Essay:Response to Wisconcom about his "anti-revisionism"

This is a private message sent to me from Wisconcom in Discord in 17 October, 2022. I think it explains very well how Wisconcom would distort his opponents arguments to make it seem like he is defending a just cause. He sent me a message saying:

Hello comrade. In consideration of your comments on Anti-revisionism and the organizations which adhere to such a line, I would like to comment that you very clearly seem to have a long-standing distaste, if not heavy bias against Anti-revisionists. In spite of the fact that you demonstrate almost uncritical support for wars waged by Capitalist powers (such as that in Ukraine), you, at the same time, call armed struggles waged by actual Revolutionary Communist and Anti-revisionist organizations, particularly those which align with Maoist doctrine, "terrorists". The fact that you are willing to support Capitalist wars over Socialist liberation wars shows you deeply dislike Anti-revisionism, and I feel such a negative view you have on this subject is transferred in the ProleWiki community itself. I suggest you consider and reevaluate the Anti-revisionist movement, both modern and historical, more conclusively. Thank you.

In response, I said:

Hello, comrade. Yes, I have a very explicit distaste for those who proclaim themselves "anti-revisionists". I have nothing against anti-revisionism as a principle, I am against the idealist, dogmatic and uncritically sectarian tendencies of the self-proclaimed "anti-revisionists". This comes from my personal experience with those, but I don't generalize. I don't expect those who call themselves "anti-revisionists" to always be sectarian dogmatists, but it just so happens that most of them are.

To make more sense of my answer, I need to first address an extremely irritating tendency of your thinking. If you are not doing this on purpose, just read what I have to say.. You have this distracting tendency of generalizing my arguments and my thinking, taking a particular thing I say and making it an universal. Thankfully, you have given me two examples of that in your message, so you may understand more easily and quickly your problem.

You said,

you demonstrate uncritical support for wars waged by capitalist powers (such as that in Ukraine)

The way you phrase that implies I support all capitalist wars, but I only support this specific capitalist war, or rather, the anti-fascist war against Ukraine/NATO. You won't find a lesson for this in Lenin, because fascism is a phenomenon posterior to his lifetime. But we have all learned the lessons of fascism. And this is a fascism of a new type, because of the external direct influence of NATO countries in the direction of the state, shown by the constant funding of the Ukrainian war machine. And you continue,

you, at the same time, call armed struggles waged by actual Revolutionary Communist and Anti-revisionist organizations, particularly those which align with Maoist doctrine, "terrorists".

Again, the same mistake. The phrase implies that I reject all armed struggles of the communist movement and particularly Maoist organizations. This is not true. I am specifically against the Shining Path and their dogmatic ideology and terrorist activity. Exploding bombs in public places and hanging dead dogs against Deng Xiaoping is not revolutionary praxis, it's petty-bourgeois adventurism. This does not mean we shouldn't study the activities of the Sendero Luminoso, but we shouldn't forget to critically evaluate them, and most importantly that these lunatics do not deserve the support of ProleWiki.

Based on what little I've read, I support the Communist Party of the Philippines, and commend the success in their struggle, as well as the Naxalites in India. I disagree with the tactics of the Naxalites, but I think the Communist Party of the Philippines has a more correct line, as showed by their increasing success over time, something we couldn't say about the Naxalites so far, but they are still in struggle, we can't know what's ahead.

I also support the armed struggles of the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist, the Popular Liberation Army and National Liberation Army in Colombia, and I sympathize with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, but I don't know enough about them to know if I personally support them or not.

The fact that you are willing to support Capitalist wars over Socialist liberation wars shows you deeply dislike Anti-revisionism, and I feel such a negative view you have on this subject is transferred in the ProleWiki community itself.

As I have carefully detailed, I don't dislike anti-revisionism, I dislike dogmatic, idealist and sectarian tendencies, it just so happens that those who usually act this way call themselves "anti-revisionists." In principle Marxism-Leninism is by definition anti-revisionist, in the sense that it struggles against reformulations of core principles of Marxism, but Marxism-Leninism also updates itself based on praxis, revising its tactics and even strategy, but maintaining its core principles.

When you paint my arguments like this, you are not making a critique of me, you are misrepresenting my arguments to make it look like what you are suggesting is just, moral and correct. When you do it in private, you just sound ridiculous and I couldn't care less. But if you do it in public, you will be misleading others who aren't patient enough to read the whole thing, and thus I do not take your messages as a critique, but as an attack. Therefore, if this behavior persists, you can expect to be attacked back.

Now that I have carefully detailed the mistake in your thinking, of over-generalization and treating the particular as if it was an universal, make sure to avoid it as much as possible. It's very hard for me to believe that you do not do it on purpose, but nonetheless, if you do not show change, it means that you are dismissing my critique, and therefore it will mean that we will have an irreconcilable conflict, that we can only expect to escalate over time.

I must say that I have numerous times tried to defend you from being banned in ProleWiki and Lemmygrad. I think that a certain number of self-proclaimed "anti-revisionists" is healthy in revolutionary communities, their ideological mistakes are good pedagogical instruments of theoretical discussion. But you weren't banned for being an anti-revisionist, but because you were annoying. Be sure to avoid that, otherwise you'll meet the same fate in ProleWiki.

And also, I think you have shown improvement over time, which is why I keep giving you the benefit of the doubt. Don't abuse it.