Today i had the misfortune of encountering a western "leftist" on Twitter. He stans Podemos (a spanish demsoc party, very liberal and proNATO, they are now in a coalition government with the socdems and they love Zelenski). We discussed the Ukraine War and Russia. I thought he would do the typical "ok the US and NATO are very bad, but Russia is bad too!" so i brought up the NATO invasions of Yugoslavia and Libya to show how the west is manufacturing consent now with Ukraine just like they did with Yugoslavia and Libya, which i assumed he would say were bad. Well the motherfucker goes and says "akchually those invasions were good, we stopped genocides and evil dictators". WTF. How are these people "leftists"? They are straight up NATOist warhawks. How is this "the left" now? And this is in Europe, where the left is much stronger than in the US! I cant stand this. HOW IS THIS "LEFTISM"? Im so angry right now, what a piece of shit human being, defending imperialist genocides while calling himself a "leftist". He even had the gull of saying "you arent a leftist, you defend genocidal regimes like the USSR, Putin or North Korea, youre a fascist!". Fucking unbelievable. Ok rant over.
Oh and he also defended finnish and baltic nazis of WW2 and said "bolshevism is just like nazism". Plus he said holodomor was real and when i showed him that expert historians on the subject like Mark Tauger, J Arch Getty and Stephen Wheatcroft think otherwise, he said "youre wrong, the historical consensus doesnt agree with you".
See, this is the think that also irk me incredibly. Why the fuck always when i write "religion is incompatible with marxism", something that Marx, Engels and Lenin wrote literally few hundred times each, i immediately got accused of wanting to "supress religion".
What do everyone even means by "Supressing religion"? I feel like for some strange reason everyone always pictures priest hunts like anarchists in Spain did... Which was excessive and every ML should tell you the same. Maybe expropriating powerful, antagonistic and reactionary religious intitutions? I mean, those are the people that have such persecution complex that ANY infringing on their priviledges is ALWAYS treated as total war against "religion". What to do with them?
Also, what religion is also super important point. Some minor sect which is barely recognizable? Or maybe catholic church with hierarchy, millions of faithful, powerful material support and ties to CIA? Or maybe something like scientology or Falun Gong (just compare what scientology did in USA and Falun Gong did in China).
China can afford controlling religion because religion, and especially single religion, never had very much sway in China and first few decades of PRC seen rapid increase in atheism. They never had something like catholic church rule of souls or calvin fundies or wahhabists. Religions there just listen because they are weak, as religions always do, this is a constant through history, once they get strong, they start to talk strong too. Always. Also Falun Gong again, do note that when they crossed the line, PRC fell on them like a ton of brick, no hiding behind "religious freedoms" bullshit for the dangerous reactionaries.
And about religious people joining the party, you missed. While cooperation with religious people is of course possible when necessary, party should not be mass organization of anyone who could crawl in. Party members should be held to higher standards. And "being marxist" is not even the higher standard, it's absolute minimum. And "being marxist" include materialism. Not fideism. As you can even see from the CPC and afaik every other communist party of past and current AES, atheism is required, though not necessary militant one, and it's probably not strictly enforced unfortunately (as a Pole i could tell you this was one of the reasons why Poland went to shit and got explosion of fundamentalism). Then again, it's hard to say if they keep their faith to themselves, and if they prove they CAN really separate it, why not, it's functionally indiscernable anyways.
As a Pole i would said to you that church was not even remotely supressed enough. It should be just dissolved with all assets confiscated and all recognition by the law equaled with let's say chess club.
Again, for practical work of the party, this: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm