krishna bound

4y

I don't think it's fair to say they reject materialism, they just don't think it's the only valid political source. Their stance on nations vs workers is complicated, and stems again from a different view of marxist theory, pulling more from Engels' writing (if youve ever read the tribal conflict/proto-communist stuff from him you know what i mean) than much of marx's more clear foundational writing.
They do reject internationalism but it's not because they don't believe in solidarity, it's just because they have a different view on what the goals of said solidarity actually are. I agree it's very revisionist and going to come off that way esp. to an orthodox ML/MLM and it's not purely Marxist, but it's still an offshoot of socialist theory, it's not an entirely different entity altogether.

Scratchin Mamba

4y

I mean I understand that there were real conflicts too and not just an unprincipled stance, that unprincipled stance is probably just what made them convinced of global communism being able to resist imperialism.

I get that out of practicality for national survival, you might not want to go all out in class war (that was basically the NEP in the USSR), but to then also drop the centrality of class politics and subordinate class politics to nationalism.. that's more than just practical politricks and just a complete abandonment of Marxism And I don't think Baathists would disagree.

krishna bound

4y

I think it's fair to say that, yeah, the ultimate goals of Baathism do differ greatly from Marxism. I just think it's important to note it's still an offshoot building off of it though and the conclusions weren't illogical given the situation the founders of the ideology were in.

Scratchin Mamba

4y

I actually would say it's not completely logical tho. Like I understand that the French communist party not supporting anti-colonialism is a big thing, and that all the conflicts they were in was a thing. But none of that inevitably has to lead to an abandonment of class first politics in favor of nationalism.

krishna bound

4y

I don't really agree it's main focus is nationalism just because they believe in and place a lot of importance in a state authority - they believe the state and party are synonymous for a reason rather than disseparate entities, they believe a nation is just an extension of the people within it, not an apparatus for policy or law necessarily. There are nationalistic elements to it, but the main focus is on creating a means of ensuring struggle does not exist for those within the state, not vice-versa of ensuring the nation exists primarily. If they were purely nationalist, the founders would have been pro-Arab Revolt or pro-Ottomon Empire, but they were against these things and against the idea of monarchy or reactionary nationalism for a reason. I think you have it backwards, they didn't believe in nationalism because they thought the nation was of upmost importance, they saw the state as a largely inevitable entity (i.e. collective in general could not be prevented against, so organization was therefore important) and thought having strong central and mutually trustable authority would be the easiest means of ensuring any form of struggle (class, etc.) could be solved - at least while imperial/colonial/etc powers existed.
To some extent, it's in the realm of state-socialism/state-capitalism (keep in mind though again, they do believe in socialized ownership and were against the idea of profit), but with the nuance that they would have been against participation in external capitalist systems (compared w/ China or like, the pre-collapse USSR - ironically in re: the China comparison, some early Baathists were basically maoists, i.e. Salah Jadid in Syria). I'm not gonna lie and say they're communists or anything - they didn't/don't believe in global revolution - but I disagree that they just abandoned class struggle altogether, they just disagreed with its handling, something which has happened in almost every other socialist country too imo (again look at China now).

Scratchin Mamba

4y

"In spite of the fact that the social and economic question is of a very great importance in our life we feel that it is secondary to a question of more importance and depth and we cannot insure a solution to the economic question unless it is considered a branch and necessary consequence of the nationalist problem." - Michel Aflaq

^ how is this quote to be understood if not as putting nationalism above class politics? I agree that nationalism wasn't the only thing they valued, but they definitely seem to have prioritized it above class politics.

I think you have it backwards, they didn't believe in nationalism because they thought the nation was of upmost importance, they saw the state as a largely inevitable entity (i.e. collective in general could not be prevented against, so organization was therefore important) and thought having strong central and mutually trustable authority would be the easiest means of ensuring any form of struggle (class, etc.) could be solved

But Marxists have this same view of the state, you know dictatorship of the proletariat and all that. The difference is that with the Marxist conception of the role of the state and nations, the socialist revolution is national in form, but internationalist in content, however Baathism claims that the socialist revolution is to be national in both form AND content, which I guess goes right along with their abandonment of dialectical materialism.

krishna bound

4y

Well, it's just one quote from Aflaq Obviously one quote isn't what the entire ideology is based on. I understand though it's hard because much of the work isn't easily findable or translated outside of snippets basically; I'm just saying what I've read from Baathist writers/thinkers extrapolated from these individual quotes though. As we know from lots of other thinkers in these spaces it can be really hard to talk theory or pinpoint ideology - like imagine trying to understand French theorists only through two sentence excerpts
You have to keep in mind translations as well; this stuff was written in arabic. Arabic lacks certain words - what they mean by the translated word to nation isn't the same as the english understand of the word.

Scratchin Mamba

4y

Ofc it's only very surface level, but is there like any other explanation for that quote and also others? Afaik it's accepted that arab socialism was not in any sense Marxisr and that it's a clear break from it and that in fact Aflaq was pretty explicit about that

Sure I haven't read any full books but everything I ever about the Baathist conception of socialism and nationalism pretty much says that socialism is secondary to nationalism and is also accepted insofar as it serves nationalism, like read this (I know it's Wikipedia lol but still):

Socialism was a major component of Ba'athist thought, and it featured in the party's tripartite slogan of "unity, liberty, socialism".2 However, in using the term "Arab socialism," Aflaq was not referring to the internationalist strain of socialism; his conception resolved socialism with Arab nationalism.2 In a written statement from 1946, Aflaq wrote "The Arab nationalists are socialists", hence "there is neither incompatibility nor contradiction nor war between nationalists and socialists."2 Socialism in his mind was subservient to the Arab unity project and liberty, however, he did believe that fighting for Arab liberation and unity was the same as fighting for socialism, believing they were two sides of the same coin,2 The goal of the Arab liberation struggle was to fight imperialism, opposing the ruling classes and to fight for social justice.2 He further noted that "the social economic question is the issue of prime importance in our life, but it is directly related to the wider issue of nationalism" and "we want socialism to serve our nationalism."3

Especially that last part seems to be pretty explicit in how socialism comes second to nationalism

Womanpuncher69

4y

think the biggest anti-anarchist commies used to be anarchist cause i’m becoming one of em

americana

4y

The CHAZ was my turning point

Womanpuncher69

4y

Happy May 1st yall

americana

4y

The CHAZ was my turning point

krishna bound

4y

I don't think Wikipedia does a good job of explaining Baathism (the history/chronology part is fine but not the actual ideology section). Most of the writing hasn't made it to the west outside of some translated stuff which is very hard to find/cite (can maybe find on libgen or something). Like the wikipedia says this "several close associates later admitted that Aflaq had been directly inspired by certain fascist and Nazi theorists" this is just not true. the later part of that paragraph also groups Hitler & Stalin together
the nationalism thing is hard. they're mainly citing aflaq (who has the most translated works) but he wasn't the only person who contributed to baathism. There's also others like Bitar, Arsuzi, and several others. I think the best way I can try to explain it is that nationalism isn't meant to invoke the same concepts of jingoism and isolationsim as seen in the west. It does refer to a state and related identity but it more means nationalism in terms of a unified structure for overcoming conflict w/o material solution, it's not trying to say nationalism in the same sense that Fascism is nationalist. I don't know if that makes sense? Like keep in mind there are multiple words for nationalism in arabic. These all translate to radically different things. One of the words in english would literally just translate to "right to belong to an ethnic/religious group w/o threat" for example - which obv is pertinent when you have conflicts like islamic sectarian violence or zionism.

krishna bound

4y

btw @Scratchin_Bandit im obv not trying to argue that baathism is actually purely marxist or socialist in the same the USSR was or anything just for clarity. there's obviously revisionism and additional theory involved. i'm more just saying that they don't reject class politics or solidarity as much as certain excerpts of writing suggests they do.

americana

4y

The CHAZ was my turning point

Womanpuncher69

4y

think the biggest anti-anarchist commies used to be anarchist cause i’m becoming one of em

Scratchin Mamba

4y

I never hated anarchists just thought they were silly, like the ones who are genuine and view class as central i don't hate

The ones who are just basically liberals who wanna be more edgy or constantly attack other leftists can go f*** themselves tho lol

Scratchin Mamba

4y

But they do reject that class politics is central and that national struggle is more important, that's a clear break from any resemblance of Marxism, and definitely not in line with anything Engels wrote either lol.

Is it an offshoot of socialist theory? Sure, but it's not in any way Marxist