Thanks for your opinions, comrades. I value them all equally. My question is just out of curiosity.
Every interaction I’ve ever had with a Hoxhaist both IRL and online have been frustrating.
They want so strongly to see themselves as the one true continuation of Marxism, that they’ll belittle and besmirch AES, other communists, etc.
They want so strongly to believe that anti-revisionism is the way to go, that they blind themselves to their own revision. They themselves refuse to acknowledge the facts of our realities, and adhere to a bygone orthodoxy that serves no one but their egos.
Marxism is meant to adapt to the material conditions of the people who use it, they deny this. They see adapting Marxism as a deviation, in much the same way an Orthodox Christian considers all other forms of Christianity as heretical. Lenin adapted Marxism to fit the Russian situation at the turn of the 1900s, it’s invalid because Lenin had to stretch, shift, and mold Marx’s words to do it. Mao adapted Marxism in the 1920s to work for warlord era China, it’s a deviation because he added to Marx’s words. Deng adapted Marxism to fit 1970s China, it’s a deviation because it introduced markets. So on, and so forth.
If you support any ML state, you are a revisionist. If your ideals don’t perfectly line up with what Marx wrote in the late 1800s, you’re a revisionist.
It’s ridiculous trying to have a good-faith conversation with them, nothing you say feels “good-faith” to them. They can only respond with insults, they feel as though they’ve always got to argue their points. It’s like talking to a cultist. And god forbid if you show them that you disagree with certain aspects of classical Marxism.
And after we (lemmygrad) had such a bad experience with a Hoxhaist, my mind’s made up about them. They’re in the same league as other post-leftists, like Maoists or Ultras. They have little to no business being here, and I have little to no business giving a shit about them.
This is the main problem I have with the term “revisionism”… revisionist against who exactly? All of the brilliant thinkers who advanced scientific socialism?
It turns Marxism from an ever-adapting science, trying what works and learning what best benefits the people, into a stagnant church wielding orthodoxy and heresy-branding.
Marxism should be about scientific discovery and human progress, not the inquisition.
people sometimes critique Marxism by talking about it as though it’s a religion. I often disagree with the view, but the way anti-revisionists treat the ideology feels exactly the same as how religious zealots treat Christianity.
If you disagreed with the Catholic church in the 1500s, you were labelled a Protestant and a Heretic. If you disagree with classical Marxism, you’re a “revisionist”.
This was one of the main lessons learned by the CPC after it emerged from the cultural revolution and the reign of the gang of four, who ruled by those same catholic methods… lessons the MLMs and Hoxhaists have to completely ignore given the success of the PRC’s opening up or Vietnams Doi Moi reforms.
Deng inaugurated a period of great scientific creativity and curiosity; people were free to try new things, experiment with marxist solutions to technology growth and poverty alleviation, etc.
Some good articles from Deng on this:
- https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/carry-out-the-policy-of-opening-to-the-outside-world-and-learn-advanced-science-and-technology-from-other-countries/
- https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/realize-the-four-modernizations-and-never-seek-hegemony/
- https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/we-can-develop-a-market-economy-under-socialism/
Same experience here.
I don’t know if they were always like this, but I’ve always found them dogmatic. The only socialist projects that don’t get denounced all failed, the ones denounced most vociferously are the ones that still exist in the face of all the hostility of Western hegemony.
They’re kind of a strange bunch insofar as they act as if they are the torch-holders for “traditional” Marxist-Leninist thought, that they’re the tankiest of the tanks, yet I’ve never seen a Hoxhaist engage in good faith outside of Maoist and anarchist circles. The phenomenal thing about Marxism-Leninism being a science is that ruthless criticism of all that exists is built into its framework – if a communist believes there are issues with adopting a more market-based approach to the economy and the reforms in the communist world away from pure planned economy, that is ok and worth listening to as long as they produce evidence and suggest alternatives. Struggle! Instead, Hoxhaists and “anti-revisionists” are much more likely to wholesale denounce socialist projects world-round as unsalvagable betrayals that need to be literally destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up, indulging in the same terroristic, petty-bourgeois radicalism as Maoists and anarchists.
The most plainly this contradiction expresses itself is in the fact that Hoxhaists detest the DPRK. Of all the socialist projects in the world, the DPRK is by far the closest to adhering to “traditional” Marxist-Leninist principles – a heavily planned economy, economic protectionism – yet from Hoxhaists there exists the same disdain they hold for Cuba/China/Vietnam. The same imperialist lies and news outlets sourced in their so-called criticisms. How does that reflect their so called anti-revisionism and not merely impossible standards of purity that neatly align with the same nonsense spouted by Western NGOs?
Also their understanding of imperialism is laughable, just as with Maoists and anarchists.
Not a fan of ultra-leftism in general because they tend to be anti-China (and some other AES countries, depending on the variation), which is absolutely ridiculous in today’s geopolitical climate
Chill, but wayyyyyyyyyyy too purist