This town, in fact, has more than enough room for the two of us
Marxist-Leninist. To simplify, Marx wrote some stuff, Lenin expanded on it and threw a revolution, shortly after which he fucking died. Stalin wrote a couple more sentences then distilled the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. That’s why you have non-Marxist-Leninist Marxists/Leninists like the ICP, as word-salady as that sounds.
The essential factor is the belief in the use of a Vanguard Party to carry out a revolution and build up a Socialist state to whither into Communism.
Couple things here: Communism is Socialism, a form of it. Communism has never been “implemented” either, as it’s specifically a post-Socialist stage. The ML states you’re referring to were Socialist, and didn’t reach Communism.
Secondly, the ML states were ML states, and as such were deliberately adapting new theory proposed by Lenin and distilled by Stalin.
I’m in no way a Stalinist, or a simp for the USSR, your comment is just wrong.
By your very same logical chain, Capitalism is an ideology 400 years old that failed miserably every time, as well as Socialism. It’s meaningless word salad.
There’s nuance. Obviously, vote for the liberal over the fascist, it’s not even close. However, the fascists are absolutely represented in government, while there’s no leftist candidates to speak of. Leftists have to plug their nose and vote liberal, while fascists gleefully vote republican.
Voting is entirely for loss prevention, because ultimately it absolutely impacts minority groups and people who stand to lose a great deal by a republican victory. However, leftists will not be able to move America to the left by voting.
That’s why grassroots movements and building up of parallel structures are so important for leftism, it cannot work within the confines of a 2 party Capitalist state, and must be built from the bottom up.