Thanks ya’ll. I can count on this board to take my random rage thread about sectarianism online and turn it into a useful discussion. <3

I wrote this when I saw the Anarchist/ML beef thread after dealing with some local beef. I’ll try to be vague without leaving out important details…

My local org approved working with a much smaller, more sectarian org for some political education sessions. We would work together on some more advanced poli ed stuff and be good-weather friends when it came to tabling for May Day, rallies, that sort of thing.

At first things went well. A couple of months in we started hearing from comrades that the leader of the other group was making wildly inappropriate comments to those of us in long-term relationships. Basically the kind of thing they were saying was “if you can’t commit to being a revolutionary full time then we don’t want you.” The worse part was saying things about our partners and insinuating that we should break up in order to get more serious about the work.

Of course this turned into a big beef that’s so far culminated in a lot of chapter reflection about working with these people, lots of poli ed to new lefties about “Maoist/MLM sects” and how they have done this for a long time, votes to stop working with them on events but others want to keep doing the poli ed stuff. It’s just a mess and it really boils down to one guy who had to say some stupid shit and ruin a at-the-time good relationship.

I feel like I’ve seen this same kind of divisiveness play out online over and over again. A real digging in on this or that issue that isn’t relevant. If we can’t agree that Israel shouldn’t exist / major changes are needed to free Palestine, then yeah GTFO. But I’m seeing people bring up things about historical figures that have been dead for centuries or nit picking AES countries or coming up with new terms to describe the combo of books you personally love more than others.

I’m not here for an online bookclub! I’m here to shit post with the rest of ya’ll, but also find ways to create more leftists. Nothing can get done without numbers, and we need them badly. My org is doing some direct action, I won’t say what, but we could do a whole lot more of it if we had a few dozen more people actually show up to help. I don’t see the endless bickering over Dengist Chinese policy from 40 years ago (and it is endless) bringing anyone new into the fold. There’s a time and a place for the deep dives into history & theory. Some people need to know these things so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. We just can’t keep gatekeeping every well-meaning Lib that shows up. We have to grow, and throwing a reading list at people is only going to keep attracting the kinds of people who like spending their spare time reading dense theory…

There is no leftist project in the west, until there is a focal point to rally around we will all be wolves lashing out in the forest.

This and similar takes showed up several times here. I don’t agree that there’s “no” Left in the U.S. Yeah, we’re not packing Madison Square Garden for rallies, but there are active DSA, PSL, and smaller group chapters all over the place and in some of the most fash parts of the country. That’s not enough but also not nothing.

Personally, I feel like I have a hard time approaching strangers & getting them to talk to me. IDK if its something with my body language or tone or w/e. I dress normally and I speak in plain English but I wonder if people have a “autist-dar” and get a vibe from me or something. IDK, it’s hard to explain. All I know is me + general public = awkward.

And whatever this rally point is its not going to emerge out of the internet

Yes and no. I agree that an online-only movement is nothing more than another bunch of posts with lots of “likes” or whatevers. I find social media to be a waste of time and a great way to absorb organizing energy without doing anything meaningful. At the same, one of the mantras I was taught as an Organizer was “go where the people are”. So much political organizing starts online. This is where the people are. I think what you were getting at is we gotta get those people who are spending their time writing long posts arguing to log off for a while and get their butts to an org meeting.

there is no “left” in the united states in any meaningful sense of the word.

There is major potential for a “left” to sprout here, but it won’t happen without work. I will self-crit and say the agit prop project I wanted to get off the ground this year hasn’t been given any work. Life gets in the way and unlike both flavors of lib I don’t get a paycheck to propagandize all day. I’d like to get that trading I’m doing to “consistently profitable” status to the point where I can trade in the morning then work on my projects in the afternoon.

I’ll have more to post another day about this, but the main thing that’s bouncing around my head is: We’re not accessible to the general public, we don’t speak their language, and we are off-putting with the way we present ourselves to them. We need more and better “Socialism 101” literature, better marketing, actually do marketing (at least put some ads in the local alt papers), etc. to find our people. I am very sure there are millions of comrades out there just waiting for that seed to enter their minds, but we can’t just wait for it to happen. And I’m tired of hearing people say the masses will “wake up when the conditions get worse.” Sounds like a cop-out to me. Shit is getting really bad really fast and yeah for some of us we are privileged enough that it isn’t hitting us right now but if we are friends with anyone with darker skin… things are really bad out there.

May we all live to see the day when there is no one left to fight but other socialists.

The left is such a fringe minority in the US the idea that if we all stopped be sectarian and united together we’d be some force to to reckon with is delusional. We’d just be a slightly bigger fringe minority with tons of infighting whenever we came to an sort of ideological impasse, like anti-Zionism.

Sectarianism isn’t always a bad thing, sometimes have a strict party line and sticking to it and telling others to fuck off is a benefit to leftist groups. The Bolsheviks rise to power was in part to them sticking to their opposition to the war and not collaborating with parties who were weaker on that position. It’s not about having the most leftists it’s about having the leftist line that motivates the masses the most.

I don’t really see MLs shitting on other tendencies unprompted, only calling out the things they see that are false or dunking on people after the other tendency goes on an “anti-authoritarian” rant which takes the offensive against MLs and AES states. If you and the Pentagon agree about pretty much anything geopolitical (China is committing a genocide, Cuba/ Venezuela/ DPRK need democracy, Israel has a right to defend itself Slava ukrani, etc) then you have truly taken the side of the enemy and your pseudo leftist persona doesn’t absolve you. Being a liberal who likes leftist aesthetics doesn’t make a comrade, and the idea that someone saying “I am a leftist” is enough to say you are on the same side is exactly why so many movements have been infiltrated and destroyed from the inside.

Either way, focus more on organizing with people in your community and less on anything online

The sectarian BS is symptomatic of a deeper problem - no modern western left wing movement has a viable theory of victory. If some group puts together a set of tactics that advance a strategy that repeatably provides material victories, then everyone will fall in line because that movement keeps winning. Until then, we’ll all argue over which idealistic horseshit is a more palatable excuse for why we’re not winning but some day we will be.

when the situation is bad enough for white men that they set aside their bullshit.

obviously not all men and not just whites but lets be real its mostly white men.

yeah the best reaction to unhinged “anti-tankie-aktion” types IMO is to just be normal and put in the work, IMO. Be willing to work in good faith with basically anyone who isn’t actively sabotaging and undermining you (at least in public-facing work, obviously opsec becomes a concern at some point). The majority of regular-ass people, anarchist or otherwise, will see that you put in the work and that the committed “anti-authoritarians” are more interested in screeds against you than finding common ground or achieving anything.

I guess that’s the belden method basically lol

I don’t care what people say I care what people do. If they show up when they say they will, if they bring good ideas and move discussions forward rather than derail, if they put in the work, then we can work together. If they don’t, we can’t, regardless of tendency. I’m not going to work with an ML that only talks about half-understood theory and wont apply it to reality or feels they are above the dirty work/busy work, but same goes for anarchists or anyone else.

This is all in the context of nascent imperial core organizing of course, not like, russia 1915 or whatever.

Sectarianism is a psyop that worked. We have pretty conclusive evidence of this. Comunist orgs were infiltrated and hot takes and infighting because priorities. Anarchist organizing was infiltrated and anti-authoritarianism was prioritize. I am sure like the progressive liberals were infiltrated to for some reason.

So, when a tendency forms that cannot be infiltrated people will accept it gladly. We saw this in the 70s. Unfortunately they just went mask of and shot everyone involved. So there are two barriers to entry there. So when china opens a WPA for the American leg of the belt and road program is when we can see it work.

my ex was like one of these terminally online anarchists that bitched about tankies and never actually did anything to help anyone irl. as part of unpacking the trauma i got from them abusing me, i had to think about this a lot

for them, it seemed like they needed to feel ideologically superior to everyone else, or else they would start having to question themselves and their cruelties, which was more introspection than they were capable of. i imagine this is the case with a lot of them.

there’s probably also an echo chamber effect where u start to feel like shitting on tankies is genuinely a good thing to do and one of the only good things you can do.

idk tbh im not terminally online enough to interact with many of these sorts of people

well for one you should remember that Marxist/Anarchist online beef doesnt matter in real life, specially on 2 lemmy instances

Online Marxists beefing with online anarchists isn’t going to move the needle one way or the other. In real life there are cross-tendency groups showing up with rifles to guard drag events and keep cops from arresting Food Not Bombs people. The PSL works with local organizers to run Palestine marches which provide incidental cover for saboteurs to slash cop tires. Environmental groups publish flyers calling for action against logging legislation while radical elements in those groups go out and spike trees.

There is no leftist project in the west, until there is a focal point to rally around we will all be wolves lashing out in the forest.

And whatever this rally point is its not going to emerge out of the internet

The contradictions are sharpening no doubt, but so few people have internalized the reality of the current situation.

Denial - most people are still here
Bargaining - marginally aware people are here
Anger - a lot of libs are stuck here
Depression - many baby leftists
Acceptance - leftists that actually might organize and do something

Take for instance “the erosion of due process” that is animating libs very effectively. The problem is that this framing feeds into a Blue MAGA mind palace perspective. If they weren’t against Kamala et al due to the US prison industrial complex, they still are a long way from Acceptance of the reality. There are a lot of radlibs that are currently comparing the unfolding process to “USSR”, “Chinese Authoritarianism”, North Korea and so on.

We have to filter out chauvinism while organizing for the current situation, then some real progress can be made.

there is no western left

I’ll admit that I was in that thread and did spend some time just trying to dunk for the sake of dunking —I gotta admit that it feels good but it’s not productive when the target isn’t even someone who wants to oppress anyone, just someone who might be misguided about some internet slapfight.

I think it’s true that we have to be a lot more united. No ifs, ands or buts there. This website is a place to post memes and news, though, so maybe part of the problem is that for a lot of us it becomes a proxy for political action, especially for those of us who might not be in the correct circumstances to do more things on the ground.