I am trying to understand as much as possible about socialism as well as other leftist ideologies, and looking around i’ve seen many being critical about democratic socialism, but i honestly struggle to understand why that is such a bad idea as some say. I get that it’s incompatible with ML, but it doesn’t sound so unrealistic and unreasonable to me, so… can you explain? Excuse the ignorance, but as i said socialism is a new topic for me, i mean no offense to anybody
Sounds like you’re confusing DemSocs for SocDems. The goal of DemSocs is explicitly liberation of the working class, they just want to do it gradually, reforming the system in the interim to make that eventual liberation easier. SocDems are the ones whose goal is preserving capitalism with longer chains.
Sure, but such reform must come after the revolutionary party overthrows the ruling class and cements its rule. The Soviet Union, for example, did not achieve socialism overnight (see the New Economic Policy), however the Bolsheviks had to consolidate their power first and foremost against the reactionary and counterrevolutionary forces. The goal is to impose reforms ourselves, and not beg and demand it from the bourgeoise, or else such reform cannot be guaranteed. If you agree with this stance, then you may be a Marxist-Leninist.
On the contrary, I think certain reforms help bring about a proper revolution. The USSR achieved quite a lot, but I don’t think they achieved socialism period, largely because of the vanguard. It sounds great in theory to seize total power so you can responsibly divide it without the interference of the bourgeoisie, but historically those with total power are hesitant to give it up. And that process takes time; even if your revolutionary leaders are perfectly trustworthy, by the time power has been cemented they may be replaced by more ambitious leaders (like Stalin, for instance).
In my eyes, organizing and executing a successful revolution is harder than getting a plurality of people to vote in coordination. You’d need that much support for a revolution anyway, so why not try to get as much as we can through reform today while we build the revolution of tomorrow?
Well, history until now has favored revolutions over electoral campaigns. Should the socialists get elected into power, what would guarantee that the reactionaries do not interfere and overthrow you? (I have Chile’s Allende in mind here, or Jan 6th). It doesn’t matter how socialists get to power really, be it through elections or revolution, the point is that it is imperative and inevitable that they need to consolidate their power or else no socialist project can outlast them.
Socialism is by definition a transitional period between capitalism and communism, so in that sense they did achieve it. The whole point is to gradually transition into communism without disrupting citizens’ livelihood.
Can’t say I agree with you there. The USSR collapsed, China had backpedalled into private enterprise, the revolutionary states that haven’t collapsed have hardly brought about international communism.
Except “they” is going to include a lot of dark triad types. Consolidating power is only good if you can trust the people you’ve consolidated it in. Untrustworthy people are drawn to power, and they’re willing to lie and plot to get it.
Socialism is by definition worker ownership of the means of production. If soviet workers didn’t have democratic control over their production, it isn’t socialism. They may have been aspiring towards it, and a noble attempt it was, but they drifted pretty far from the goal.
Which is why reform seems the obvious choice. Any revolution is going to bring chaos and suffering, as well as a potentially slippery power vacuum. What happens when your revolution successfully topples the government, the corporations, how do you coordinate production and distribution? I don’t mean eventually, I get eventually, but day one after the revolution how is society going to work?
Even if you have the perfect theoretical system ready to go, you still have to implement it, and that takes time. That’s a lot of disrupted livelihood.
Your arguments rely on the sole premise that socialism was either not achieved or failed in the Soviet Union and China. But the historical facts prove otherwise.
The Bolsheviks succeeded in their revolution and managed to establish a socialist state. The “collapse” of the USSR seventy years later is irrelevant and does not change this fact.
Marxism-Leninism is realistic and not idealistic. It prioritizes the consolidation of the revolution and building socialism at home before getting drawn into volatile revolutions abroad.
The soviet workers did have democratic control over their production. Not as individuals, but as a collective. This control was exerted through so-called Primary Party Organizations present in factories, farming collectives and neighbourhoods. Similarly, China has enterprise party branches which are crucial for management.
China has shown the opposite of backpedaling into private enterprise. Since the start of this century, the state has been stricter in regulating non-public enterprises and directing them towards the social goals that are set up by the five year plans.
All of these points can be fact checked and there is plenty of academic research done on them. I can recommend for starters Roland Boer’s works.
Just like other socialist states have done in the past and presently: you let the workers control and manage the existing factories, farms and enterprises according to what they seem fit; you organize them and provide them with enough training and education. There are plenty of lessons from history in that regards which one can learn from. I don’t know why you seem to think this to be a difficult matter.
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Attempting to reform the system has been done time and time again over decades, and it comes to the same conclusion: it does not work. Demsocs are a tool of the oligarchy to keep you tied up in electoralism so that you don’t fight for class solidarity against them.
The same can be said for revolution. No past attempts have worked, of either path. Sure there’s some temporary progress, but the fact that we’re not currently living in global communism means nothing has worked so far. But then that’s generally how things go. Things don’t work until they do. People tried making planes long before the Wright brothers, and conceptually they weren’t far off from their failed predecessors.
I don’t feel “tied up” by electorialism. Voting is one tool which only requires serious obligation for a couple hours every couple years. Even direct action as, or in support of, a candidate only seriously occupies a few months at a time.
Voting doesn’t prevent me from otherwise fighting for class solidarity. In fact, political action tends to draw people dissatisfied with the conditions of their class. Electoralism and protests and other “tools of the oligarchy” are excellent ways to find motivated comrades searching for solidarity. You don’t have to limit the people surrounding electorial reform to electorial reform. They’re often also the ones who want to get involved with organizing and mutual aid.
So, let me see if I’ve got this straight, you believe the answer to class solidarity is supporting the people that are fighting class solidarity?
What? No, that’s not even close to what I said and that kind of bad faith infighting does more harm to class solidarity than the bourgeois duopoly ever could.
“Supporting” a candidate in a general election is for minimizing the damage of the bourgeois duopoly, which means voting for the lesser evil. Primary elections are for trying to make the lesser evil as good as possible.
The answer to class solidarity is local action, organizing, and mutual aid. Educating your neighbors, and building community together. Voting just slows the damage a bit while you build solidarity.
You can’t minimize damage from the bourgeoisie if you continue to support them. To eliminate damage from the bourgeoisie is to completely stop supporting them. The idea of lesser evil does not exist. It only exists in the mind of a liberal that thinks that they can reform the system as it stands. There are too many safeguards built into the system to prevent reform from happening. Any leftist that’s read an even single line from Marx knows that reform is the path to failure.
Sure you can, by voting for whichever bourgeoisie faction is going to do less damage. It’s easy.
No it isn’t, that’s silly. As long as 150 million people continue to support them, my lack of support is totally impotent. I talked to dozens of people who said they completely stopped supporting both parties, yet their damage has not been eliminated.
Maybe if we could get 70 million people to support working class candidates in every office, we could succeed. But that’s supporting a good candidate, not not supporting bad ones. Not doing things rarely changes the world. It’s about what you are doing. And we didn’t have 70 million people to vote third party, so that strategy is impotent right now.
Yeah, no, that’s nonsense. Of course the lesser evil exists, no two things are perfectly identical. Republicans target all the same people and rights as Democrats, while also targeting additional ones. Name one group that suffers more under Democrats than Republicans.
“Lesser evil doesn’t exist” is a concept that exists in the minds of Manichean idealists, and those people don’t change things, they just argue online because everything isn’t perfect The people that change things exist in the world of middle-grounds and messy details.
Not really, there’s been plenty of reform in history. And if you want to talk safeguards, believe it or not, there are actually even more safeguards to prevent revolution from happening. For the life of me I cannot imagine how someone would think violent revolution against the most powerful military force in the world is somehow the more achievable goal.
I’ve read quite my share, and I disagree, so wrong on that count. Again, more counterproductive division between the “real” Marxists who totally agree with you and all the secret liberals who believe literally anything else. As if the revolution vs. reform question hasn’t been one of the most debated topics among socialists for the entire history of socialism.
And secondly, Marx was an intelligent scholar and a powerful thinker, but the man was not omniscient or infallible. No one person is. Not to mention the fact that he died over a century ago. Several revolutions have been attempted since his time, and yet we have not achieved international communism. We need to accept the possibility that a keen eye for economic analysis does not translate to expertise in social change.