I would call myself Marxist and not add more things because to it or just by talking about “Marxism” and not “Marxisim-Leninism” in general? That’s stupid.

Well, I don’t want to be rude, but where the fuck did I want remove especially Lenin in his importance?

Instead of deflecting and crying about your tone, I proceeded to respond to you. I would expect you to do the same. So please proceed from where you left of.

You claimed “Marxism-Leninism” is not valid because it implies it “stops at Lenin”, and I questioned, “Does Marxism stop at Marx?”. Now please, go on, I’ve responded to all your arguments, I did not mock or was sarcastic to you, and I’m giving you all the liberty to respond. And once again, it’s not about what you call yourself, it’s about your claim that the term is invalid.

I said myself you’d be muted if you continued, but I take that back. If you want to continue insisting on your flawed reasoning, go ahead.

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin

The ProleWiki article provides an overall summary, but the article is mostly biographical and unfortunately unfinished. The famous Stalin work, Foundations of Lenininsm provides an outline of Lenin’s contributions to Marxism in general