Dmytri,
I'm surprised by the arrogant and insulting tone of your mail.
There has been a long line of Marxist critique which acknowledges the
atrocities of Stalinism and questions the state fixation of the
traditional reading of Marxism, while still being able to deliver a
notion of non-capitalist futures. Namely Moishe Postone, Michael
Heinrich and Bini Adamczak, to name only a few.
Plenty of material from which Franks' position could be critiqued, yet
certainly not through toxic male dominance gestures like yours.
best
Francis
Am 11.01.21 um 16:55 schrieb Dmytri Kleiner:
Frank, honestly, and with all due respect, it is your take that is
boring beyond words.
It is, word-for-word, the one that is propagated by the imperialist
institutions that play the embedded left like a fiddle, it is so
boring it could well have been written by a twitter ebooks bot, and it
can found verbatum in almost every underbelly comments section on the
web. And it's not only boring, but it's a total dead-end that leads
only to irrelevance and failure.
Seriously, blah blah, I lived in east Germany, blah blah, imperialism
and racism, blah blah, both sides, blah blah Xi-Fans. This is plainly
disrespectful and bad faith intellectual gymnastics performed to
denounce and deny the accomplishments of the global left and ignores
the fact that any government should be obviously be judged by the
outcomes it delivers, not by any third party evaluation based on
doctrinaire idealism, faux-journalistic sleuthing and entitled,
judgemental cherry-picking.
I'm not here to argue, I understand that almost none of us in the
imperial core will actually join the global left, even when we would
want to, we are resident here and this limits our ability to be involved.
We must keep in mind the global left does not need us or really care
what we think about them, and we have no right to judge them, at best,
we can heed the words of Liebknect, Der Hauptfeind steht im eigenen
Land, and focus on how you can help the local oppressed while
confronting the foreign aggression of your own country and its allies.
Freire and McAlevey explain best why the "both sides" take is so
boring, as already explained, we when moan "blah blah both sides" it
means we are a third party, not part of either side, and therefor we
are at best irrelevant, and at worst an instrument of the oppressors.
As for the "if you like China so much why don't you marry it" level
comment -- "I suggest the Xi-fans who find that attractive go live in
one of their dream countries for a bit" -- I mean, besides being a
reactionary drunk uncle type cliche, this is clearly backwards and
confused.
It is those that critique the Chinese Communist Party that should go
live there, if they truly care about the laundry list of of
regurgitated issues they claim to care about, then they should be
involved in solving them by struggling along with the Chinese workers
who alone have the insight and the stake to understand what needs to
be done and the agency to do something about it.
If we are not involved, if we have no insight and no stake, then what
is the point of our denouncements and critiques? What purpose can they
serve as third party? Well, none. Only the oppressed can liberate
themselves. This needs to be the core idea of any left strategy.
"Nothing about us without us" is an excellent way to understand
struggles.
Meanwhile, the reverse is plainly the morally and intellectually
superior position: As I am not working shoulder-to-shoulder with the
Chinese workers, I therefore have no insight and no stake into their
affairs, I should therefore not judge them, and not denounce or deny
their accomplishments, but should trust them to continue their
struggle and defer to their leadership when it comes to their affairs.
If I am not working with the movements that are making a difference,
then I am also in no position to chart a "New Strategy" for the left.
Meanwhile, the global left is winning, despite losses and sacrifice,
despite us and despite the aggression of our countries.
If we want to work out strategies, we first need to join a side, there
is no role for random, powerless, disconnected self-entitled judges of
"both sides" that leads anywhere but defeat.
Best,
On 2021-01-11 13:59, Frank Rieger wrote:
On 10. Jan 2021, at 22:56, Dmytri Kleiner <d...@telekommunisten.net>
wrote:
Meanwhile, the “old left” we made fun of, the “authoritarian” and
“out of date” mostly brown and yellow “Tankies” of the world, like
the Communist Parties of China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, the
“pink tide” in Latin America, Marxist movements like MAS, MST,
NUMSA, etc, have made incredible progress for humanity. Progress
that is measurable, undeniable, and desperately needed.
Its the 70s all over in the confused left, now with Xi-fanboys and
Dengists instead of Maoists. How boring.
Having lived in East Germany (where we lived at the pinnacle of
socio-economic progress in the countries aspiring to achieve socialim)
I have learned one thing: any movement and government has to be judged
by the means by which it tries to achieve progress. Suppression and
criminalization of "divergent" art, relationships, thought and
publishing being justified with the greater goal: I had that already
in my life. So I suggest the (mostly US-american) Xi-fans who find
that attractive go live in one of their dream countries for a bit. I
for one came to the conclusion that the "oh my, the few million
undesireables that did not make it through the land reform are not
that important in the long term..."-ideology is not left and will not
lead to a better life for the oppressed.
China is just another imperialist racist state that happens to be the
enemy of the other large imperialist racist state, the US. I can
understand the need for a shining beacon of hope for the left. China &
Co. are not it.
Thanks & Greetings from Berlin,
Frank
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