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- The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War
- How to Be a Good Communist
- The Wretched of the Earth (1, 2-3, 4, 5-)
- The Foundations of Leninism
- Decolonization is not a metaphor
- Marxism and the National Question
- China Has Billionaires
- Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism
- Wage Labour and Capital
- Value, Price and Profit
- On the shortcomings of party work […]
- Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win
- Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
- What is to be done?
- Elementary principles of philosophy
- The State and Revolution
- “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder
- Blood in My Eye
Marxism is scientific truth and fears no criticism. If it did, and if it could be overthrown by criticism, it would be worthless. In fact, aren’t the idealists criticizing Marxism every day and in every way? And those who harbour bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas and do not wish to change — aren’t they also criticizing Marxism in every way? Marxists should not be afraid of criticism from any quarter. Quite the contrary, they need to temper and develop themselves and win new positions in the teeth of criticism and in the storm and stress of struggle. Fighting against wrong ideas is like being vaccinated — a man develops greater immunity from disease as a result of vaccination.
Another banger.
New things always have to experience difficulties and setbacks as they grow. It is sheer fantasy to imagine that the cause of socialism is all plain sailing and easy success, with no difficulties and setbacks, or without the exertion of tremendous efforts.
This is a good line.
“Those who demand freedom and democracy in the abstract regard democracy as an end and not as a means. Democracy as such sometimes seems to be an end, but it is in fact only a means.”
This is an important distinction. Democracy in the West suggests abstract means and is virtually aesthetic. If we have democracy for democracy’s sake, we have won, apparently, and apparently too, all contradictions can be resolved by “democracy”. I can see how abstract democratism can ignore the economic base, which brings a contradiction between the electorate and elected, who the electorate, in a position of class antagonism, cynically deploy the abstract, absolutist fetishization of democracy by giving the masses hopium in speech and presence yet in action do everything for their class interests and collaborators.
I read this more than a year ago now and it’s still one of my favorite theory texts. The whole thing has many practical insights for how to approach Marxism but I think this portion about democracy (along with a section before or after about freedom of speech/press) is one of the most useful things I’ve learned from it.
It really reshaped by prior thought process on the topic of democracy and how its venerated as a concrete practice in the west rather than a means to achieve an ends.
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can anyone recommend anything more detailed about unity-criticism-unity? this text is the first time i’ve heard the term
this is maybe too broad of a topic to discuss in a single thread but i also wonder how all this stuff about the students and intelligentsia applies in the wake of the cultural revolution. i also don’t know very much about the cultural revolution so maybe i’m totally off-base in even asking the question lol
Details as in how it was applied in practice? You’d probably have better luck making a thread in /c/genzhou@lemmygrad.ml, /c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml or another appropriate community
details as in everything, but point taken
What are the core takeaways for those who’ve read it?
