Marxism predicted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat during the proletariat revolution. Marxist-Leninism took the temporary dictatorship prediction and ran with it, establishing a permanent dictatorship of the communist party, which Lenin called the Vanguard Party.

There are Marxists that disagree with the idea of the Leninists' Vanguard Party and authoritarianism. Tankies, on the other hand, are the communists that support this idea of a permanent communist dictatorship and its authoritarianism, at least in a nutshell.

So I would say that most ML Commies are technically 'tankies', but not all commies are ML. A lot of commies are just M.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I'm aware of the allegations, I just think people who believe Marxism-Leninism is in contrast to Marxism are "anarchist-washing" Marx's actual writings and beliefs. See Critique of the Gotha Programme.

What separates Lenin from Marxism is the idea of a vanguard party, the concept of Democraric Centralism, and Lenin's analysis of Imperialism, not how long the dictatorship of the Proletariat might last. Additionally, Marxism-Leninism wants the DoP to last until there is no more Bourgeoisie, same as traditional Marxism, it doesn't mean that after that happens there is no government, just no means by which one class oppresses the other. Same as Marxism.

Marx, after all, refers to any Capitalist state as a Bourgeois dictatorship, regardless of the presence of Liberal Democracy. The dictatorship of the Proletariat just refers to the presence of a worker-state, a state democratically run by the workers, and that's what Marxism-Leninism proposes.

Basically, my point is that people that oppose Marxism-Leninism should usually also oppose Marxism itself, because they aren't really different. It's completely fine to be an Anarchist who accepts the analysis of Capitalism done by Marx and Lenin but rejects the statist nature of Marxism, but I do think that the idea of Lenin somehow going against Marxism is "anarchist-washing" of the statist nature of Marx himself.