Their theses are on Marxist Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/shliapnikov/1921/workers-opposition.htm

But basically their main demands were:

a) demilitarization of the party’s style of work by permiting debate within the party, not appointing people to positions and moving them around without elections, not treating the suggestions of higher ranked party members as orders, and not accusing people of factionalism for literally just meeting with fellow parties members and discussing policy. They wanted a return to the comradely atmosphere and democratic culture of the underground period and revolutionary period to be clear, not western liberal democracy where all opinions are shouted publically from the rooftops.

b) workerization/proletarianization of the party. Non-proletarian elements (experts etc) that joined during the civil war to have memberships re-evaluated. Non-proletarians to be scrutinized more before joining party, including requiring a recomendation from a party member, which proletarian applicants wouldnt require. All party members required to do at least 3 months manual labour a year.

c) Promotion of worker-centred initiatives to fix the economy rather than NEP. Massive investments into heavy industry and increased production of agricultural tools. Pay raises for workers, and begin providing housing, food, etc for free. Encourage collectivisation so rural workers can afford new tools by pooling funds. Solicit investment from workers abroad instead of capitalists. Create state supports for workers to buy out their factories, particularly if the owner shuts them down.

d) increased role in economic planning/management for unions. Allow unions to strike, particularly in capitalist ownwed businesses. Stop intervening in union elections.

One of the most depressing things is that he absolutely could do this (or get assassinated or otherwise blocked from running). Any of the democrat-media-establishment ghouls could. It would be an easy landslide win. But none of them.would be where they are if they were the sort of person who would do that, so they wont

Capital could also have been written yesterday, or the AntiDuhring. They are no less prescient to the current moment than Lenin, just harder to read bc less popular in style

Western societies had (several traditions of) proverbs too, but capitalism killed 'em by smothering them out with mass media

Cuba deserves at least 30 and a giant death robot

I have similar thoughts wrt disability

I dont have any thoughts on how to overcome it, but I think part of the difficulty of convincing people of either is that if they accept you’re right, then they have to accept that theyve (and their friends, family, etc) been not just wrong, but actively participating in doing harm.for the last however many years.

I do have one tiny speck of hope of union between labour and animal liberation: from what my comrades in the farmers union have said, most of the workers in slaughterhouses hate their jobs and have nightmares, ptsd, etc from it. If workers controlled their workplaces and directed society, i think we’d see a vast reduction in animal murder just because of this harm it does to them, even setting aside all the moral, ecological and theoretical arguments.

Or in other words, imo the industrial murder of animals is against the interests of the individual agricultural workers involved; and the production of meat for human consumption is against the interests of society as a whole (if only because of the resources involved).

Just as sometimes there are good posts in badposting, sometimes there are bad posts in goodposting

Connection between pro-covid propaganda and the CIA? What are you talking about?

Step one of being in position to organise society along health friendly lines would be working to make our orgs covid safe instead of complaining about people talking about how our orgs arent covid safe. Wtf are you crashing out over this for

…they’ve repeatedly talked about their work in covid organising why are you acting like they arent organising? Your behaviour is uncomradely and reeks of bad faith.

One of the big issues is leftist isnt monolithic. Where I am the communist party and young communist league both consist entirely of anti-maskers who advocate minimal online meetings and maximum group dinners. All four communist orgs in my city are the same in this regard. Its very demoralising lol

I have thought at least once every day this year how much i hate khrushchev for taking away the nukes

Tbh basically all the bigwig dudes in the politburo were assholes (lenin being a super aggro debatebro, stalin being a backroom schmoozer who refused to enforce lenins anti corruption orders, trotsky being a dramatic debatebro fixated on theory, every member being willing to ignore the soviets, unions and the CC if they disagrees with them)

That said there was definitely more than a bit of personality conflict involved in the infighting of the 10s, 20s and 30s (to the extent that some of the policy arguments were more about the personalities involved and internal power struggles than the actual policy or theory.)

Cleaning? Isnt that something poors do?

Plz xi give them some nukes

There’s a gonzaloite “New Communist Party of Canada” that formed last year but idk why they like gonzalo

If not for the ecological damage and rapidly occuring climate catastrophe i’d agree with you

The american bloody sunday

One of the aims of capital with the destruction of proletarian culture from the late 1800s onwards was to destroy the close ties within the working class friend and family groups

They did this most obviously by literally bulldozing their neighbourhoods, but schools to seperate children from worker parents to indoctrinate them, providing treats to focus on instead and instilling middle class manners (“dont talk about politics at the dinner table, dont ask a man his wage etc”) were also key parts of this

As empire implodes and treats dry up, reproletarianization proceeds and politics returns to children and family

The union army sent captured confederates west to build railroads, kill buffalos and shoot natives during the civil war, as an example of how they were on the same side as settlers