3. Should socialists support bourgeois-led national liberation movements?

A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism flows fairly naturally from the previous point.

In the previous text, Lenin argues that those who refuse to call for revolutionary actions against their own governments in WWI, but rather called for “neither victory nor defeat” were essentially taking the same stance as “the defense of the fatherland,” and accepting the framing that fighting the war was necessary to protect the nation, to guard against defeat. After this critique, Kievsky argued that the same logic should apply to bourgeois-led national liberation movements, that to support them is to support “the defense of the fatherland.”

Lenin repudiates this misunderstanding. The problem with “the defense of the fatherland” slogan is not that it is always wrong to “defend the fatherland,” but rather that WWI was not actually about defending the fatherland, rather, it was about the control of various colonies. Therefore, while it is unjustifiable to adopt a position of “the defense of the fatherland” in WWI, this does not mean that we must always reject any course of action that happens to defend somebody’s fatherland.

With this misunderstanding cleared up, Lenin presents the method by which we should understand conflicts: by viewing them as a continuation of policy, and by looking, on a case-by-case basis, at what dispute prior to the conflict led to the war. This does not mean looking at “who started it,” as he says in Socialism and War (cited in this text):

For example, if tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just,” “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slaveowning, predatory “great” powers.

Instead of looking at conflicts in terms of who’s the aggressor and who’s the defender, we should look at things in terms of class, and in terms of oppressor and oppressed. Imperialist powers do not have the right to defend their sovereignty; after all, if they did, then revolution would be unjustified.

From chapter 5 of the same work:

Here, Lenin makes a remarkable point. He argues that real international solidarity requires unity of action, but not necessarily unity of rhetoric. Specifically, in the case of Norway seeking independence from Sweden, he argues that Swedish socialists, those of the oppressor nation, were correct in giving unconditional support to Norway’s right to secede, that, if they had been critical of the movement and imposed conditions, then they would have been chauvinists. On the other hand, Norwegian socialists were correct to be critical and skeptical of the movement, on the basis that it was a bourgeois-led movement.

One way to think of this is two people bumping into each other on the street. If they both apologize, then there’s no conflict, even though they’re taking different stances on who’s at fault. On the other hand, if they try to arrive at a unified line on whose fault it really was, then there may be more conflict.

Lenin notes, here and in many other works, that there should be no inherent preference for large or small nations, for breaking apart or coming together, but that such questions should be considered in terms of how to best unite the proletariat and advance socialist goals. Secession movements can be used by the bourgeoisie to “drive a wedge” between people, however, this wedge only becomes stronger when such movements are opposed by the dominant group. You might say, “if you love someone, let them free,” the hope being that they will choose voluntarily to remain united.

Later, from the same chapter:

Here, Lenin provides one more condition for supporting a national liberation movement: it must not be a struggle “of the reactionary classes against imperialism and capitalism.” This phrasing can generate confusion, as imperialism and capitalism are often thought of as being reactionary. But he provides the context that “capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism,” meaning, the “reactionary classes” he’s discussing are classes which aim to return to a feudal system, such as the aristocracy, as distinct from the bourgeoisie.

To sum up, when looking at secession or an imperfect national liberation movement, or whether a nation should be defended, we should consider the following questions:

A. Is the conflict actually about national liberation, or it really about something else?

B. Will it start WWIII?

C. Is the movement not merely flawed, but reactionary, even relative to capitalism?

D. Am I in a position to critique the movement, without engaging in chauvinism?

2. Should socialists support the “lesser evil” or “underdog” in geopolitical affairs?

Lenin writes in Socialism and War:

Here, Lenin rejects the argument that Germany should be supported in it’s fight against Britain and France, regardless of the fact that Germany possessed fewer colonies than the others, because Germany was not fighting to free those colonies but rather to claim them for itself.

I have sometimes seen similar “lesser evil” arguments used to argue in favor of Russia in the modern day. But it should be understood that this particular line is inconsistent with Lenin’s stances. Yes, we can today see how much of the world is dominated by the US and NATO as compared to Russia, but if (mind the if) it is conceded that Russia is fighting merely to acquire resource colonies for itself, then it would be in a similar position to Germany in WWI, and should not be supported, critically or otherwise, from a Leninist perspective.

However, we must also look at (what I consider to be one of his best and most important works) The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War:

Here, Lenin once again rejects the idea of supporting the “lesser evil” by rejecting Trotsky’s framing of his position in that way. Rather, Lenin calls for the proletariat of all belligerent countries to conduct revolutionary actions against their own governments.

Lenin concedes the fact that such revolutionary actions will benefit Germany, but this is merely a side effect. To view the conflict merely in terms of which nation comes out ahead is to engage in “the political methodology of social-patriotism.” Rather, we should consider class struggle to be the foremost and most important conflict, and the conflict between the imperialist powers to be bourgeois infighting, in which whoever comes out on top is not all that important. To avoid and denounce revolutionary action out of concern of giving Germany an advantage is not remaining neutral, rather, it is taking the side of Russia, and saying that we must be so invested in Russia’s victory that we must put aside our own priorities and form a class truce to protect it.

But Lenin makes a very a clear distinction between taking actions that may benefit Germany, and being ambivalent to who wins, compared to actually supporting Germany, critically or otherwise. He points out the example of the Paris Commune, which weakened France in a war against Germany, but was then attacked by Germany and defeated. While both were fighting the French state, neither set aside class conflict in order to do so. To look at the Paris Commune as being merely “fifth columnists” of Germany would be plainly ridiculous, rather, it was its own side.

1. Should socialists participate in bourgeois elections?

This question is answered in “Left”-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. In this work, Lenin rebukes the German communists for refusing to participate in elections.

We can see in this section that while Lenin generally calls for participation in bourgeois elections, he does so with two stipulations. First, it should be done “while you lack the strength to do away with” them, which is to say, while the masses still support such systems. Second, you must do so while “telling them the bitter truth,” with the whole purpose of that participation being to “educate the backwards strata of it’s own class.” In cases where you are not able to speak freely, this can change the analysis.

Supporting this, we can look at Should We Boycott the State Duma?

The distinction between a “bad parliament” and the Duma, which he denounces as a “police fraud,” (in today’s terms, a “honeypot”), is whether it is legal to conduct agitation, to challenge the legitimacy of the body and to call for revolutionary change. Socialists should not fear the possibility of being “tainted” by participating in a flawed institution, but should be mindful of what such participation requires, and whether it means that the party line will be compromised. To abandon the truth for the sake of winning elections is, of course, opportunism, and if abandoning the truth is required to even participate in elections, then those elections should be rejected.

Rather than imagining jumping straight into communism directly, let’s look at what it would mean to move towards it gradually.

Right now, people have to work in order to provide the basic necessities of life, like food and housing. However, suppose the state provides those things at little or no cost, without changing anything else. The profit motive still exists, and people work for pretty much the same reasons as before. If you want to buy a big TV, video games, a boat, whatever, you have to work for it. Money still exists, and is still valuable, but it’s not essential.

Suppose I’m in a relationship I’m unhappy in, but I feel the need to stay together because of rent. If rent is no longer a concern, then I’m now more free to decide who to date based on things other than money. Then, someone who might otherwise be focused on money as a way of attracting a partner, might try to appeal to them in other ways, by showing off physical fitness, creativity and artistic skill, education, etc. Then, perhaps a company appeals to that person by offering a way to develop skills, rather than just money.

To use a fictional example, in Star Trek, everyone’s basic material needs are met, but you still have groups like the Ferengi who are focused on profits and money, which is often used for rare goods and collectibles. Many people don’t seem to have much use for it. While money still exists, it’s not really the same as we think of money today, because the things it’s used for are so much more limited.

Of course, we can’t just abolish money overnight, but what we can do is work towards a world people are free to act on motives other than making money. And future generations growing up in a world where money isn’t essential might look at it in a completely different way than we can even imagine.

See also: Bush.

First off because “IQ tests” don’t test for brainworms. There’s plenty of people who possess the mental capacity to pass a test like that, but who use that brainpower to come up with creative ways to defend wrong ideas rather than thinking critically. This is a large part of why IQ tests are meaningless, because even if they were capable of accurately assessing raw brainpower, they’re certainly not capable of assessing how you choose to use that brainpower.

If you make a test that does test for brainworms then you have the question of who or what body decides what’s a brainworm, and at that point you might as well just give that body dictatorial control. There’s no possible way to do that in a remotely objective fashion, the body could easily just say, “Capitalism is obviously right so anyone who doesn’t agree with it should be barred from voting.” Or, if it were me, I might decide that anyone who thinks that people having low IQs is the problem with our political systems is, themself, obviously unqualified.

Really, it’s not that different from the Catholic Church gathering together a bunch of highly educated scholars behind closed doors to debate what they thought made sense and then trying to enforce that on everyone. At least way back then, they had the justification that most of the population was fully illiterate.

I’ve been saying for years that if you actually want to fracture the right or peel voters away from them, you have to go after the libertarian wing. Democrats keep trying to target the neocon wing, because they think we’re still living in the early 2000’s where there was a bipartisan neocon consensus, and Trump is just an anomaly to that. The reality is that the wars in the Middle East discredited the neocon wing, they became deeply unpopular, and Trump emerged as a response to that trend. Now that Trump did neocon shit with Iran, and got these midterm results, the neocons are even more discredited than they were before.

The Democrats have to get ahead of the next “antiwar” Republican, be more antiwar than they are, and call out their incenserity. Running on being pro-war and trying to pick up the remaining neocon dregs that the GOP will be casting off would be a massive strategic blunder, and one that the conservative wing of the Democratic party is probably looking to make.

I really think that only an antiwar, antizionist progressive is electable.

They’re going to say that the problem with Trump is that he didn’t follow through on isolationism so they’ll support someone like Vance or Carlson who promises to do real isolation, with “peace through strength” and then he’ll invade Cuba or some shit and say he was just doing the strength part and they’ll conclude that the problem was that Vance or Carlson didn’t follow through on real isolationism and repeat and repeat and repeat, stockpiling “fell for it again” awards, only learning the lesson about the specific individual each time.

As long as the Democrats remain hardcore interventionists, the person at least claiming that they’ll stay out of foreign conflicts will be seen as the “lesser evil,” by many potential swing voters. The only possible way for the Democrats throw in 2028 is if they nominate a Zionist.

This would be a transparent attempt to usurp the power of the Supreme Court and make it subservient, not co-equal, to the other two branches.

The Court should be subservient, not co-equal to the other branches. Because the court is not elected and not democratically accountable. The power of judicial review was not even stated in the constitution, so it was never intended to be “co-equal.” Likewise, the idea of the executive holding so much power that it could be considered “co-equal” to the entire legislative branch, one person holding that much power, was never intended.

Having said that, I do agree with you that, from a pragmatic perspective, we can’t make sweeping changes like that without a clear mandate from the people, which the Democratic party does not currently have and can’t expect to have even if they win in 2028.

While I agree in principle with expanding the court and breaking its power, I don’t think the time is right for seriously proposing it.

The midterms were more a rejection of Trump than an endorsement of a Democratic agenda. The upset, red-state victories were about ending the war and lowering gas prices, not about fundamentally transforming the balance of power in the state. The senators in those states will not support those measures (if they want to have a chance at reelection), so even with a trifecta it’s unlikely to go through. In the meantime, the Democrats will appear power-hungry and the right will have plenty of material to fear-monger, and there’s also legitimate concerns about the right taking power and doing the same thing.

The best way to approach major judicial reform would be to put it directly in the hands of the people, through something like a national referendum. There isn’t really a process for national level referendums here in the States, but even some kind of non-binding resolution could better assess the popular will and provide a clearer mandate. Currently, what we have are polls, which show a roughly even split for and against, with clearer support for term limits. So enact term limits, say you don’t think it goes far enough, but promise that you won’t go further without a clear mandate from the people.

Fair enough.

This is honestly a lot more worthwhile than going after Trump.

The courts have already essentially declared Trump to be above the law, and there aren’t enough votes to go through the Senate, so the only way anything could happen to him is after he’s out of office, and he’ll be 82 at that point, and his cult has already started to fracture. Even in the wildest scenarios, he’d be living out his days under house arrest.

But the corporations that helped him into power and accommodated his every request and bent over backwards to appease him, they’ll still be there. Organizations aren’t limited by mortal lifespans. And as for the individuals, many of them are much younger and will continue wielding political and economic influence long after Trump’s gone. While they’re powerful and can afford the best lawyers money can buy, they do not have the same formal immunity SCOTUS gave the president. It’s still not exactly likely to go anywhere, since they are the ruling class after all. But the legal pathway exists and they’re a more worthwhile target, being the real core of the problem.

Yeah I mean I’m not saying it’s the same level I’m just saying I’ve heard the same logic. “Just because I say [n-word] doesn’t mean I hate black people, I only hate the ones that act like [n-words].” You’ll hear the same justification for just about any slur whenever anyone challenges it. “Nothing against people with mental disabilities, I just hate people who act like r-----ds.” “Nothing against queer people, I just hate the ones who act like f----ts.” Anyone who recognizes that it doesn’t hold up in those cases should understand that it doesn’t hold up here.

But they have no answer to that, so all they can do is act like I’m equating the two, when in fact the whole point is to use a more extreme example to more clearly demonstrate the problem.

If that. There’s already articles and polls speculating on the race. Hell, there was an article on here making a big deal over Trump not endorsing Vance for president, before the midterms had even happened. We are getting closer and closer to the eternal campaign season.

A lot of people still harbor deeply antisemitic sentiment below a veneer of factual criticism of Israel.

You’re absolutely right. Which is one more reason why it’s important that the left acts strongly against the Israeli state, based on a principled commitment against genocide and apartheid, instead of leaving the right to occupy that space and allowing them to redirect legitimate grievances into antisemitism.

Who gives a shit about guaranteeing Israel’s safety? If they’re relying on the international community for defense, they probably should’ve thought about that before alienating the entire world with their monsterous actions.

From an American perspective, It’s not every day you get a chance to drastically reduce gas prices and all it costs is screwing over some genocidal apartheid state that you ought to be abandoning anyway. A chance like this to both do the right thing and make things easier on the people is a golden opportunity that rarely comes along in politics.

There’s actually an easy solution to guaranteeing Israel’s safety, too. After we agree with Iran to cut active military aid, we go to Israel and offer a treaty where we’ll still come to their aid in the case of invasion, on the condition that they grant every Palestinian equal rights, including voting rights.

Also Israel/the Jews are considered an enemy of the state by some hard liners in Iran and must be displaced from Israel/Palestine.

Perfect, then we have something they want, and they have something we want. The solution is obvious.

Simply sign a treaty with Iran that prohibits the US from providing military support to Israel in exchange for opening the strait. Americans get lower gas prices, the Palestinian genocide ends, Iranians don’t get bombed, it’s a win-win-win. They won’t close the strait again for fear of the US resuming aid.

Literally all we have to do is say fuck Israel, which they 100% brought about themselves, and frankly them getting fucked is one more win.

Hopefully they don’t confirm anyone at all, even if it means an empty seat for two years.

For a couple of weeks before the 2028 election season starts.

Cool, good thing I’m not then.