StalinForTime [comrade/them]

That’s not what they said.

Yeh their post is so confused and unclear its difficult to even beging to parse and deconstruct it.

Honestly this post reminds me that there a lot of people using the revolutionary language and history of Marxism to justify their own nationalism or other views which are not those of internationalist Marxism or Communism.

Yes religion is idealistic. Idealism in the history of Marxist use can mean both ontological idealism, in which one thinks that the only or most fundamental components of what exists has the basic properties of the mental; and epistemic idealism, where the explanation of certain events or properties is based first and foremost on ideas, in which ideas are given priviledge of explanation, rather than what those ideas are ideas of. Someone can be ontologically idealist on paper while acting like an (epistemic) idealist in their reasoning, of which many liberals are perfect examples. Of course, for a genuine materialists, ideas do also in a sense reduce to matter, while also emerging out of matter, and so are types or expressions of new properties which emerge out of very complex forms of matter. You do give a good example of epistemic idealism, which is people ignoring the historical and more specifically the religious context of these countries in which national liberation movements are active. However it is equally idealist to ignore the profoundly reactionary implications of a group being Islamist (as opposed to, say, simply being a group most or all of whose members are Muslims). I don’t think anyone is implying that the political role, influence or importance of religion is to be ignored here. If anything it is the opposite. Though it seems you are implying they are in order to imply their view of what that significance is is incorrect, contrary to your own I’m guessing.

You are also introducing an unjustified exclusivity between (1) Islam being idealist (which you haven’t made clear what you mean), but is most definitely when we are talking about the ontological content of Islamic beliefs and the kind of religious reasoning that is based on it; and (2) westerners not understanding the ‘unit of opposites’, which seems to be to just be a force of relativist mysticism; if you mean that is no such thing as truth or a correct view. This is not Marxism (a modernist ideology). This is simply another expression of postmodern relativism. If here you mean that have to recognize that there are potentially progressive aspects with non-preferable components such as strong religious ideology, then sure, that is something to be recognized. Islam is a material phenomenon, like every other religion, because it exists in the social world. But the actual beliefs, the content of it, are not materialist. Materialism is not the same thing as something being material. This is just a confusion of what different words mean.

An irony is that you yourself are essentializing Islam (or maybe it only seems so due to the lack of clarity in what you saying) by claiming that it ‘is the form which the anti-imperialist struggle takes form’. Reactionary groups can oppose Imperialists. This is not a mystery. And assuming that because they do that they must be progressive is precisely the kind of ‘absolute, black and white’ mystifications you are accusing others of committing. There are plenty of non-Islamic, non-religious liberation struggles, and again there is a great difference between a movement containing religious people, and the movement being religious in character. Every Islamic or Islamist revolution has been a reactionary nightmare, for the people in general and the left in particular. The vast majority of genuinely progressive and successful revolutionary movements in recent history have been my

Marxists in many non-Western societies are often far more explicitly anti-religious in private than the sheepish left of the West, who are terrified of losing their virtue-signalling points. One example is Haiti: when I’ve spoken with Haitian comrades, they are fully conscious of the reactionary potential of religion, because they are in a society in which religion (whether in the form of Christianity of Voudou) is an immense obstacle and impediment for communist education, radicalization and organization. We are not going to bring people into the communist fold by ignoring reactionary views they hold or not attacking them. If anything, the fetishism of Islam extending into one of Islam, on a supposedly Marxist forum no-less, is an expression of the fact that these individuals actually almost certainly have no experience of organizing politically as Communists, let alone in the countries they are talking about.

Islamic socialism is certainly better than no socialism at all, and you are completely correct that white western atheists absolutely and completely condemning these movements purely on that basis is chauvinistic and ignorant, that is nevertheless completely irrelevant to any discussion of the political nature of religion, and there are certain fairly unavoidable conclusions on that front when we scientifically analysis the historical and contemporary evidence as Marxists. It’s not clear to me how anything you’d said impacts in any way any serious discussion of the political nature of religion in general and particular religions specifically. Not all religions are equal, but there are sufficient similarities (hence using the common term ‘religion’) for us to be able to start making more general theorizations and conclusions about it. This includes the how religions function politically and influence politics in different contexts.

Another issue here is that no-one is making a distinction between Islam and Islamism, which is particularly ironic in a thread with a couple self-flagellating white westerners virtue-signalling other their desire to understand the religion of the downtrodden and avoid Islamophobia.

Regarding this:

“In my eyes, the answer is simple. It is because the Western left still carries the mental burden of colonization, of cultural genocide, and they project it onto the global south - onto the ummah.”

It seems equally obvious to me that this is a giant jump in reasoning. I’m not really seeing the evidence here. This is also, again, ignoring the massive elephant in the room of Islamism. Fear of Islamism is the most rational emotional response to have towards it. Anyone who says otherwise has not lived in Islamist societies, does not understand Islamism and its both its differences with and intimate connections to Islam more broadly. This whole discussion is also again a reminder which angers me immensely that most Marxists from these parts of the world are not having their views discussed very clearly, and is ignoring that the vast majority of communists who have lived under Islamism understand that it is an extremely reactionary ideology that makes life misery. By far the most anti-theist people I have ever met are my Communist friends and comrades from and in the Islamic world, and most of all the Iranians. You seem to me to be giving a clearly idealist explanation here. The form of anti-imperialist politics is deeply influenced Islam and Islamism because these are deeply religious societies in which secularism and notably the secular left failed, and because they are responses to the correctly perceived, widespread racism and Islamophobia of the West, because many people in their suffering, misery and alienation turn to religion as a consolation that becomes essential and precious in their lives, and because modern Islamism explicitly formed itself on a conception of politics similar to the Leninist clandestine party organization, aiming for mass radicalization where they would take advantage of the radical energy of mass movements and direct them for reactionary ends, very similarly to Fascism.

On the France point, which I can speak to as having lived there, it is correct that the form of ‘secularism’ practiced as policy by the French government is not only inconsistent in its application to Muslims compared to Christians, and thus does not live up to the ideal of secularism which should be aimed for, but is deeply and structurally discriminatory in its application. Going from the fact that French secularism is racist, to the conclusion that secularism is racist, is like realizing that a square in front of you is red, then seeing a red circle, and saying that the circle is square. The French state is racist, but that does not imply in any way that we should not be secularists in our policies. Religious justifications have no place in a Communist party. Period. End of discussion.

Saying ‘people can think whatever they want on this subject’ is dodging the real substantive issue though, namely the question of how much religious ideology limits the progressive potential of any political struggle, and frankly history is as unambiguous about this question, as a general rule, as it could be about any other. We know that the religious ideology is a serious impediment to communist politics. The counterexamples normally presented are very weak, such as Liberation Theology, as none of these have had the explanatory power or political or organizational success of Marxist movements proper. Imo his has to do with the fact that how ideology functions, and what it justifies, and how it shapes how you think, reason, and justify certain positions, policies and practices, is simply not equivalent between Marxism, which is the Proletarian and therefore political stage of scientific enlightenment and of scientific revolution, and Islam, which is a fairly reactionary (at this stage in history) religious ideology which emerged in a very different context which shaped how its political dimensions could develop.

Materialism is certainly not just a tool. Even as a tool, it’s successful use is intimately linked to truth. If it is, then I’d have to suppose that every ideology is just a tool which is obviously an absurdly reductionistic instrumentalist view. It is a system of concepts, ideas, beliefs, propositions, theories and methods used to describe, understand, explain, predict and control the properties and events of the natural and social world. Marxism, as the Proletarian stage of Science, applied to society, is intellectually and therefore practically revolutionary precisely because it gives a form of understanding which was not previously available to human societies about themselves, and finally allows us to truly move towards social freedom, namely where societies, as socialist and eventually communist, are no longer condemned to society seeming like some impersonal force before which we’re passive, weak and helpless, but is something of which we are not only a part but also something which we can collectively, consciously, control and shape. That is precisely the reason why socialism is more advanced as a form of society than capitalism, other things being equal.

Materialism’s most basic theoretical foundation is that there is independently existing, objective reality, which conforms most fundamentally in its properties to what we understand as or call the ‘physical’, and out of which emerges a type of entity capable of subjective, conscious thought, which is in turn not only ontologically dependent on the matter (or whatever you what to call it, as the conception of the physical in modern science goes far beyond the pretty crude idea of matter of intellectually bankrupt 19th century of modern ‘vulgar materialism’). I’m not sure how much time you’ve actually spent with seriously militant Marxists if you think that Materialism is not a key part of their beliefs and identity. Dialectical and historical materialism are then further theoretical developments of this idea. Materialism is ancient, whereas the latter are modern developments that were not possible before modern science and the industrial revolution. If you wanted to reduce Historical Materialism to tool, then I guess the best candidate for its purpose would be ‘ruthless critique of all that exists’.

We can say we need to be understanding as much as we like, and it’s not false, but it remains a limited, abstract point if it doesn’t then ask the question of what our understanding of religion as Marxists implies about the political status and potential of religion. This doesn’t imply you are wrong when you say that there have to be political alliances with religious non-Marxists, but it does imply that as Marxists we never let out of sight the knowledge that those movements are held back in their possible development by those religious dimensions, though of course the latter are also partially but still significantly expressions of how the material conditions and historical context have seriously undermined the potential for socialist politics. Religious movements can serve historically progressive purposes, but they are fundamentally limited, and there is immense danger of hyper-reactionary theocratic backlash which is as effective at crushing communist movements as fascists are (not a coincidence, given there are A LOT of similarities between Islamism and Fascism).

Im not sure what you mean by ‘impose atheism’. We are not in a position to materially impose atheism on anyone. Whether that should be done once we have a state is another question, and people on here seem to often approve of it in the case of, say, China or the USSR, but immediately get sheepish when its discussed in relation to Islam, whereas it seems to me like the recent political history of Islam should make us less so. If you mean ‘imposing’ in the sense of stating clearly that those are our views, when then you are basically saying that Marxists have to sacrifice a view that is pretty key to our conception of the world and make a concession to false (if you think anyone flew on a winged horse one night to see God then you believe an absurdity) and often reactionary views in order to not alienate certain potential allies. Which is a very problematic position to hold in all honesty and i’m not sure how anyone who is actually a Marxist can think that.

You are definitely correct that there is not much communication going on, let alone productive. But another reason for that this is an awkward and difficult conversation to be had as Marxism and Islam are ideologically contradictory is a very strong, formal sense. Obviously this is most immediately an abstract, theoretical point, though that is not irrelevant, as moving through differences and formal contradictions towards consistency is necessary for moving towards truth, and truth is not irrelevant to politics, especially Marxist politics. There is also the issue of the political history of Islam, which is not very progressive and has become less so in the modern era imo. The contradiction between them is also not only something perceived by Marxists, but is very much clear to Muslims as well. An issue that Marxist militants ALWAYS have in my experience in situations like this is that if you are talking politics, or trying to agitate or organize, and you are doing so with religious individuals, especially if they are radicalizing and becoming interested in Marxism, is the contradiction they clearly perceive between their religious convictions and their developing Marxist/Communist political beliefs. At a point if you are in a party you do have to have the conversation with potential militants or members that Marxism is not compatible with the liberal position on religion of pretending like it is politically irrelevant, simply to appeal to the insecurity or narcissism of particular individuals who want to have their cake and eat it too. It is completely incompatible with the Leninist conception of the party.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Marxists are not, in general, going to be attracted to a religion which not only explicitly states that they deserve to be and will be burned and unimaginably tortured in hell for eternity, whose metaphysics is clearly incompatible, but more importantly from it’s inception to the current day has proscribed very different political structures and relations than Marxism (again, not a surprise, given that it emerged in Arabia in the 7th century CE, and that it’s founder was not only a political and religious leader but a warlord who seems to have committed war crimes and whose values were profoundly different to those of modern socialism).

It’s not a coincidence that the modern radical and dynamic expressions of political energy in the Islamic world of the modern era have been Islamist, and that Islamists immediately crush any progressive forces when they come confidently into power. Every place they have come to power they have enacted absolutely depraved social policies. The success of Islamism in the modern era is not only an expression of the religiosity of these societies and the effects of Imperialism and Colonialism, but also an expression of the failures of progressive forces, i.e. communists and socialists in these societies.

Honestly a consequence of this is that individuals then often end up taking pretty simplistic or nationalist positions in relation to certain political struggles, because there is also a reticence among many people of the left to recognize out the self-evidently reactionary aspects of certain movements which stem directly from their religious, theocratic ideologies, as well as broader material conditions, due to the risk that that will be perceived as an attack of the downtrodden. It’s a bizarrely moralistic, un-Marxist, and frankly moronic position to take, because more fundamentally its a question of being realistic about the political possibilities available to movements which are not driven ideologically by socialist or communist ideology, which I think worsens alot of the analysis you see on these problems.

I’m interested as to what extent the influence of Neoconservatism on the Republican Party, as they’ve all been pretty unambiguously absolute in their support for Israel. Frankly they’ve been even more publically frothing at the mouth in bloodlust.

Who knows, maybe a second Trump presidency will be more eager to launch another crusade in the Middle East than Biden.

Yeah I agree with that. But I think that even in the best of outcomes the situation is going to be pretty dire.

I’m not sure. At times I think so and at others I’m more sceptical. I in no way claim to have an answer. The situation is worse than a dilemma. However it’s a dilemma because two things im confident of is (1) that Hamas will (unfortunately in several key respects) remain the main armed opposition capable of opposing Israel, and so will inevitably play a key role in the struggle against Israel; and (2) that they will never be an organization who will lead to a long term solution to these issues nor will they introduce the socio-economic reforms and political revolution that Palestine needs, even in the best of scenarios. Though Palestinian comrades seem to still see cooperation with them as tactically necessary though is does make me worry for them for obvious reasons. Their opinion does have to be respected.

Hence my pessimism (which does not imply that there should be no struggle, but that it should focus on making the most of the concrete situation presented. It in fact obligates even more rigorous struggle, and the most important thing those in western countries can do is show support for Palestine and make clear that their countries are supporting a genocidal apartheid fascist state. Ideally there would be more mass demonstrations and support attempts to pupressure but hat is looking difficult. But then again who knows how things will develop as this shit continued to get worse.

But I also this that this support should not be explicitly describing Hamas in positive terms other than as the only vehicle Gazas (and Palestinians in a sense) have for militarily opposing Israel, though I also disagree with Hamas’s tactics (not that that matters of course, like who am I), and think other mass radical labor organization to economically squeez Israel would have been ideal, but I also recognize that the situation is so fucked and Israel has so brutally sabotaged any other alternative that that has become impossible for the time being. Another reason in terms of optics I think they need to be distinguished is that the one of the best weapons that Western media has is the trump-card of anti-semitism, and Yh when you see people holding signs like ‘queers for Hamas’ or ‘Jews for Hamas’ it looks insane if you know much about Hamas’s or Islamist ideology regarding Jewish people and what Hamas media and charters have said about it over the years, or when you know their social positions such as on LGBT issues (I.e that it’s an evil deviance the Jews have spread to corrupt Muslims). Of course the reality is complicated by the fact that western media is already doing its utmost to destroy the distinction between support for Palestinians and strong ideological support for a group like Hamas. Though the real ambiguity’s and problem is that Hamas is still the main force through they exert there opposition for the time being. I’m not saying I’ve figured my way out of that other than by saying that we can’t condemn Palestinians decision and we mousy stand with them while also being honest Kong ourselves regarding the progressive potential and it’s limitations for the struggle when int his framework, which again is not to say that a better one is going to present itself any time soon.

On the Taliban given how extremely reactionary they are it does make that kind of judgment very emotionally difficult. My honest opinion is that it is unclear. Honestly a liberal bourgeois government would have been more advantageous to the growth of socialist politics imo. But that was also not realistically going to be produced by the Americans, given how brutally extractive and destructive their occupation was.

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First off there’s literally no need for this to get aggressive. Some of your latter responses are showing far mor about your own maturity frankly that making substantive points. It’s not milquetoast and it’s no issue with violence. Nor is it saying that you cannot cooperate tactically with reactionaries. It’s highlighting the dangers and pointing to what has happens to communists every time in the Global South when reactionaries who communists have cooperated with win. I agree that an FNL victory is preferable to French colonialism. That’s not what is at issue in my point. This is a serious discussion about what are the correct ways to view different third world movements whose interests are not the same as imperialists. And that’s not a trivial or obvious thing that you can reduce to lower school arithmetic of supportive of the yanks or frog munchers or not. Al Quaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram all define themselves as liberation movements and are opposed to US imperialism. That America is to blame for their existence does not contradict that. That’s a bizarre, arbitrary metaphysical inference that doesn’t follow at all. It’s just blowback. Taliban are also a material product of US policy, but their aims changed and diverged radically.

If you’re going to want to establish that the FLN was partly communist in some substantial, organizational, ideological sense then please provide evidence of them implementing actual communist policies which are not simply what any corrupt national bourgeois government would do and please explain their reactionary policies. Again comrade this is not me being passive aggressive, I’d just like clarification of what you mean.

By-the-bye, the political violence I was referring to was not against the French. I am mentioning against progressives and Algerian civilians. The idea that these were all q French lovers is not true. But yeh, again, and I’m going to keep saying it seems there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance: not all methods of national liberation or opposition to capitalism are equally valid politically or ethically imo. If people are able to understand this in the case of Sendero Luminoso and the Khmer Rouge it’s not clear to me why this isn’t clear in other cases.

Like it also seems to le that the a lot of the people self-identifying as Leninists don’t actually seem to have very seriously studied the history of the Bolshevik party’s foreign policy. The relevant example is that neither the Soviets nor the PRC ever took a position of unconditional support for all national liberation movements. They had to actually indicate substantial potential for progressive policy and change. There is some argument for that in the case of the FLN, but I personally think it’s often overdone.

On your comment that I’ve not made sense, respectfully I think you haven’t grasped my point. I was having a hunch at what your point was supposed to be. You said that they were not anti-communist and appeared to justify it by saying that they banned other parties and formed a one party state. The FLN were opposed not simply to that particular communist party, but communist movements in general. But if that’s the reasoning, then that would make any party that did that not anti-communist. Again, as I already mentioned in my above comment, I’m not saying that it makes them anti-communist to oppose other communists, I’m saying that the fact that a group opposed groups apart from communists doesn’t negate their anticommunism.

Also: my claim is not that the fact that Islamist’s ascended tit he detriment of communists is what makes the FLN anti-communist. What made them anti-communist was their ideology and their policies and material consequences of those. The point about the rise of Islamist is me pointing to the danger of these groups. That’s my central point. Their dominance and inevitable insufficiency, combined with their opposition to more progressive political developments, created the conditions leading to that.

Like are you just defining as communist now what happens to be the popular party or the one that can oppose western imperialism? I’m assuming you’re not but it’s difficult for me to know because you haven’t made clear what the terms you’re using mean. I’m not trying to be rude here but it’s not clear what the meanings or points or relations between points you take yourself to be making are to me.

Someone killing a communist does not preclude them being ideologically communists or implémentign some genuine policies of socialist construction.The Stalinist killing of many members of the party (and don’t bother linking me some brain dead Grover Fur garbage to argue otherwise, cos u can literally just read the actual archive documents) did not preclude Stalin being a serious, intelligent and self-consciously committed communist. That’s called being an inconsistent communist. Stalin has quite a few L’s. Like y’a know, ethnically cleansing tartars and putting bullets in the spines of quite a few innocent comrades who had given there lives for the revolution, known and unknown. At this point in history, not incorporating that into a balanced view of Stalin is not only pathetically childish and idiotic, and will not only alienate someone from from the entirety of the left we actually have to work with if you are an actual militant, but means that in any future hypothetical opportunity for socialism the same mistakes are more likely to be made.

Not giving a fuck about some of consequences is unfortunate and problematic but it is what it is. But opposition to imperialism and opposing unnecessary atrocity are not inconsistent. In any case, your lack of sympathy or empathy is not a guide to correct politics. That’s not his communist agitating or organizing is going to be effectively done. It breeds a reactionary politics and diverts attraction to reactionary alternatives like Islamism. Neither is outrage at atrocity a strict guide, that’s not the point. One of the great lessons and warnings of the 20th century in the post-WW2 period is that national bourgeois governments are in no way a solution to the post colonial dilemma or a sufficient response to imperialism and neocolonialism is even it formal independence is achieved.

I’d also add that I’m not saying that cooperation with the FLN or Hamas for local communists is the wrong move. But the communists in those positions are under far less illusions about the extent to which that’s a matter of necessity and survival. The first united front between the CPC and the GMD is a telling example of how that logic survival can apply even though it’s t might also be likely that once that group has an advantage and the shared opposition is no longer immediate, that they will crush it the communist movement when the opportunity arises.

Again not trying to make this aggressive or tense comrade.

You’re correct on the first point. That’s a typo on my part. Thanks for pointing it out. They were of course nationalist. But their nationalism was still ultimately inconsistent with communist politics. My brain was fuzzy lol as I’d spent all day explaining to ultras what Islamism is.

In really not sure what you think is being established by your second comment. Are you saying they were not anti-communist because they also banned other political parties? Because that is self-evidently false. Fascists also banned all other parties along with communist parties to establish a one party state. Are they now therefore not anti-communist because they also banned other political parties? The fact that it may (or not) be valid for communists to only allow one party under socialism does not seem to imply that all one-party states are equal. Additionally they were explicit in their anti-communism. Their rule extinguished the potential for communist politics, along with the rise of Islamist. The installation fo ineffective and corrupt nationalist governments has not generally led to communist political ascendency, but rather to Islamist ascendency, as the latter benefited more from the perceived illegitimacy of these governments.

I’m not really sure what your point is by noting that there were a lot of pied-noirs. Should Jor Slovo have been axed after he was part of the armed struggle against apartheid because he was white even though a communist? Judging the political progressiveness of someone like that is fundamentally identitarian and has far more in common with contemporary postmodern and post structural or general liberal, Soc dem and ultra leftist identity politics. It is fundamentally non-Marxist. What matters is how that individual positions themself politically and whether, in this case, they are a class or colonial race traitor. Otherwise kind of position which simply says ‘they white therefore they bad’ is strangely and perversely moralistic to me, and just reproduced the race essentialism, rather than taking a historical materialism view on racial identity, which doesn’t allow that kind of blanket conclusion. You are correct that the PCF has had persistent issues with racism and chauvinism still its inception. So did Engels, frankly. I don’t see how this invalidates communism as preferable to nationalism or indicated that the PCL was in no way communist in its ideology or politics.

My sources are French, Algerian and from Algerian Communist and non-communist friends and acquaintances. You of course correct that the general French liberal and conservative reaction to the nationalist is to see them as satanic. That being said, the FNL did completely did commit atrocities against progressive opponents and civilians. The fact that western liberals or conservatives oppose a group due to their own interests in no ways means that said group’s long term interests are coherent in any long term sense with those of communists.

This kind of argument is very weird to me. It would carry over to the case of the Iranian revolution and the Islamist’s. Should the fact that they were, in a broad sense, attempting to ‘liberate’ Iranians from Western imperialism, therefore they should be viewed positively or as progressive? They are an even more prefect example of a diversion of radical energy from a growing communist movement to radical reactionary mass movements that then brutally crushed all Iranian communist groups through torture, rape and assassination.

The Algerian Communist Part and the FLN cooperated during the Algerian War against French occupation in the National Liberation Army. This was purely tactical from both their perspectives, as Communism is inherently anti-Islamist, and Islamism is inherently anti-communist.

Once the French withdrew and Algeria had formal independence, the FLN was in power and banned the Communist Party in 1962. They were forced underground and would be continuously repressed and would never regain their former support or influence. This was continued once Boumédiène took power. They have never since regained substantial popularity and this was seriously obstructed not only by government repression but also by the rise of Islamism more generally in the Middle East and North Africa, which have presented themselves as radical alternatives based on purifying return to a mystical past and the obliteration of the distinction between religious and political institutions, diverting radical energy from communist movements, which might remind you in several respects of another political movement of European origin.

People saying there should be all out attacks by neighbors need to get off their Armchair General chair imo or stop playing Age of Empires. Like please actually consider realistically what will happen and analyze materially what is going on.

If Iran was to launch a all out attack on Israel then Israel and the US would likely escalate to the point of using their nukes. Then it’s an Armageddon situation, and the left, and ultimately the mass of people in the Middle East, are not going to benefit. To the extent that anyone will benefit it will be Islamists, who’s objectives and interests are fundamentally at odds with those of socialist movements.

If anyone thinks this would be productive for the Middle Eastern left then they haven’t gone their head screwed on right.

Those other nations are not led by idiots or ultra edge lords on the internets. They are ware that to attack Israel at this point would be catastrophic for everyone involved. They have their own interests and will likely use diplomatic pressure. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d be shocked.

Hezbollah is different as they are an Islamist group which have someone like a state within a state in Lebanon. They have shelled, but have not launched anything like a massive attack, not least because if they did either Israel or even the US may the intervene seriously in Lebanon or stay bringing out their more serious weapons of war so to speak. They have more interest, as always, like the leadership of Hamas, in milking the deaths of countless Palestinians for their own political benefit and legitimacy. Any other view of these groups is naive imo.

In terms of how the Palestinians can win, well I’d point first of all how neither Palestinians nor the range of opposition is identical to Hamas, which is a mistake that people on this site still incapable of not making. They are not democratic representatives of either Gazas nor obviously the Palestinians in the other territories.

The way Palestinians would win is by brining Israel economically to its knees and forcing them to accept a Palestinian state, though at this point. I’m pessimistic no matter the outcome. Just as Leninists recognize that indiscriminate terrorism is not going to being about revolution, but mass-organized labour groups are, the same applies in Palestine. It tells me volumes that people on this site don’t seem to be aware or are conveniently ignoring that Hamas, like the PA and Israel, have actively prevented any organic, mass labour movements from emerging in a form like the First Intifada. They are terrified of that possibility because like all Islamists they are acutely aware that that is antithetical to their interests.

Tbh, I’m not really sure what point you are making here (not trying to rude, so please feel free to clarify what the argument it).

Nowhere have I claimed that the Palestinian cause is tainted. Because I do not equate or identify the Palestinian movement with Hamas, and to do so is an external perspective.

You are correct that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for this. Yes the most important thing is that they stop the occupation. That’s not what this is about. Nor is it a judgment on the Palestinians or other Palestinian groups for feeling that they should, or have no choice but to, join a common front with Hamas. This is about perspective so that people don’t suddenly make the, frankly, stupid move of suddenly speaking of Hamas as if they are simply a progressive force. This is about recognizing that Hamas, precisely in virtue of who and what they are, will not be the ultimate force of Palestinian Liberation, and that in fact their interests are antithetical to it. The other groups also despise Hamas, and it’s important to ask why (not that they are necessarily great themselves). Because make no mistake, it is far from a given that these groups, let alone Palestinians in the West Bank or who are Arab Israeli citizens, are necessarily happy with this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem also to be making the slip between ‘Hamas’ and ‘Palestinians’, when they are very far from the same thing. Do you think that every single Palestinian in Gaza is happy when they hear that Hamas has launched a new attack? It’s not that simple, even when, as we’ve seen, right now we see there is a display of general support among key groups, though again groups like the PA are also corrupt and do not speak for all Palestinians. But this is also as much a matter of maintaining legitimacy, because Hamas is dominant in Gaza and because now that Israel is launching a brutal attack and that it looks like they could be launching larger scale genocidal actions, especially once their military is more fully mobilized and they launch a ground operation into Gaza, there is naturally going to be a rallying against Israel, and that is justified, morally and politically.

Hamas were aware that that would happen. Hamas are perfectly aware that when they launch these kinds of attacks (made possible and caused ofc by Israel in the grand scheme of things), and Israel then attacks Gaza, this galvanizes support for them. Hamas are a product of Israel in more way than one. Also, and again, and I can’t stress this enough, as Islamists their political interests are not in the construction of a broad, radical, working-class movement which would launch another Intifada and force international powers to force Israel to a negotiating table to allow for a Palestinian state, as even if such a state were to be ruled by a national bourgeoisie, that would be preferable for the construction of Palestinian socialism to what they have now. Personally, i too would like a single, secular, state, but I also feel this is pie-in-the-sky idealism. Israel will never accept that, and neither will their imperialist backers. Nor will they accept a two state solution, as we know from their decades of sabotage of such an option. This is where my pessimism comes in, as the heydays of the secular Palestinian left of the 60s and 70s is gone, Israel is becoming more fascist by the day, and the main vehicle for armed opposition to Israel is Hamas. So I don’t see how this doesn’t even catastrophically. I don’t really see an opening for the left, except perhaps if a Palestinian left finds an opportunity to take prestige from Hamas, though the strength of religiosity makes this difficult, as does Hamas’ Islamism.

I feel like this is a point to try again to dispel some illusions some people are clearly in when they compare Hamas to groups like the ANC, the Vietcong. If anything they are like the FLN in Algeria. Now the FLN were completely fucked, vicious, ruthless and deeply reactionary, but they at least were attempting to construct a national bourgeois state with nationalist perspective and policies. I don’t think Hamas are even trying to do that honestly in that their s’ils seen broader. And even if they were, they are not the ANC or the Vietcong, who were genuinely progressive movements of national liberation.

And again, it’s amazing to me that self-described communists are able to make the obvious realization that if ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like Sendero Luminoso or the Khmer Rouge, even when fighting anti-imperialist struggles (complicated in the case of the Khmer Rouge as they were supported clandestinely by the US for geopolitical Cold War reasons) or at least struggling to overthrow their national bourgeoisie, engage in widespread indiscriminate atrocities against civilians, then their communism or status as a progressive force is compromised. Or to give another example: just because I support (or would have supported) unequivocally the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany, would never in a trillion years say that the mass-sexual violence which occurred during the Soviet invasion of Nazi Germany was justified. That would be beyond depraved honestly, even though I understand that the men who did it had seen their country and families obliterated in the most depraved ways themselves. But revenge is not the basis of politics. That doesn’t mean it’s not always justified or permissible (like concentration camp survivors killing their guards), but I really don’t see how this is equivalent to killing children or unarmed workers intentionally.

Of course this situation is the result of where Palestinians have been pushed by Israel over the last 80 years. And yes. Intellectually I understand that. But that just a description. It’s not immediately a justification of anything. Nor does it establish by itself what the progressive form of political organization. For that the material conditions and the nature of the possible groups - such as Hamas - then has to be considered. I’m sure that if I saw my child die in front of my eyes due to an Israeli bomb, which I’m blessed enough to not have experienced, then I would want to do some pretty terrible shit to these people. Israeli guards and soldiers, when torturing Palestinians, have been known to joke that they’re like the Gestapo. It’s no surprise that this breeds desire for extremely violent retaliation. But jumping from that to what I’ve seen some people saying, namely ‘anything goes, the babies/kids have it coming’ or that that is politically or morally justified is a completely illogical leap no matter which way you spin it. And frankly that should be obvious. That is not a guide to thinking about what kind of political organization in Palestine is going to lead to Palestinian Liberation. In any case, I’m pretty sure that it’s not Hamas.

By-the-bye, the South African government did engage in militaristic repressions of its population, massacres, forced displacements, ethnic cleansing, torture, rape, terror, slavery. There was armed resistance, but the form this took was very different to Hamas. It was based on progressive movements, whereas Hamas is not.

Also, this is not a question about violence as such. Violence is necessary for the revolution. I wish it wasn’t but it is. When a Palestinian kills an Israeli soldier attacking their home, my heart cheers for them. But that’s not the same thing as an Islamist militant taking someone’s children hostage and raping and murdering the women. Hamas would cut our heads off in a heartbeat. And this is not an idle point that’s somehow irrelevant in some grand geopolitical third-worldist strategy. They are Islamists. They do not care about our revolution and their success, even Thinking the political math is that simple is naive. If it weren’t, then groups like the Khmer Rouge would have been justified. This is not an idle or moralistic point because not all forms of organization or methods are politically equal. Not least because the moral qualities they have does affect how politically effective they are going to be. The indiscriminate killing of unarmed women and children is not going to serve the cause of Palestinian Liberation. Now on the one hand I admit there’s a sense of comeuppance to the blowback Israel is seeing, such as at the attacked rave. The rave, with plenty of well-off Israelis who live off the fruits of apartheid, rolling on ecstasy next to an open-air prison camp - from which, apparently, the rave’s music could actually be heard - is obviously completely depraved. But this is cruel emotion of mine. Not a guide to politics or ethics.

This is also because the apartheid government caved under not only international but more important domestic pressure as they were perfectly aware that there would be civil war and mass bloodshed if they had not given in to reforms and the end of apartheid. It’s not clear what would have happened otherwise if, for instance, they had doubled down or intensified the apartheid system with even more extensive fascistic slave-labour in the 80s. As South Africa had an economic model that was descended from the settler-colonial plantation system, as seen, and utilized extensive unpaid (effectively slave) labor, it’s not unimaginable that if they’re pushed the system deeper then there would have been far more retaliatory bloodshed.

Indeed.

But the ANC and Hamas are not similar at all.

Hi comrade. Not coming at you personally or aggressively but I feel I do have to come back pretty hard on this take.

The same words can be used in different contexts with different implications, and in the one case they can be correct, in another they can be wrong. The difference which makes your analogy not hold is that the ANC is not Hamas, and pretending otherwise is either confused or disingenuous. They are extremely different organizations. The ANC was a broad-tent organization that included conservatives, nationalists, reactionaries, and revolutionary socialists, notably communists (especially in the armed wing). The armed wing did carry out military operations obvs, but they did not have as a common or explicit policy the indiscriminate torture of unarmed children or torture. They never carried out actions like Hamas has done. Not least because they were sufficiently progressive to recognize that this would politically idiotic, given that the anti-apartheid cause was perceived as depending on foreign pressure on apartheid SA. It seems clear to me that the same applies to the Palestinian case, thought the problem if ofc that the situation is so fucked that the main organization capable and willing of waging armed resistance would not only be terrible for a Palestinian left’s growth in the long-run but could also lead to a regional destabilization which would be harmful for the left in the region more broadly and would likely only benefit Islamists. The actual idea situation would be another leftist-led Intifada, but this has been prevented by Israel, but is also not in the interest of either Hamas or the PA, as it would undermine their authority and power they possess thanks to Israel in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.

By contrast, Hamas are very different. The is evidence for Hamas being the way they are has been there since their inception. They are Islamists. They are extremely fascistic in their politics. They explicitly equate Jews and Israel frequently in their media and they are otherwise clear in their genocidal anti-semitism. Murdering children in their homes is not national-liberation. I’d also add that Hamas are not identical to Palestinians and their actions are not immediately identical with, though they are unfortunately the main military vehicle currently available for, the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Not only that, but Hamas have consistently proven throughout their existence that they do not desire full Palestinian liberation, otherwise they would not have run affairs in Gaza (to the extent they are able in an Israeli open-air concentration-camp) the way they have. This is in no way surprising, given that the interests of Islamists are no less inimical to those of actual working class and liberation movements than fascists and ultra-nationalists, though the latter might also find themselves in the inferior position in asymmetrical warfare with an imperialist power and at the military head of the movement against said imperialism.

Quite frankly, it is an insult to the South African liberation movement to equate them with Hamas, as opposed to the genuinely progressive aspects of the Palestinian liberation movement.

I do think it is important to note these profoundly reactionary aspects of Hamas, otherwise we end up with a blinkered, confused view of what is happening, which is not simply reducible to Hamas being or leading a progressive revolution in Gaza. That in no way changes the fact that the mass of Palestinians who are taking part in these operations are attempting to combat Israeli apartheid and genocide and defend themselves. They evidently feel they have no other choice. But neither does the latter point make Hamas a progressive organization who should be explicitly supported as the solution to Palestinians’ oppression.

The right and need of Palestinians to depend themselves does not, however, in any way imply that every organization that happens to be the means they can do it through now is ideal, good, progressive, or that that will benefit them in the long run. Palestinian Marxists and other groups have found themselves in a situation where they feel they have no option or choice other than to form a front with Hamas in this. The deeper reasons and processes that led to that decision are not entirely clear from outside. We can unequivocally support Palestinian liberation and their self-defense while recognizing that Hamas is otherwise reactionary and therefore will not be the ideal vehicle Also, frankly, I’m never going to support an organization that tortures gay people and throws their Marxist opponents off of rooftops. Unfortunately I’m a pessimist on the front of how the political situation will develop in the long-term as I think the situation’s possible developments are going to be catastrophic in any case, given the genocidal nature of the Israeli apartheid state, how profoundly reactionary Hamas are, and that the material conditions do not allow for the strength of a Communist movement. That would require more ideal conditions which are not to be found in Gaza, and I also don’t think will be brought closer by this current round of war. Israel does of course have ultimate responsibility for this as the genocidal apartheid occupying power, but reaction can bread reaction.

Not all national liberation movements are equal. Not all methods are politically or morally equal. People on this site seem to be able to make this realization in several other cases, such as with ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like the Khmer Rouge and Sendero Luminoso, yet unable to consistently make the same obvious realization in the case of groups in the middle east who’s interests are opposed to those of Western imperialism. There’s a deep and hysterical need among a lot of the western left, not only including but above all among those who are not Marxists but ultras of various types, to unequivocally identify Hamas with the Palestinian people and the cause of Palestinian Liberation with anything that Hamas does, which is a really bizarre and honestly perverse (especially in its reduction of Palestinians to Hamas) form of metaphysical argument by semantic shift of the meaning of the words being used, to make something appear to imply something which it actually does not.

The slightest glance at the history of the relationship of the USSR to national liberation movements makes clear that serious and intelligent socialists of the past who have actually held political power and had geopolitical relevance were perfectly aware that not all national liberation groups are politically equal. Their support was never unconditional, because they were not ultra edgelords on the internet. They were a serious geopolitical power with a specific socialist ideology, and their support was therefore conditional on there being a minimum of progressive aspects to the movements they supported. Of course, this did lead to cases of of questionable or debatable support (such as the Guomingdang or the Derg), and the case is even worse when we consider the CPC’s foreign policy. But that these were mistakes (if they were) is made clear by how they contradicted with the socialist principles which were explicitly underlying them in the minds of socialists politicians who determined foreign policy.

IMO, the Egyptian state’s interests, as any local corrupt power run by a national bourgeoisie and military state apparatus, are determined by their perceived geopolitical interests. Given how developments in Palestine can catalyze domestic politics, and given that Egypt does not want to have to deal with millions of refugees, it’s not a given that they are going to get in the way of Israel bombing the crossings and blocking entry and exit of Gaza in general.

If you haven’t seem atrocities, you are not on the correct telegrams.

It’s not a question of equating or equivocating. That Israeli is a fascist apartheid settler colonial state goes without question. That there is an asymmetric balance of power which makes inevitable methods which will be immediately labelled as ‘terroristic’, and are of course terroristic in the literal sense of the term, though of course no less so than what Israel practices, should also go without saying. Hamas is also, literally, and in many ways, a product of Israel. But the very reason why they financed them and ensured their ascendancy in Gaza was to split the Palestinian opposition, crush the secular left of the Palestinian liberation movement, and ensure they had an enemy who would be perfect in terms of optics, rhetoric and propaganda because they can very believable present them as a menace (by-the-bye, Hamas is an acronymn but sounds very similar to the word ‘hamas’ in Hebrew, which means ‘violence’).

Aside from moral and ethical questions (which are not irrelevant), there is also the obvious point that not all tactics or strategies used by particular national liberation movements are equal. It’s a mystery to me how people are able to wrap their heads around this very simple and obvious point in the case of, say, the Khmer Rouge or the Sendero Luminoso but not in the context of the Islamic world, and seems to me to have something to do with a lot of guilt that Westerners (on this site, seemingly clearly the majority) justifiably have in relation to the Islamic world. Tbh it’s embarrassing in the first place that the comparison even has to be made to get the point about its incoherence across. All this applies even if the situation is so fucked that there are no other avenues left open to progressive forces than to collaborate with your local far-right reactionaries who are going to commit war-crimes. That is the current situation. I’m certainly not saying that I would not have done the same were I a Marxist Palestinian militant. But that’s because they have no other choice, and we have to respect their opinion that the most immediate issue and the one on which their legitimacy depends is that of Israeli fascism, apartheid and settler colonialism. Ideally there would be a movement more akin to the First Intifada, but Hamas do not want that, because Islamists are fully aware that their interests are not served by actual working-class mass movements.

If you mean that most people in Hamas are not disgusting, well, that was neither my point nor is is possible quite frankly for you or I to confidently make that statement one way or the other. Like is the head of Hamas more or less reactionary that a working-class Israeli in Jerusalem? That’s not that clear. Though it does make me think that there’s a continued, fundamental misunderstanding of what Islamism actually is that’s going on here. Islamism is a far-right, extremely reactionary version of politics which is very similar in many ways to fascism, noticeably in that it is a mass movement and in its emphasis on a return to a mythical past through violence, warfare and blood, it’s death-cult characteristics, its extreme emphasis on hierarchy, is relation to women as essentially one of rape and seeing them as cattle for the bearing of children, its hypermasculinity, and the fact that Islamism is also a result of a (global) crisis in capitalist-imperialist production, but one affecting locally the Islamic global south, or poor proletariat or lumpenproletariat Muslim populations in the imperial core. Like fascism, it functions politically as a a mechanism to divert radical energy from socialist and Communist forces and then to crush them mercilessly.

With all due respect, I think there a lot of serious confusion running through your comment, to the extent that I can make out what you ‘argument’ is supposed to be as it seems to be jumping a bit inexplicably between unrelated pointed (although feel free to clarify). I really not sure what your points about Mussolini and ideology being mandatory or not are trying to say. Like are you saying that the children should be killed because they were subject to fascist propaganda? Should every Hindu child be murdered because they subject to fascist Hindutva propaganda? Should every Ukrainian child? Islamism serves a similar function to fascism in Islamic societies. Should every child whose parents are Islamist been killed? Wtf are you talking about? Like how the fuck can anyone thing this kind of reasoning is not only moronically fucking stupid, and insane, but also evil is beyond me and speaks volumes about how far the modern left has fallen in nihilism.

Nowhere have I criticized Palestinian resistance, but you seem to be inferring that, from, I guess, the recognize of the trivially obvious fact of how reactionary Hamas are (just read their history or charter). So what? Nothing at all could ever be criticized if there’s a power imbalance? That’s insane. The Khmer Rouge originally were the underdogs, as were the Shining Path in Peru. If they should obviously not get a pass, it’s not clear to me why Islamists should without a lot of argument. And yes, if a particular form of your resistance is killing children, then your resistance is not progressive or politically sensible to that degree. That in no way means that Palestinian right to self-defence should not be unequivocally supported, but that doesn’t contradict in the slightest condemnation of certain acts that any sane Marxist.

This also says alot about your ignorance of actual historical Marxist and Bolshevik policy on these points. The Bolsheviks never supported any national liberation movement unconditionally. It had to be a relatively progressive force. In certain cases they made mistakes, such as in the degree of their support for, say, the Guomingdang. The 20th century has provided ample evidence that bourgeois national liberation movements are dangerous, though in many circumstances should be provided critical support, in the interests of creating a context where communist movements can develop. We could also take another Islamist group, the FLN in Algeria. On the one hand, they were the only feasible body capable of defeating the French colonizers, but they detracts in no way from how intrinsically reactionary they were socially or politically, as evidenced by the fact that they massacred, tortured, wiped out the Communist revolutionaries. Hamas would do the exact same if they had a full state of their own. Specific national liberation movements should be supported to the extent that they are progressive forces in their historical context.

Suffice it to say that if the question is whether it is ever justified to kill children I’d say the answer is in 99.99999999999% of cases a resounding “obviously fucking not you fucking moronic psychopath”, not only because of moral and ethical considerations which are not changed by the political circumstances, but also because it is politically stupid of the highest degree, unless you are a fascistic Islamist group whose political ideology is intrinsically apocalyptic and whose long-term political interests are in accelerated destabilization of the geopolitical region, which will only benefit Islamists, not leftists and so not, in the long-term, the interests of the masses who live in this region.

People making some kind of mysterious jump in their ‘reasoning’ from the correct point that ‘Palestinians in Gaza have the right to defend themselves, and the only way they have to currently do so is through political and military structures which are dominated by Hamas’, to ‘we cannot recognize as evil and depraved the torture, rape, and the murder of children’. Or the insane assumption that they are actually politically productive.

There’s a similarly piss-poor, vague, ambiguous suggestion you seem to be making when you compare a point to fascism apologism (first off, if you are actually accusing me of that, go fuck yourself with a cactus), which is bizarre. The fact that a fascism engages in poor reasoning by using that kind of statement proves absolutely nothing, and thinking otherwise is obviously confused. I don’t give a fuck what it reminds you over. Refute the point or don’t, but don’t pretend you are by vague associations. I can make the exact same kind of argument to someone who says ‘vegetarism is good’ but responding ‘reminds me of something Hitler apologists would say, as Hitler was a vegetarian’. You seem to be making no less insane a ‘point’ there. If you really that stuck at a level of reasoning by vibes, associations, connotations, or that you cannot recognize the obvious point that different people can use the same set of words in different contexts with radically different purposes, meanings, and that in one case it could be done logically and in another illogically, then you really need to read some fucking theory. If we were talking about a hypothetical Eastern European society which the US was bombing, and the main opposition force was an explicitly fascist party, then I wonder how many people on this site would support it, though it seems to be as self-evident a political proposition as there could be for a Marxist that fascists should not be supported under any circumstances. In that case, we could still make arguments

The current strategy of Hamas, which restrains that of all others in Gaza because it is dominant, is not the optimal one imo, though I’m not there, though that doesn’t seem to matter when we make the obvious realization that it will lessen, not strengthen the likelihood of the construction of actual secular socialist movements. That being said, Hamas is the fault of Israel, and Israel bears ultimate responsibility for what is happening. Palestinians are in a completely fucked situation where armed resistance can only happen through or in conjunction with Hamas. The united from with Hamas and Islamic Jihad from the more progressive Palestinian groups is the only thing they can do. I agree. But that does not mean in any way that the regressive aspects and tactics they use, which are not going to aid the communist movement of history in the long-term, should not be recognized.

You last comment seems to be going from a triviality to a depraved insanity. Children do have a (developing) will. Yes. Fucking obviously. But going from that to ‘they are genocidal’ is such a vague jump in argument. They are born into the structures of Israeli apartheid, and the apartheid program of much of Israeli society. But frankly, Westerners on here do not benefit less in many cases than many poorer Israelis from structures of exploitation. Does anyone here think it would actually be either morally or politically non-fucked to arbitrarily torture and murder their children? Is a working class baby born in Detroit genocidal? Some people have literally lost their mind, and are nihilistic ultras larping as Marxists.