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John Smith railing against ML and CPC, knowledgeable comrades please comment (edit: also Zak Cope is a capitalist apologist now, WTF) (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Red_Scare@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
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"Imperialism in the 21st century" was a very eye opening read for me and I was surprised to see this from Smith in an interview, comrades please help me understand:

“Marxist-Leninist” refers to the ideology espoused by the bureaucratic rulers of the former Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China and all those around the world who look to them for leadership, but in my opinion, there is no Marxism or Leninism in so-called “Marxism-Leninism”. We cannot get anywhere until we call things by their true names, so I insist on describing both the Moscow or Beijing varieties of these ideologies as Stalinist. This might upset some people or be misinterpreted as factional name-calling, but the alternative is to perpetuate an extremely harmful falsehood—one which is energetically promoted by bourgeois politicians and opinion-formers of all types, from the liberal left to the far right, all of whom are aware of how much damage they can do to the revolutionary workers’ movement by identifying socialism, communism and the liberatory ideas of Marx and Lenin with the disgusting brutality and corruption of the bureaucratic castes which once ruled the Soviet Union and which continue to rule over China (indeed, the capitalist ruling class presently in power in Russia is almost entirely composed of former “Marxist-Leninists”).

“Marxism-Leninism” served the rulers of the USSR and PRC not as a guide to action, but as a cloak of deception, a means of legitimizing their rule. They claimed allegiance to the same theories and philosophies as do I, but their doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism stands in the clearest possible contradiction with everything that Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin stood for.

https://mronline.org/2019/03/19/john-smith-on-imperialism-part-1/

[Edit] Following from this I looked to my other eye-opening author, Zak Cope (Divided World, Divided Class) and found this where he disavows his entire work and all anticapitalism, just read the abstract and note 1:

https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-031-25399-7_82-2

What the fuck is happening?

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[–] darkernations@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Following from this I looked to my other eye-opening author, Zak Cope (Divided World, Divided Class) and found this where he disavows his entire work and all anticapitalism, just read the abstract ... What the fuck is happening?

Proudhonism (furthermore, as I understand it he states the current genocide and October 7th has changed his mind... in favour of Israel). It's a lesson so called marxists afflicted with Western Marxism should learn from.

[–] Red_Scare@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ok but Cope and Smith are not eurocommunists, they are the opposite and were critical of western Marxism. Both advocated for solidarity with liberation movements in the Global South and tried to explain why the western left lacks such solidarity. Which theorists of unequal exchange and labour aristocracy would you recommend?

[–] darkernations@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

There are no gods here.

Western marxism is not the same as eurocommunists, there are "western marxists" all over the world. As westerners, we have to understand unequal exchange /dependancy theory / labour arisotcracy in its totality; from Wallerstein to Amin and beyond (I, too, am still learning).

Furthermore, marxism is a science and the scientists' individual flaws does not necessarily mean we do not learn the lessons the science may give us; even failures of theories.

With regards to Zak Cope; imperialism hinges on the breakdown of a "just commerce" rather than Marx's emphasis on the fundamental exploitation of the production itself which led to Lenin's conjecture on imperialism (this doesn't necessarily invalidate the unequal exchange, just highlights the limits of his work. I could for, for example, make a similar case for Michael Hudson's false division of finance and industrial capital). There is no real framework within Cope's work for vanguardism and overthrowing this dynamic.

In terms of Cope's later more rabid turn to zionism I can only speculate; maybe with this "just world" sensibility he concluded there are some humans that are then beyond reproach - he may now believe in a hierachy of humans which would make sense why disavowing his earlier work; maybe he was a liberal zionist all along.

To quote elsewhere the pride in these "armchair marxists" is that the never have to worry about revolutionary pragmatism, and they can congratulate themselves looking down their nose on the Global South. I would say that they are very much afflicted with Western Marxism.

[–] Red_Scare@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Cope and Smith were accessible to me, I picked up Amin and I'm sorry but I don't have the required educational background to grasp it... Can you recommend authors who break things down for regular people like me?

[–] darkernations@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I have read Cope as well but it was only much later I actually started questioning the dialectics of it; how is the framework useful for transformative change? Which parts do we take? Which ones do we leave etc etc

Still learning here but authors from top of my head include:

  1. Walter Rodney
  2. Arghiri Emmanuel
  3. Samir Amin
  4. Ruy Marini
  5. Vijay Prashad
  6. Silvia Federici
  7. Vivek Chibber
  8. Immanuel Wallerstein
  9. Michael Clouscard
  10. Andre Frank

Some of these aren't marxist (like wallerstein) and some of these have critiques on dependancy theory (like Chibber) to help get a more well rounded overview. The latter two (and number 4) I have not read at all (yet).

Rather than spend a lot of money on books, i would consider library (or elsewhere) ebooks, read the intro chapters, and then look at the contents to see which chapters interest you, and go from there.

Also redsails.org

Addendum - sometimes a framework of purposeful underdevelopment by capital can give better insight than using an unequal exchange lens.

[–] Red_Scare@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thank you!

[–] darkernations@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 month ago

No worries. I also forgot a glaring omission: Frantz Fanon.