[Political Interest]

He is a social democrat, the left wing of liberalism. He is certainly no Marxist or even close to Marxism.

It doesn't matter what he is, most of the Trotsykite parties in the West oppose controls on immigration as racist and a means of dividing the working class. Even many of the Stalinist parties do this as well.

The nuclear family is not conservative no. People used to live in a large extended family network traditionally with grandparents and parents and kids in the same household. Capitalism then changed the family in a revolutionary way as workers needed to be mobile to move from the country to factories and then chase the jobs wherever they went. The nuclear family is a creation of modernity.

If you think that the Soviet Union was more socially liberal than somewhere like America, you are mistaken.

As I said traditional family values had rich women idle at home and poor women forced into prostitution, and the women in between working in the home doing textile work in their living rooms, the Soviet Union crushed those traditional values and had the most progressive attitude to women of any nation in human history.

Putting women in work or giving them the right to vote is not especially revolutionary. It is quite standard in the modern world. Simply because the women are not sitting idle at home does not mean that the society is not conservative, especially when it is compared to Anglo-American societies.

By Western standards the USSR was a very conservative society and I know Russians who would agree with me.

No sex on television or in films, music was all happy clappy ВИА music and heavy censorship. Meanwhile in America it was possible to buy pornographic materials, lots of extremely individualistic media and everything completely contrary to conservative impulses.

See this is the lie. You should know enough about Maxism at this point to know that Corbyn is nothing more than another "left" liberal with a penchant for the Keynesian welfare state.

Corbyn may not be a Marxist but there are people far further to the left of him that would advocate for identity politics, privilege theory and open immigration policies.

They also stopped existing thirty years ago PI. This discourse didn't exist in the west outside college campuses in the west until around 2004. I have no doubt that the Soviet Union of today would be a wildly different beast than it was in 1989.

In 1991 the USSR was a lot less socially liberal than America. Homosexuality was criminalised whereas in the US it was possible to discuss it with a thriving literary industry on the subject. There were also gay pride parades.

The notion that the Soviet Union promoted Augustine moral conservatism. It is an outright lie. The Soviets were materialists. Any "conservatism" is simply a result of the cultural / historical conditions of the RSFSR.

And this is exactly the point. The Russian culture was and is conservative and this influenced the social morality of Soviet society.

I'd balk at calling Slavs and Georgians "white". Where exactly is this super not white all gay western government btw? Easily 80-90% of our leadership is straight white Christian males.

Slavs are not white? What race are they then? Anglo-American racial caste systems do not apply in the rest of the world. And in any case they were the whites of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.

But this is beside the point. What is important is that Slavs held most of the positions of influence in the post-Stalin USSR and this was not considered problematic. There was no discussion of this in academia and Russian university students were not taught of their "Slavic privilege".

White working class privilege doesn't really extend much beyond the courts. Even American minorities have to accept they are privileged to live under the benefit of imperialism. I mean maybe you think it is only white privilege that matters but no marxist who engages in this discourse targets just white people in the analysis.

What use is discussing privilege with the working class? At the end of the day they are still workers slogging away and struggling to earn a basic living. Telling them they are privileged does not advance the cause of socialism.

And let's be perfectly clear Marxists have always put the burden of standing up for your own rights onto the people. We have always harangued fools with false consciousness. Not acknowledging your privilege in a racist system is just another false consciousness. And maybe you don't talk to kids or something but way more are starting to get that talking about privilege isn't some simple "fuck white people" concept.

Old Marxists in the US and Europe did not talk about white privilege, including American communists. Its a new idea that serves as a cover for ethnic nationalism and communalism.

More and more people are listening to us. More than have ever listened in my lifetime. We could do better but it isn't as though everyone opposes us like they did in the 90's.

Of this I have no doubt.

But the country you will create will not resemble the Soviet Union but instead Maoist China.

Do you even know who this picture is of that you've posted? And do you think American Marxists really look like this?

I do not know who that person is but I have encountered enough Marxists who are like this.

Now if you want us to coddle white reactionaries you can just forget that. America is only 65% white anymore. Ignoring minorities for a broad white support isn't going to work anymore.

So you agree that Western Marxism has basically become third worldist?

Which marxists? What orgs?

The Socialist Workers Party, one of the main far left Trotskyite parties in the United Kingdom.

We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from another. We oppose all immigration controls and campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We support the right of black people and other oppressed groups to organise their own defence and we support all genuine national liberation movements. We campaign for real social, political and economic equality for woman and for an end to all forms of discrimination against lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender people.

Source: https://www.swp.org.uk/about-us

Did they forget that in East Germany all migrant workers could only stay for a period of up to three years? And the assumption that immigration controls are racist is simply nonsense. Lets just keep the taps running until the bath tub overflows.

The global South is the weak link in imperialism.

But how can you help the global south if you alienate your own workers?

[Pants-of-dog]

Anyway, the reason the US hates communism so much is that the US used anti-communist propaganda on its own people. They did this to justify their continuous meddling in the politics of others countries, and they meddled in other countries for private gain. This is exactly like what they do today against Islamists.

[Decky]

Did they forget that in East Germany all migrant workers could only stay for a period of up to three years?

Finally a rare bit of honesty. You admit that mass immigration is a capitalist phenomena and that Marxists do not believe in it or support it.

[Eamonor]

@Pants-of-dog
What is your feeling on how the oppressed people of Venezuela have been freed from their slavery to food and eating and their oppression by a working system of Government?

Finally a rare bit of honesty. You admit that mass immigration is a capitalist phenomena and that Marxists do not believe in it or support it.

You may not personally believe in mass immigration and feel that Marxism does not advocate for it, but the Marxist principles of oppression and exploitation naturally lead to large numbers of self pro-claimed Marxists promoting Mass-immigration of the poor infantile third worlders.
(BTW, I fully agree that Capitalism, at least how I see Capitalism, is also responsible for disastrous Immigration policy's)

[Decky]

You may not personally believe in mass immigration and feel that Marxism does not advocate for it, but the Marxist principles of oppression and exploitation naturally lead to large numbers of self pro-claimed Marxists promoting Mass-immigration of the poor infantile third worlders.

Could we discus facts rather than made up positions from inside your own head that you are pretending Marxists hold?

East German, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union etc were all Marxist states and they all stood against mass immigration.

Britain, the USA, Germany etc are capitalist and are pro mass immigration.

These are objective facts not opinions. Marxists do not want to push down wages and weaken unions by importing scab labour, you are thinking of capitalists.

[Wellsy]

You may not personally believe in mass immigration and feel that Marxism does not advocate for it, but the Marxist principles of oppression and exploitation naturally lead to large numbers of self pro-claimed Marxists promoting Mass-immigration of the poor infantile third worlders.

I'm not sure that it's Marxist principles that 'naturally lead to large numbers of self pro-claimed Marxists promoting Mass-immigration of the poor infantile third worlders'.
In that those that seem characteristic of this sort of nonsense don't seem to really make any analysis, they seem propelled by their their felt principles. They seem to merely conflate internationalism with free flow of cheap labour without any corresponding thought of to what end this is meant to work. As its an end in itself out of their feelings towards the third worlders.
I would position them as those who largely ignore the imperfect reality we find ourselves and how we consider navigating that strategically and instead seem to believe that if we act as if communism already exists then we it'll somehow support actualizing communism.
And whilst I can see some validity in say, that a movement working the working class should be representative of those in the working class, and as such, a working class movement full of people who hate women and people with different color skin are detrimental. The idea being that one should in this sense, seek to create and behave in whats characteristic of the sort of change that one seeks, it doesn't seem apparent that one's means needs to somehow be identical with ones end.
So for example, can consider how Emmeline Pankhurst ran an undemocratic movement in pursuit of women's suffrage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmeline_Pankhurst#Women.27s_Social_and_Political_Union_.28WSPU.29

In her 1914 autobiography Pankhurst dismissed criticism of the WSPU's leadership structure:

if at any time a member, or a group of members, loses faith in our policy; if any one begins to suggest that some other policy ought to be substituted, or if she tries to confuse the issue by adding other policies, she ceases at once to be a member. Autocratic? Quite so. But, you may object, a suffrage organisation ought to be democratic. Well the members of the W. S. P. U. do not agree with you. We do not believe in the effectiveness of the ordinary suffrage organisation. The W. S. P. U. is not hampered by a complexity of rules. We have no constitution and by-laws; nothing to be amended or tinkered with or quarrelled over at an annual meeting ... The W. S. P. U. is simply a suffrage army in the field.[69]

The demographic you refer to might proclaim themselves to be many things, but I suspect many of them often show themselves to not give much thought than internationalism = broad immigration, or maybe they're accelerationists that think providing the means to weakening the working class is somehow unifying through animosity within the class. Because people being in the shit will tear one another part.
https://www.guernicamag.com/john_berger_7_15_11/

Between fellow prisoners there are conflicts, sometimes violent. All prisoners are deprived, yet there are degrees of deprivation and the differences of degree provoke envy. On this side of the walls life is cheap. The very facelessness of the global tyranny encourages hunts to find scapegoats, to find instantly definable enemies among other prisoners. The asphyxiating cells then become a madhouse. The poor attack the poor, the invaded pillage the invaded. Fellow prisoners should not be idealized.

Without idealization, simply take note that what they have in common—which is their unnecessary suffering, their endurance, their cunning—is more significant, more telling, than what separates them. And from this, new forms of solidarity are being born. The new solidarities start with the mutual recognition of differences and multiplicity. So this is life! A solidarity, not of masses but of interconnectivity, far more appropriate to the conditions of prison.

In regards to yanks hating Commies, I see an apt description of Communism being presented as simply anti/unamerican. Hell, they even had the title 'House Un-American Activities Committee' to investigate commies and fuck up lefties.

Spoiler: show

Sociological propaganda springs up spontaneously; it is not the result of deliberate propaganda action. No propagandists deliberately use this method, though many practice it unwittingly, and tend in this direction without realizing it. For example, when an American producer makes a film, he has certain definite ideas he wants to express, which are not intended to be propaganda. Rather, the propaganda elements is in the American way of life with which he is permeated and which he expresses in his film without realizing it. We see here the force of expansion of vigorous society, which is totalitarian in the sense of integration of the individual, and which leads to involuntary behaviour.
...
The first element of awareness sin the context of sociological propaganda is extremely simple, and from it everything else derives. What starts out as a simple situation gradually turns into a definite ideology, because the way of life in which man think she is so indisputably well off becomes a criterion of value for him. This does not mean that objectively he is well off, but that, regardless of the merits of his actual condition, he thinks he is. He is perfectly adapted to his environment, like "a fish in water." From that moment on, everything that expresses this particular way of life, that reinforces and improves it, is good; everything that tends to disturb, criticize, or destroy it is bad.
...
But from the instant a man uses that way of life as his criterion of good and evil, he is lef to make judgements: for example, anything un-American is evil. From then on, genuine propaganda limits itself to the use of this tendency and to leading man into actions of either compliance with or defense of the established order.
...
That is why adjustment has become one of the key words of all psychological influence. Whether it is a question of adaption to working conditions, to consumption, or to milieu, a clear and conscious intent to integrate people into the "normal" pattern prevails everywhere. This is the summit of propaganda action. For example, there is not much difference between Mao's theory of the "mold" and McCarthyism. In both cases the aim is normalcy, in conformance with a certain way of life. For Mao, normalcy is a sort of ideal man, the prototype of the Communist, who must be shaped, and this can be done only by pressing the individual into a mold in which he assumes the desired shape. As this cannot be done overnight, the individual must be pressed again and again into the mold; and Mao says that the individual himself is fully aware that he must submit to the operation. Mao adds that this normalcy does not take shape "except at a certain level of consciousness - that is, at a certain standard of living."8 We are face to face here with the most total concept of propaganda.

On the other side, and with other formulas, there is McCarthyism. McCarthyism is no accident. It expresses, and at the same time exploits, a deep current in American opinion against all that is "un-American." It deals less with opinions than with a way of life. To find that belonging to a milieu, a group, or a family in which there are Communists is regarded as reprehensible in the United States is surprising, because what matters here is not ideas but a different way of life. This leads to the association of alcoholism and homosexuality with Communism in the literature on un-American activities, and to the rules, promulgated in 1952, which established the "poor security risk" and led to the screening of 7,000 functionaries. No reason for this identification existed other than that the Communist is "abnormal" because he fails to accept the "normal" - that is, the American - way of life. These "abnormal" persons must, of course, be treated as such, relieved of all responsibility, and re-educated. Thus American prisoners in the Korean War who appeared to have been contaminated by Communism were hospitalized after their release and given psychiatric and medical treatment in a hospital at Valley Forge. In current American opinion, all efforts to root out what fails to correspond to the American Way of Life and endangers it, are necessarily regarded as good works.

- Source
Commies were presented as a threat to the 'American Way of Life' in the same way Islam/Terrorism is now positioned, cue...

Commies are what ever can be projected as all that is bad whilst one's country is all that is Good. So if being American is defined by liberty, democracy and all things fucking awesome, then one can position one's opposition as the opposite.
The connotations of say socialism and certain figureheads are often simply negative and people are averse to those negative feelings and associated ideas. Which I crudely often describe as if people react like pavolovian dogs to symbols and imagery.
https://uniteyouthdublin.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/john_storey_cultural_theory_and_popular_culturebookzz-org.pdf

Spoiler: show

As we noted earlier, the signifier ‘dog’ produces the signified ‘dog’: a four-legged canine creature. Barthes argues that this indicates only primary signification. The sign ‘dog’ produced at the primary level of signification is available to become the signifier ‘dog’ at a second level of signification. This may then produce at the secondary level the signified ‘dog’: an unpleasant human being. As illustrated in Table 6.3, the sign of primary signification becomes the signifier in a process of secondary signification. In Elements of Semiology, Barthes (1967) substitutes the more familiar terms ‘denotation’ (primary signification) and ‘connotation’ (secondary signification): ‘the first system [denotation] becomes the plane of expression or signifier of the second system [connotation]. . . . The signifiers of connotation . . . are made up of signs (signifiers and signifieds united) of the denoted system’ (89–91).

He claims that it is at the level of secondary signification or connotation that myth is produced for consumption. By myth he means ideology understood as a body of ideas and practices, which by actively promoting the values and interests of dominant groups in society, defend the prevailing structures of power. To understand this aspect of his argument, we need to understand the polysemic nature of signs, that is, that they have the potential to signify multiple meanings. An example might make the point clearer. I discussed in Chapter 1 how the Conservative Party presented a party political broadcast that concluded with the word ‘socialism’ being transposed into red prison bars. This was undoubtedly an attempt to fix the secondary signification or connotations of the word ‘socialism’ to mean restrictive, imprisoning, against freedom. Barthes would see this as an example of the fixing of new connotations in the production of myth – the production of ideology. He argues that all forms of signification can be shown to operate in this way.

[Deutschmania]

lol no it isn't. Which Marxists specifically are you talking about?
Which marxists? What orgs?

I believe that the poster you are responding to was referring to this for example < https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Youth_Movement , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Communist_movement , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism_(Third_Worldism)> . Incidentally though , it's the Libertarian party that advocates for open borders , as being part of the principle of freedom of movement < https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_immigration%20, , https://www.lp.org/issues/immigration/ > . As to what we Marxists on the whole think on this issue , first and foremost , now more than ever , given the globalized economy ,we assert that the workers of the world have no country . So therefore in keeping with this , we support the full and fair participation of all persons in the world market , while working towards a future in which there will cease to be nation states or social classes . In practical terms of public policy , I expect that we Marxists would concur with the left-social democrat Bernie Sanders more nuanced approach < http://time.com/4170591/bernie-sanders-immigration-conservatives/ , http://time.com/4170591/bernie-sanders-immigration-conservatives/> .

[Eamonor]

These are objective facts not opinions. Marxists do not want to push down wages and weaken unions by importing scab labour, you are thinking of capitalists.

This is why I find it so frustrating trying to find common ground with people I disagree with. I admitted that you have a valid criticism of Capitalism in regards to the fact that it promotes mass immigration, and you seemed to act as if I was saying the opposite. The point I am trying to make is that when you see students waving signs that say "Immigrants are welcome" and "Dump Trump", when they are interviewed the odds are good that they will spout Marxist talking points, and sometimes openly advocate for Communism.

[Godstud]

Misinformation, fear-mongering from Cold War era propaganda, and an obscene love of self-destructive capitalism.

[Decky]

The point I am trying to make is that when you see students waving signs that say "Immigrants are welcome" and "Dump Trump", when they are interviewed the odds are good that they will spout Marxist talking points, and sometimes openly advocate for Communism.

That's nice do you have anything to talk about that you didn't imagine?

Marxists are against mass immigration, the proof of this is that nations run my Marxists didn't have it and didn't encourage it. I am not at all interested in your imaginary Marxists who do this, I am interested in Marxists that actually exist in the world outside your head. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding?

[Eamonor]

Marxists are against mass immigration, the proof of this is that nations run my Marxists didn't have it and didn't encourage it. I am not at all interested in your imaginary Marxists who do this, I am interested in Marxists that actually exist in the world outside your head. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding?

The fact that Marxists in Capitalist countries advocate for open borders, while Marxist Dictators do not, simply speaks to the fact that Marxist revolutionaries advocate for two different things in two different phases.
Phase one is "bring down the old order by any means necessary". And getting hordes of third-worlders to swarm into a country is a great means of doing this. But the once the Marxists take over all their high minded destructive ideals go out the window as a brutal Dictator enforces order through whatever means necessary.

[Godstud]

No, it means that there are real Marxists, and there are others who pretend to be Marxists. Faux-Marxists, if you will.

[Decky]

The fact that Marxists in Capitalist countries advocate for open borders, while Marxist Dictators do not, simply speaks to the fact that Marxist revolutionaries advocate for two different things in two different phases.

Once more I am talking about actually existing Marxists not ones in your imagination. Liberal protesters are not Marxists and never will be Marxists no matter how many times you pretend that they are.

[SolarCross]

Once more I am talking about actually existing Marxists not ones in your imagination. Liberal protesters are not Marxists and never will be Marxists no matter how many times you pretend that they are.

Is @The Immortal Goon a marxist or a liberal?

In other news I checked out the Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist* for their stance on immigration and border control and it appears to back up your assertion. The articles there are anti-EU, assert that open borders lower wages, and in other ways suggest a lack of support for open borders.

*I have no idea if this org is representative of UK marxists.

As a sample of this organisation's stance:

The benefits of immigration?

Just under ten years ago, a large industrial estate was built with EU regeneration money in Shirebrook, Mansfield, in what was once the north Nottinghamshire coalfield. The estate became home to the vast HQ of sports equipment firm Sports Direct.

The HQ employs around 5,000 people, almost all of them agency workers recruited directly from EU member states. Working conditions there are notorious, with zero hours contracts the norm. A BBC investigation discovered recently that ambulances were called to the site 76 times in nearly two years – 36 of them to “life-threatening illnesses”. Three of the calls regarded pregnancy difficulties, with one woman giving birth in the toilets at work. Former workers claim that employees are too frightened for their jobs to take a day off sick. Accidents in the warehouse have doubled in a year.

This ten-year EU “regeneration” project has contributed to Mansfield recently ranking as the fourth poorest town in Britain, with high benefit dependency and rock bottom wages. Local GPs and hospitals face much increased demand.

This rise in local employment of migrant labour has not led to wages being spent in the local shops and businesses as money is remitted back to Poland and other countries – the town centre is full of empty shops. Effectively, there is an unlimited supply of low-skilled low-wage labour.

[Pants-of-dog]

Another reason why so many US people dislike communism is because they do not understand it.

[The Immortal Goon]

Is @The Immortal Goon a marxist or a liberal?

A Marxist. Though it sounds like you find my position confusing some how, for some reason.

I don't know what trap that you think you're trying to lay here, but almost certainly this comes from an inability to see an issue as something other than a ridiculous binary.

A moralizing Philistine’s favorite method is the lumping of reaction’s conduct with that of revolution. He achieves success in this device through recourse to formal analogies. To him czarism and Bolshevism are twins. Twins are likewise discovered in fascism and communism. An inventory is compiled of the common features in Catholicism – or more specifically, Jesuitism – and Bolshevism. Hitler and Mussolini, utilizing from their side exactly the same method, disclose that liberalism, democracy, and Bolshevism represent merely different manifestations of one and the same evil. The conception that Stalinism and Trotskyism are “essentially” one and the same now enjoys the joint approval of liberals, democrats, devout Catholics, idealists, pragmatists, and anarchists. If the Stalinists are unable to adhere to this “People’s Front”, then it is only because they are accidentally occupied with the extermination of Trotskyists.

The fundamental feature of these approchements and similitudes lies in their completely ignoring the material foundation of the various currents, that is, their class nature and by that token their objective historical role. Instead they evaluate and classify different currents according to some external and secondary manifestation, most often according to their relation to one or another abstract principle which for the given classifier has a special professional value. Thus to the Roman pope Freemasons and Darwinists, Marxists and anarchists are twins because all of them sacrilegiously deny the immaculate conception. To Hitler, liberalism and Marxism are twins because they ignore “blood and honor”. To a democrat, fascism and Bolshevism are twins because they do not bow before universal suffrage. And so forth.

[Eamonor]

Once more I am talking about actually existing Marxists not ones in your imagination. Liberal protesters are not Marxists and never will be Marxists no matter how many times you pretend that they are.

It is very convenient that you don't consider the low information masses in your movement as part of your movement.

[stephen50right]

Anyone can post Trotsky and Lenin quoted dribble from 100 years ago or more as though it is relevant today. In most if not all cases it has no relevancy at all in today's modern world.

Today's Marxism equals lazy, and we all know it. Marxists want something for nothing, many of them want everything for nothing. They are jealous and envious of those who have. They are contemptuous towards those who work.

Marxism was always a malignancy to an industrialized society, but at least in the past it called for its followers to work. That is no longer the case. Today's Marxists simply wish to steal and pillage as much as they can from society. They don't wish to work hard to get a new house, they wish to have compliant leftist government give it to them, either that or themselves take it by violent force in mass from others weaker who cannot stop them.

Marxists are the leeches and parasites of society. So let's do what we can to keep their numbers as small as possible, and whenever necessary, put them in jail for criminal activity against good, hard working, law abiding people.

[The Immortal Goon]

Anyone can post Trotsky and Lenin quoted dribble from 100 years ago or more as though it is relevant today. In most if not all cases it has no relevancy at all in today's modern world.

Yes, why have someone use, "sources," and, "information," when you have your precious snowflake feelings?

Why look at history, when we can listen to what your masters tell you, and how you accept it uncritically?

Despite the fact what children think, feelings aren't real. Research gets at truth. Your blubbering desire to be a victim gets a yawn.

[Le Rouge]

A combination of two factors. Factor one, they benefit to some extent from the quasi-stability of the capital status quo in the form of consumer goods, the relative physical security, and the pleasurable romantic liquidity of the capital market. The other factor is the cultural-ideological hinges of the American weave that is oddly petit-bourgeois and individualistic in combination with a slave-master & merchant capital hegemonic ethos. That said, many millions of Americans are out-right leftists and there is further millions sympathetic to left elements. All, of course, in the aforementioned hegemonic context and that struggle.