You can sell his stance as an evolvement of the theory rather than admitting mistakes.
I dunno, that sounds an awful lot like “reform” to me.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 6 hours ago
I think if he were honest with himself he would see that what he got wasn’t what he had envisioned in any of the countries that claimed to be communist/socialist. But they were his team so he would publicly support them. You can sell his stance as an evolvement of the theory rather than admitting mistakes. Not too dissimilar from the way the PRC sells its version of communism to its people: communism “with Chinese characteristics.”
Chances are though that he would have perished in one of the purges happening in whichever communist country he would have chosen to reside in. He would have enough clout to niggle at leadership openly about stuff going wrong and eventually be would deliver the straw that broke his camel’s back. He would be mind-holed and his legacy rectified so he wouldn’t be the lighthouse of the movement that he could only become because he died early. And he didn’t starve millions. And communism would become the thing created by the people through an arduous march and not a system dreamed up by some German philosophers.
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 hours ago
I mean... obviously? Bolshevik theory (which is what all future socialist/"socialist" states would adopt) was their own take on Marxism with a lot of original thought. That's where the authoritarianism comes from, and it's not like the Bolsheviks were trying to hide it. Odds are Marx would denounce the Bolsheviks as heretics.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 4 hours ago
You’re citing my text but cutting off just before the point I was trying to make. I think be would still side with the people who claim to follow his ideology (yes, piss poor efforts objectively speaking but that’s irrelevant to him because he would prefer them over the folks entrenched in capitalism on the other side).
Ideologs are a dangerous breed because they are surprisingly flexible under realpolitik conditions when the alternative is having to admit defeat. Or in Marx’s case admitting that his ideas didn’t work or the fact that they didn’t work as intended cost the lives of millions. Surely he wouldn’t like Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China and well apoortioned crticism thereof (or of the GDR or wherever) would have eventually spent his good will capital (pun intended) with the local leadership and he would end up in a gulag or erased from history. Karl-Marx-Stadt would have been renamed sooner.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 4 hours ago
Yes, because my point is that your point doesn't make sense.
Why...? That's not how leftwing politics worked, ever, and it's not like there has ever been a shortage of leftwing criticism of Leninism and Stalinism.
Yeah that's my point: They're not his ideas; they're their ideas. Lenin for example, aside from being an authoritarian dickhead, was an intellectual juggernaut and a lot of his ideas would be baked into the foundation of the Soviet Union. There's simply nothing to support what you're saying.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 34 minutes ago
That’s a remarkable statement in the context of a hypothetical, counterfactual scenario where we are attempting to interpret the possible thinking of a long deceased man displaced in time for the benefit of said scenario.
You may disagree with me. You haven’t changed my mind either. So let’s leave it at that.