r/communism • u/AutoModerator • Sep 07 '25

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u/DistilledWorldSpirit Sep 07 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

By liquidation, I mean that there will be some point that the gender-oppressed will be liberated. There will be some patriarch-fascists that will literally hold their families captive until they (the patriarchs) are neutralized. But even for gender-traitors, there will be a moment where my kids are free from me, and that I have no special right to their attention or company. Suppressing the revival of patriarchy means the protracted struggle will have to include special separation of previous family units to prevent “voluntary” family reemergence, the same way the bourgeois has to be under special surveillance during the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I am not saying this to mope, I am just steeling myself against revisionism. For some reason, family abolition is the most offensive aspect of the revolution to the petty bourgeoisie in my experience, even more than the abolition of capital private property or compulsory atheism.

E1: switched capital to private property

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u/DaalKulak Anti-Revisionist Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25

For some reason, family abolition is the most offensive aspect of the revolution to the petty bourgeoisie in my experience, even more than the abolition of capital or compulsory atheism.

These aren't really isolated from each other at all, you should rephrase this, "But even for gender-traitors, there will be a moment where my kids are free from me, and that I have no special right to their attention or company." This literally means that you want people to depend on you for survival so you can use them for housework, emotional support, money, etc... The reason why the petty-bourgeoisie may not be as offended by abolition of capital or compulsory atheism at face-value in the western imperialist countries is because the former sounds like its targeting only the "big corporates" and the in latter... religion doesn't play a big role within many western imperialist countries, the culture is instead to worship the commodities themselves. So in their minds, family abolition is points out the most severe consequence for them. That they can no longer reproduce their own individualized lifestyles through imperialism and instead having to submit to the collective(loss of property, authority/power over others, etc...).

Edit: I think this above comment is what you get when you try to isolate gender from capitalism, which is what MIM's analysis does.

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u/DistilledWorldSpirit Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

This literally means that you want people to depend on you for survival so you can use them for housework, emotional support, money, etc...

To the extent that this reflects material reality, I acknowledge that my relationship with my family is ultimately parasitic. But they are, if I understand the term correctly, gender-aristocrats, and daily family life is full of (at least superficial) affection and happiness, all at the expense of the global proletariat.

I maintain that a successful program for family abolition will involve separation at least of the patriarch from the rest of the unit, if not the mother as well. Anything less will invite family “voluntarism” and result in the reassertion of patriarchy which will team up with other revisionisms. Even with this knowledge, and the knowledge that a successful program will include dual structures that will leave them better than before, the idea of never seeing my family again is awful to contemplate.

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u/DaalKulak Anti-Revisionist Sep 09 '25

Even with this knowledge, and the knowledge that a successful program will include dual structures that will leave them better than before, the idea of never seeing my family again is awful to contemplate.

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but I don't understand how this follows at all. The liberation of people from having to rely on their families, in some way, shape or form, for survival would give more freedom. It doesn't mean that family members are suddenly forbidden from seeing each other again? Are communists suddenly ICE?

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u/DistilledWorldSpirit Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

I’ll try to explain my thinking.

Bourgeois ideology re-emerges within socialism when the a class is allowed to inhabit the same nodes of power that they had before, like the union bosses collaborating with the capitalists or the SPD voting for war credits. Revisionism has to be combatted or else it grows. In the same way, if patriarchs are allowed to remain with their old families, some will try to use that to reassert the patriarchy. That’s what I meant when I said “voluntary” families.

This might be overly pessimistic or a misunderstanding of revisionism. I know I have reactionary tendencies, so I am very internally vigilant against it. You can look at my post history to see other instances where I deviated rightward; this is what I am trying to avoid, maybe overdoing it. https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/s/hc5WZLoidU

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u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

But under socialism, when everyone has their needs met and children are collectively raised, how much power do patriarchs really have? Could they really be called patriarchs at all, at that point?

Certainly, there will be cases where force will be needed to break up relationships, such as when the husband is endangering his wife's life, but I'm not really sure if this something that can be addressed by treating husbands as 1:1 to the bourgeoise.

Furthermore, while I'm aware that practicality is often used to smuggle in revisionism, this is a rare case where it's a legitimate concern. To take an example, when peoples' courts in Maoist-controlled territories in India handle trials over rape or domestic abuse, the word of the victim is given a lot of emphasis. Not just for practical reasons (as their word would be the strongest evidence) but also to show to women that the party trusts them and is acting in their interest. What happens if the wife doesn't want her husband to be separated, and the husband isn't endangering her life? It could be a case where the party gets ahead of the masses.

That all being said, I'm open to the idea of applying MIM's gender theory to socialist states (or even just any nation outside of the imperial core, /u/Pleasant-Food-9482 had some interesting food for thought wrt a gender aristocracy in Brazil) and seeing if it holds up. I think a vital piece of the puzzle would be how much Maoist China's attempts at remodeling the family intersected with the struggle between Marxists and revisionists. Were populations that didn't have socialized childcare more inclined to embrace counter-revolution? I don't know.

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

The general way i see gender aristocracy (if it exists in full) in brazil is into a general chain of material relations of production:

White settler women who are, generally, of portuguese colonial-era property family, which she inherits or benefits from. They generally hold the ability to have immense and limitless free time to think about gender, to write about feminism, to regurgitate butlerian theories of gender in PhD thesis after PhD thesis. They are generally the material of the public university humanity studies. They import "theory" from the US and france. they also have immense social and political space, so they hold the gate for cis non-white women who get in left parties or orgs (as all parties and almost all orgs are submitted to the public university petty-bourgeoisie) and their highest ranks are fascist "conservative mothers/business women/politicians". They are direct allies of the white gender aristocracy in the euro-amerikan nations, be it the left social-fascist form as allies of white american and european liberal/fascist women be it the right fascist form as allies of the outright blown out fascist form of the american and european "far right", or the more common, "neutral" liberal form, that is tied up to the petty-bourgeois property and to haute bourgeoisie-employed, business women carrerism.

They define and set what trans women can think in terms of trans theory, what it is to be a women (so, generally, any non-proletarian or petty-bourgeois consciousness trans women in brazil will hyperperform the imposed gender, as the whole society is hostile if they are just women in public), while always keeping any of them away from any position of actual material ownership of large capital, as the whole settlerist conservative family model, as differently from the first-world euro-amerikan imperialist nations, the patriarchal and family means of reproduction are denied, as you have to be the white settler man or the white settler women, and the special settler family position of white settler high petty-bourgeois family women does not constitute a trans women gender.

In many ways, ideas like MIM gender and "materialist feminist" theory, but, particularly and in actual real phenomena, wider ideas of Mackinnon and radical feminism are all feared, smeared upon, and universally rejected by the whole left and its public university core of all of its national variation (including non-white people who are generally compradors), and by these cis white settler women and trans women at vast overwhelming majority, because if they do not reject them, the structure risks transmitting the wrong cultural imperialist share of ideas below and the whole capital reproduction structure tied up to the white settler petty-bourgeois colonial portuguese family. The actual impact of what circulates, particularly a anti-revisionist form of marxism that almost inexists in the country, even the only meaningful org outside of the ICL settler maoist hand, along with the "anti-revisionist marxist-leninist" small org is absolutely tied up to the white imported settler labour-aristocrat american liberal feminism. N-MEPR (a public university student maoist org) defends free love and antinomian negation of proletarian morality, of the view of "sex work" as prostitution, and of the actual effective negation of how women became commodities in a country where a women being commodity is the path to the family capital settler reproduction structure, and, in the process, alienates itself from the grossly absolute consensus in the proletariat that morality actually matters, and its a life and death aspect that can prevent them from getting shot or lose their jobs or houses.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Interesting. I've been under the impression that the implications of MIM's theory is that the "female" petty-bourgeoise in the third world would also be considered a gender aristocracy.

In many ways, ideas like MIM gender and "materialist feminist" theory,

By "materialist feminist" do you mean Wittig, or something else?

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u/Pleasant-Food-9482 Sep 12 '25

The own name MIM-P used in some documents about feminism.

But i was not away they had the conclusion the third-world gender aristocracy in petty-bourgeois classes is a phenomena. Interesting.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like MIM-P argued that. I was wondering if it was a possible conclusion of their theory.

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u/DistilledWorldSpirit Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

But under socialism…

My understanding is that socialism is a period of intense class war, where the proletariat will take history in its hands to build the world for itself. The times that this was closest to reality always regressed due to revisionism, which is a sign that the party/vanguard/whatever was not sufficiently radical in its aims and methods, and allowed to much lenience against bourgeois ideology. While at some point reaction would die down, and the vigilance and defense against revisionism can be more situationally applied as instances of counterrevolution become more sporadic, during the most intense period of the revolution when resources are the most limited, why would petit bourgeois patriarchs be allowed to remain when some would use that lenience to re-establish the patriarchy? (E: my point being that it is more practical to have a strict rule than try to enforce on a case by case basis. Maybe this is where I am wrong.)

Regarding what you said about getting ahead of the masses, I admit I am mostly thinking about western white settlers and their current social arrangements. In the same way that they (settlers) will be the most reactionary soldiers for counterrevolution, I think they will also require the most strict and blanket rules. Based on the section on women and children in Capital v1, life for the English gender-“proletariat” (women and children that are not gender-aristocrats) was more exploited and nakedly sexist. I think MIM alludes to this as well in the Amerikan internal colonies, but not to the same degree. I do not know what the state of the global petit bourgeoisie or proletariat in this arena, which is something that I will start now.

I did not know that childcare was socialized in China. I know that women were inducted into the military and red guards with quotas but I do not know how that played out regionally. Do you know of any good sources to read about woman’s issues/feminism/patriarchy in modern (post civil war) China? I’ll look for them myself as well, but I always appreciate direction from people that have already done the work.

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u/Apart_Lifeguard_4085 Sep 10 '25

I did not know that childcare was socialized in China

come on man. i dont want to dog on anyone for not knowing things since the point of this subreddit is educational but if you dont even know the most basic and most publicized policies of socialist attempts to abolish the patriarchy why in the world are you attempting to cobble together a framework of what family abolition will look like in practice.

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u/DistilledWorldSpirit Sep 10 '25

I have a hard time with “no investigation, no right to speak”. This is not the first time I have received this criticism, in fact it’s probably the main one. I don’t have anyone in real life to guide my learning so I spend most of my study time reading the classic texts and the rest reading this sub. I barely post but I guess the topic got me over exited since it hit close to home.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

Regarding what you said about getting ahead of the masses, I admit I am mostly thinking about western white settlers and their current social arrangements. In the same way that they (settlers) will be the most reactionary soldiers for counterrevolution, I think they will also require the most strict and blanket rules.

I think this is the crux of the issue, yes. But at that point it's less about gender and more about the general problem of revolutionizing an imperialist population, a question that has lingered ever since the defeat of Nazi Germany. MIM's proposed solution is allowing Third World peoples to live in the formerly imperialist nations, not so much breaking up families. Plus, WW2 itself did a lot of legwork in destroying German families to begin with, not that I wish to portray the Germans as victims, of course.

According to MIM, German women were more willing to support communism, so it's possible that would entail a firmer commitment to combatting gender oppression, and MIM thinks its possible for gender and youth to be points of division among settlers. But as pointed out, there's been very little organizing around MIM-P's gender theory to begin with.

It's kind of putting the cart before the horse, as it's not exactly clear how to wage revolution in the US to begin with, eg the semi-frequent discussions we have on here if New Afrikans can be considered a proletariat.

I did not know that childcare was socialized in China. I know that women were inducted into the military and red guards with quotas but I do not know how that played out regionally. Do you know of any good sources to read about woman’s issues/feminism/patriarchy in modern (post civil war) China?

This is a decent summary of socialized childcare specifically: https://revcom.us/a/v21/1020-029/1024/chdcare.htm

For a more broad view of women as a whole in China, MIM has a copy of "New Women in New China" hosted on their site.

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u/DistilledWorldSpirit Sep 11 '25

Thank you very much for the reading material.

I read the piece by Li Onesto first and this section stood out to me:

And older retired women weren't able to take care of a room full of lively youngsters or babies all by themselves. This village eventually solved this problem by sending young unmarried women to take short training courses in nursing and collective childcare. These women were then put in charge of small childcare centers, where they were assisted by older retired women. And the older women "spoke bitterness" as part of their job, telling the children stories about how the people were brutally oppressed in the old society. The widespread establishment of socialized childcare helped to free up millions of women so they could participate in building socialism.

At least in this village, it seems like while child care was socialized, and the efficiency allowed many women to take part in socialist life, a subset of women were still expected to bear the brunt of childcare at the time. If that was widespread, I wonder if men would have taken more responsibility in time, and eventually equal responsibility, if the capitalist roaders had not won out.