StalinForTime [comrade/them]

Yeh their post is so confused and unclear its difficult to even beging to parse and deconstruct it.

Saying ‘people can think whatever they want on this subject’ is dodging the real substantive issue though, namely the question of how much religious ideology limits the progressive potential of any political struggle, and frankly history is as unambiguous about this question, as a general rule, as it could be about any other. We know that the religious ideology is a serious impediment to communist politics. The counterexamples normally presented are very weak, such as Liberation Theology, as none of these have had the explanatory power or political or organizational success of Marxist movements proper. Imo his has to do with the fact that how ideology functions, and what it justifies, and how it shapes how you think, reason, and justify certain positions, policies and practices, is simply not equivalent between Marxism, which is the Proletarian and therefore political stage of scientific enlightenment and of scientific revolution, and Islam, which is a fairly reactionary (at this stage in history) religious ideology which emerged in a very different context which shaped how its political dimensions could develop.

Materialism is certainly not just a tool. Even as a tool, it’s successful use is intimately linked to truth. If it is, then I’d have to suppose that every ideology is just a tool which is obviously an absurdly reductionistic instrumentalist view. It is a system of concepts, ideas, beliefs, propositions, theories and methods used to describe, understand, explain, predict and control the properties and events of the natural and social world. Marxism, as the Proletarian stage of Science, applied to society, is intellectually and therefore practically revolutionary precisely because it gives a form of understanding which was not previously available to human societies about themselves, and finally allows us to truly move towards social freedom, namely where societies, as socialist and eventually communist, are no longer condemned to society seeming like some impersonal force before which we’re passive, weak and helpless, but is something of which we are not only a part but also something which we can collectively, consciously, control and shape. That is precisely the reason why socialism is more advanced as a form of society than capitalism, other things being equal.

Materialism’s most basic theoretical foundation is that there is independently existing, objective reality, which conforms most fundamentally in its properties to what we understand as or call the ‘physical’, and out of which emerges a type of entity capable of subjective, conscious thought, which is in turn not only ontologically dependent on the matter (or whatever you what to call it, as the conception of the physical in modern science goes far beyond the pretty crude idea of matter of intellectually bankrupt 19th century of modern ‘vulgar materialism’). I’m not sure how much time you’ve actually spent with seriously militant Marxists if you think that Materialism is not a key part of their beliefs and identity. Dialectical and historical materialism are then further theoretical developments of this idea. Materialism is ancient, whereas the latter are modern developments that were not possible before modern science and the industrial revolution. If you wanted to reduce Historical Materialism to tool, then I guess the best candidate for its purpose would be ‘ruthless critique of all that exists’.

We can say we need to be understanding as much as we like, and it’s not false, but it remains a limited, abstract point if it doesn’t then ask the question of what our understanding of religion as Marxists implies about the political status and potential of religion. This doesn’t imply you are wrong when you say that there have to be political alliances with religious non-Marxists, but it does imply that as Marxists we never let out of sight the knowledge that those movements are held back in their possible development by those religious dimensions, though of course the latter are also partially but still significantly expressions of how the material conditions and historical context have seriously undermined the potential for socialist politics. Religious movements can serve historically progressive purposes, but they are fundamentally limited, and there is immense danger of hyper-reactionary theocratic backlash which is as effective at crushing communist movements as fascists are (not a coincidence, given there are A LOT of similarities between Islamism and Fascism).

Im not sure what you mean by ‘impose atheism’. We are not in a position to materially impose atheism on anyone. Whether that should be done once we have a state is another question (edit: to clarify, we shouldn’t, though politics must be resolutely secular), and people on here seem to often approve of it in the case of, say, China or the USSR, but immediately get sheepish when its discussed in relation to Islam, whereas it seems to me like the recent political history of Islam should make us less so. If you mean ‘imposing’ in the sense of stating clearly that those are our views, when then you are basically saying that Marxists have to sacrifice a view that is pretty key to our conception of the world and make a concession to false (if you think anyone flew on a winged horse one night to see God then you believe an absurdity) and often reactionary views in order to not alienate certain potential allies. Which is a very problematic position to hold in all honesty and i’m not sure how anyone who is actually a Marxist can think that.

You are definitely correct that there is not much communication going on, let alone productive. But another reason for that this is an awkward and difficult conversation to be had as Marxism and Islam are ideologically contradictory is a very strong, formal sense. Obviously this is most immediately an abstract, theoretical point, though that is not irrelevant, as moving through differences and formal contradictions towards consistency is necessary for moving towards truth, and truth is not irrelevant to politics, especially Marxist politics. There is also the issue of the political history of Islam, which is not very progressive and has become less so in the modern era imo. The contradiction between them is also not only something perceived by Marxists, but is very much clear to Muslims as well. An issue that Marxist militants ALWAYS have in my experience in situations like this is that if you are talking politics, or trying to agitate or organize, and you are doing so with religious individuals, especially if they are radicalizing and becoming interested in Marxism, is the contradiction they clearly perceive between their religious convictions and their developing Marxist/Communist political beliefs. At a point if you are in a party you do have to have the conversation with potential militants or members that Marxism is not compatible with the liberal position on religion of pretending like it is politically irrelevant, simply to appeal to the insecurity or narcissism of particular individuals who want to have their cake and eat it too. It is completely incompatible with the Leninist conception of the party.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Marxists are not, in general, going to be attracted to a religion which not only explicitly states that they deserve to be and will be burned and unimaginably tortured in hell for eternity, whose metaphysics is clearly incompatible, but more importantly from it’s inception to the current day has proscribed very different political structures and relations than Marxism (again, not a surprise, given that it emerged in Arabia in the 7th century CE, and that it’s founder was not only a political and religious leader but a warlord who seems to have committed war crimes and whose values were profoundly different to those of modern socialism).

It’s not a coincidence that the modern radical and dynamic expressions of political energy in the Islamic world of the modern era have been Islamist, and that Islamists immediately crush any progressive forces when they come confidently into power. Every place they have come to power they have enacted absolutely depraved social policies. The success of Islamism in the modern era is not only an expression of the religiosity of these societies and the effects of Imperialism and Colonialism, but also an expression of the failures of progressive forces, i.e. communists and socialists in these societies.

Honestly a consequence of this is that individuals then often end up taking pretty simplistic or nationalist positions in relation to certain political struggles, because there is also a reticence among many people of the left to recognize the self-evidently reactionary aspects of certain movements which stem directly from their religious, theocratic ideologies, as well as broader material conditions, due to the risk that that will be perceived as an attack of the downtrodden. It’s a bizarrely moralistic, un-Marxist, and frankly moronic position to take, because more fundamentally its a question of being realistic about the political possibilities available to movements which are not driven ideologically by socialist or communist ideology, which I think worsens alot of the analysis you see on these problems.

Sure. As a matter of historicaly development, we know, as Marxists, that liberal capitalist societies, whether they have the formal institutions of representative democracy or not, tend to develop due to the tendencies of economic development the social consequences of the later and the political conjunctures, into fascistic or fascist political regimes and societies. But these are tendencies, they aren’t metaphysical or mathematical necessities. Even if we always saw every liberal democracy transform into outright into fascism, this doesn’t make them the same thing. If you were actually under a fascist government you would quickly realise the difference.

Fascism is partly characterized by it’s ideological and other superstructural features, but this is only a partial understanding. A fuller understanding notes that such states have only emerged in contexts of capitalist decay and crisis and act as a safety valve through which the capitalist class reestablishes political supremacy over the workings classes. However, I would point out that while capitalists are generally key parts of an any fascist state, the relationship between a powerful fascist state and individual enterprises (such as in Nazi Germany) does tip more and more towards the arbitrary power of the central executive government, to the point where they are more eager than capitalists to jeopardize profits for political objectives.

I’m obviously not saying that liberals have not engaged in extreme racism, colonialism, and genocide. Actually, from a historical point of view, they have been the best at it. It also isn’t wrong to say that in many respects fascism is also charaterized by the turning inward, the domestic usage, of the coercive, violent means of political repression which are innovated and developed in colonies. As Aimé Cesaire pointed out, fascism is like imperialism turned inwards. Modern America often treats many people internally in a fascistic way, embodied by the prison-industrial complex, especially if you are a very active, radical activist, or were or are in the past or present a member of a revolutionary group like the Black Panthers, or more generally a poor immigrant, a racial minority interacting with cops, or many other scenarios. The American state, like the British and French states, their political and economic elites, have already partly fascicized, are undergoing the process. But I really don’t think we’re passed the point of the nature of the political regime changing sufficiently to call them all fully fascist states. After Ukraine, the USA is the closest.

This is also why it is so weird and unnecessary to me when people just say that liberal democracy is the same thing as fascism. The fact that two things are linked or that one has tendencies that lead it to transform into, produce, be replaced by the other does not mean that they’re the same. Actually it implies the opposite, otherwise there would be no transformation to begin with. Take the Italian government. It is filled with realy, ideologically convinced fascists. But it does not find itself in a situation where, even as a unified coalition of Mussolini fans, they cannot actually find any means to exert fully fascist politics in defiance of the EU’s neoliberal economic agenda, nor NATO’s political agenda. Meloni does actually use the classic fascist technique of appealing to leftist sounding points. She recently went on Italian television and shit all over Macron and the French for enganging in neocolonialism against Françafrique, explaining the monetary system on tv and how most gold a child will mine in the period will end up in the French central bank. The difference with the Ukrainian government is that the material conditions of Ukraine allow, actually force, the government to fascicize beyond the confines of it’s own ideology and extend this to society more broadly and more radically. There is not even the pretence of liberal democracy in Ukraine amongst actual Ukrainians, let alone the Russophone Ukrainians or Russians of the east.

We have different words for a reason: to refer to different things. In this case, different types of political regimes. A liberal political regime is different to fascist political regime. The transition might be gradual or appear relatively continuous, but so was the emergence of feudalism and capitalism.

It’s closer to a nationalist oligarcy with the trappings a formal, liberal democracy. Ofc, at the end of the day the U$A is no more democratic in any deepy, normative or radical sense. But the state itself is ideologically more nationalist and has been pushing back against liberal social and economic views. You can see this in the conflicts recently between the executive and the central bank, as the latter has been one of the last convinced bastions of neoliberal economic orthodoxy.

This also has to do with the fact that Russia’s ruling bourgeois class’s interests are more national in nature, as a result of their economic development since 1991, aggressive geopolitics from NATO, and the fact that they were forced by the state into emphasizing national interests once the Putin era began.

Ofc it remains a capitalist shithole.