Maryland abolishes death penalty.

[FireIceTalon]

FIT aligns with Anarchists, which Russian (hence South American) and Chinese communism rejected in favor of strong (dictatorial) central governments who impose their will on the people for their own good.

Uh...um, I'm not an Anarchist either, reasons being....

1. Anarchists reject 'the dictatorship of the proletarian' concept - I do not.

2. Anarchists do not usually subscribe to the 'materialist conception of history' that is intrinsic to Marxism. As a Marxist, historical materialism is a key method to my analysis of society. Pretty sure they don't necessarily agree with or use Dialectical Materialism either (though there are Marxists who do not also). I VERY strongly use dialectics in my thinking, and find DM an invaluable tool.

3. Anarchists and Marxists have a very different view of the origins of the state. For both the state is an instrument of class oppression, but for Anarchists class oppression exists BECAUSE OF the state; for Marxists the state is an organic RESULT of class oppression, which is what I very clearly believe. An anarchist is opposed to ANY kind of authority, and upon a successful workers revolution, they want to smash the capitalist state right away and begin building socialism. From a Marxist perspective, this is impossible, because the capitalist state IS going to fight back and seek a return to the old order. Therefore the workers must seize control of the state for themselves, and as socialism is being build and the resources of society socialized, the state gradually begins to go away as elements of the old order disappear, until finally the state is obsolete and no longer needed - pretty much it goes back to reason #1. Basically one wants the immediate abolishment of the state, the other a more gradual one. Anarchists are scared that the 'dictatorship of the proletarian' will result in a new class system (some of this stems from the results of the Russian Revolution, but this was never a workers-controlled state - it was a vanguard party controlled state which is a HUGE difference), but it seems silly to me since the whole point of the revolution is for the workers to seize economic and political power for themselves, and build a new society that is based on their common interests.

Theres other reasons too but these three really stick out. These may not seem like significant differences but they are, because they result in a very different perception of revolutionary politics, and this was really the first form of sectarianism for the left, when Marxists and Anarchists split during the First International as a result of differences from the Paris Commune of 1848.

So yea, Im a orthodox Marxist, of the Second International Impossibilist type, though I find many aspects of Cultural Marxism invaluable and fascinating (fellow orthodox Marxists would probably cringe at this statement, but fuck em' . Definitely not an anarchist, hehe. I have too many theoretical differences with them, even if we ultimately want the same thing. I also disagree with or at least am very skeptical of the core tenets of Leninism, namely Vanguardism and Democratic Centralism.