this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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no state has achieved the liberation of the working class, because the function of the state is to expand and perpetuate its hegemonic power and influence. state authority is fundamentally oppressive.
The state exists as an abstract entity meant to suppress one class of people to the benefit of another class of people. Ergo the state only exists in societies with classes. Communists seek to smash the current state and rebuild one that suppresses capitalists while working towards a classless society in which the state ceases to exist. So yes the state is oppressive, but whether it is good or bad depends on who wields state power.
Call the containment center, we have an anarchist on our hands.
READ STATE AND REVOLUTION
You're being a dummy, this person is literally repeating the doctrinaire Lenin line on the temporary utility of the state.
Already did😎
You my man are beyond saving.
*Woman
And I thought what I wrote was the gist of it, though I am open to hearing your interpretation.
What you wrote earlier was an accurate summary, they just misread (I hope).
I misread indeed, sorry. I'm such an idiot!
Don't be too hard on yourself. The thread is full of such a variety of toxic takes that it's understandable for your eyes to glaze over a little.
If there isn't a state, then what happens when the capitalists attack? Who's gonna organize a defense? You think everyone's just going to pick up guns and magically form an invincible anarcho-army?
I mean anarchists are able to organize resistance though I think we mostly agree here in that we are both ML or ML adjacent. Like I wrote, communists want to smash the capitalist state that oppresses the working class, while building a new one that serves to oppress the capitalist class which in the end leads to a classless society where the state does not have a purpose anymore.
Yes, but that will take time. Without a state, the USSR and China could never have done what they did. A loose net of communes just wouldn't work when they were under constant western pressure and sabotage. No offense, but the only "resistance" anarchists have ever put on was a few angry marches and some molotovs. It was still the evil tankie statist army that crushed fascism in WW2.
Yes, I don't think we are disagreeing here, though the anarchists did alright in the Spanish civil war.
I think you're right, lol. I have no idea what we were arguing over now.
The State power- as a lesson of history- Cannot be wielded for good. It is a corrupting power with its own momentum and incentives.
This is precisely why any positive accomplishments of the Leninist states were undone by corruption, bureaucracy, and power-seeking.
Because the very structure of a state by itself makes it not only possible, but inevitable.
What if class was to be determined by both economics (exploitation) and power (oppression), therefore in the USSR all the leninist reformists did was to exchange the wealthy upper class for the all powerful upper class. So at best Leninism is a bad reform of capitalism.
No state can ever achieve anything more than the liberation of the capitalist class. The only liberation for the masses is to seek alternative ways to self govern and abolish any centralized power structures from reforming again.