this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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I do suspect that part of the problem is better things are not currently possible in a western context. As such, the western left finds itself searching for that one weird trick which will spark off a revolutionary movement. This search inevitably leads them away from historical materialism and towards idealism.
I do think this may be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy though. Since people feel that better things aren't possible they're not trying to work towards them. If we look at the way the right has been organizing, it's pretty clear that there are a lot of people who are disillusioned with the western political mainstream. These people could be educated and recruited into a communist movement if there was active organization happening. The main problem that I see is that a lot of people on the left are rejecting effective methods for building a movement that have been proven in the past as being authoritarian.
Occupy Wall Street comes to mind. It's like a natural demobilizing ideaolgy that grows in reaction to neoliberalism. People get focused on grassroots and bottom up approaches, which makes sense and is necessary. But then they get taken over by astroturfing because their leadership is basically unofficial and nothing more than a friend group that got their first. I'm looking at you David Graeber (RIP). And now the whole "99% vs 1%" rhetoric is all but entirely used by the right wing.
Exactly, and the sad part is that all this is just a rehashing of the exact same arguments that happened at the start of the 20th century. You can pretty much take what Lenin said in What Is To Be Done verbatim and it's still just as relevant today.
Yeah, it's the whole spontaneous movement thing people have been peddling.
I agree to some extent. However, the flip side of the coin is that great organizers often burn themselves out and then stop organizing altogether. I’d much rather western communists take things slow and organize more sustainably. The alternative is to maintain revolutionary optimism even in non-revolutionary times. Unfortunately, I think that’s just a recipe for burnout, idealism, and opportunism.
Yeah, sustainability is definitely an important factor. I think at the stage we're currently at, education is the most important thing people could be doing. I kind of see it as an inoculation campaign. Once you get people to understand the actual economic relations they're subjected to and how they relate to the political system, then they become largely immune to capitalist propaganda. The more people we can get immunized the better position we'll be at when the conditions are right.
Oh! I think this might be a good explanation for a lot of the western left. Revolutionary movements are hard, and arguably they are the hardest in the imperial core. So it can often feel hopeless, but if those other socialist countries "failed" then it isn't so bad, because hey, everyone sucks at revolution, not just "us." And if there is some magical "universal" solution that will always succeed, even better, we can just do the one special thing that always works.
I've been thinking about "hope" and the western left a lot lately. A lot of the western left, like most people in the west, are constantly downtrodden and have their self-esteem torn apart by the system. And unlike libs who don't even notice this breaking down and just purchase the next distraction to ignore it, the western left are aware of how the system tears people apart, but feels utterly hopeless and trapped within it. So a "perfect" solution gives them what they sorely need: Hope.
Unfortunately, revolutions are not won on hope, but on pragmatic action. But I think there are a lot of reasons why the western left tends to fall for idealism a lot. (And that's ignoring the elephant in the room that actual materialist communists are targeted by the state, while idealists make excellent controlled opposition.)