Francis Hunger on Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:33:36 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy


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 <dk@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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