Every truth affirms itself in the destruction of nonsense. Every truth is thus essentially destruction. Everything that simply conserves is simply false. The field of Marxist knowledge is always a field of ruins.
- Alain Badiou: Theory of Contradiction
"Bombard the Headquarters!" This poster from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China shows the Chinese masses hanging up "big character posters" to criticize what they saw as wrong in socialist society and the Chinese Communist Party based on socialist principles.
I hope this blog can be home to some lively and productive discussion!
Here are a 10 general guidelines (a.k.a. rules) that people who want their comments posted should consider following:
- This website is moderated. If you post something here and it gets removed, there is a reason.
- Please follow the principle of unity – criticism – unity: “To elaborate, that means starting from the desire for unity, resolving contradictions through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis” (Mao Zedong). Essentially what this means is: show respect to others who post and comment here and read the comments of others in good faith. Similarly, avoid the excessive labelling of others (for example, “revisionist”, “dogmatist”, etc); people make honest mistakes but this does not make them enemies.
- Combat Liberalism. Be responsible, rely on reasoned discussion and seek truth from facts. What is needed is scientific analysis and convincing argument. Always bear in mind that what you say may influence the thoughts and actions of others. It is preferable to have discussion of questions of political line based upon experience and principle, rather than academic or scholastic debates. Dogmatism is no good. Do not talk nonsense! Be objective and be concise. Avoid subjectivism and fallacious reasoning. Please do not act like you “know it all” because you don’t, and neither do I. That is OK. It is pefectly fine (and encouraged) to ask questions.
- No flaming, no trolling and no red-baiting. Personal attacks and abuse will not be tolerated. Obviously I am going to try to keep spam away. Do not engage in slander and distortion. Also, please try not to take the discussion too far off topic.
- Openly oppressive statements will not be tolerated in comments. This goes for oppression based on race/nationality, gender, and sexual orientation. This sort of thing comes on a spectrum, from very overt to more subtle forms. Overt oppressive comments will be removed. More subtle forms of oppression in comments will not be removed but will be struggled with as they are often (though certainly not always) unconscious. Obstinance and failure to accept criticism for more subtle racism/chauvinism/heteronormativity and so on, and learn from being corrected and challenged, will result in your comments being removed.
- This is a communist website. It has a purpose and a vision. This means that there are a lot of important things we will be talking about, but it also means there are some things we will not be talking about. If you are coming to this website and engaging in discussion with the purpose of underming the goals of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, then you are not welcome. The comments section will not become a forum for right-wing keyboard-commandos. Period. And in a similar vein, if your comments resemble those of an agent-provacateur, they will be removed. Furthermore, we will not be discussing wacky conspiracy theories. Imperialism is the enemy. The world is not controlled by a secret group of Jewish elders or shape-shifting lizards or whatever. We are not going to waste any time talking about the “truth” about 9/11. I fully realize the futility in arguing about this.
- This website is not just for communists. It is also intended to be relevant and helpful to the advanced activists and organizers in the mass movements fighting for change. So tone down the jargon, follow the mass line and try to be accessable. Share what you know, but leave your pretensions at the door and be prepared to learn from others.
- This website will not be a forum for factionalism or sectarianism. Only public information about radical and revolutionary groups will be posted here. No internal business, and no gossip or rumor-mongering.
- Of course the views and opinions expressed are those of the authors of the comments. I do not take responsibility for what other people say, and neither does anybody else. Everyone who posts or comments here should be considered as speaking only for themselves.
- This website is not secure. Do not say anything here that you do not feel comfortable telling the government about yourself. If you comment your I.P. address is recorded by wordpress. It is entirely up to you to decide how personally comfortable you are with that.
Enforcing these guidlines will be done at my discretion. Under certain circumstances and in certain discussions I may apply these guidelines in either a tighter or looser way, as needed by the discussion at hand. If you don’t agree with the way things are handled then please feel free to write to me privately (see below).
Politically, there are a few other points people should keep in mind.
Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese revolution, put forward the policy of “letting one hundred flowers bloom and one hundred schools of thought contend“. This policy was the basis of the right to put up “big character posters” and have free discussions and debates in revolutionary China, and is the theoretical basis for the guidelines I outlined above:
Marxism must continue to develop through struggle. Marxism can develop only through struggle, and this is not only true of the past and the present, it is necessarily true of the future as well. What is correct invariably develops in the course of struggle with what is wrong. The true, the good and the beautiful always exist by contrast with the false, the evil and the ugly, and grow in struggle with them. As soon as something erroneous is rejected and a particular truth accepted by mankind, new truths begin to struggle with new errors. Such struggles will never end. This is the law of development of truth and, naturally, of Marxism…
Ideological struggle differs from other forms of struggle, since the only method used is painstaking reasoning, and not crude coercion…
Marxism is scientific truth and fears no criticism. If it did, and if it could be overthrown by criticism, it would be worthless. In fact, aren’t the idealists criticizing Marxism every day and in every way? And those who harbour bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas and do not wish to change — aren’t they also criticizing Marxism in every way? Marxists should not be afraid of criticism from any quarter. Quite the contrary, they need to temper and develop themselves and win new positions in the teeth of criticism and in the storm and stress of struggle. Fighting against wrong ideas is like being vaccinated – a man develops greater immunity from disease as a result of vaccination. Plants raised in hothouses are unlikely to be hardy. Carrying out the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend will not weaken, but strengthen, the leading position of Marxism in the ideological field.
What should our policy be towards non-Marxist ideas? As far as unmistakable counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs of the socialist cause are concerned, the matter is easy, we simply deprive them of their freedom of speech. But incorrect ideas among the people are quite a different matter. Will it do to ban such ideas and deny them any opportunity for expression? Certainly not. It is not only futile but very harmful to use crude methods in dealing with ideological questions among the people, with questions about man’s mental world. You may ban the expression of wrong ideas, but the ideas will still be there. On the other hand, if correct ideas are pampered in hothouses and never exposed to the elements and immunized against disease, they will not win out against erroneous ones. Therefore, it is only by employing the method of discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas and overcome wrong ones, and that we can really settle issues…
It is inevitable that the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie will give expression to their own ideologies. It is inevitable that they will stubbornly assert themselves on political and ideological questions by every possible means. You cannot expect them to do otherwise. We should not use the method of suppression and prevent them from expressing themselves, but should allow them to do so and at the same time argue with them and direct appropriate criticism at them. Undoubtedly, we must criticize wrong ideas of every description. It certainly would not be right to refrain from criticism, look on while wrong ideas spread unchecked and allow them to dominate the field. Mistakes must be criticized and poisonous weeds fought wherever they crop up. However, such criticism should not be dogmatic, and the metaphysical method should not be used, but instead the effort should be made to apply the dialectical method. What is needed is scientific analysis and convincing argument. Dogmatic criticism settles nothing. We are against poisonous weeds of whatever kind, but we must carefully distinguish between what is really a poisonous weed and what is really a fragrant flower. Together with the masses of the people, we must learn to differentiate carefully between the two and use correct methods to fight the poisonous weeds.
At the same time as we criticize dogmatism, we must direct our attention to criticizing revisionism. Revisionism, or Right opportunism, is a bourgeois trend of thought that is even more dangerous than dogmatism. The revisionists, the Right opportunists, pay lip-service to Marxism; they too attack “dogmatism”. But what they are really attacking is the quintessence of Marxism. They oppose or distort materialism and dialectics, oppose or try to weaken the people’s democratic dictatorship and the leading role of the Communist Party, and oppose or try to weaken socialist transformation and socialist construction. Even after the basic victory of our socialist revolution, there will still be a number of people in our society who vainly hope to restore the capitalist system and are sure to fight the working class on every front, including the ideological one. And their right-hand men in this struggle are the revisionists.
(On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People)
Those who wish to comment and have discussions on this blog should keep all of this in mind.
Contact: To contact me privately, or to send me press releases or other items of interest, please write to marxist.leninist.blog <at> gmail <dot> com.
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