I would like to know what communist tendency you follow, why you follow it and who best represents your tendency of communism weather it be a modern day country like China or a country like the USSR?
The answer to this question myself is that I am a Marxist-Leninist. I follow Marxism Leninism because it gives power to the working class rather than the bourgeois and aims for a classless money less society this is achieved through following Marxist Leninist theory and analyzing the conditions in the country you are trying to achieve Marxism-Leninism in. Those who best represent Marxism Leninism for me are Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha.
I agree with you too. Theres nothing wrong with labels inherently, especially as signifiers of an ideological lens. But the danger is forgetting that Marxism-Leninism is, in fact, a lens not a dogma. When the lens is treated like a dogma, then it’s proponents can take on a religious or subculture tendency.
Neither of us are describing the users here. I think both of us are describing a specific type of person. People especially in the West like to box themselves into labels as placeholders for their identities.
For example, “attachment styles.” The whole point of the attachment model is to help a person become conscious of the ways they let trauma influence their relationships with others. But instead of using that awareness to move towards becoming more secure, they treat being “anxious/avoidant” as an identity unable to be changed.
Yeah, some less educated people (not saying I am not much of a professional on Marxist theory) stick with labels for identity purposes rather than using whichever describes them best or reading more to develop an understanding of their identity.