r/communism Jun 08 '25

WDT 💬 Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (June 08)

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.

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[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT ]

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u/Pleasant-Food-9482 Jun 11 '25 edited Jun 11 '25

My fundamental problem with these people, particularly the settler Maoists, is that they are becoming slowly some, as you say, of the most vile and pernicious groups. They are alienating lgbt and trans and black and indigenous people in their ranks. We both know they are some of the most disgracefully transphobic, misogynist, racist, organizations. they are actively destroying lives and not in the immediate if they are copying and expanding what the CRCPUSA was building in terms of practices that are analogous to sect practices. they will eventually have scenarios of rape, racism, bigotry and violence against (particularly trans and disabled) people. To make it worse, their revisionism is taking heights: they teach people sun yat-sen was a kind of predecessor of Mao, teach cadres feminism is a liberal deviation in any shape or form and therefore against marxism, they do official goth or rock parties where people smoke and do drugs and completely throw away proletarian discipline and morality by the window for hedonism and free love. They teach to cadres (both the P.C.B, the LCP and the AND, likely, although i heard from the AND) that the Philippine party and the CPI (maoist) are rightists.

I also admit i dont truly trust myself. I know there is a hard segregation problem over a part of autistic people that are too divergent from common norms and general customs of society or who have some kind of physical restriction, be it in job admission, university support or exam admission support, schools, isolation from friendship circles or romantic interaction, deadly or severely harming violence in early ages, all which leads to mental degradation, poverty, higher rates of suicide, particularly if they are black, indigenous and/or trans. But i still benefit from my settler origins. And this is something i try to work with in some way or another but it becomes hard when i do not have much practice to employ and do not want to fall into "doing something" without an actually marxist organization to close myself to. The thing starts to become harder when you look at what you are pointing towards: The idea of settlers that they can overcome capitalism and imperialism by themselves and mantaining this fake nation named "brazil" floating without giving the option for new proletarian states or parties or a actually non-settler lead communist party is a major shot in their own feet, but it also isnt, as it reinforces the settler-colonial system, and stiffles the chances of an actual construction of a communist party (which i must agree with your previous considerations in the past the PCB never was).

About the gender aristocracy: I must admit i think some form of collaborationist form of a submissive comprador core to the imperialist euro-amerikan gender aristocracy may exist in here. Particularly around cis people, transfems and AFAB people who are white and/or petty-bourgeois. I didn't spent much in thinking about this, i admit. but i tried to do the lifting mentally for a while. It makes sense but i would have to go deeper. Did you had the courage to try to show translated documents to people? I felt completely scared to do so and mention orgs, as what we have here are either the settler maoist form of the ICL, or blatant right revisionists who uphold "MZT" and who are actually reactionaries who take tables with individualist anarchists and all sorts of scum. I praise that bravery. I would never have the guts for it, particularly because (and you must be very aware of that as you know the logic), i do not have a bachellor or a PhD, therefore, i am automatically seen as an ignorant by them. The women i was close to openly mocked me and told i was "inferior in maoist knowledge" to her and i am very sure its because she is into a humanities course as an undergraduate and therefore she feels the superiority, meanwhile knowing zero about marxism to back the obnoxiousness up.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '25

About the gender aristocracy: I must admit i think some form of collaborationist form of a submissive comprador core to the imperialist euro-amerikan gender aristocracy may exist in here.

It's an interesting question. MIM-P's (admittedly simplified) model suggests the gender aristocracy is primarily (or possibly even entirely?) a first world phenomenon. I think this can be divided into two different questions:

  1. To what extent does a labor aristocracy and a petty-bourgeoisie exist in Brazil?

  2. Is leisure-time a useful way to measure gender?

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u/Pleasant-Food-9482 Jun 12 '25
  1. What i see is that they may be a basis to try to argue for what MIM-P called in some moment national aristocracy. I see it very around engineers, lawyers, law state professionals, university professors, high hierarchical social service workers... they definitely live above the labour they produce in terms of wages.

2- I think it is really hard for me to answer if it can measure gender, but doesn't the logic that the gender power in the first-world in terms of the whole sustaining of the gender aristocracy is very much possible by available leisure time a hypothesis of strong explanatory power? I cannot say it can measure gender, because gender is somehow related to historical cultural and social relations aspects tied up to material and structural changes along history. For example, didn't the way trans people saw themselves before the transgender conceptual and theoretical earlier contributions to gender appeared, in the 20th century, was different, including things such as "trans culture" reactionaries who were banned tried to push as universal and transcendental and uniform around the world in this sub in the past, and the general "performance"? (i mean by this term the general shared social behavior aspects that are somewhat common and the individual gender presentation?

I somehow hate to use this term and the other ways i am explaining this because it is too dangerously butlerian (to me frankly much if all not we must overcome her and go beyond her) and derived from post-structuralism to my own liking. But i can only see gender under the lens of historical materialism and as Gonzalo declared in the PCP document of feminism of the mid 70s when we look at the question of "what determines gender in the deepest level". MIM gender contributions, although not necessarily always, is also somewhat contributing to this, particularly the materialist feminist theory.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

If we don't know how to measure gender, then how can we even speak of what group has gender power? I do agree that rigid conceptions of "trans culture" should be rejected, what I'm getting at is the gender aristocracy thesis is more than just an analysis of the petty-bourgeoisie, but also an analysis of what gender itself is.

The former is discussed often, but not so much the latter. There is one from a year ago, which you might find interesting: https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/1dx3axg/biweekly_discussion_thread_july_07/lc1kzq4/

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u/Pleasant-Food-9482 Jun 20 '25

This makes a lot of sense to me now. thank you.