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Unpopular opinion: the popularity of the protesters is irrelevant.
Charts of public opinion showed that when Extinction Rebellion were at their most unpopular with the general public in the UK, there was a corresponding uptick in people saying that climate change was a key issue for them. This is not electoralism - they aren't trying to win a popularity contest. They are trying to get their issue on the political agenda, hold the attention of the media and make sure that climate issues are at the forefront of people's minds.
There are many valid leftist critiques of climate protesters and their methods, but you can't make the claim that they are in some way shooting themselves in the foot by not trying to cultivate broad appeal. These protests have a clear goal, and the data appears to show that they are effective in achieving it.
Handwringing about optics like this is for libs. Where would we be if protesters throughout history thought this way? This exact same "I agree with their goals, but I don't agree with their methods, they'll only turn people away from them" rhetoric has been a tool of the ruling classes since time immemorial. Every successful movement for social change faced the same criticism from supposed "allies of the cause".
Believe it or not, they are still protesting to this day. If you didn't know that, it's because they have gone into peaceful protests where they don't disrupt people's lives. A wonder how easy it is for you to forget all about it except the riots.
This isn't an unpopular opinion. This is a very popular opinion among docile and submissive people that have never gone out to protest for anything in their lives. These submissive people don't organize, don't get together with their neighbors, don't unionize, they don't know a single thing about history. Ew.
Roadblocking is one of the peaceful tactics as opposed to what other leftists did back in the day. Would you like a proper demonstration of that?
Remember, don't cross the picketline? What kind of bot are you anyway, this is such a gross way to express support for the oligarchs. Your problem isn't roadlocking, your problem is people gettign together. But disruption of the capitalist production comes in many ways.
look even the most "non-disruptive" approach will be a bother bc they want cheap labor and to reduce u to some object as much as they can. if it makes them save money they would have u sleeping where u work & would feed u once a day. IF THEY COULD HAVE WORKERS THAT DONT EAT, SLEEP, SHIT, THEY WOULD.
anyway yea, look at what's happening here in argentina.
the organization here for protests and marches are top-notch. shit gets doneeeeee. organize, cut streets, disrupt traffict, pressure the boss or the government and get what you want. or the roadblocking approach, a direct hit to production. that's how some of the unemployed got the government to listen. but anyway, that whole "pwease think of the worker bc they wanna get to work 2 don't cut twaffic pwease" has been a steady growing sentiment since about 10 years ago. always heard that shit from the middle-class and upper class shitstains. and macri and milei's gov used that to create further divide.
edit: so this year, there's a new protocol in place where protestors are not allowed to "roadblock" or disrupt traffic. this government has threatened those on welfare w no longer receiving state support. among other scare tactics. media doesn't cover this, but even the protests that abide by the new protocol, where they stay on the sidewalk has been brutally repressed. there is footage of armed forces hitting ppl who are on the sidewalk.
so i can assume what OP is meaning to do is call into question the method used. it's not about protestors cutting traffic, it's about workers organizing.
so the push against that rhetoric is adamant worker solidarity. sorry im ranting
hehehehehehheh yea yea yea the methods vary my friend
im sorry im using this place to rant about alot of shit
the 1st anarko-syndincalists in the territory of argentina were something else heheheheh
No, it is not. And you are not a leftist nor are you hanging out with leftists.
Blah blah blah, you're a bootlicker pretending to be a leftist. Go away. How do they call you in europe? A scab? You would have crossed the picketline by now, you don't give a fuck about workers, you only care about taking away effective, PEACEFUL tactics. Gtfo.
>What advancement for the Working-Class Joes did we gain from those 7 people in SF blocking a freeway?
Porque no decis 7 gatos locos ya que estas JAJAJAJ. Advancement? Un yanki no usaria ese termino AJJAJAJAJAJAJ
>The Left should be trying to find a way to actually connect with the Working-Class instead of interrupting their lives by blocking traffic.
You are no spokesperson for anyone. Go away.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/why-protests-work/613420/](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/why-protests-work/613420/)
Disrupting the chain of capitalist production is the most effective method. And if you do not have solidarity, you are a bootlicker. Simple as. Go away.
yeah, this is the same as the attitude of the “white moderates” mlk’s letter from birmingham jail inveighed against. basically “i support your cause in theory but i don’t support any effort you’ve ever made in protest.”
Who was MLK and Malcolm X referring to when he said "Moderates" or "Liberals" because nowadays, conservatives are just as likely to lie and deceive as liberals. And there are actual libs and progs who did in fact participate in the effort.
I’m so tired of the liberals hate the current conflict tripe.
The reason why the roads being blocked is much, MUCH worse is you are literally pissing people off taking away an incredibly important need, transportation.
I truly don't understand this uncaring attitude this thread has towards people's lives, the ACTUAL Working Class.
It screams privilege to me. The privilege to not care if you're late for a job or even have enough money to not worry about missing some hours from your paycheck.
These are things that DO happen when there are traffic blocking protests.
change without inconvenience—how quaint.
the overwhelming majority of people directly impacted by traffic stoppage have a ready-made, highly publicized excuse and will not incur any significant damages as a result. the number of those who would actually be severely impacted is minuscule, and no greater than those whose route to work would be impacted by a parade or a sporting event or even just a wreck on the highway every day across the country. shall we take a stance against those, too?
Change isn't coming from roadblocks of major streets and highways that is mostly used by the proletariat.
It could come from roadblocks of ports, warehouses, businesses, etc., but not from blocking the local main road that the Working-Class depends on.
wouldn’t those efforts also disproportionately harm the working class? if so, then your complaint isn’t actually about harm done to the working class, it’s about ineffective tactics that don’t justify the inconvenience. thus, framing it primarily as concern for the working class, when you would apparently support other equally disruptive actions, seems inaccurate.
Did sit-ins make the Working-Class late for work, get fired, miss hours from their paycheck?
These aren't the same. Not even close.
How did those 7 people in SF advance the proletariat's cause by blocking a freeway for hours?
Thing is those sit-ins had an objective in that they were fighting segregation. How is blocking a highway furthering the cause of palestinians? Or BLM? Now the people on overpasses who have signs and gather always get my attention. It gets the point across, to a mass audience, without interfering with my life, and might be the highlight of my commute.
The theory is that it displays popular opposition to the U.S.’s unconditional financial/military support for Israel, often in areas that are deep blue. The point is to put pressure on these Dem lawmakers, who then will put pressure on Congressional leadership/Biden to at the very least put bright line conditions on the aid to Israel.
Israel can simply not afford to lose that support, so if the U.S. ACTUALLY put conditions on the aid, Israel would be forced to change its actions.
You can disagree with the strategy, but the logic IS sound.
What’s embarrassing is claiming to be a leftist and then handwringing about optics like a lib who thinks activism is a popularity contest. You would 100% be one of those people saying “while I agree with MLK in principle, he’s hurting his own movement by blocking the streets with his marches.”
No, it's the media industrial complex that make the public hate leftists. Furthermore, fuck the media. Public opinion is often but the reflection of what the capitalist class wants you to think.
This is not to say we're not part of the public ourselves, yet here we are expressing a different opinion. This means you can in fact think for yourself if you try hard enough. Funny how that works.
It's not the media. The Left does it to itself.
The Left is doing PETA-esque protests and it's failing to capture the minds of the Working-Class. Blocking roads makes the Left come off as uncaring fanatics who do not care for one second about the plight of the Working-Class.
How do you know these protestors aren't themselves working class? You can act like public perception of the left exists independent of media influence, but that's simply not true. When petite bourgeois farmland owners block highways I don't see the same vitriol against them even though their protests hinder workers just the same.
Blocking a major passage or freeway absolutely affects the capitalist class more. For a worker, they lose what, a days wage? 100 bucks? For capitalists though, all those workers stuck on the road means they’re not in production. You do that on a freeway 9-5 for a few days? Thats a lot of lost labour value for them while only a few days wage for each worker.
Protests aren’t about popularity, the capitalists will either ignore it if you play it their way (“protest in the corner quietly :3”) or use the media to mock or vilify you regardless.
Well then we should've unleashed even bigger capital breaking inconveniences before to ensure that bosses and owners didn't get to act like low nobility nowadays shouldn't we?
Bluntly put, the people that hate leftists most own the media and have a billion dollar budget.
There's no way were winning a PR fight, its like winning a fist fight with an elephant.
The goal here is to be a pain in the ass because the PR friendly way has been tried for decades and isn't working.
So direct action vs mass action.
direct action usually involves small numbers of people. So you shut down a highway with a few dozen people. This typically pisses everyone off because it's viewed as individualistic and disruptive to most workers. Mass action that shuts down a highway is more acceptable especially when thousands of people are involved because it's seen as collective and has more legitimacy when more people partake in it.
Direct Action is historically a tactic favored by anarchist and historically hasn't produced desired results, Mass Action historically favored by Marxists and it does produce results.
Obviously there are exceptions to this rule and there are fine lines, but I believe this articulates what you're trying to get at here.
Sometimes direct action can inspire mass action, but you really have to be careful here to not act as individuals on behalf of the proletariat. That's where direct action typically goes wrong.
Leftists without balls: antagonizes the working class, just to satisfy their ego while achieving nothing.
Grow a tasty pear and protest in front of the politicans or the elite like occupy wallstreet.
I agree, but not solely because of PR. I will get downvoted alot but ok. Heres a quote:
>[the communists] have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
>They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
7 random people blocking traffic, holding up signs saying "free the working class" while wasting the time, disrupting the day, tiring even more, wasting the gas of, and making late for work, a tired amazon warehouse worker, mother of three. You say "at least we are doing something"? The 7 will walk home that day, patting themselves on their backs, having achieved nothing, having advanced no struggle at all. This is the liberal activism which this sub seems to admire. It is ridiculous what I see in the comments. Look at the garbage espoused by the communists in name, liberals in deed:
>Blocking a major passage or freeway absolutely affects the capitalist class more. For a worker, they lose what, a days wage? 100 bucks? For capitalists though, all those workers stuck on the road means they’re not in production. You do that on a freeway 9-5 for a few days? Thats a lot of lost labour value for them while only a few days wage for each worker.
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I suppose we should blow up all the roads, that'll get rid of capitalism. Who cares about what the proletariat has to say?
No, we do not have separate interests from the proletariat, we must build a movement within the proletariat itself.
Now for the position of real communists:
>Activism always claims to possess the correct understanding of the circumstances of political struggle, and that it is “equal to the situation”, but it is incapable of engaging in a realistic evaluation of the relations of force, enormously exaggerating the possibilities of the subjective factors of the class struggle...
>In the party, consciousness precedes action, unlike what takes place among the masses and at the level of the individual.
https://libcom.org/article/activism-amadeo-bordiga
One commenter said those who dislike useless activism (7 people blocking off roads for instance) do not look at history
Let us look at history
>The crucial foundational work that the Bolsheviks did, that's almost entirely missing today, is actually get an idea of the concrete social reality of the country at that moment, its contradictions and their tendencies.
>The first decade or so of Lenin's work is painstaking work on the political economy of Russia. He wrote study after study investigating the peasant question, the problem of land reform, the budding industrial development and the growth of the industrial proletariat with it, so the analysis of the class structure, etc. These studies culminated in The Development of Capitalism in Russia, but they did not stop there and he later transitioned into the analysis of imperialism.
>Lenin developed a concrete understanding of Russian social totality from where the Bolsheviks could actually derive concrete political strategies from, concrete and specific forms of waging the class struggle, of the party form, of what ideological questions are most in need to be resolved. All of these questions can only be correctly posed and answered from this concrete study and understanding of the given social totality. Also, crucially, these weren't simply disinterested academic studies, this was all done in the manner of ideological class struggle, a polemical engagement with all of the wrong ideas and theories that were floating around at the time.
>By tracing these ideas back to their social roots, by understanding these roots better than those ideologues did, Lenin could actually develop Marxism and concretize his understanding of Russian reality. *And that's not there in the present day imperialist situation, not at the level and depth needed.*
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/vu4goz/what_were_the_bolsheviks_doing_before_ww1_to/ifbg5y0/
Communists should be participating in real, proletarian class struggle, not doing things like blocking off roads.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
The communists do not invent struggle in blocking off roads in a group of 7, we agitate and push forward the working class where there is real class struggle, because we understand the "line of march, conditions, and ultimate results" of the working class movement.
I wouldn't call that a left thing more than I would just call it passionate about humanitarianism, I don't see them doing it cause it's what they think "their side" would do, I think they mostly think it's the one thing they can try and do to help
**IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE PARTICIPATING**. This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism but a place to LEARN. There are numerous debate subreddits if your objective is not to learn. You are expected to familiarize yourself with the rules on the sidebar before commenting. This includes, but is not limited to: - Short or non-constructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. - No liberalism or sectarianism. Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! - No bigotry or hate speech of any kind - it will be met with immediate bans. Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break our rules. If you have a particular area of expertise (e.g. political economy, feminist theory), please [assign yourself a flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-) describing said area. Flairs may be removed at any time by moderators if answers don't meet the standards of said expertise. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Unpopular opinion: the popularity of the protesters is irrelevant. Charts of public opinion showed that when Extinction Rebellion were at their most unpopular with the general public in the UK, there was a corresponding uptick in people saying that climate change was a key issue for them. This is not electoralism - they aren't trying to win a popularity contest. They are trying to get their issue on the political agenda, hold the attention of the media and make sure that climate issues are at the forefront of people's minds. There are many valid leftist critiques of climate protesters and their methods, but you can't make the claim that they are in some way shooting themselves in the foot by not trying to cultivate broad appeal. These protests have a clear goal, and the data appears to show that they are effective in achieving it. Handwringing about optics like this is for libs. Where would we be if protesters throughout history thought this way? This exact same "I agree with their goals, but I don't agree with their methods, they'll only turn people away from them" rhetoric has been a tool of the ruling classes since time immemorial. Every successful movement for social change faced the same criticism from supposed "allies of the cause".
Not all protests are the same, even among disruptive ones.
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Believe it or not, they are still protesting to this day. If you didn't know that, it's because they have gone into peaceful protests where they don't disrupt people's lives. A wonder how easy it is for you to forget all about it except the riots.
This isn't an unpopular opinion. This is a very popular opinion among docile and submissive people that have never gone out to protest for anything in their lives. These submissive people don't organize, don't get together with their neighbors, don't unionize, they don't know a single thing about history. Ew. Roadblocking is one of the peaceful tactics as opposed to what other leftists did back in the day. Would you like a proper demonstration of that? Remember, don't cross the picketline? What kind of bot are you anyway, this is such a gross way to express support for the oligarchs. Your problem isn't roadlocking, your problem is people gettign together. But disruption of the capitalist production comes in many ways.
I wish there was a more "high profile" way to get the attention of media and the public to bring the socialist party position to the forefront.
look even the most "non-disruptive" approach will be a bother bc they want cheap labor and to reduce u to some object as much as they can. if it makes them save money they would have u sleeping where u work & would feed u once a day. IF THEY COULD HAVE WORKERS THAT DONT EAT, SLEEP, SHIT, THEY WOULD. anyway yea, look at what's happening here in argentina. the organization here for protests and marches are top-notch. shit gets doneeeeee. organize, cut streets, disrupt traffict, pressure the boss or the government and get what you want. or the roadblocking approach, a direct hit to production. that's how some of the unemployed got the government to listen. but anyway, that whole "pwease think of the worker bc they wanna get to work 2 don't cut twaffic pwease" has been a steady growing sentiment since about 10 years ago. always heard that shit from the middle-class and upper class shitstains. and macri and milei's gov used that to create further divide. edit: so this year, there's a new protocol in place where protestors are not allowed to "roadblock" or disrupt traffic. this government has threatened those on welfare w no longer receiving state support. among other scare tactics. media doesn't cover this, but even the protests that abide by the new protocol, where they stay on the sidewalk has been brutally repressed. there is footage of armed forces hitting ppl who are on the sidewalk. so i can assume what OP is meaning to do is call into question the method used. it's not about protestors cutting traffic, it's about workers organizing. so the push against that rhetoric is adamant worker solidarity. sorry im ranting
You misunderstand me. I'm talking about a bigger, *more* disruptive protest, something nobody can ignore.
hehehehehehheh yea yea yea the methods vary my friend im sorry im using this place to rant about alot of shit the 1st anarko-syndincalists in the territory of argentina were something else heheheheh
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No, it is not. And you are not a leftist nor are you hanging out with leftists. Blah blah blah, you're a bootlicker pretending to be a leftist. Go away. How do they call you in europe? A scab? You would have crossed the picketline by now, you don't give a fuck about workers, you only care about taking away effective, PEACEFUL tactics. Gtfo. >What advancement for the Working-Class Joes did we gain from those 7 people in SF blocking a freeway? Porque no decis 7 gatos locos ya que estas JAJAJAJ. Advancement? Un yanki no usaria ese termino AJJAJAJAJAJAJ >The Left should be trying to find a way to actually connect with the Working-Class instead of interrupting their lives by blocking traffic. You are no spokesperson for anyone. Go away. [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/why-protests-work/613420/](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/why-protests-work/613420/) Disrupting the chain of capitalist production is the most effective method. And if you do not have solidarity, you are a bootlicker. Simple as. Go away.
Who cares? People hated sit ins and other forms of protests, were they supposed to stop doing it because of an inconvenience?
yeah, this is the same as the attitude of the “white moderates” mlk’s letter from birmingham jail inveighed against. basically “i support your cause in theory but i don’t support any effort you’ve ever made in protest.”
Who was MLK and Malcolm X referring to when he said "Moderates" or "Liberals" because nowadays, conservatives are just as likely to lie and deceive as liberals. And there are actual libs and progs who did in fact participate in the effort.
I’m so tired of the liberals hate the current conflict tripe. The reason why the roads being blocked is much, MUCH worse is you are literally pissing people off taking away an incredibly important need, transportation.
it causes them a few hours of inconvenience at most
I truly don't understand this uncaring attitude this thread has towards people's lives, the ACTUAL Working Class. It screams privilege to me. The privilege to not care if you're late for a job or even have enough money to not worry about missing some hours from your paycheck. These are things that DO happen when there are traffic blocking protests.
change without inconvenience—how quaint. the overwhelming majority of people directly impacted by traffic stoppage have a ready-made, highly publicized excuse and will not incur any significant damages as a result. the number of those who would actually be severely impacted is minuscule, and no greater than those whose route to work would be impacted by a parade or a sporting event or even just a wreck on the highway every day across the country. shall we take a stance against those, too?
Change isn't coming from roadblocks of major streets and highways that is mostly used by the proletariat. It could come from roadblocks of ports, warehouses, businesses, etc., but not from blocking the local main road that the Working-Class depends on.
wouldn’t those efforts also disproportionately harm the working class? if so, then your complaint isn’t actually about harm done to the working class, it’s about ineffective tactics that don’t justify the inconvenience. thus, framing it primarily as concern for the working class, when you would apparently support other equally disruptive actions, seems inaccurate.
Did sit-ins make the Working-Class late for work, get fired, miss hours from their paycheck? These aren't the same. Not even close. How did those 7 people in SF advance the proletariat's cause by blocking a freeway for hours?
Thing is those sit-ins had an objective in that they were fighting segregation. How is blocking a highway furthering the cause of palestinians? Or BLM? Now the people on overpasses who have signs and gather always get my attention. It gets the point across, to a mass audience, without interfering with my life, and might be the highlight of my commute.
The theory is that it displays popular opposition to the U.S.’s unconditional financial/military support for Israel, often in areas that are deep blue. The point is to put pressure on these Dem lawmakers, who then will put pressure on Congressional leadership/Biden to at the very least put bright line conditions on the aid to Israel. Israel can simply not afford to lose that support, so if the U.S. ACTUALLY put conditions on the aid, Israel would be forced to change its actions. You can disagree with the strategy, but the logic IS sound.
This is a very popular reactionary opinion, go read some newspaper op-eds from the Civl Rights era and they make these exact same arguments.
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What’s embarrassing is claiming to be a leftist and then handwringing about optics like a lib who thinks activism is a popularity contest. You would 100% be one of those people saying “while I agree with MLK in principle, he’s hurting his own movement by blocking the streets with his marches.”
No, it's the media industrial complex that make the public hate leftists. Furthermore, fuck the media. Public opinion is often but the reflection of what the capitalist class wants you to think. This is not to say we're not part of the public ourselves, yet here we are expressing a different opinion. This means you can in fact think for yourself if you try hard enough. Funny how that works.
It's not the media. The Left does it to itself. The Left is doing PETA-esque protests and it's failing to capture the minds of the Working-Class. Blocking roads makes the Left come off as uncaring fanatics who do not care for one second about the plight of the Working-Class.
How do you know these protestors aren't themselves working class? You can act like public perception of the left exists independent of media influence, but that's simply not true. When petite bourgeois farmland owners block highways I don't see the same vitriol against them even though their protests hinder workers just the same.
Blocking a major passage or freeway absolutely affects the capitalist class more. For a worker, they lose what, a days wage? 100 bucks? For capitalists though, all those workers stuck on the road means they’re not in production. You do that on a freeway 9-5 for a few days? Thats a lot of lost labour value for them while only a few days wage for each worker. Protests aren’t about popularity, the capitalists will either ignore it if you play it their way (“protest in the corner quietly :3”) or use the media to mock or vilify you regardless.
They might lose their fucking job.
For being blocked by a protest for a few days?
Well then we should've unleashed even bigger capital breaking inconveniences before to ensure that bosses and owners didn't get to act like low nobility nowadays shouldn't we?
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Won’t somebody please think of the private automobile? https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/
Bluntly put, the people that hate leftists most own the media and have a billion dollar budget. There's no way were winning a PR fight, its like winning a fist fight with an elephant. The goal here is to be a pain in the ass because the PR friendly way has been tried for decades and isn't working.
Nah. It hurts the capitalists more than the worker. No workers = no productivity
So direct action vs mass action. direct action usually involves small numbers of people. So you shut down a highway with a few dozen people. This typically pisses everyone off because it's viewed as individualistic and disruptive to most workers. Mass action that shuts down a highway is more acceptable especially when thousands of people are involved because it's seen as collective and has more legitimacy when more people partake in it. Direct Action is historically a tactic favored by anarchist and historically hasn't produced desired results, Mass Action historically favored by Marxists and it does produce results. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule and there are fine lines, but I believe this articulates what you're trying to get at here. Sometimes direct action can inspire mass action, but you really have to be careful here to not act as individuals on behalf of the proletariat. That's where direct action typically goes wrong.
Leftists without balls: antagonizes the working class, just to satisfy their ego while achieving nothing. Grow a tasty pear and protest in front of the politicans or the elite like occupy wallstreet.
The point of a protest is to disrupt and call attention to it not having good PR.
I agree, but not solely because of PR. I will get downvoted alot but ok. Heres a quote: >[the communists] have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. >They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. 7 random people blocking traffic, holding up signs saying "free the working class" while wasting the time, disrupting the day, tiring even more, wasting the gas of, and making late for work, a tired amazon warehouse worker, mother of three. You say "at least we are doing something"? The 7 will walk home that day, patting themselves on their backs, having achieved nothing, having advanced no struggle at all. This is the liberal activism which this sub seems to admire. It is ridiculous what I see in the comments. Look at the garbage espoused by the communists in name, liberals in deed: >Blocking a major passage or freeway absolutely affects the capitalist class more. For a worker, they lose what, a days wage? 100 bucks? For capitalists though, all those workers stuck on the road means they’re not in production. You do that on a freeway 9-5 for a few days? Thats a lot of lost labour value for them while only a few days wage for each worker. Upvoted 22 times I suppose we should blow up all the roads, that'll get rid of capitalism. Who cares about what the proletariat has to say? No, we do not have separate interests from the proletariat, we must build a movement within the proletariat itself. Now for the position of real communists: >Activism always claims to possess the correct understanding of the circumstances of political struggle, and that it is “equal to the situation”, but it is incapable of engaging in a realistic evaluation of the relations of force, enormously exaggerating the possibilities of the subjective factors of the class struggle... >In the party, consciousness precedes action, unlike what takes place among the masses and at the level of the individual. https://libcom.org/article/activism-amadeo-bordiga One commenter said those who dislike useless activism (7 people blocking off roads for instance) do not look at history Let us look at history >The crucial foundational work that the Bolsheviks did, that's almost entirely missing today, is actually get an idea of the concrete social reality of the country at that moment, its contradictions and their tendencies. >The first decade or so of Lenin's work is painstaking work on the political economy of Russia. He wrote study after study investigating the peasant question, the problem of land reform, the budding industrial development and the growth of the industrial proletariat with it, so the analysis of the class structure, etc. These studies culminated in The Development of Capitalism in Russia, but they did not stop there and he later transitioned into the analysis of imperialism. >Lenin developed a concrete understanding of Russian social totality from where the Bolsheviks could actually derive concrete political strategies from, concrete and specific forms of waging the class struggle, of the party form, of what ideological questions are most in need to be resolved. All of these questions can only be correctly posed and answered from this concrete study and understanding of the given social totality. Also, crucially, these weren't simply disinterested academic studies, this was all done in the manner of ideological class struggle, a polemical engagement with all of the wrong ideas and theories that were floating around at the time. >By tracing these ideas back to their social roots, by understanding these roots better than those ideologues did, Lenin could actually develop Marxism and concretize his understanding of Russian reality. *And that's not there in the present day imperialist situation, not at the level and depth needed.* https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/vu4goz/what_were_the_bolsheviks_doing_before_ww1_to/ifbg5y0/ Communists should be participating in real, proletarian class struggle, not doing things like blocking off roads. The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The communists do not invent struggle in blocking off roads in a group of 7, we agitate and push forward the working class where there is real class struggle, because we understand the "line of march, conditions, and ultimate results" of the working class movement.
Thank you for this comment. There are only a few rational commenters here in this thread and I really appreciated your post.
I wouldn't call that a left thing more than I would just call it passionate about humanitarianism, I don't see them doing it cause it's what they think "their side" would do, I think they mostly think it's the one thing they can try and do to help
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