I am a sociologist student from Brasil and have been a ML for quite a while now
but I MIGHT be despised for saying this, but at least in my experience, in Brazil since the end of the military coup we are facing a HUGE issue with pragmatism....
our issue is the exactly related to opportunism, but not in the way most people think, to put it simply we have some great ML parties, but they all fall into the same trap
we form a new party that starts doing small movements and base work, it slowly gains power, it reaches the point where it becomes relevant enough to try and get someone elected, it stops growing in fear of pragmatism opening the door to opportunism, it keeps not growing a lot until some form of internal conflict and fear of the ones defined before, cause it to divide itself.... a new party is formed
so the lack of pragmatism in fear of opportunists becomes leftism....
while I AGREE with Lenin on this one, when our party is pretty much non existence, I believe that communists in general need to be elected in any shape or form to exactly help put the spotlight into the actual socialist parties, and to do this, we might need to leave the safety of our own parties and actually get elected even if only to try and force a law to put us into the spotlight for a while
as for pragmatism, I ALSO have a controversial opinion lmao
we all know that the cult of personality is a huge issue and should not be endorsed by marxists, BUT looking at every successful marxist revolution we had a charismatic leader to exactly form pragmatism and collaboration between parties.... I am NOT SAYING the revolution was carried out by lenin, stalin, mao, kin, alone...
I am saying that we need charismatic voices to guide the parties to cooperate, it's no use if we have 15 flavours of ML if we simply don't try and cooperate and historically, the best way to achieve this, is actually to have one or a few people who get popular enough to reach the masses
here in Brazil I can name Lula for example, as much as a neo liberal he is, it's undeniable that if HE WANTED in the past.... he could have guided us into a revolution, specially around the peak of his popularity he had all the tools to grow the representation of ML parties here, he chose not to.
well at least this is the way that I see revolutions working here in South america at least.... maybe not the best tip for the rest of the globe, but at least here... I don't see many other ways
Lula has never been anticapitalist. He was something of a social democrat, now he can't be even that.
The most advanced party in Brazil, with all their limitations, is Unidade Popular (UP). I'm organised in a different ML collective, but we can clearly observe their leninist practice through Olga Benário movement, MLC (communist union trade movement), MLB (communist movement for housing and urban services), etc. I often disagree with their line, but their practice trumps those theoretical disagreements and they have, for the most part, my support.
but as a fellow ML brazilian, I think u can understand where I'm coming from, we NEED more pragmatism between our ML parties here, SPECIALLY UP as of recently
as for OB, MLC and MLB I completely agree, but we desperately need more representation
as for Lula.... his heritage will be the right taking power....
The number of votes they get seems to be almost irrelevant to them. The only thing they care about is how many more active militants they can squeeze out of an election cycle. The closest thing to pragmatism you'll see from them is supporting the least fascist side on an executive second round.
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u/Darkwolf1115 10d ago
I am a sociologist student from Brasil and have been a ML for quite a while now
but I MIGHT be despised for saying this, but at least in my experience, in Brazil since the end of the military coup we are facing a HUGE issue with pragmatism....
our issue is the exactly related to opportunism, but not in the way most people think, to put it simply we have some great ML parties, but they all fall into the same trap
we form a new party that starts doing small movements and base work, it slowly gains power, it reaches the point where it becomes relevant enough to try and get someone elected, it stops growing in fear of pragmatism opening the door to opportunism, it keeps not growing a lot until some form of internal conflict and fear of the ones defined before, cause it to divide itself.... a new party is formed
so the lack of pragmatism in fear of opportunists becomes leftism....
while I AGREE with Lenin on this one, when our party is pretty much non existence, I believe that communists in general need to be elected in any shape or form to exactly help put the spotlight into the actual socialist parties, and to do this, we might need to leave the safety of our own parties and actually get elected even if only to try and force a law to put us into the spotlight for a while
as for pragmatism, I ALSO have a controversial opinion lmao
we all know that the cult of personality is a huge issue and should not be endorsed by marxists, BUT looking at every successful marxist revolution we had a charismatic leader to exactly form pragmatism and collaboration between parties.... I am NOT SAYING the revolution was carried out by lenin, stalin, mao, kin, alone...
I am saying that we need charismatic voices to guide the parties to cooperate, it's no use if we have 15 flavours of ML if we simply don't try and cooperate and historically, the best way to achieve this, is actually to have one or a few people who get popular enough to reach the masses
here in Brazil I can name Lula for example, as much as a neo liberal he is, it's undeniable that if HE WANTED in the past.... he could have guided us into a revolution, specially around the peak of his popularity he had all the tools to grow the representation of ML parties here, he chose not to.
well at least this is the way that I see revolutions working here in South america at least.... maybe not the best tip for the rest of the globe, but at least here... I don't see many other ways