I would like to know what communist tendency you follow, why you follow it and who best represents your tendency of communism weather it be a modern day country like China or a country like the USSR?
The answer to this question myself is that I am a Marxist-Leninist. I follow Marxism Leninism because it gives power to the working class rather than the bourgeois and aims for a classless money less society this is achieved through following Marxist Leninist theory and analyzing the conditions in the country you are trying to achieve Marxism-Leninism in. Those who best represent Marxism Leninism for me are Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha.
Yep. We need to always be interrogating our own positions and if they continue to be relevant to our current conditions, which will be different depending on where the struggle is located. People becoming too attached to labels encourages people to treat socialism like a subculture.
I agree, but I sometimes do not understand the disdain or avoidance of labels that some communists have (not talking about peeps here); if it comes from a place of inexperience and not knowing the theory behind any communist positions, then I understand not wanting to attach a label to yourself, but if you know enough theory to say what you are yet you do not, I have trouble coming up with a good reason for doing so (admittedly, I am not sure how common this second type is). If you think you are boxing yourself in by attaching yourself to a label, then I think you misunderstand the fact that people can have labels and interrogate them while having these very same labels.
I assume that the second type might want to avoid confrontation or being wrong, but that is honestly not a major problem for me (despite myself being a beginner Marxist, I am firm in my conviction that Marxism is the right path; any criticisms thrown towards my way can either be criticized themselves or they can help me improve), and labels are important whether it is or is not desirable. It might also be a way for some people (like content-creators) to become popular amongst a wide variety of people without alienating their audience, which is a more selfish reason for it.
On a somewhat related note, Lenin made it very clear that labels are important in What is to be Done?: “only short-sighted people can consider factional disputes and a strict differentiation between shades of opinion inopportune or superfluous. The fate of Russian Social-Democracy for very many years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or the other “shade”.”
I agree with you too. Theres nothing wrong with labels inherently, especially as signifiers of an ideological lens. But the danger is forgetting that Marxism-Leninism is, in fact, a lens not a dogma. When the lens is treated like a dogma, then it’s proponents can take on a religious or subculture tendency.
Neither of us are describing the users here. I think both of us are describing a specific type of person. People especially in the West like to box themselves into labels as placeholders for their identities.
For example, “attachment styles.” The whole point of the attachment model is to help a person become conscious of the ways they let trauma influence their relationships with others. But instead of using that awareness to move towards becoming more secure, they treat being “anxious/avoidant” as an identity unable to be changed.
Yeah, some less educated people (not saying I am not much of a professional on Marxist theory) stick with labels for identity purposes rather than using whichever describes them best or reading more to develop an understanding of their identity.
You are right, we do not need to avoid labels completely. But, maybe phrasing better what I meant, I am a Marxist, as this is my main school of thought. However, my political line is Marxism-Leninism. This way I do consider Marxism a single scientific and philosophical school with many contributors, while my praxis leans toward Marxism Leninism.
Would not your political line and your school of thought be Marxism-Leninism? Saying you adhere to Marxism while having your praxis lean towards Marxism-Leninism sounds like you have a disconnect between what you follow theoretically and what you act upon, which sounds strange.
What I mean is that there’s only one field of thought, which is Marxism, and all people that came afterwards contributed to this field, in different ways. ML is a political line, a specific fraction of the whole field, which is the one I adhere. This is what I meant.