The left is far to divided and needs a central leader. The advantage the liberals and conservatives have are that their parties are not fractured. The two party system also prevents any way to win democratically so the only way to do this would be a revolution. But to have a revolution you must have the people on your side and Americans tend to look at a central leader like a president as the representation of a movement. How should we unite all of the different leftists under one leader so that there can be a united opposition. We also need to get more people to understand that currently America is not a true democracy and that the only way to fix this is with violence. Currently we need far more comrades like Luigi to remove the bourgeoisie with violence. If there are people with nothing left to lose some brave comrade should give them a weapon so they can do something.

For those of us living in the USA discussing theory won’t change anything. Only action will. United we will win, fractured we will fall.

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      The left is far to divided and needs a central leader.

      Historically an actual consolidation of the Communist movement had only occured under the deepest of strife where being theoretically or practically incorrect way-laid yourself on the side of the road either completely abandoned or dead in a ditch. The current state of the Communist movement has been arriving to reflect more closely the period of the pre-estabishment of the RSDLP in my guesstimations. The only way to build a party is the hard way, with consistent and constant work to sharpen your theoretical with field work and developing the most advanced theoreticals by studying past actions in addition to analyzing present conditions.

      The advantage the liberals and conservatives have are that their parties are not fractured.

      I’d disagree with this a bit. Summary of below: the parties entrenched core leadership can exist regardless of their party’s unity.

      The closer you look, the closer the cracks within the bourgeois parties can you examine. The primary reason why the reactionary parties function is because they have entrenched themselves into the very political superstructure of the State for a century and seventy-five years with change. The parties core structures can exist separately from the people they purport to represent due to that very fact in conjunction to the fact they’re bourgeois parties. The so-called “rank-and-file” membership of their parties - whom have no political involvement whatsoever with the parties or the state they exist under beyond pulling the vote crank once every few years - can only shit themselves and squeal hard enough to let the other bourgeois party win instead of their own to let their party of choice know their displeasure. Said displeasure is promptly ignored and time continues. Any attempt at all alternative that exists within the duopoly is co-opted by the duopoly; the Tea Party was assimilated. The DSA is a vestigial nub that occasionally itches. As I mentioned earlier the only means to disrupt the parties is by mass politics where the people demonstrate to the politicians that they’re disconnected from their will. This is such a common occurrence that it’s no longer noted by the political establishment or by the masses and it is so because of the political and cultural hegemony of the duopoly political structure as you note in the next sentence

      The two party system also prevents any way to win democratically so the only way to do this would be a revolution.

      But to have a revolution you must have the people on your side and Americans tend to look at a central leader like a president as the representation of a movement.

      Firstly, I think you’re putting the cart ahead of the horse by saying a standard-bearer is a necessity for revolution, secondly its chauvinistic to assert that U.S.Americans are distinctly presupposed to look at standard-bearer as representation of a movement. Simply replying what Foundation does such a standard-bearer stand upon? You do not simply declare “rally around the flag” when you stand on nothing but a soapbox. Build a party, build dual power structures, build a foundation. Build and from the dust of the work leaders will emerge naturally.

      How should we unite all of the different leftists under one leader so that there can be a united opposition.

      I’m gonna point at the lyrics of David Rovic’s song again playfully but say the serious answer is that there are a mix of serious ideological and organizational differences in all the communist parties in the u.s. not even mentioning the lack of presentation of a democratic congressional structure for creating the electoral field for"unite(ing) all of the different leftists under one leader".

      At most I think it may be remotely feasible to try and create some sort of congress of american communists and socialists to at least meet and debate over points of unity to at least try to build a loose coalition. Just trying to do that would be a titanic effort as is, much less even dreaming of trying to get any group to agree on a figurehead.

      We also need to get more people to understand that currently America is not a true democracy and that the only way to fix this is with violence.

      First part yes, second part no. What did Lenin say about the ultra-left tactic of “The Propaganda Of The Deed”

      Currently we need far more comrades like Luigi to remove the bourgeoisie with violence.

      I’ll go out of my own Stalinist comfortzone to quote the chief trot on the topic.

      In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.

      The anarchist prophets of the “propaganda of the deed” can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more “effective” the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organization and self-education.

      But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy.

      I’ll also throw in that Lenin’s own brother was hung by the neck until dead because he had also aspired to spark revolutionary fervor by “removing the bourgeois by violence”

      Lenin said, in What is to be done, about the Russian socialists that many had…

      … begun their revolutionary thinking as adherents of Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will). Nearly all had, in their early youth, enthusiastically worshipped the terrorist heroes. It required a struggle to abandon the captivating impressions of those heroic traditions, and the struggle was accompanied by the breaking off of personal relations with people who were determined to remain loyal to the Narodnaya Volya.

      Communists are not terrorists. Full stop.

      If there are people with nothing left to lose some brave comrade should give them a weapon so they can do something.

      It is easier to die for a belief than it is living for one. The communist movement needs living people more than it needs dead martyrs. It always needed the living more than the dead.

      For those of us living in the USA discussing theory won’t change anything. Only action will. United we will win, fractured we will fall

      Go join a party.

      • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 day ago

        Excellent answer and great quotes!

        It is easier to die for a belief than it is living for one. The communist movement needs living people more than it needs dead martyrs.

        I could not have said this better myself!

        • Alaskaball [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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          1 day ago

          We can grow to be better communists by emulating Stalin’s example as explained in “Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and his Books” by Geoffrey Roberts, (yes I know the title’s cringe but its actually a very educational book) where G. Roberts notes that Stalin made it a habit of reading the works of his ideological enemies to understand them, adopt what he agreed with, and criticized what he disagreed with.

          the most heavily featured author is Lenin (243 publications) and there are also numerous works about Lenin and Leninism. The most favoured authors after Lenin are Stalin (95), Zinoviev (55), Bukharin (50), Marx (50), Kamenev (37), Molotov (33), Trotsky (28), Kautsky (28), Engels (25), Rykov (24), Plekhanov (23), Lozovsky (22), Rosa Luxemburg (14) and Radek (14).

          Not mentioning that he read as widely as he did deeply.

          Winston Churchill’s book about the First World War, The World Crisis; three books by the German revisionist social democrat Eduard Bernstein; two books by Keynes, including The Economic Consequences of the Peace; Jean Jaurès’s History of the Great French Revolution; Tomáš Masaryk’s World Revolution; the German economist Karl Wilhelm Bucher’s Work and Rhythm; an early work by Karl Wittfogel on the ‘awakening’ of China; John Hobson’s Imperialism; Werner Sombart’s book about modern capitalism; some works of the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk; the Italian Marxist Antonio Labriola on historical materialism; John Reed’s Insurgent Mexico; several works by the American writer Upton Sinclair, and the letters of executed US anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Among the many works on economics in the collection is a translation of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations: in his heavily marked copies of David Rozenberg’s three volumes of commentary on Marx’s Capital, Stalin displayed a particular interest in the sections on trade and Adam Smith.