I don’t think we should be emulating Lenin or the USSR. I think that’s what is backfiring.
“Read theory” is how they trick us, forcing us into dogmatic religious-like application of historical texts.
Why don’t we write theory? Marx and Lenin weren’t gods. They got things wrong.
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR. I don’t see what is “backfiring,” if you could elaborate on that I’d appreciate it. The thing is, the USSR broadly got many things unquestionably correct. They also had missteps, and we can learn from those just as much as we can from their achievements. The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
As for reading theory and “dogmatism,” this is indeed a problem, but not as big a problem as avoiding theory. You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
As for new theory, there is new analysis all the time! Much of older theory absolutely holds up, especially Marx and Lenin, but new theory exists too. I am currently reading Michael Hudson’s Super-Imperialism, which analyzes the modern form of the US Empire and how it extracts wealth as a debtor country. The reading list I made has older theory I consider essential, as well as newer works.
One might say that Marx is like Newton, describing/discovering many things and setting a foundation for their field. Saying “we shouldn’t read Newton because his stuff is old” or that his ideas are wrong simply because they are old is ludicrous. Both of them probably had things they got wrong, sure, and newer theory corrects this, but they still set the foundations.
While one might not read Newton directly in school, so for some Marxist theory it is too (see Elementary Principles of Philosophy teaching DiaMat), but Marxs books that haven’t been superseded in this way should still be read.
Fantastic way of putting it! People have iterated on Marx and Lenin, but the basic building blocks were first set by Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc, and as a consequence modern theorists use those tools in new conditions. You must still engage with these tools to have a better idea of how they apply to modern contexts.
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR.
Learning from their mistakes. Not emulating a failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship.
I don’t see what is “backfiring,”
Americans fear the word “socialism” because they associate it with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Your love of Lenin and the USSR isn’t helping with that.
The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
The only thing the PRC learned was to abandon socialism. Canada is more socialist than the PRC.
You keep linking books to read. I think we’ve read enough. It’s time to start writing.
The USSR wasn’t a “failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship,” though. They democratized the economy, ended famine in a country where that was regular, over tripled literacy rates from the low 30s to 99.9%, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth, defeated the Nazis, proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well, provided free and high quality healthcare and education, and more.
The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided. If we are to establish Socialism, we must be honest about it.
As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics. Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses. Canada, on the other hand, is driven by private property and Imperialism.
If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes. This is throwing away perfectly good tools, and is what doomed the SRs in Russia and why the Bolsheviks succeeded.
