• admiralteal
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    2 years ago

    Not to no true scotsman this shit, but does anyone self-identify as “Leninist” who isn’t a Stalinist?

    Marxist is a pretty tame word, all things considered. Marxism is a pretty broad tent that fits a lot of people. But I don’t think I have ever interacted with a self-described “Leninist” that wasn’t authoritarian and against civil rights. This coming from a guy who regularly quotes Lenin.

    • @vih@sh.itjust.works
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      82 years ago

      Indeed. Leninism as something separate to Marxism comes from Stalin’s “The Foundations of Leninism” in 1924. He wasted no time after Lenin died to coopt Lenins already flawed adaptations for his own needs. There is no “Leninism” separate from Stalin.

      As a Marxist, and someone who have considered myself a communist (though I rarely use the term now mostly because it results in tedious discussions about exactly by what definition; a more precise term would be libertarian Marxist), I’ve stood face to face with “Marxist-Leninists” who told me that if they were in charge I’d be sent to a labor camp because I supported democracy.

      To me they’re as much of a threat and as much of an enemy to me as any fascist.

      “Democratic” centralism was a very dangerous mistake, and the notion of a vanguard party likewise, because they combine to make a party far too easy to capture by people who think they know best, and so can do away with the corrective input of other people, and that attracts exactly the same type of people who are attracted to fascism. There may be distinctions in who exactly they want to lock up and what they want to outlaw, but there are significant overlaps there too.