this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Marxist-Leninists did not "disconnect means and ends." The goal of Marxism is liberation of the proletariat, the means of which being working towards Communism, a fully publicly owned, centrally planned world republic free of classes, the state, and money. Marxism-Leninism adds analysis of Imperialism, Capitalism as it spreads internationally (which was not developed yet in Marx's time), as well as strategic advancements like Democratic Centralism and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination.
Marx was not an Anarchist, he wanted full centralization and public ownership, not a horizontal network of Communes. Engels even argued against such a system in Anti-Dühring.
Marxist-Leninists have not yet achieved a global Socialist republic yet and therefore not Communism, yes. Marxist-Leninists have thus far succeeded in transitioning from Capitalism to Socialism, but not from Socialism to Communism.
Marx absolutely argued for Centralization. His core argument was that Capitalism's natural tendency to centralize production laid the foundation for full centralized ownership and planning in common. Your lack of care for Marx doesn't shift his arguments.
The result of Socialism in Russia and the successful implementation of it resulted in a doubling of life expectancy, the highest literacy rates in the world, an end to famine, robust safety nets like free and high quality education and healthcare, mass democratization, and massively reduced wealth disparity speak for themselves. No, they were not perfect, but to assert that it is Marxist-Leninists who adhere to dogmatic and uncritical support for Socialism when you yourself make the error of erasing all of the working class victories achieved by the billions of people who have worked towards building Communism is hypocritical and dogmatic.
You are correct in saying that the purpose of a system is what it does, when we analyze Socialism in the USSR, we see an incredibly dramatic and directed improvement in the real lives of the Proletariat and Peasantry.
You spend over half of your comment building up and attacking a strawman, then directly attacking me as though I am the strawman you created. I really hope that at some point you spend more time reading theory and history, as well as more time organizing, than you appear to be doing now.
Not a single Marxist worth their salt has made the absurd claim that the government will disappear, only the State. The State, of course, is the element of Government that contributes to class distinctions, ie Private Property Rights. With the folding of all property into the Public Sector, there exists no need for such private property rights or special bodies of armed men protecting them. What remains is the "Administration of Things," ie a government for all intents and purposes but clearly distinct from the form it takes in Capitalist and even Socialist society.
You really need to read more theory if you're going to spend your time fighting leftists, I can't imagine the extent to which you currently serve as a wrecker for any leftist org you may participate in.