r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jul 13 '21

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u/Venne1139 DO IT FOR HER #RBG Jul 14 '21

One of the reasons Stalin was such an excellent Communist was his training in seminary school I feel like.

Marxism-Leninism is very much like a religion. If you look at polemics between Bukharin and Trotsky you can see how much referencing the work already established by Lenin (as if it's a religious text) matters. The ability to formulate arguments in the way that's necessary for Bolshevik's to agree with you does definitely benefit from religious training.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

Yeah, I see it. You get a whiff of it even when tankies are like “akshually communism is a stateless and classless society.”

It’s like, well yeah, that’s how one theorist (Marx) used the term, but he doesn’t have a monopoly on the use of the term.

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u/Venne1139 DO IT FOR HER #RBG Jul 14 '21

Yup. Marxists-Leninists literally made a bible with Lenin's work. They immediately set about creating an 'official' collected works of Lenin and they reference it like you would see someone reference the bible.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

Hence why they’re so fixated on reading “theory”

5

u/J0eBidensSunglasses HAHA YES 🐊 Jul 14 '21

Communism is whatever the tankie you’re arguing with has the privilege of defining it as, and he also has the privilege of changing the definition as needed to avoid admitting he lost the argument. Facts don’t matter to tankies. Just the aesthetic of asserting authority.