Isn’t Prolewiki connected to Lemmygrad? Who the fuck runs this twitter account and why haven’t they been purged yet?
Who the fuck runs this twitter account and why haven’t they been purged yet?
The account is run by the three admins of ProleWiki, including me. I personally disapprove of this “like”, but you need to understand that it’s hard to apply democratic centralism over the internet, under three different timezones, and we haven’t systematized what to do with the profile yet. Mistakes can and will be made here and then, and the administration will be discussing this “like”.
I know who probably liked this, and I have called out the person’s lack of theoretical grounding many times, even publicly. I’ve noticed they definitely lean towards an utopian, idealist understanding sometimes. But the concrete reality is, this person has helped ProleWiki numerous times, especially in terms of finance and labor towards improving our wiki. Without them, ProleWiki wouldn’t have lasted more than a year.
And we have few administrators, people who are available to improve the encyclopedia. “Purging” any administrator for a Twitter “like” would remove a third of the current administration, and this would be stupid. We simply cannot afford ideological purity in our Twitter “likes” while compromising the whole project at this point in time.
But I would like for you to present an actual critique of this tweet instead of simply lashing out. What’s wrong with this tweet, in particular? When we critique PatSocs, we usually critique specific personalities, such as Caleb Maupin, Haz/Infrared, etc., and their followers. This tweet in particular, as far as I understand, does not seem to advocate that. So can you elaborate specifically what’s wrong with this tweet so that the administrator who liked it can have a better understanding of it? I’m personally from the global south, so I’m ignorant on some particulars of US radical politics and I wouldn’t be able to do this myself.
Thanks for the detailed response. It was an overreaction and for that I apologize. I’ve been on edge the past few days due to the news and just needed to vent a bit I guess. It was just very alienating for me to see a resource that I’ve recommended to beginner Marxists in the past appear to be endorsing this kind of view. But I don’t know this person and what they’ve done for the project in the past so it was out of line for me to ask for them to be removed.
As for your question, the tweet is an insult to all oppressed peoples that the USA has trampled on. What does the Cherokee think of the Stars and Stripes, waved by the US Army as they pursued a policy of total removal of indigenous peoples from the East Coast? What about the people of Laos, who are still struggling to remove the millions of undetonated bombs dropped on them over the course of an illegal war? Ask the victims of American imperialism in Indonesia, Cambodia, Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua, Iraq, Grenada, Libya, Yugoslavia…the list goes on and on and on. Any support for patriotism in America should be a slap in the face to every comrade in the Global South. And it’s a perversion of Lenin, Stalin, Castro, etc to equate their patriotism, as leaders of liberation struggles, to the America Über Alles style patriotism at home. Lenin was famously for revolutionary defeatism for example. And you need not look further than Lenin, as he writes “The place of those who advocate the slogan of national culture is among the nationalist petty bourgeois, not among the Marxists.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/crnq/2.htm#v20pp72-023 The tweet ignores all of that context and blasts those of us pushing back against people like Haz. If you look through the author’s tweet history it’s quite clear he’s a follower of Haz. All in all, it’s pure idealism and historical revisionism to suggest that the US left should adopt patriotic imagery.
I appreciate you taking action on this and hopefully some good will come out of it.
learn what patriotism means to communists
patsocs: no
because patriotically fighting AGAINST imperalism is the same as being the patriotic perpetuator of it.
Notice whomever posted this was probably visiting GenZedong sub. They made the word “patriotism” entirely haram and are banning people for it (while endorsing the current and past AES who use the patriotism rheotric all the time!). I was banned literally for reminding them that patriotism do have class characteristics.
Not to mention compradorship and serving the international bourgeoisie is opposite of patriotism in any meaning and characteristic (again Stalin).
Problem is, as usual, american exceptionalism. It’s is not that they say patriotism is wrong for USA, because it is wrong in current conditions indeed. Problem is that they as usual project the US conditions to entire world and are forcing it on everyone.
Be patriotic of what?? The flag? The constitution?, The land? Oh sure. Organize and show your strength. I have seen people with widely different approaches and inclinations says USians should use patriotism to attract workers. Some say they are in all support for AES, Stalin and other revolutionaries, LGBT, not anti semetic. But from the platform they build, the one who support these guys nothing but reactionary attitude is evident. It scares me. It will be much more scary to the minorities in US. If these guys are going to build the vanguard, man i don’t know what is stored for the US and the world.
John Brown
Anyone can be pride of John Brown legacy except reactionaries, racists, misogynists. He was as unamerican as one can become.
yes but didn’t john brown kill americans?
Exactly.
"I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood. I had...vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done." — John Brown.beautiful
I’m pretty sure Lenin scolded socialists who opted for defencism during WW1. Class struggle is the highest struggle 🤨.
Socialchauvinists. There is no need to invent new words for them.
I swear I didn’t make it up 😢. Mr Lenin used it first. But yeah, social chauvinist is a more apt term.
Yeah, thing with Lenin is that in 1917 he still thought that global revolution is coming, and thus patriotism is dangerous to the movement (and indeed in the socialchauvinist version it was). But after that failed, and socialism in one country became the only possible position, patriotism got back to graces, as entire list of later revolutionaries and AES leaders can attest. Also, here and here.. As you can see the rise of socialist states complicated the matter somewhat, therefore it is important in this issue to have clear terminology - i think social-chauvinism is the most apropriate term, and using own labes of socialchauvinists is currently leading to heavy confusion. I mean, for example, you and me and everyone else here probably had to explain that the “national socialism” isn’t socialism hundreds of times by now, so let’s at least not do it to ourselves more times.
Also, read “Notes from the gallows” by Julius Fucik, he had some pretty obvious revelation about it there.
I’ve always understood “patsoc” as being a uniquely western left phenomena. Whenever someone here has a critique of patriotism, it’s always been in the context of western left chauvinists like Haz and Infrared urging for patriotism. I think we know why that might be problematic. I’ve never seen anyone here on lemmy/ reddit gzd being critical of Chinese patriotic socialism , cuban patriotic socialism, vietnamese patriotic socialism, etc. The socialism part of the patriotic socialism in those countries is probably more emphasized than the patriotic part I would assume.
Even the tweet in question focuses on Western leftists being opposed to patriotic socialism. One of the people he mentions, Henry Winston, doesn’t really just say “be patriotic”. Here, he delves into the “national question”. He says that the emancipation of men and women are universal notions, and hence, shouldn’t be restricted to theoretical ideas about the Soviet Union (or other AES i would imagine). He later says that we should deal with substance rather form when it comes to this topic. As it stands, there is no coalition government here in the US. There is no significant power that Marxists hold here in the US, so for that reason, ideas of patriotic socialism here in the US is mental masturbation.
Can a Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? We hold that he not only can be but also must be. The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the “patriotism” of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the “patriotism” of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better… For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world. China’s case, however, is different, because she is the victim of aggression. Chinese Communists must therefore combine patriotism with internationalism. We are at once internationalists and patriots, and our slogan is, “Fight to defend the motherland against the aggressors.” For us defeatism is a crime and to strive for victory in the War of Resistance is an inescapable duty. For only by fighting in defense of the motherland can we defeat the aggressors and achieve national liberation. And only by achieving national liberation will it be possible for the proletariat and other working people to achieve their own emancipation. The victory of China and the defeat of the invading imperialists will help the people of other countries. Thus in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism. -Mao Zedong
I am a fairly active prolewiki editor and I think this like was not a good like in my opinion. I believe an admin has already made a statement regarding it. If you are a gringo, you can not be patriotic towards the United States government. Patriotic socialists, especially in this tweet disregard historical materialism, and say because patriotism is good in regards to national liberation (Which it is.), then it must be good in terms of imperialist countries. We did not encourage a hitlerite to be patriotic of Germany despite the atrocities it committed, they practiced revolutionary defeatism and we must do so as well. The question is a bit different for minorities (of all kinds) in the US, because they must practice national liberation against the oppressor, and so “patriotism”, in regards to pride of whatever for that history, for that identity, or for that culture is 100% good. We must pursue national liberation for minority groups in the United States.
How to delete other people’s twitter posts
delete twitter
