Marxism did not deal strictly with factory work, but with proletarianized labor, which persists today as the dominant form of labor. Further, I am really not sure what you mean by saying communism is “pie in the sky” or that human ambition is in opposition to communism. The manifesto is a pamphlet for agitation, it isn’t really the core of Marxism.

You have to understand both. Understanding why communist parties took the actions they have and do today is critical for understanding the courses different socialist countries have gone through. Theory and practice mutually reinforce each other.

Yep, that would be great! I think a good place to start would be this reading list I put together. You can just check out the first couple sections:

Of course, I recommend the whole thing. Alternatively, Prolewiki’s Marxism portal contains a fantastic short list of articles that help explain the absolute basics quickly.

No? I have no idea where you got these ideas. Revolutionary organizing doesn’t necessarily mean throwing your life away, it means building an explicitly revolutionary and disciplined organization of cadre. These revolutionary organizations can participate in elections to advertise their platforms and grow the movement, but the understanding is always that you cannot establish socialism through reform. Marx himself was a revolutionary, not a reformist.

Again, I am not some Hasan hater. He’s not an anti-communist, but his positions are those of a social democrat sympathetic to communism and socialism. That’s not “silly,” it’s taking a consistent stance based in Marxist understandings of revolutionary change and the class nature of the state.

Revolution doesn’t just “happen,” you have to organize for it directly. Crisis is not the same as an assured revolution, to actually get revolution you need a revolutionary party leading the charge.

My issues with Hasan are that he pushes a reformist line, and focuses primarily on electoralism. I’m not some hater of Hasan, but those two positions put him squarely into social democratic territory. It’s not about some arbitrary level of “leftness,” it’s two strategic positions he has that puts him at odds with communist struggle. And no, it isn’t a silly issue at all, the concept of reformism vs revolution is an active struggle among the left in the imperial core, and the communist line historically is 100% in favor of revolution since Marx.

I’m a communist and organize for socialism. Democratic centralism is a core function of successful party-building. Infantilizing me for speaking on what I know from both historical study and practical experience as an organizer within the framework of democratic centralism is childish. How are you going to convince others of your views if you act like this? Even Hasan doesn’t criticize demcent like this, and speaks very positively of demcent organizations.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never played HoI4 either.

I disagree that he is succeeding in that by going through the DSA and focusing so hard on electoralism. It’s important to understand the necessity of democratic centralism and consistent revolutionary rhetoric, because otherwise we fall into the same problems as the second international and the SPD.

Democratic socialists are social democrats in practice, considering it is impossible to reform capitalism into socialism. Revolution is absolutely possible, but it isn’t something you trigger, it is a response to crisis with an organized revolutionary class. We need to organize so that crisis turns to revolution.

Owning a business is not the same as managing a business. Management is administrative labor, and is necessary, but the actual ownership of companies is in a tiny number of hands that work only when they choose to, on their own terms.

The alternative system is socialism, where production is collectivized, and run to suit the needs of society. We can reduce working hours this way when we are not working to fill an endless pursuit of profit and capital valorization, which gives us time to pursue human relationships, educate ourselves, and advance in our hobbies.

Hasan is more of a communist-sympathizing social democrat. His strategy is overwhelmingly reformist.

The Soviet Union and China are both examples of socialism, rub according to Marxist principles. They were called communist because they were run by communist parties with the intention of developing into communism, not because anyone thought they weren’t genuine. Both the Soviet Union and PRC were what Marx described as “lower-stage communism,” or what became known as the transitional phase known as socialism at the time of Lenin.

Communism is a post-socialist society where there is no state in the Marxist conception. The Soviet Union was socialist, run by a communist party. Stalin may have agreed with Marx on that, but did not invent it.

No problem!

I’m a Statesian, so if you were down here I would recommend an org like the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Instead, I recommend channels like Red Pen who are based in Canada and bring a Marxist analysis to the forefront. I cannot say which orgs are good or bad as I am not familiar. I do think it’s important to point out that welfare in capitalism is not socialism. The Nordic countries are social democracies, not socialist, and as such are both reliant on the imperialist system propping up the west and are seeing a withering of social safety nets as capitalism continues to decay.

?

It really doesn’t. Scandinavian Social Democratic countries are seeing the same gradual decay in safety nets, because the imperialist system they depend on is gradually decaying. This is very predictable, however, because as capitalism goes on, and as its imperialist stage goes on, there are very understandable and gradual processes like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Capitalism cannot last forever, it systematically erodes its own basis. Imperialism as a stage in capitalism magnifies the problems with capitalism, temporarily reducing national-scale contradictions between workers and owners through safety nets while heightening contradictions on an international scale, between imperialist countries and the global south.

That would be correct, heavily-regulated capitalism cannot work in the long-term for the same reasons capitalism in general cannot work in the long-term.

Are you in a socialist party? Getting organized is the number one task to build such a movement. With a worker party, we can educate ourselves, creating disciplined and effective organizers that can help convey these ideas to others in the working class, struggle alongside them for unionizing and tenant struggles, and get more people organized.

I’m not a Hasan viewer, I’m a communist. I am just more in-tune because I have to know what’s salient to do org work.

I’m not so sure, communist organizations are getting targeted by the state and talked about publicly now as a part of the crackdown on rising socialist and communist sympathies around the country. Hasan is more of a Social Democrat, but he is generally more sympathetic to socialism and communism than most socdems.