I'll try to address some of the stuff you mentioned.

I think it's really easy for people to see Marx, Engels and Lenin as contradicting themselves (Marx is accused of this all the time too) hen it comes to this issue. !his is due to a fe reasons.

"irst of all none of them ever #othered to lay out a coherent vie of Marxism and ethics so it's easy to misunderstand or read too much into hat comments they did make a#out it. $econd, people often mistake their re%ection of hat it seems clear they sa as &#ourgeois morality'ethics& ith a re%ection of &ethics& as a hole (( indeed none of them often #other to specify that they are re%ecting specifically #ourgeois morality. !his is in part #ecause it as the dominant vie at the time and so hat &morality& referred to. Lastly, and this is a common mistake hen looking at the ritings of communists, they fail to put their ritings in historical and political context. "or instance )amenka here seems to think Lenin ildly inconsistent for denouncing &moralism& of li#erals at one time, and then later in speeches explaining ho the overthro of the #ourgeoisie as a moral act. !his #asically ignores hat &morality& he as thinking of and in fact ho he as talking to (( the proles he as talking to ere not all Marxist theorists. )amenka seems to *uote Marx and Engels in this ay at times too (( failing to mention the political intent of the manifesto hen it's *uoted, for instance.

Marx, Lenin, et al clearly in practice did not dismiss all ethical statements. +hat they dismissed as &ethics& as a set of guidelines that are someho detached from material reality or hold true regardless of changing circumstances societies ((that are #ased around decontextuali,ed hypotheticals, individualism (rehashings of the the &ro#inson crusoe& fantasy of #ourgeois economists are found in many ethical philosophers') etc(( is certainly and necessarily dismissed as &ideological ru##ish& #y Marx and Marxists. Marxist &ethics& are concerned ith not only social'historical context #ut ith practical matters, filling needs (in practice, as opposed to &giving rights& hich is the #ourgeois focus), and a &class(#ased& morality. -ne of the things that distinguishes Marxist ethics is that it denies the reductionism so common #efore its time and sees that isolated individuals are not the paramount issue of ethical thought. Marxism ill appear to some to &dismiss& ethics if that is hat they see &ethics& as #eing.

I'm reminded of the old canard &Marxists can't account for human nature.&. +hat the people parroting this old platitude don't reali,e is that Marxism does indeed &account& for it (( #y explaining ho the &nature& of humans is historically and socially determined ( an &ensem#le of social relations& as Marx puts it (and this is of paramount importance in vie ing Marxist ethics as ell). /ust like ith individualist ethics, Marxism in this case is vie ed as &dismissing& something #y people ho see #ourgeois concepts &human nature& as someho an eternal'self(evident truth.

!o #ourgeois moralists it ill indeed seem that Marxists are inconsistent. I heard one lecturer say that the #ourgeois vie of Marxist ethics ( hich many self styled Marxists can still hold) is like the vie of &flatlanders&, living in 0(d and seeing a 1(d o#%ect move through their orld. !hey miss the continuity, seeing it as one shape at one time, then another. !hey fail to see the connecting thread #et een these as #eing an understanding of class struggle, and vie them isolated and as contradictory.

2o , ho does Marxism relate to &lifestyle& or day to day activities3 !he ay some ould have it relate is that you take hat you #elieve in for society and try to act it out on your o n in daily life in a very literal ay. !his is kno n as &lifestylism& and seems to #e hat )amenka, conscious of it or not, is plugging at some points. 4eople ho adhere to this ill relate communism to austere life choices, to petty acts of &re#ellion&, to individual acts of terror, to clothing'food'media choices etc.

)amenka scoffs at the 54$6 pre(revolution for telling party mem#ers not to steal from their ork so as not to undermine the party image (( they seem to e*uate petty theft ith expropriating expropriators in some ay. !his doesn't make sense in the same ay that individual acts of terror don't make sense. Marxism most certainly affects lifestyle, #ut it is not merely a lifestyle, and you cannot make the ay it affects lifestyle #e actions in large scale revolution rit small. Marxism is understanding that only through mass action can individuals truly change society.

-#viously people that think communism is simply a &lifestyle& choice are painfully rong, ho ever it is e*ually rong to imagine that one's lifestyle and one's political ideology are divorced from one another. Marxism is a far reaching ay of looking at the orld, and it not only affects ho one vie s the &macro& development of society, #ut also ill influence ho one feels'acts on a day to day #asis. !he &personal& and political can not #e separated'compartmentali,ed. !his is falling into a trap of li#eral reasoning that denies that all these things are connected.

!he #etter ay Marxism can help inform day to day life is an understanding of the connectedness of things (( not in the &reductionist& ay of thinking the small and #ig are merely the same thing, #ut in understanding ho individual relations can serve to further mass goals. !his ill vary depending on the time and place and ould also vary depending on hether one as trying to help ith revolution, fight during it, or #uild after its success. !he key here ould #e to examine ho you can contri#ute to the #roader revolutionary movement on a day to day #asis. I could go more into day to day type stuff

in specific cases if you like, or you can ask me any follo up *uestions #ut I figure I've ritten enough for no .