This assumes that a vanguard is a separate class, when what it really is, is an advanced segment of the working class. That said, I wanna inject some good faith complexity here.
A Maoist critique of a a vanguard would assert that, by being the most advanced segment of the working class, a petty bourgeois element can exist within a party.
In the maoist view, since class struggle persists under socialism, that petty bourgeois element can, wittingly or otherwise, lead the socialist state back to capitalism. And as such, this needs to be struggled against.
The solution to this isn't to discard the concept of a vanguard, after all most socialist revolutions, which have seized power, have featured them.
Rather, Maoism has the concept of The Mass Line, wherein the party seeks to intimately involve itself with the masses. And the Cultural Revolution, where the class conscious masses are unleashed on the party itself, to keep it in check. Hence the Cultural Revolution slogans like, "its right to rebel" and "Bombard the headquarters"
I'm not a Maoist (I find the maoist position on AES to be lacking), but it's a tradition I have respect for. There's this big emphasis on the dialectic between top-down and bottom-up power that's really worth exploring, I think. I once heard it jokingly called "Anarcho-stalinism" and I hope you can see why lol
Only if you have the most superficial, half-baked, reading comprehension skills on God's green earth.
Racism is a deeply rooted set of systems and ideologies that arose to justify and reinforce institutions of chattel slavery, segregation, and police brutality.
Tankie is a goofy sounding British slang term from 60+ years ago, entirely divorced from its original context, used on a tiny collection of web forums
The word Tankie originates from 1950s British Communist circles. Specifically, it was used by British Communists to derisively describe their comrades who supported the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union.
Images of the Soviet invasion featured a lot of tanks, hence, “Tankie”.
After that died down, the term didn’t come back into use really, until the 2010s, when leftists on the internet started using it in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. It was fun to bring back a stupid sounding, incredibly niche, British slang word.
At some point the word breached containment and started to be used by liberals, in a very cavilier sort of way. I’ve seen people use Tankie to describe anyone from Marxist-Leninists, to Marxists generally, to Leftists generally, weird right-wingers who converted to Russian Orthodoxy, pro-Palestine activists, mods of Lemmy instances someone doesn’t like.
Shit, I’ve seen literal Anarchist get called Tankies.
Basically, it’s a meaningless nothing word now, that’s a bit like your boomer grandpa who still thinks it’s the Red Scare, calling Joe Biden a Commie Pinko.
Venezuelan communes and participatory democracy is flourishing. In addition, massive social programs have been implemented, focusing on housing, food security, and poverty eradication
I think this really needs to be stressed. Venezuela is a country building Socialism. Maduro and the PSUV is in power because of a genuinely incredible mass movement of communes, neighborhood committees, and other organs of grassroots democracy. This is qualitatively different from say, any of the Gulf oil monarchies
Marxist does not get to exclusively define what imperialism is
Marxism isn't the only analytical lens out there, no. But the people you're arguing with are working with that definition, which is why I took the time to clarify. Thank you for appreciating my effort post though lol
The Marxist definition of imperialism is more specific than just "big country invade small country".
In, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin lays out five aspects of what makes Imperialism:
the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy;
the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
The question of "Is Russia Imperialist" isn't a moral one, it's a technical one. So if Russia were do to something that we all agree is morally reprehensible, that's a separate concern from whether Russia is imperialist.
The technicality revolves around whether Russia has developed an oligarchy of Financial Capital, such that its invasion of Ukraine or other flexes of its influence, perpetuates the export of Russian finance capital around the world.
As it stands now, I don't think that's currently the case, but with Marxism being a dialectal philosophy, I do wonder if this war will accelerate that merging of Bank and industrial capital that Lenin discusses. It's a Bourgeois states, and there's financial capital in there somewhere that absolutely has an interest in forming a Russian imperialism.
So when people say "Russia isn't Imperialist", this is what's being referred to. You can take it or leave it, but it's worth getting into the weeds a bit, so we aren't all talking passed each other
The largest civil conflict in the United States, since the Civil War, were the Coal Wars in Appalachia, and those Socialist coal miners were pretty fucking rad
I saw the title, and hoped someone was summoning Demons from the Key of Solomon or some shit. Like they were worried about their dog getting possessed.
But yeah, "am I hurting my dog's brain with a card trick" is pretty funny too
Ok, so I looked at the more recent data you're pointing people towards, and according to that, the US is #11 in per capita emissions, and China is #29.
So a bigger spread than the data on Wikipedia, that I cited earlier
First of all, why are you talking about me in third person, like I'm not here? Your comment literally appeared in my inbox.
Secondly, if you have more up to date data, then by all means, feel free to post it. I cited Wikipedia because it was easy to find and reference, but anyone who has ever done research onows primary sources are better.
I'm not here to brigade or pull the wool over your eyes, I'm just having a conversation on a tiny, inconsequential, internet forum
So what you're describing is a concept called Blanquism, which predates the concept of a vanguard party.