No. Anarchism is when you try to prevent the US government from getting even worse. Leninism is when you stick your head in the sand and pretend you can ignore the flaws in the electoral system and the sacrifices demanded of us.
By enthusiastically supporting neoliberal genocidaires in bourgeois elections.
Leninism does not ignore the flaws of bourgeois electoralism. Lenin wrote a whole book called “Left Communism: an Infantile Disorder” which is precisely about people refusing to participate in the existing political system.
It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:
“. . . All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected. . . .”
This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.
However, what he argued for was not entryism into liberal parties, but rather using the elections to build a Marxist party that could control it’s message and use the opportunity to organize and build power outside of the electoral structure.
Lenin didn’t live in America. If you try to use Russian electoral tactics in America, you’ll fail. It’s like trying to send the fleet to broadside Houston. Adapt your strategies to the terrain. You can’t just pretend that the USA is Russia.
Do you think that Russia under the Tsar was more democratic than the US today?
In any case, my position on voting third party is not because of what Lenin wrote, I merely wanted to clarify that Lenin’s stance was not consistent with how you characterized Leninism. I’m voting third party based on my own assessment of the situation, and I was a third party voter before ever encountering Lenin.
Drag thinks the precise opposite. That the parties Lenin discussed weren’t electoral parties. The meaning of the word party back then isn’t the same as now. Nowadays parties compete in electoralism. Organisations like Extinction Rebellion or the Proud Boys, which operate outside the electoral system, are not what we would call parties today. And yet Lenin’s “parties” are more similar to XR than to the Greens. Drag thinks you’ve been misled by a bad translation from the English of a century ago to the English of today.
Drag 100% agrees with the strategy of creating socialist organisations outside of the government. Creating socialist organisations inside the government is more complicated. It’s good in most places, but not in America. And it isn’t what Lenin told you to do.
Do you have any basis for what you just claimed, that the parties Lenin discussed were not parties that participated in electoral processes? Or did you just make it up, in direct contradiction to what he actually said, which I already cited to you?
Drag Googled “politics in tsarist Russia”, went to Wikipedia and read it was a monarchy. Drag read about one of the socialist parties and saw no mention of votes or seats.
Drag didn’t see any blue on your comment. You hid it inside a spoiler. Drag didn’t notice the drop down and thought it was a heading. Don’t hide things you want drag to read.
Anarchists.
Is Anarchism when you support the US government?
No. Anarchism is when you try to prevent the US government from getting even worse. Leninism is when you stick your head in the sand and pretend you can ignore the flaws in the electoral system and the sacrifices demanded of us.
I’m not sure drag knows what anarchy is…
By enthusiastically supporting neoliberal genocidaires in bourgeois elections.
Leninism does not ignore the flaws of bourgeois electoralism. Lenin wrote a whole book called “Left Communism: an Infantile Disorder” which is precisely about people refusing to participate in the existing political system.
Theory
Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?
It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:
This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.
However, what he argued for was not entryism into liberal parties, but rather using the elections to build a Marxist party that could control it’s message and use the opportunity to organize and build power outside of the electoral structure.
Lenin didn’t live in America. If you try to use Russian electoral tactics in America, you’ll fail. It’s like trying to send the fleet to broadside Houston. Adapt your strategies to the terrain. You can’t just pretend that the USA is Russia.
Do you think that Russia under the Tsar was more democratic than the US today?
In any case, my position on voting third party is not because of what Lenin wrote, I merely wanted to clarify that Lenin’s stance was not consistent with how you characterized Leninism. I’m voting third party based on my own assessment of the situation, and I was a third party voter before ever encountering Lenin.
Drag thinks the precise opposite. That the parties Lenin discussed weren’t electoral parties. The meaning of the word party back then isn’t the same as now. Nowadays parties compete in electoralism. Organisations like Extinction Rebellion or the Proud Boys, which operate outside the electoral system, are not what we would call parties today. And yet Lenin’s “parties” are more similar to XR than to the Greens. Drag thinks you’ve been misled by a bad translation from the English of a century ago to the English of today.
Drag 100% agrees with the strategy of creating socialist organisations outside of the government. Creating socialist organisations inside the government is more complicated. It’s good in most places, but not in America. And it isn’t what Lenin told you to do.
I don’t think you read what I cited, so I will link it again. Literally the title says, “Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?” which he answers in the affirmative.
Do you have any basis for what you just claimed, that the parties Lenin discussed were not parties that participated in electoral processes? Or did you just make it up, in direct contradiction to what he actually said, which I already cited to you?
Drag Googled “politics in tsarist Russia”, went to Wikipedia and read it was a monarchy. Drag read about one of the socialist parties and saw no mention of votes or seats.
Drag didn’t see any blue on your comment. You hid it inside a spoiler. Drag didn’t notice the drop down and thought it was a heading. Don’t hide things you want drag to read.