Before anyone gets snarky with a “stop using reddit” I barely use the site so please don’t test my nerves. However on the brief occasions I browse it for a skim of the “left” political climate, I consistently attempt to put forward genuine analysis.
Yet right now I would like to briefly rant about how infuriating supposed “Communists” can be. These people see a “mass” demonstration and forget the cardinal rule that the one who obtains power during mass unrest will always be the forces which have the most resources and, most importantly, are the most well organized.
The labor unions in Iran, though somewhat well organized from my understanding, are still not at a level where they could contest a change in goverment. The existence of socialist consciousness is not at all present, let alone a vanguard to guide a revolution.
The only faction which holds the resources (money and arms), the political clarity (Allegiance to imperialists), and the organization (an entire underground industry) to take advantage of the power vaccum which would be left by the government’s fall is the US and Israel aligned forces who seek to turn the country into another Syria or Libya.
I can handle baby leftists saying ignorant lib bullshit, it’s a simply an exercise in persuasion. However when self avowed Communists are tripping over this hurdle, then I’m enraged.
Someone not being ready to digest Marxist analysis is forgivable, but someone who is assured in their clearly broken Marxist analysis is genuinely blood boiling.
it’s the eternal september
The I’m sure reddit systems/bots boost ultras and “communist” idiots.
Extremely possible, note how most of communist subs on reddit have been either banned by reddit or taken over by ultras, while here we don’t have any such problem for years
The capitalists have been promoting anti-communist voices since they learned what a communism is.
白左 are unfortunately typical.
Your frustration is understandable. And naive is, I think, a good word for at least some of that stuff. The way it seems to me is like there is a somewhat recurring problem among people who are newer to “left” politics, especially those in the imperial core and so largely disconnected from any historically successful revolutionary effort, where they have a tendency to be very angry about what’s going on and believe that anger can be harnessed like the power of the sun in order to bring about communism tomorrow. The enthusiasm is great and all, but when it combines with yet-to-be-unlearned imperialist narratives about other countries, it can sound very western chauvinist very fast. “Why doesn’t X foreign country that is anti-imperialist but not socialist become socialist tomorrow? What’s up with that? Shouldn’t we support that?” We could as well ask “Why has the west routinely failed so spectacularly to summon sustained vanguard forces without them being destroyed or diluted?” Which should be a much more pressing and relevant question to someone living in the west than nosing into matters they don’t understand, thousand of miles away, when they’re just now barely beginning to understand the situation in their own country.
Mind you, I’m not saying it’s invalid or unacceptable to ever weigh in like it’s a binary thing. But one of (I feel) the more important moments for me was learning to say less about countries I don’t live in. If there’s something where I’m confident on the specifics and saying it might help people understand better how imperialism works, then great. If I can correct a fiction/lie people have been told about another country, that could be very helpful too. But if it’s just about how a country I don’t live in “should be”, what gives me the authority to say? Because I’m western? Because if that’s the only reason, I need to STFU and learn more from people who have actually researched the history and present of the country through, at minimum, an anti-imperialist lens, if not a communist one. That might read harsh, but I mean it more staunchly than I do judgmentally.
On reddit, anyone can claim to be anything. A right wing grifter can pretend to be a “communist” in order to sow discord amongst communist groups, or someone who just learned about communism last week can go on there and claim to be a diehard communist despite not reading a single bit of communist theory. Additionally, anyone actively advocating for genuine communist principles on reddit tends to get their accounts banned because it is a US corporate website that works closely with the US state department.
All this is to say that there is a kind of selection bias on reddit, where principled communists are often removed and fake communists or very naive communists are allowed to stay. So you have people who know nothing about communism talking to other people about communism with all of them insisting they are experts on communism because they spend so much time on reddit talking about how much they are the “real” communists. It really is enough to drive anyone mad.
someone who just learned about communism last week can go on there and claim to be a diehard communist despite not reading a single bit of communist theory
“I was an ML but it sucked so i became a fash! (always were)”
The amount of times I’ve asked a former “Communist” what they didn’t like about the theory and got a response of “It was just a waste of time to read it” is ridiculous.
ultras are extremely damaging for communist movements worldwide
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