I don’t really see the psychological attraction you’re referring to either, tbh; it mainly strikes me as a form of self-indulgent sadism one can only engage in when the war is a highly abstracted team sport being viewed from the comfort of an armchair in another part of the world.

The average Ukrainian soldier is a prole who is drafted into the war and doesn’t want to be there. You might think they hold reactionary opinions (and many of them undoubtedly do), but that’s no basis for any ethically or politically coherent position when it comes to how to deal with the issue. It’s the obligation of communists to educate their fellow working class members in order to deal with those reactionary tendencies.

This of course doesn’t apply as much to the openly and explicity fascist and neonazi presences in the Ukrainian military and the fascist and oligarchic forces controlling the state. They don’t really deserve much time or mercy.

Yeah it’s also crazy when you realize how instinctual it is. Like I don’t think all the dolts at the Guardian pumping out ink for the ink god really reflectively think ‘we have to craft this Manichean narrative for the sake of liberalism’ given that’s not actually how ideology generally works. I have no doubt (actually, I know from personal experience) that it you push narrative which don’t conform you will sometimes get responses which straight-up make no reference to the truth of the matter but explicitly reject what you’re saying because it’s politically inconvenient. That being said, it is fascinating and disturbing how reflexive and instinctual these kinds of responses are in general liberal culture, and how little most people in liberal societies are either unwilling or incapable of critically analyzing and evaluating this kind of stuff. Like they could just read what Putin says to get a more accurate account of the Russian state’s motivations for their actions.

I don’t really think this is valid reasoning tbh. Governments can kill people at a whim, but frequently do not because they would rather they die over time through conditions such as prisons. There are other factors they consider apart from simply wanting him dead. They don’t need to have killed his directly. It could simply be the result of mental and physical health issues due to his imprisonment. Life expectancy in prisons is markedly lower for a reason.

I’ve seen takes that he was killed by the West to blame Putin, but I haven’t really seen any actual hard evidence for this

Western governments want Assange dead. So by that logic he’d be dead long before now. He’s not, but I’m not about to conclude that the US gov doesn’t want Assange in an anonymous ditch. There are plenty of revolutionaries being let to rot in US prisons from the previous decades. It’s just killing them in slow motion.

At the end of the day we don’t have objective info to allow us to conclude one way or another as to exactly why he’s dead, and both the West and Russia are obviously deeply biased sources.

No figure better encapsulates Western liberal propaganda against Russia.

Notice the complete absence of discussion of any other oppositions figures or forces (controlled or otherwise) within Russia, along with the attendant impression that he is supposed to be far more popular than he actually is.

Note the conspiracy of silence regarding his past and actual political ideology.

That being said, whatever the circumstances of his death, it’s a nationalist government killing a fascist. Oh well.

If you think this doesn’t exist then you haven’t spent enough time differentiating Marxism from liberal identity politics.

I’m not dropping any credentials. I’m making reference to evidence. You can believe it or not, that’s your prerogative and obviously it’s convenient for you to not believe it because you actually can’t talk about the relevant content, but just have to resort to ad-hominens, not justifying anything you are saying, not providing arguments or evidence, as if Marxism implied that these don’t matter, which again tells me you are posing ultra whose positions are vulgar materialism’s at best.

Never said I was any of those people. Why would I? You are claiming that a position I am expressing is reactionary, and then using that to disregard every other opinion expressed, which would make these other individuals I’d guess you would claim to agree with also reactionaries, and would Like Lenin and Marx would be Islamophobic ten-fold more than me, as would a huge number of communists in the Islamic world, if your conditions for it were correct. WTF does me not being them have to do with anything? What matters are the actual reasons you can give for the political position you are putting forward, and your’s amounts to betrayal of communists outside of the west and cowardice for the sake of virtue-signalling.

If I give reasons, and you can’t respond to them, except through the classic abusive partner tactic of pre-emptively accusing the other person in the discussion of what you have embarrassingly shown yourself to be guilty of at length (straw men) because you don’t actually know what you’re talking about, then again that says far more negative about your position than mine. If you are going to complain about a Marxist on a communist forum giving long-length explanations and arguments for views, then grow the fuck up you ultra. The idea that suddenly people can’t make reference to their own experience has never been the case here, so well done for just inventing that ad hoc to avoid the fact that you are happy to be silent about atrocities against comrades in other countries because you feel you lose virtue points. That’s called cowardice.

I live in the West now, but I am not from the West. I moved here. So watch your fucking mouth. If you think I am having these conversations only in English then you again don’t know what you’re talking about. And yeh I do write articles. In English and not in English. Since when what that exclusive with discussing with other comrades on a forum? Again you’re just inventing ad hoc shit but you have nothing to contribute.

I’m sick and tired of this take that all you crypto Christian, self-hating masochistic cracker yanks have, where you are so insecure about being American that you have to be as ultra as possible to virtue-signal as hard as possible about how opposed you are to yankie imperialism, where you claim that any negative comment about any group outside the West is therefore somehow metaphysically supporting western imperialism, which is such a bizarre argument it’s ridiculous that time even has to be spent dealing with it. I am muddying nothing. I’m being clear. You are muddying and not expressing what you think because of either cowardice, embarrassment or ignorance.

Like it’s embarrassing that either you can’t understand that the following two propositions can be believe at the same time, or that people are too stupid to be able to do so: namely (1) that Islamists are reactionary and are key obstacles to communist (left-wing more broadly) political organization in those countries, and (2) that Islamic countries are victims of Western Imperialism. Like if you really think all that, you are literally in the grip of infantile disorder. Both these things are true you dullard. What do you think it looks like when you write that? It looks either like you don’t think they are reactionary, in which case you’re reactionary, or like you are admitting implicitly that they are but that you think workers are too stupid to be able to understand that, and so you are expressing a classist position. Again reactionary. It’s precisely one of your tasks as a militant to bring people to that correct position. Again, if you don’t understand how necessary that is, then you are reminding me that you are not involved in any militant or party activity, but in those contexts you have to formulate serious responses to that, and you will look like a dolt to your working class if all you can say is 'we don’t want to make clear our opposition to all forms of far-right politics. Like you do understand that other people literally live in countries where the influence of Islamism is actually a thing? If you want to organize Muslims workers, you have to combat it, because otherwise you are at a disadvantage.

Also, you do understand that there are Islamists in power who are supported by the West? So what, in those cases you only recognize how reactionary they are to the extent they receive Western support? Again: stop projecting your infantile, ignorant yankie view on the rest of the world. You have literally achieved the least of any communist tradition, practically or theoretically. An AES can do real politik all they like. The idea every communist in the world is obliged to follow them to the letter is not only intellectually lazy but also incoherent, as they contradict one-another frequently. They can also be wrong. They can engage in revisionism. You just ad hoc assuming that they necessarily have a correct take has never been the correct ideological practice of any successful communist party. I’m guessing again you haven’t looked at the debates within communist parties over similar questions from the last hundred years if that is your view. China has had plenty of positive things to say about Israel. No-one here is about to repeat those, because the actual concrete content of the situation in Palestine obviously calls for unambiguous support for Palestinian liberation from Israeli fascism.

Yeah I find the image of North Korean diplomats smuggling heroin into Copenhagen honestly hilarious and the lumpen-reactionary in me kinda respects the hustle.

I didn’t say that the DPRK were not Communist, though I’d also argue that any serious analysis of the history of the place, to the extent we have access to it( though lack of evidence doesn’t imply any positive conclusions either, something many people here also seem not to understand), also leaves much to be desired, though that obviously is materially very much a result of the incredibly difficult position they have always found themselves in.

Again, you are not actually making an effort to respond to what I’m saying, and you’re responding moralistically. You’re embarrassing yourself. Take the L and move on. If you can’t actually argue these points in terms of there content, but have to always retreat to a meta-position over the argument call someone a bozo, then that says a lot more about the weakness of what you’re saying than what I am saying.

You really need to get over this infantile idea that the only people who can any have any possible legitimate opinion on the place Fuck off with that reactionary nationalism. Since when has ever been the case in the history of communism? I guess Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin’s opinions on places they had never been were always totally incorrect then? You seem to be implying that when convenient. The only criterion is the arguments and evidence you have, and you haven’t provided any real substantial ones, making a bunch of simplications, and invalidly reasoning to conclusions that what you are saying doesn’t imply.

You want to know what communists from these places think? Again: please tell my comrades who have had their families raped, murdered and tortured by Islamists that they are not in fact reactionary or their enemies. You’re rather conveniently ignoring this point.

Even if (which I agree is a fact) the US-hegemonic Imperialist system is the primary enemy of communism in an overall sense, or the most powerful enemy of communist movements, and so there has to be anti-imperialism as a central focus of any leftist movement, and this has to recognize that otherwise deeply reactionary groups are currently the only armed means for opposing Israeli fascism, settler-colonialism, apartheid and imperialism, and that that implies that communists there have to cooperate (all of which is obvious and not what is up for discussion), you making the inference that this implies that there cannot be opposition to anything else more broadly, or that Communists should not clearly express their opposition to, and criticisms of, far-right theocracy because they are opposed to US imperialism, is so infantile and detached from reality that it honestly beggars belief. This isnt fucking hearts of iron. Some people are actually communists in these societies. Doing apologism for reactionary groups simply because they oppose the West is opposed to them is itself doing the anti-communist propaganda of the West for them.

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Yes. I’m very aware. I’m guessing you haven’t seen other points where I’m fine with great degree of freedom of religion, indeed more than the vast majority of people on this site. You seem to be missing my point, which is that ML having to compromise through relations with Islamist theocratic states is a shame, in particular as the particular form of Shia Islam promoted by Iran is particularly nefarious, it being Islamist.

Learn to read. It has literally nothing to due with them being Muslims. My criticism is that they are Islamists. If you are unable to make that distinction then there’s a problem. When I do militant activity (almost every day), I do actually encounter a issue due to Islamism, especially in relation to trying to organize in support of Palestine. So frankly if I had to guess Id say that you’re probably an ultraleftist yank masquerading as an ML who has never been involved in the construction of an actual Leninist party.

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good so we’re on the same page that at best it’s commendable political pragmatism.

Does anyone know if the reports their ambassadors used to sell drugs when on trips, and that they sell meth internationally, has any truth to it?

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Communists and Anarchists are most certainly not the same. I’m not really sure how anyone can entertain this idea if they have actually spent times in active anarchist and Marxist circles, let alone engaged in militant activity with either where both the need for cooperation and the apparent inevitability of conflict and tension become obvious, and make obvious in turn that these difficulties do not just boil down interpersonal issues or grievances but are political in nature. There are profound conceptual, theoretical, ideological, practical and organization differences, as well as sociological.

It’s all well and good to say that they are ‘fundamentally the same’ (what does ‘fundamentally/essentially the same’ even mean here? It seems vague, ambiguous, or if you are choosing as the criterion for that that we want the same form of society at the end of the day, this amounts actually only to a very weak form of agreement in all honestly. It’s like saying that Communists are the same as Reformists Socialists because the latter also want (sometimes genuinely) a form of socialist economy and are genuinely deluded as to the means to get there (i.e. reformism). The difference is in terms of political method, and the distinction is one of revolution vs reformism. Sure, Communists share a belief in the need for revolution to get there with anarchists, but they have different different concepts, theories, practices, conceptions of organization and politics, which implies deep theoretical and practical-organizational differences.

Furthermore, Communism in this sense remains an ideal (which is fine), towards which we agree on the most general and abstract features and agree further that this is the ideal form of society which we would like, indeed must for the sake of the human species, move towards. The anarchist conception of revolution is very different from the communist conception, and what comes during the revolution, how we get there, what is necessary, how we should actually do all the actual work of organizing the working class (which marxists recognize as necessary but which anarchists have either been unwilling to do the work needed to accomplish or who they neglect as many now see focus of parties on class-based organization to be a form of class-reductionism), disagree on the fundamental questions of revolution, the state, parties, legislation, prisons, and so on.

There are also Christian Communists (non-Marxist) would also want a stateless, classless, moneyless society. I commend them for that, and they are definitely potential allies, but that doesn’t mean they are going to be reliable political allies in the long-term, nor does it imply that their views are fundamentally the same as mine. The fact that they are not going to be ready to do the things necessary to actually construct socialism, let alone communism, means that realistic political unity with them is limited at best. The same goes for anarchism in the minds of Marxists, most obviously MLs.

The period of transition from capitalism to communism will likely take hundreds of years. Socialism is a centuries-long project which we have only just begun. Calling the immense, profound differences of opinion between Communists and anarchists over this historical process towards Communism something which does not amount to a fundamental difference seems not only confused, but positively idealistic to me.

Saying that the difference lies simply in the means to get there is ignoring the fact that this is a massive difference with direct implications for the feasibility of long-term, substantial, deep political cooperation. It also reflects that the routes through which Marxists and Anarchists get to the conclusion of the need for revolution for the sake of a classless, stateless, moneyless society are very different.

Just to give a revealing sense of the depth of this divide: There are people in this thread who have cited Murray Bookchin, who towards the end of his life not only explicitly stated that he would rather side with liberal governments against Communists because the former believed in ‘personal freedom’, but then later when on to repudiate anarchism right at the end of his life, calling modern anarchists a form of lifestyle movement with no real political potential, and it’s worthwhile to note that he came to this conclusion during the 90s and 2000s, i.e. when Marxism and Communism were at their lowest ebb and the international leftist movements in the West were being dominated by anarchist and post-left lifestyle movementism, calling for distributed (non-existent) networks of supposedly distributed organization based on ridiculously minute identitarian difference (i.e. identity politics). The period since the 90s have done nothing but refute the idea that the predominance of anarchists on the western left would revitalize the prospects for revolution there. The opposite is the case. The potential for revolution has correlated inversely with anarchist predominance. Frankly this doesn’t surprise me, as the anarchist circles I’ve encountered have almost always been far more bourgeois, less proletarian, than Marxist circles (especially if we are talking about militant circles), though I admit that this is anecdotal.

The obvious explanation for this is just the more general observation that most anarchists in the real world despise Marxists. In anarchist circles in private the discourse than ML’s are a bunch of homophobic, transphobic, sex-worker-phobic, misogynistic red fash is very, very present, and honestly pretending otherwise is simply ignoring the obvious truth that becomes evident if you actually spend much time in read-world anarchist and Marxist circles, simply for the sake of preserving the appearance of an artificial, digital ‘left unity’ which neither has any bearing on actual organization nor does it provide a serious basis for any actual platform of organized socialist activity. We can get together for the same marches, social movements, or for forms of local mutual aid and aid for the homeless or refugees, but this does not ever really extend beyond that in my experience, and the reason is that anarchists have a fundamentally different conception of politics and organization to Marxists, and especially to MLs.

Sure. But this is, frankly, a pretty idealist take imo that ignores not only the fact that in actual practice there is frequent tension and conflict which has real basis, but real and deeper theoretical differences as well as ones of praxis and organization. We can wish for this form of left unity you are describing all we like, but it doesn’t erase the deal differences between communists and anarchists.

In my personal experience, Communists have been far more eager, happy or willing to work with anarchists when it comes to practice on the ground than vice-versa, and I think it’s important to note that these forums are not representative of the actual relations between Communists and Anarchists on the ground, which are frequently tense because Marxists will often spend months agitating and entering workplaces, doing the grunt work, only for reformists and anarchists to show up at the end at points of more intense political struggle and gain political credibility for their ‘participation’. Another related issue here is that, in practice, anarchist circles are on average more liberal, individualist and identitarian than Marxist orgs interested in forming parties. The emphasis on decentralized, distributed organization, justified by whatever post-structural idealist nonsense is currently in fashion, is not conducive to working with actual Communist (read: Leninist) orgs.

Not to mention that - and this is again to indicate that these forums like Hexbear are in no way indicative of actual relationships between Communists and Anarchists - that most anarchists despise Communists, most obviously Leninists, and would despise Lemmygrad and Hexbear types most of all. Like the view of us as ‘Red Fash’ is close to the mainstream view among most Anarchists, and it’s frankly ridiculous to pretend otherwise.

There most certainly has been an increase in anti-Semitic expression and actions. There have been assaults of Jewish people outside and Israel and attacks on Synagogues. There have also of course been increases in Islamophobic attacks. This happens every time Israel does this shit. One of its many terrible effects is that by pushing the idea that to criticize Israel is anti-Semitic, and due to the open support of Israel by most large liberal Jewish organizations (which are the most public and influential), and their support of the definition of antisemitism as including criticism of Israel, this leads to many people actually making the inference that antisemitism is correct. In other words it gives cover and justification to anti-Semites.

If you’re in Europe, you are inevitably going to hear a bunch of anti-Semitic shit from every social class and every ethnic and religious group. There have been upticks in attacks on Jews and antisemitic graffiti. It’s probably either far-right white supremacist fascists or its Islamists, but the European governments (e.g. France) are claiming, and the bourgeois media is pushing, that these are also psy-ops from Russia (lmao, these societies are already anti-Semitic, Russia doesn’t need to do anything). In France there have also been a couple Islamists attacks with teachers getting beheaded, though I’m not sure of the teachers background, though often in these cases the reasons given for the attacks are self-evidently anti-Semitic.

Red Fash is literally so funny to me as a concept. Peak horseshoe theory brain.

No better way to know that a supposed ‘socialist’ is a liberal reactionary snaking in the grass than when they use this concept.

Also imagine turning around and saying ‘hate of fascists, imperialism and slavery is the real evil, akschually sweety’.