Problems of Reform Itself; What Reformed Tankie Doctrine Signifies, and What has Come About Otherwise

4 September 2025

Comrades and followers of Reform-Leninism: unbeknownst to you, I have been soliciting some comrades for their opinions and concerns on Reform and the Reform-Leninist movement to revive Marxism-Leninism. Now, much feed-back has yet to come in, but that which has already, has made me reconsider some potentially inadequate, even illusory aspects and features of Reform at present. Hence the institution of Reformed Tankie Doctrine, and the further elucidation of this article.

To begin, we must first address the division in terminology which Reformed Tankie Doctrine has introduced. Why is this doctrine called such, rather than a policy or programme? The answer is uncuriously simple: whilst Reformed Tankie Doctrine might influence TOAC's particular implementation of Reform-Leninism, it is not part of Reform as such. TOAC doctrines are exclusive to TOAC's practise, and unlike policies or programmes, do not imply any stability. Reformed Tankie Doctrine and the forthcoming Comrade Doctrine could be fundamentally altered or abolished next week. Doctrines are expedient standards for how to view or handle low-conceptuality discourse and interaction. They are born from Father Weariness and Mother Caution, that is all.

This brings us to the deeper thinkings related to Reform-Leninism, which certainly advised the formulation of Reformed Tankie Doctrine. As I said at the beginning, I have been enquiring of individual comrades on their thoughts and concerns about Reform-Leninism and the movement of Reform. I will share some of the general sense which I have received, and how this has influenced my conception and presentation of Reform-Leninism.

The initial response has come from two ideological sources: the more conservative being traditional Marxism-Leninism in good (or better anywise) standing within the movement, and the other slightly more explicitly of Bukharinism/heterodoxy and expectant for Reform. Of course, there was also the criticism of The Philosopher's Interior (here), if mostly superficial, and meant as a performative rhetorical denunciation. I did try to incorporate at least some negotiation to their outwrath in some of the proceeding Reform policies, namely in the presentation of their announcement.

In fact, let us begin our analysis here, by looking at the propagandical and the rhetorical front, which has, perhaps, undergone the most significant change. This was an inevitability, for two reasons. The first reason is pragmatic, or one could say, in an uncomradely ridiculing, 'opportunistic'. By altering the pronouncement, praises found within, and the intellectual justification through a certain historical lineage, we can make conservative comrades happier without compromising the policies of Reform. The second reason is ideological and in a sense positive. Mass reform movements, just like revolutions, inspire the zeal and recklessness of the participants, even at the highest levels/offices. It is important, therefore, to institute a conservation period, that the new forces and thoughts may be reflected upon by calmer heads.

Let us deal with the particulars of the propagandical framing, in an effor at Disclosnost. Some comrades may have noticed that Comrade Stalin and Comrade Mao have featured prominently, along-side a discourse on their proper teachings, in the articles on Reformed Tankie Doctrine (here and here). What does this mean in actual, Disclosnostive terms? Does this symbolise a powerless retreat into the cult of personality and the abandonment of the intellectual lineage laid out in Bureaucratic Socialism is SUCCESSFUL Socialism (here)? As with many complex historical, social, political, and intellectual processes, it is a case of da and nyet, or 'danyet', we might say in agitprop-abbreviated thrift.

It is true that Reform-Leninism has recently suffered a shortage crisis of what is variously called 'political capital', 'state capacity', or 'political-ideological justification'. The negative article of The Philosopher's Interior publicly, the concerns of the aforementioned orthodox Marxist-Leninist comrades privately and the many, years-long harrowing clashes with and concessions to both Woke Liberal and ultra-Leninist (Hoxhaist?) dogmatism in the LMRC personally, have done some damage to the sails of Reform. In an effort to prevent the fire from spreading to the actual galleon of Reform-Leninism, we had to scuttle the sails, and have requested a coal-fed engine with the help of two much more prestigious ships, the SRS steelclad Stalingrad and the PRS chairman-class Helmsman.

The Stalin Problem, and its fellow Mao Problem are tense and sensitive subjects in the discussions of Reform-Leninism, for there shall be nay open debate regarding the over-all assessment of the immortal revolutionary legacies of Comrade Stalin and Comrade Mao, whose very authority makes Reform possible. We are all fated, I now make stated, to be posthumously rehabilitated, lest Reform is made debilitated; insofar, we must be sated.

Of course, the Stalin Problem and Mao Problem, outside of the total assessment of the legacies (which may well end up becompassing the legacies of Comrade Bukharin and Comrade Trotsky as well, as the untouchable revolutionary generation), do allow for some open reconsideration of possible policy errors and general ideological and systemic deficiencies.

To verify this claim, allow us to propulse forth some example proofs of Disclosnost and Theorestroika in evidence, that we are not accused of 'Stalinist eight-turns and theatrics'.

First amongst these is the current on-going deliberations, announced in Problems on the Left; Discussing Gladsnost and Politstroika (here), on potentially promoting the Ryutin Platform into a text-book for Reform-Leninist leadership. Comrade Ryutin and Comrade Bukharin, as many will know, have not been rehabilitated in the same way that Trotsky, or even Stalin and Mao, have; they have flown right past rehabilitation into the revolutionary pantheon of revered Bolshevik heroes of the Party, closest to Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Comrade Bukharin and Comrade Ryutin were too important for Reform to have waited for deliberations, which is why they have undemocratically (our Bolshevik-Leninist comrades might accuse 'Stalinistically') been pre-habilitated. Ideally, these two will remain exceptional cases, with other, big-name rehabilitations taking place at an appropriate time with proper collective discretion. Smaller personalities are less imperative and can be left to individual comrades to decide.

Then there is the list of errors being reconsidered: the treatment of Comrade Bukharin and Comrade Ryutin (obviously); the treatment of Comrade Trotsky; elevating the Traitor Yagoda and the Traitor Yezhov; the Yezhovshchina; terrorising cadres, Party, and Society; the break-neck violence of collectivisation; the Great Leap Forward; the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution; the treatment of Comrade Tito; the mutual mistreatment in USSR-PRC relations; the dissolution of the Comintern; meddling in the affairs of other communist parties; bemighting the Cheka beyond all justifiable reason (a critique of Lenin!); taking uncomradely and unjust action against Menshevik, SR, and anarcho-communist comrades outside of lawful extents; and that which may have started most of these, the infamous faction ban, one of the gravest errors Comrade Lenin ever made. This is (if one can believe it) just a brief selection of the reconsiderations which Reform-Leninism is, albeit cautiously and discretely, examining in study, discussion, and many times, in open debates.

Though the personalities and legacies of Comrade Stalin and Comrade Mao may be off-limits, the policies, history, and ideology they contributed to are at varying degrees open for reconsideration and critique; which is how any Marxist, of whatever tendency, should wish it to be, anywise. Policies and politic are what is important, not personalities, or even parties, if I may be so bold. And I will mention this again to elaborate the point through starkness: I should never conceive of denouncing Comrade Lenin's legacy, but I have indeed criticised some of his more important actions and policies.

As with anything political, different things upset and begladden conservatives/hard-liners and reformers, but the general idea of any successful attempt at reform is to maintain an organic, dare I say dialectical, balance betwixt all the forces and factions which are ultimately aligned with the ideal of the movement, and have some capacity to be found agreeable to the present objective(s). Our Bolshevik-Leninisk comrades have revolutionary fervour, and more or less a theorised ideology informing their objectives and ideal, but their fervour gets the better of them, and they become incapable of accepting the vitality of negotiation for implementing a stable, respected, agreeable, and appealing movement-moment influx of policies or other such hasteful development. Wokerites, be they Liberal or ultra-Left, are even worse, thinking you can just shun, shoot, and gas your political opponents (for an example of Woke Hoxhaists turning into Nazis, read our coverage of the APL fantasies of mass-murder and terror here).

The last thing I will say on this specific matter is two-fold. Some will charge that this conflicting set of policies has caused the eruption of many contradictions; they might even go for the denunciation of a 'contradictory world-view based on nonsense'. I say indeed, there are apparent contradictions in our epic struggle to reform Marxism-Leninism, but that is how we know our movement to be worth-while, and a living, developing movement. None of these parties and tendencies have any (apparent or other) contradictions because they are dead corpses (sometimes literally, if I may partake in a bit of black humour on their average cadre ages).

As for the secondary charge, which is that we are defending what amounts to a statue of Stalin and Mao, rather than the real men, and that to do so we rely upon many inconvenient or opaque devices, I say again, indeed thus! And what of it? The most successful revolutions and the best of political reforms are those which are pragmatic enough to see that dogmas are social tools, not incontrovertible truth. When Reform-Leninism has established its more important policies, then perhaps, at the appropriate time and depth, we will return the Stalin Problem to the Stalin Question, and open discussion about it. The Mao Problem will always remain rather more sensitive, due to the international comradely implications which weigh around it.

The dual nature of Reform-Leninism brings us, naturally enough, to the problem of how apparent and necessary contradictions are viewed ideologically. The Left, following their Hermetically enlightened Lord of the Shelf Hegel, I suspect, have become extremely dogmatic in their epic hostility to all semblance of contradiction, nay matter the meagreness, duration, or reason. But it might be said that contradictions are evidence of a living development which is unfolding and evolving right before us, and that political movements and policies demonstrate such living development when new and more complex contradictions are able to arise.

By contrast, when contradictions remain unchanging, or there are nay contradictions at all, one may be said to be observing a corpse. This is indicative of the social death of (the life in) the political. If this is the status of our movement, then you have failed as a politican* and the collapse of your movement and its projects shall some day be on its way. Only reforming sufficiently prior to that incoming date can resotre the living social nature, the political and intellectual energy, of a movement.

*Politican, and all -can suffixes, are meant to be broader than their -ian counter-parts. Exempli gratia, a commentator and a revolutionary can be politicans, where they are not usually able to be included in 'politicians'. Then, professions without -ian suffixes, tending to be very narrow, can be broadened, such as lawyers versus legalicans.

We must, of course, answer with something to the trite criticism that Reform-Leninism is revising Lenin-s and Stalin' deck chairs upon the SRS Titantic. We absolutely disagree with such an assessment. Comrades who refuse to examine the wreckage are, in fact, labouring under the illusion either that the USSR never sank (hard-liners maintain that it has merely been driven off course by wreckers and revisionists; liberal-infected Leftists are haunted by its spectre, which they take to be the silhouette of the real ship bearing upon them), or that it was never truly the prized flagship of our navy. Both views avoid acknowledging the contradictory nature of the event: the SRS Titanic was a gross advancement and a disappointing failure in socialist political-economy and state-craft, and its wreckage is at once an error to be avoided and an essential education course to be studied under. Reform-Leninism accepts this contradictory nature and sails off from it. Copied parts; new ship; superior protocols guiding it.

As we conclude this addressing of some Problems of Reform, let us be reminded that, again, Reformed Tankie Doctrine is merely procedural to TOAC. The actual Reform-Leninist policies which steer all procedures are what is truly important, in the sense of longevity and valuable to be analysing for discussion. Reformed Tankie Doctrine was conceived through the joint interaction betwixt (violations and refusals of) Gladsnost as a policy of Reform and the personal management of my Fortitime as an individual operator of TOAC. It is fundamentally nothing more than a Fortitime-keeping mechanism to preserve my sanity and preserve my abilities for endeavours which are actually useful to Reform.

I must repeat that real, organic reform is something nay one can know the final shape and content of. Specially for reforms which are long-term, intended to be open, and are not steered by a single institution/organisation for domination, there will be many debates, many reversions, many retrials of previous experiments, many unforeseen developments and complications, et cetera. The point is to continue this process of development in a cautious and stable manner, neither standing at halt in fear of danger, nor becoming carried away, and smashing things recklessly. That is Reform-Leninism, briefly summarised.

Now we return to the future. We return to the domain that matters. That is, we return to the discussion of future policies and the future articles which inform those policies.

Obviously, the study of both socialist and Western law is gaining in importance. Philosophy will, whether Hegel, Adorno, Heidegger, Land, Dugin, or Žižek, ever remain by its very nature a divisive realm of pure thought (with theory much less so yet still). Law and legal studies, which includes the structures and mechanisms of state, for we are using the broader definition of law at all times, can serve as real tools of socially instituted, applied doctrine and immediate structural operation. Rather than waiting until the chaos of revolution, or after the success of revolution, when the demanding pressures of rebuilding state governance from disordered rubble sets in, we must advance on the long march to functional parties and stable governance. 'Avoiding difficult mountains is the height of liberal cowardice', as was proclaimed in Adhere to the Four Nosts and Stroikas (here).

Within the Currently Practicable Policies to Begin Implementation, rests this important policy, which I quote in full:

VI. Learning Leninism through Law: a bold new campaign to revolutionise the intellectually productive forces through the study, construction, and application of Renewed Socialist Legality and New Socialist Constitutional Law at present. Only by learning the law can practical communists serve the Folk after the revolution.

It has been expected that, due to the intellectually and resourcefully strenuous nature of the policies of Renewed Socialist Legality and New Socialist Constitutional Law, the articles under the purview of said policies will take much longer to produce, with fewer articles total. It is the difference betwixt a Mosin and a T-34: polemic is the Mosin, law the T-34.

Nay matter the difficulty, we are slowly preparing the line of production for legal theory. By this, too, has Reformed Tankie Doctrine been influenced. With ever grosser resources being poured into this plan, there is less Fortitime to manage empty or polemical complaints, disputes, and skirmishes. Sometimes tanks are deployed as a matter of expedience; sometimes Comrade Stalin is asked to present the Party Line for the same reason (as Lars Lih suggests in the introduction to the Stalin-Molotov Correspondence, Stalin's mastery of catechesis is why the party relied on him to do so).