Marxism-leninism has routinely been shown to not work. China doesn't have a command economy or worker-controlled capital. If China's people were free, they could access the internet. Furthermore, how is secret police a tenet of the Chinese freedom I've had shoved down my throat by Marxist-Leninists? Furthermore, how are the Uyghur people bourgeois?
Let me simplify this. A lot of people in this thread were justifying oppression saying it was for the people. I'm not saying that Muslims are bourgeois, I'm saying that the Uyghur genocide is unjustified as they're not antagonized to the proletariat, but rather an ethnic group.
Virtually everything you state is false. China does not technically have a command economy, but this is not necessary for socialism in the first place. China engages in plenty of economic planning, far more so than capitalist states. That is precisely why China can build 45,000 km of unprofitable high-speed rail in less than 20 years and install more solar generation capacity than all other countries combined in 2023.
Industries in China are also far more worker-controlled than they are in capitalist states. Estimates for the level of state-ownership range from 20-40%. Much of the remaining "private sector" is composed of worker cooperatives. Search up "Farmer specialized cooperatives", which comprise of more than 100 million households (not people, households).
As for the Uyghur thing, even western media has largely abandoned that point since it was too easy to see that no one was being killed. I mean, you can buy a plane ticket to Xinjang right now and see for yourself. Now the smarter ones have downgraded it to "cultural genocide". In a few years, when the Uyghur language and culture will still be around just fine, they will quiet drop the whole topic.
Have you not heard of the great firewall. Do you think Nike and iPhone factories are coops? Furthermore genocide does not explicitly have to be killing civilians. Xi did things such as forcefully reeducate children, force Muslims to eat pork, and forcefully sterilize them, thereby making them and their culture die out.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
I'm sorry that some comrades here have been dismissive toward you, but you seriously need to educate yourself more on a subject before you speak on it thinking that you have understood it. There are plenty of resources that the Lemmygrad community can offer you to further your knowledge about China if you leave your preconceptions at the door and come at this with some humility.
This lib refusing to educate themselves is how this whole thing started, I doubt they'll change their mind now, unless they want to prove me wrong about them.
Yeah, when i wrote that there were still fairly few substantial responses compared to mocking ones. But by now i see they've been offered plenty of good, comprehensive sources of information, and now that they're banned and can't waste as much time saying ignorant things here maybe they will have more time to read the material that they've been so helpfully provided with. Probably not though...they're probably allergic to reading as most libs are...
I was hoping they'd be sincere and honest and would actually ask "how can you support such regimes?!" honestly and earnestly, but it wasn't a question, it was smug pretending to be questioning.
I find it hilarious that I dropped multiple sources that countered what they said, but because I didn't treat it as a "gotcha" but just supplemental to what I was talking about, they didn't even notice. 100% debatebro brained.
Well, you did what you could. Can't reach everyone right away. Sometimes people need to have time to stew a bit and process new information. Sometimes it takes repeated exposure to the new ideas before they become more open to them. Which is why we should never stop explaining, even if it's frustrating.
I was very quick to start bullying them here, other people here were far more patient than I was. I think libs like this give their game away very early, and shouldn't be coddled, but mocked for their smug ignorance, I do appreciate the people dropping actual sources, I didn't make a big deal out of that because I've seen this liberal song and dance a thousand times, they demand sources, then either don't read them at all, or skim just enough to know they don't agree with them and demand "better" sources that confirm their preconceived notions. It's a waste of time trying to get them to read, but hopefully people watching the conversation read them at least.
Whether it prevents bourgeois propaganda or western propaganda, it's not worth it when the people aren't free. I also find it to be very opposite to Marx implying that the Chinese government wouldn't try to control their people if they could.
Here's a paper covering the topic from a few years ago.. It goes through the history, motivations, and effects of the Golden Shield Project. It also briefly covers the opinions from people on both sides of the firewall and tries to remain neutral as it's a research communication. Download the PDF to read.
What the paper doesn't cover deeply is what information the CPC has chosen to censor and why. Materials subversive to the stability of their country. From whom? Of what nature? What historical precedent exists that would have made them want to do this in the late nineties?
Exploring the history of interactions between socialist countries and liberal countries will shed light on this. I'd also suggest looking into examples of censorship in western liberal countries and contrasting them with censorship in China.
Your reply pointed to a lot of assumptions from the Western liberal perspective, which is actively antagonistic and hostile towards China. If the only perspective you ever consume is from states who consider China a threat to their power, then of course you will hold a negative bias towards China.
The more you study, the better you will understand. If you approach the topic wanting to demonize China, you won't learn anything. There's a lot more to unpack here including Western media bias and leftist theory beyond Marx. This is just a stepping stone to understanding.
If you don't know the purpose and goals of the project that the firewall is part of, then you don't understand why China has a firewall.
Tell me, are you really free or do you assume you are free because you've always been told you are free and you've only ever heard one definition of freedom? To me, the illusion of freedom of speech, the illusion of freedom of choice, and being told to choose between a handful of shitheads who don't represent or act according to how I would like to see our society run is not freedom. It's just authoritarianism from a different source. It's who has power that matters to me. I'd rather be held accountable by my peers than by a bunch of chucklefucks who only see me as an expendable resource.
This weak ass liberal may not be reading anything, but I am eating up all these sources. Thank you, everyone. Also, God damn it, now I have hours more of reading any to do. At least I've covered some of these topics before, so some of them might be review.
Marx said that the state was inherently oppressive. But I guess I missed the part where he said that it doesn't matter if the party brands itself as communist.
If you bake a cake and you have this magnificent idea in your head; do you gather all the ingredients and then presto magic you have a beautiful cake in front of you? Or is there some sort of process that’s missing? Some sort of transitionary period?
There’s a reason it’s called Marxist-Leninism too, older works can be superseded or reanalyzed by newer works in a more refined context.
While this quote does not encapsulate marx's entire view on the state, it shows that Marx sees that the state is bourgeois and therefore antagonistic to the proletariat.
The state is inherently antagonistic to the proletariat, because their controlling society gives rise to them creating their own class within the bourgeoisie.
That very out of context quote is saying that under capitalism the state is used by the bourgeoisie to advance their common interests, not that the state "is inherently oppressive".
The hurdle a lot of illiterate liberals have to get over when they read Marx is that his use of oppressive isn't a moral assertion, it's a dialectic.
Yes, a state is opressive. It is the oppression of one class for the benefit of another. As long as a state exists, there is an existing class divide in the place that state exists.
Do you think the bourgeoisie care that the state is oppressive? No. Because the current form of the state serves their interests. Should workers care that a bourgeois state is opressive? Yes. Because a bourgeois state will actively sabotage any attempt by the body of labor to free itself.
As long as this dynamic exists (either domestically or internationally) states will continue to exist, and the form of that state will take on the character of the class that controls it.
In "The Civil War in France" Marx directly condems the revolutionaries (though respects their lofty aims) for not taking over the State in Paris. For not opening the banks, exploiting the existing power structure, and then destroying the bridge behind them. The Paris Commune is one of the first direct examples of a suddenly stateless society failing in the face of an organized bourgeois state.
If you want a socialist project to survive, you have to learn from the mistakes of the Parisians and take hold of power and use the oppressive nature of the state to cement the new order or you risk reactionary movements that aren't afraid to wield that oppressive power destroying all you've built.
And this is a hard thing for liberals to get their heads around because it's something that Marx changed opinions on the second he saw what had happened in Paris. Unlike most liberal political economists who are dogmatic in their beliefs and theories, Marx was driven primarily by the state of things and analysis of reality. His theories changed as he saw them practiced.
See folks, here we have an example of a liberal who mistakes "repeating something a bunch" for a fact. Sadly, their brain worms are so numerous that they have a terminal case of the "smug" and are incapable of understanding that they could in fact, be wrong or misinformed about something. This is an important cautionary tale to all of us to ensure good mental hygiene before we end up like this poor fellow, who sadly, is beyond help at this point.
You call me wrong, yet don't bring a source to debunk me. You call me smug, yet speak of me as if I'm an animal. I will say the Communist tendency to hate liberals is why this movement has yet to succeed in the US. You seem incapable of knowing that liberals are just more mild versions of communists and if we want marxist movements we must move within a big tent party, since we don't have large enough numbers to do anything within any democratic country.
Here we see the liberal tendency to "shame" people into co-operating with them. Notice how they have tried to blame the victim (in this case communists, not myself specifically) insisting that if communists stopped being communists and started being liberals, they would "succeed" in their goals somehow. This is practically a case study in how smug liberals with extreme brainworms think they understand everything, yet understand nothing, and think that screaming "give a me source" is somehow a slam dunk argument, despite explicitly rejecting that very offer much earlier.
Very typical behaviour here, refusing to learn, then being mad when we don't bend over backwards to teach. Notice how in the liberal's brainworm addled mind, they are the Most Important Person in the Room at all times, and all others must cater to them, and them alone.
They make no efforts to extend the "civility" they claim to champion, yet demand it of others in all circumstances. Notice how they cannot even perceive their own ignorance or double standards or hypocrisy, but are happy to project their personal faults onto others.
Sadly, there is no hope for libs like this, their brainworms are settled in, and they have no interest in engaging in good faith, they never have, even from the start. Notice how the lib was insisting, nay, demanding I provide a source for my claims, only after it became clear I wasn't catering to them and kowtowing to them, despite me openly offering to provide information at the beginning of this conversation. This is very common lib behaviour.
They are constantly fighting with their own brainworms, and so struggle angrily and impotently against things they refuse to learn about or understand. Notice how they will always fall back to the same half-dozen cliches on any topic they refuse to learn about. They seek not to learn or change their minds, but only to find some excuse to dismiss. They believe they understand the concept of a "source" but sadly, they lack the capacity to actually read or engage with one. So when they insist upon a source, it is only so they can reject it out of hand, without having examined it. Don't be too upset with them, they can't help their own intellectual dishonesty, and aren't even aware they are doing it. In fact, a smug lib's mind is so full of holes from their brainworms that they aren't even aware that opinions and information other than their own actually exist, and will come up with all manner of explanations for why someone who disagrees with them, or understands a topic better than them doesn't really understand or doesn't really disagree, and is in fact, just pretending to, in order to trick them, as one of the symptoms of terminal brainworms is a dangerous swelling of the ego.
First, I am a communist. Second, I'm not victim blaming, I'm saying that we can't attain any progress in a democracy if we dont work with liberals, as we dont have have the number. I'm not saying "become liberal", I'm saying that we need to work within a big teny party to attain power. While I do disagree with you, both as an ML and your specific viewpoint, I will not deny that I'd rather have communists I disagree with than the us' spiral into fascism.
Also, you shouldn't complain about sourcing your arguments. Even if you're not arguing with me, you will argue with other people who, whether you're correct or incorrect, will demand sources.
I don't get how it's controversial to say that communists are not the majority of people, and therefore can't act on our own. If we were an established party and didn't need liberals, I wouldn't be saying that we should work with liberals. But if we alienate ourselves from liberals and vote for our own candidates, who won't win due to our small membership, it will be the right that wins, thereby pushing our progress back.
Hmm, voting. I think you need to read up on Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder by V.I. Lenin. In fact, even State and Revolution and maybe even What is to be done? (I haven't completed this one yet).
It seems like you're rusty on what revolutionary socialism is.
I still don't get how it's controversial to say that to gain power, we need numbers, and we agree with liberals more than fascists, and therefore to get power to us and away from fascists we should unify until we can create a revolution, or a party that will be voted in.
Ooh! Notice how the liberal is trying to get behind me, pretending to support me, this is their preferred method of attack, as they like to stab people in the back. The liberal naively thinks that insisting upon something makes it so. Communists of course, are well aware of this liberal tendency to insist on being "one of us" while simultaneously denouncing everything we do and refusing to even understand the most basic concepts of what we actually support.
This liberal has figured out I am not arguing with them, but am in fact mocking them, but mistakes my mockery for "complaints." The liberal, once again, is under the impression that whining about "sources" will get me to bend over backwards to try and impress them. But this is a common ruse by libs. As stated earlier, liberals with such an advanced degree of brainworms have no interest in reading sources, they simply want me to waste my time, they get a sick, smug thrill out of the idea of others desperately trying to educate them, to get them to think, and they flail about aimlessly, as this one has been doing, when we refuse to play their sick, twisted games.
Notice the entire time this lib has been demanding "sources" despite me making no actual claims, they conveniently ignored the source I posted earlier. This is also an incredibly common liberal tactic. If something is inconvenient to their argument, they will simply pretend it doesn't exist. They cannot engage with something honestly and earnestly, but hypocrisy is one of the greatest of liberal values, so they demand their opponents engage with their arguments in that way.
This ties back to concept of liberals simply not understanding that someone else could know something they do not. Liberals demand sources not to learn, but to dismiss, to deny. The liberal believes that their claims are the Truth, with a capital "T" and thus, despite them making claims this entire time, have not felt compelled to offer any sources themselves. Again, this is due to the liberal's desire to see others cater to them, with no intention of returning the favour. Liberals will insist upon rules that they themselves do not follow, and if they don't follow their own rules, neither should we.
This is why I haven't bothered to directly engage with the brainworm excrement dribbling out of this liberal's mouth, because any counter point I give will not actually be listened to. I would have a more productive time sharing sources with a brick wall. This lib mistakes my refusal to play their games for ignorance, when they are the ignorant party here, if they actually knew what they were talking about, they would know communists have dealt with these exact same empty liberal claims for well over a century at this point. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/index.htm
Now we watch and see what the liberal does. In this situation, the liberal will usually deny anything I present entirely, due to me not playing by their rules (which, as we've established, they do not follow themselves). But perhaps this one will surprise us with some new behaviour we've never seen before for liberals, there's always a first time.
Is it that hard to not treat me as if you're a natgeo narrator. You're not debunking the libs by not engaging with them, you just alienate your comrades who don't agree with you on everything.
Oh dear, that's probably it for now, this lib has reached the point that they will simply regurgitate the same circular statements again and again. A well-coordinated team of comrades can keep them going like this for hours, but it will just be repeats of their previous statements over and over again, so there's nothing new to learn here.
I am not following their preferred script and it upsets them, they want me to play their games, and have run out of new ways to try to get me back on their preferred track. Here we see the real tragedy of liberal brainworms. They simply believe that insisting upon something enough will make it so, that just repeating the same things over and over give them more weight, make them more correct, as if simply stating something enough will make it true.
Remember these important lessons when dealing with a lib online:
#1: Determine if they are acting in good faith. Libs with fewer brainworms than this one can be quite agreeable and willing to listen and learn. While dunking on libs is fun, it's important to make sure they choose to reject information first. Always prioritise education and knowledge initially, even if they are being rude.
#2: Don't follow their script or play their games. Once it has been established they aren't interested in learning, a lib is only interested in one thing: stroking their ego. By playing their games and agreeing to their rules, even passively, it shows the lib that they are in control, that the "tankies" will bend over backwards to give them attention. Do not treat them with the respect they demand to be treated by, it will never be shown in kind. Give them the respect their smug attitude deserves.
#3: Hypocrisy is the beating heart of the liberal. The reason we should not play their games is because they will insist upon rules for us, that they will then ignore. Like a child obsessed with winning a board game no matter what, they will make up "rules" as they go along to ensure they win. Even if you follow their rules at first, they will inevitably change them at some point so they can still "win."
#4: Related to the previous point, the primary function of a liberal's online "debates" is ego stroking. All they care about is "winning." Not discussion, not learning, not information, not understanding, simply "winning" and if we abide by their rules, they will invariably change them so they can declare victory. Even good faith liberals will do this, which is why we need to make it clear to them that this is unacceptable behaviour if they show it. If they are interested in learning, that includes learning etiquette beyond the liberal faux civility.
#5: Don't expect them to change their minds. This may seem obvious, but this goes even for those in point 1, even good faith liberals will still need time to digest information that unbalances and confronts their worldview, we all do. While these rules apply to all liberals, we should be patient with those genuinely interested in learning.
#6: I forgot one, an important one! PROJECTION. Libs, when dealing with someone not playing by their rules, will simply assert that their own issues and hypocrisy are actually a trait of whomever is dealing with them, in order to protect their own ego. In the worst cases, they will essentially just regurgitate their opponent's accusations against them, with a "no u" or "actually you do this not me." sort of attitude.
BONUS: As I mentioned before this list, a group of dedicated comrades can keep them ranting impotently for hours, this is because libs always have to get last word in. I've never seen one who can just hit the block button and let someone else finish the interaction. So as a small kindness to this one, I'll not be responding to their final comment below (which they made before this edit, which includes both this point and #6, which slipped my mind when I was originally writing this, but the lib reminded me to put it here, thank you lib).
I'm going to stop now because you've also been chasing your tail, not engaging with my arguments, but rather calling me a lib because I disagree with you. You would call Marx a lib if he were alive today. Also, why do you treat libs as people below you, have you not thought of the idea that this could be why they disagree with you?
Did you read anything anyone has been saying? Cause they're absolutely correct in their analysis of you. Everything up till now you've just refused to listen, you continue to act smug like you know what you're talking about and don't even make an attempt to understand any of the concepts being explained to you.
Talk about being unprepared to critically examine your own worldview.
Don't conflate liberals and the right. Liberals don't actively try to fuck over workers like rightists are. Further, it doesn't matter what liberals were 100 years ago, do you think Biden is as bad as Trump?
Liberalism only appears on the left if your political spectrum extends from "capitalism, but the poor get some scraps" to "capitalism, but the poor don't get scraps".
Liberals literally do fuck over the workers, the very structure they maintain, capitalism, is the exploitation of workers.
By voting for socialist leaders who won't get elected, you allow the right to get elected and thereby deny them those scraps. And I think the homeless would rather have some scraps than none. Also, when in a contemporary democracy, this is the spectrum, no one else would get elected.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the state in capitalism. It's not just by chance that the state has represented the interests of the capitalists, despite them being a tiny minority, since 1776.
The state giving more scraps isn't a response to voters wanting it, if the state represented the people, we wouldn't have capitalism. It's a response to a threat to capitalism, a sort of safety valve.
But on the subject of electoralism, Biden got elected and had both houses. He did fuckall, is bombing yemen, and facilitating a genocide in Israel. If you cannot punish a politician for all that, your interests do not even begin to enter the equation.
Plenty of MLs will engage with you patiently. It just gets very annoying when you guys come in swinging with easily debunked or out of context factoids. Remember, this is an internet forum, not an organization of professionals.
Freedom of a populace is not measured by access to the Internet but rather by what their government does to improve their material conditions, such as housing. I support the freedom to live inside a house, not the freedom to be homeless after a 1000$ misfortune, like in the U.S.
I personally view it as that if you can't allow people to see other viewpoints, then material conditions don't matter. As John Stuart Mill said in On Liberty, the person's ability to choose for themself is more important than an alleged better living condition. Furthermore, I see that if China were so much better, they would let their people see the alternative. By not letting their people see something they allege is worse, they prove it is better.
I am right now very happy for lemmygrads taglines, a) I was reminded (all day) this quote exists, and b) I didn't have to go far to find it:
It is difficult for me to imagine what ‘personal liberty’ is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible
Again, I do not argue for capitalism, I agree with Stalin on this quote. I'm saying that I can go into whatever forum I want, and say that Joe Biden is committing genocide, and I don't disappear, I don't "kill myself" in my hotel room. I'm not defending capitalism, as I am a communist. The condition in which the worker lives is irreconcilable the universal liberty, however if China is socialism, in terms of liberty, they would be the same. I believe that socialism could be so much better. I believe that China could be so much better and it will be someday. But the state will not allow it.
You have to be a troll. But - you're a pretty funny one. A Boeing whistleblower 'killed himself in a hotel room' literally just last week. You can yell at Joe Biden however much you want, he's still gonna commit genocide without blinking.
I know this guy's already been banned and he can't respond to this, but I just had to fucking say it.
What liberals don't get is that you're only allowed to exist and argue against the state if you are effectively not a real threat.
They don't have to kill anybody in the CPUSA because they aren't a very effective group at making political change (right now), but the Black Panthers? Well, that was a different story...
A regular old citizen of Germany was arrested for posting on a social media post "from the river to the sea", They didn't even have to finish it. That was the only thing they said. Capitalist states disappear people all the time, It just depends on how fascist they are. And Germany is pretty fascist right now. The United States is in fact trying to destroy TikTok for its freedom of speech (I'm sure for other reasons too, as they probably just want an American bourgeois to make money off of it.).
What even is your first sentence, that shit literally makes no sense. Oh yeah, I'd rather be able to have access to diverse viewpoints rather than affordable housing or sustinence or a good job lmao
Let me simplify it for you. It doesn't matter if they allegedly have better material conditions when they can't view information contrary to the state.
Hey y'all it doesn't matter if you lift billions of people out of poverty and they never have to worry about certain material conditions and therefore improve their quality of life, what makes a society better is being able to "view information contrary to the state".
"Man, this high housing ownership rate, access to food and education sucks, what our society really needs is the ability to be screamed at by white supremacists on Twitter."
Who the fuck gives a shit if they're feeding their people and improving their quality of life? If billions of people support their government because they know they have the people's interest at heart.
You seem to believe China is inherently lying about everything it does and says but can't possibly think of any reason why (spoiler, it's racism). You believe what the West says about China, which is why you believe in the Uyghur "genocide".
Drop the Zedong quote. Do you think that because the Chinese government is claiming to be socialist, that banning all other counties' resources is justified. how can the citizens not support their government when they're only allowed to know things that support the government? Also I'm racist because I don't support a government? I don't like the Russian government either but that doesn't make me racist towards Russians.
You're a racist because you can't possibly think that well over a billion Chinese people would support their government for doing exactly what I mentioned before, and your only fucking problem is "they ban other countries resources", without even bother to think about why.
Of course you don't like Russia, the government told you not to.
The funniest part is that this is all projection, lmao. Just look at what the West does to people who support Palestine. Censorship, media control, all the same things you allege China is doing is what the US is doing right now but somehow you believe what the US says about the countries they hate the most.
So you're saying you wouldn't have come to the conclusion Trump is a fascist if someone didn't tell you that he was? Like you wouldn't have found out about it yourself?
Ha yes, I'm sure having fucking google make the homeless in NY city sooo much better off than the peoples living in nice cheap apartments in Beijing. Tell me you've never been poor without telling me you've never been poor. 🤡