this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025
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submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Irelephant@lemm.ee to c/fedimemes@feddit.uk
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[–] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Campism is Trotskyist criticism and not a term we use.

That's not a response to the criticism, just a dismissal of it based on who it originated from. I personally think it's a valid criticism of many who consider themselves marxist-leninists, and I am not a trotskyist. People I've spoken with in the past have had a tendency to dogmatically subscribe to a campist mindset in total disregard for the particulars of any given situation, and for how much shit MLs give liberals for practicing lesser-evilism, many sure seem to love their own version of it.

Accelerationism is an edgelord meme that some baby leftists might subscribe to, but is generally a very dumb concept.

It's far more prevalent than you're giving it credit for, and in my experience many MLs' understanding of revolutionary defeatism tends to boil down to accelerationism when questioned.

However, I'll give props for knowing about revolutionary defeatism, which is a factor in our analysis. It was, pretty indisputably, the correct position to take in WWI, when it was developed.

Indisputable suggests it's largely undisputed now, which you must know is absolutely not the case. I am currently disputing it. There is no significant historical pattern of countries that faced a military defeat becoming socialist or even having better revolutionary conditions afterwards.

Only in Russia did the socialists stay true to their promise and used the opportunity to turn the imperialist war into a civil war, and eventually managed to nope out of the meat grinder everyone else was stuck in.

Starting a civil war while the country is in the middle of an imperialist war is not an example of revolutionary defeatism working. If Russia had been defeated in their imperialist war and then had a socialist revolution that would be an example, but even then one example is not a pattern.

Furthermore, history cautions us to be skeptical when our country tells us a war is justified, as we see many examples throughout history where people fell in line behind narratives that did not hold up, whether it was WWI or Vietnam or Iraq - whenever any country goes to war, there is a strong pressure and lots of propaganda that is able to convince the vast majority of people to support it, everyone always thinks, "but this time, it's different," and more often than not, they're wrong.

I agree completely, but this is just an argument for being anti-imperialist and anti-war, not an argument for revolutionary defeatism.

Generally speaking, arguments that are grounded on things like territorial integrity or national sovereignty don't really have traction with us. Revolution involves aggressively violating national sovereignty, after all.

Those sorts of arguments don't have any traction with me either, I'm an anarchist. I don't believe I have made any such arguments, unless you conflate collective self-determination with national sovereignty.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

That’s not a response to the criticism, just a dismissal of it based on who it originated from.

many MLs’ understanding of revolutionary defeatism tends to boil down to accelerationism

If you want to argue with someone in good faith you should try to understand their position first,

It seems kind of contradictory to talk about "trying to understand our position in good faith first" before criticizing it, and then characterizing it in critical terms that we don't use. If you want to "understand a position in good faith first" then you should describe that position in a way that the people who hold it would find fair and agreeable - and then you can tear into it all you want. It seems that you don't actually want to understand our position or explain it, but rather just jump into criticizing it.

If you actually followed your own (good) advice, the form of your argument should look like:

Here's a neutral description of what they say:

And here's my critical view of what that position actually amounts to, and the reasons why I see it that way:

The issue I take with you using the terms "campism" and "accelerationism" is that they belong in the second part, but you've presented them as being in the first.

Indisputable suggests it’s largely undisputed now, which you must know is absolutely not the case. I am currently disputing it. There is no significant historical pattern of countries that faced a military defeat becoming socialist or even having better revolutionary conditions afterwards.

What you're describing is not revolutionary defeatism, it is accelerationism. I have to withdraw my props for only learning the term without actually understanding what it means. You're not really disputing it, you're disputing a completely different concept that you've incorrectly labelled.

Revolutionary defeatism is not the descriptive belief that a country facing a military defeat will always or even generally become socialist, rather, it is the proscriptive tactic that, when both sides of a conflict are roughly equally enemies of the people, socialists should primarily oppose their own country's side, with the aim of turning it into a revolution/civil war, taking advantage of the difficulties faced by the state.

Starting a civil war while the country is in the middle of an imperialist war is not an example of revolutionary defeatism working.

That is literally what revolutionary defeatism is. Again, you demonstrate that you don't understand the concept. Turning the imperialist war into a civil war was Lenin's very explicitly stated goal.

Your own Wikipedia link explains this:

"Workers would gain more from their own nations' defeats, he argued, if the war could be turned into civil war and then international revolution."

If Russia had been defeated in their imperialist war and then had a socialist revolution that would be an example, but even then one example is not a pattern.

Again, that's accelerationism, not revolutionary defeatism.

I don't know where you picked up this idea that revolutionary defeatism just means accelerationism, but it's certainly not from reading theory. If you want to practice what you preach and make a good faith attempt to understand it, Lenin spells out the concept very clearly here