If your first instinct as a westerner is to criticize and lecture 3rd world communist movements, instead of learning from their successes, then you have internalized the patronizing arrogance of the colonial system you claim to oppose.
I wrote my thesis about how we can learn from Cuba's green farming movements (because they were essentially locked out of capitalism) and was criticized for it.
Depends which wave of newcomers. Some in more recent migrations just got banned for criticizing musk or endorsing Luigism, which is pretty milquetoast stuff any old lib can do.
Reddit is not even "liberal" anymore. The people on the conservative sub will say that it is but its been shifting rightward for years. There are a lot of people getting permad over things that in the past would have had broad agreement.
I am not only on .world (actually started out there and moved over here), but yeah, for me that was the last straw. That official app is just an affront.
Most of us have started from the default programming. I didn't get a lot of what I get today when I moved from Reddit. I know it can feel shitty to keep repeating the same things and make the same arguments over and over again but that's the process of teaching.
I know it can feel shitty to keep repeating the same things and make the same arguments over and over again but that’s the process of teaching.
For what it's worth, it's important to have ways to do this efficiently, like linking to other resources or having copypastas. Otherwise the infinite influx of ignorant noobs will eventually cause burnout or just waste too much time.
I’ve always assumed communism works really well the smaller the group but at the scale of hundreds of millions it becomes very difficult logistically and also of course all those people need to agree with it so they’re not actively trying to sabotage it. I don’t see any danger in smaller nations being communist and never understood why people do consider it dangerous, outside of the obvious capitalist reasons and of course the dictators who used it as a front
Unless the example is similar in size and scope to the country I live in I struggle to find true relevance in the subject of communism as a national government
I think you're confusing decentralized communes with Marxist Communism, a fully publicly owned and planned global economy run democratically (oversimplified, of course). Communes can only work at small scale, perhaps with some level of federation, but the Communism Marxists aspire for is an extremely global and industrialized mode of production. Further, "dictators using it as a front" are relatively small in number, such as Pol Pot.
Idk how anyone can defend how we (the US) does shit. Especially after this year. If you weren't already privy to how monstrous we can be now you are, and now we pulled any good shit we might have done, too.
I remember watching a documentary about North Korea and one of the guides was talking about how people in NK and Asia more broadly don't necessarily want to live under the same liberal-democratic capitalist system that the west tries to impress on them.
How arrogant are we to act like we have it all figured out and that countries outside of Europe and North America are backwards shitholes?
Of course people should be allowed to have their own government setups and authorities. It would be wrong to assume that we in the west have it all figured out.
However there are still questions of fundamental human rights. In many places of the world a woman can legally be raped, it's the woman's responsibility to always have a male relative with them. If we were to ask women what they thought about it they would probably say that there is no problem with it, that's just how it works. These women have been so indoctrinated by it that they don't question it.
We could also use slavery in America as an example. Many slaves probably accepted the argument that they had a better living standard as slaves, or some other argument that made them accept the status quo. Should Europe just have accepted that that is the way life goes over there?
Where does the line go between fundamental human rights and respecting other ways of life go? Western fundamental rights such as equal rights, right to a trial, right to life, etc. are just that, western.
Liberals desperately need to read Losurdo - Liberalism, a counter-history.
Even the liberal equality before the law, (ie, the illegality for the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges and beg for food) was denied to colonized peoples and peoples of colonial origin.
Every one of your liberal ideologues was extremely racist, and didn't think colonized peoples deserved any of the rights they proclaimed for the white community. John Locke, and the first 5 or so US presidents owned slaves. Tocqueville pushed for the decimation of civilians in Algeria at the hands of the french imperialists, and wrote a book on the US that ignored slavery, lynchings, and native eviction. There are too many more cases to cover.
I am hard pressed to think of any Americans older than twenty five that I have ever met IRL that was truly opposed to colonialism. High-schoolers and college students; sure. That's about it though.
EDIT: To be clear, I am not defending colonialism. I just don't think most Americans understand or think about its impact. Out of sight. Out of mind.
I'm assuming your talking about Russia and China I think it very fare to criticise them, considering they are both totalitarian nations which don't respect the needs of there citizens.
Meanwhile the success in question: The 3rd world communist countries have managed to more or less industrialize and build up wealth, but under (state) capitalist system with all the bells of whistles which are markets, commodity production, wage labor, etc. In other words, they used capitalism to build up wealth.
Don't get me wrong, I actually think they had some absolutely amazing policies for the workers like free housing and social benefits, and good on them for building themselves up. However, this has nothing to do with socialism (socialist mode of production in this case) or communism as it was achieved with, and is therefore a win for capitalism - the same system that drove colonialism and the system that had already built up wealth for 'non-socialist' feudal/agrarian countries in the 19-20th century.
EDIT: Damn, judging from the amount of upvotes, it genuinely feels like walking into a bar and everyone drawing a gun and pointing at you. This is probably the most antagonistic I've been towards ML (or MLM/Dengist/Maoist) ideology and it's kinda disappointing how there's no actual non-ML Marxists to be seen here.
That is another western chauvinist talking point. That any development of industry (the primary task of countries who've just freed themselves from colonial rule), is a "betrayal" of socialism, because it didn't go according to whatever the given critic laid out as sufficiently socialist enough, and that only the western critics of socialist countries have the correct plan.
China specifically can't be called state capitalist in the slightest, considering that the CPC stands above the political system, unlike capitalist dictatorships where capital rises above political power:
You've done a really good job misrepresenting my argument, keep it up.
That is another western chauvinist talking point.
Yeah, any critique of 3rd world communist countries is western chauvinism, therefore we should avoid looking at those countries through objective materialist perspective and uncritically support them just because they're third-worldist - that's something an imperialist crakkka like me should know.
That any development of industry (the primary task of countries who’ve just freed themselves from colonial rule), is a “betrayal” of socialism, because it didn’t go according to whatever the given critic laid out as sufficiently socialist enough, and that only the western critics of socialist countries have the correct plan.
I'd like you to point out where I said that industrialization is bad. The argument is literally about how the development was achieved and I concluded that it was through (state) capitalism and capitalist mode of production rather than socialism, even saying how it's good that they managed to build up wealth. I explicitly didn't moralize this either, this is literally how these countries materially functioned.
My critique also comes strictly from Marxism which is essentially the basis for communism regardless of culture, but sure.
China specifically can’t be called state capitalist in the slightest, considering that the CPC stands above the political system
You're confusing political power with class relations, the key isn't who holds political power but what social relations of production are. If a state (CPC controlled or otherwise) oversees an economy where wage labor, capital accumulation, commodity exchange persists, then it's still state capitalism.
We've spoken on this before, ultimately you still cling to the "One Drop Rule" as a consequence of undercooked study of Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
Edit: to respond to your edit, non-ML-derived Marxists are a minority among Marxists globally. Trotskyists are a largely western phenomenon, as are Left-comms, so it's unsurprising that there would only be 1 or 2 non-ML Marxists. Further, ML is overwhelmingly the most common umbrella of Marxists these days because it has seen real success, and theory and practice have proven it. There are sub-tendencies, but the umbrella of ML is so well-established because it's correct, if we are to be Marxists.
And I'm adamant that it's a mischaracterization. Identifying the dominant mode of production is not a "one drop rule", it's literally foundational Marxist analysis - modes are defined by prevailing relations of production, not how it's managed or ideological labels put onto them.
No seriously, you need to read on this, you clearly have at best a very simplistic understanding of the subject.
Private property and markets can't just be abolished immediately after a revolution, it's not magic. Young socialist systems have to go through a transitional phase during which private property and markets are still allowed under strict oversight of the state.
His does not make them capitalist as the proletariat still has control over this private sector via the socialist state, such as in China where all of the essential industry that is necessary for every other, known as the commanding heights, are fully state owned and the enterprises that are private are required by law to have a party member on their board as well as a "golden share" owned by the state that allow it unchallenged veto power over the board's decisions among other means of authority over the private sector.
Yeah, if you're operating within Stalinist ML bubble. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's inherently "true", and it can be healthy to read other communist sides/perspectives. Some recommendations would be Marx's writings, Lenin, Bordiga if you want a lesser known but still respected Leninist who's critical of ML's/Stalinism.
No one claims magic here, and it's true - a transitional DOTP period must happen, but it's not a license to preserve the capitalist relations indefinitely. The fundamental relations of production that I've mentioned must be consciously dismantled over time as a precondition for socialism, that's what the proletarian dictatorship is literally for. If not, then it's only a matter of time until the state reverts to bourgeois control disguised as "socialist".
Nationalizing capital while leaving value production intact leaves capitalism functionally preserved, read Critique of the Gotha Programme by Marx where he makes this explicit - converting private to state property without abolishing wage labor/value mediation and calling it Socialism is literally Lassallean nonsense.
Capitalist production is not magically nullified by the presence of a party member or state shareholding either: workers still sell their labor-power, surplus value is still extracted, production is for market sale or in other words, capitalist mode of production prevails at full force. Legal oversight is a managerial form, not an abolition of class relations.
Private property and markets can't just be abolished immediately after a revolution, it's not magic. Young socialist systems have to go through a transitional phase during which private property and markets are still allowed under strict oversight of the state.
That makes sense
His does not make them capitalist as the proletariat still has control over this private sector via the socialist state, such as in China where all of the essential industry that is necessary for every other, known as the commanding heights, are fully state owned
Okay... but when will this "transitionary period" finish.
If a "transitionary period" takes more than a decade at what point do we say "they aren't transitioning" and call it what it is, state owned capitalism.
Vietnam, Cuba, PRC, DPRK, USSR (for 80 years at least). All of them defeated either US, Japanese, French, and German imperialists, and uplifted their people despite the US never letting up.
Productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. It was illegal to hire others and accumulate personal wealth from their labor.
Had the 2nd fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. The USSR started out at the same level of economic development and population as Brazil in 1920, which makes comparisons to the US, an already industrialized country by the 1920s, even more spectacular.
Combatted sex inequality. Equal wages for men and women mandated by law, but sex inequality, although not as pronounced as under capitalism, was perpetuated in social roles. Very important lesson to learn.
Housing was socialized by localized community organizations, and there was virtually no homelessness. Houses were often shared by two families throughout the 20s and 30s – so unlike capitalism, there were no empty houses, but the houses were very full. In the 40s there was the war, and in the 50s there were a number of orphans from the war. The mass housing projects began in the 60s, they were completed in the 70s, and by the 70s, there were homeless people, but they often had genuine issues with mental health.
You either never went.to cuba or you are bending reality to fit your narrative.
Also, are you uaing the USSR as EXAMPLE?!
you need better undertanding of people's lifes befora talking shit. I have many friends that lived in the USSR and NONE of them.feel it was good at all
Edit: Americans angry at other non americans because they live in a hellscape. Just vote better dudes. Comunism doesn't work but having a country with socialist politics like Free healthcare, free universities, labour laws and retirement support is amazing (believe me I know, I live in one of those)
It really depends on how you define "successful." If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you're probably not going to see a whole lot of "success," but that's not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.
The PRC is quite obviously the easiest example, but I'd say every existing Socialist system has achieved remarkable success in the face of horrible opposition.
You can look at China right now, especially in the context of the US basically shitting the bed completely, and see success. It also depends on what you’re using to determine what “success” is. If the marker for comparison is a capitalist country… lol we see how well that’s playing out.
No system or place is perfect, but the US has trillions of dollars at its disposal and does zero for its people. Meanwhile, even folks with a meager income can live a comfortable life in China. I’ve heard this verbatim from Americans that have lived there—some of which for 15+ years.
I didn't miss anything. I just see people throwing their opinions around without providing any supporting data.
I see that OP posted a long list of links in the comments to support their point of view. I haven't read them yet, so I can't say I agree or not, but now their opinion is not completely invalid.