I just read "Isnβt China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isnβt it fully planned like the USSR was? ", and it made so much sense. Thanks for sharing. I'm going to read the rest soon.
I always viewed "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" as a necessary economic compromise that had to be made to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from losing power, similar to the NEP in 1920s Russia, so that eventually China could continue on the road to pure socialism. Is that accurate?
The Kim's are communist whether you like it or not, and this quote is very much in line with the communist position on bourgeois democracy. Also, communism does, or at least is should, always lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is not a dictatorship in the traditional sense. It's the "dictatorship" of the proletarian class, and if you think otherwise, then you clearly need to read more Marx and Lenin.
There is no joke. I don't see why Stalin would be an untrustworthy authority on communist ideology. Based on the books I've read of his, he seems to be very trustworthy in his analysis and explanation of the ideology of communism and socialism.
It's sad that Lenin already explained this in his "Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder" 104 years ago, yet Communists are still making the same mistakes.
This is what I hate about people who are vehemently anti-communist. They can look at a picture displaying the atrocities of fascism and then, instead of demonizing the horrific acts of fascism, decide to change the subject to talk about how evil communism is.
Anti-communist looking at picture of the Holocaust: "Man, I sure do hate communism."
[Saying that there's no such thing as a state that's more authoritarian or less authoritarian is denying reality.]
To clarify, that's not what I said. I said that there is no such thing as a non-authoritarian state because states are authoritarian by nature, not that there aren't varying degrees of the level of authoritarianism among different states. America is in many ways less authoritarian than the USSR, but it's still authoritarian nonetheless.
I'm not at all trying to suggest that Stalinist Russia was more free than modern-day America, just that many people think of America as a free country when it's actually closer to Stalinist Russia than they'd care to recognize.
3/3 ...in technology) and all while having the largest prison population in the entire world, possibly being larger than the amount of prisoners in labor camps under Stalin (again, it's hard to compare since records from that era from the Soviet Union are lacking).
2/3 Also, speaking of America again, one of America's suppression methods is suppression through delusion, tricking people into thinking that they're actually free with constant propaganda in media and schools when the reality is that America is just as much (and maybe even more, since it's hard to compare the exact numbers to the Soviet Union) police presence and civilian surveillance as the Soviet Union did (but probably more surveillance given the advancements..
1/3 [most western states (and, in fact, most states) don't suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.]
I have to partially disagree. While it is likely true that the USSR was more outward with its suppression methods than most western states today, countries, like America for example, do suppress dissent on a regular scale (Campus protest, George Floyd protest are just two notable examples, but there are plenty of more).
...immediately transition to communism because that would be impossible, or at least strategically impractical. The plan of Marxist-Leninist revolutions was always to create a transitional state that would eventually transition into a stateless classless society once the state was no longer needed.
1/2 [Communist revolutions can be bloody and can lead to authoritarian states.]
β Yes, revolutions can be bloody, whether they're communist or otherwise. That's not really unique of communist revolutions.
"Authoritarian state" is a meaningless redundancy; there's no such thing as a non-authoritarian state. If your criticism is that the revolutions didn't immediately result in a communist society, then that's also a poor criticism since they were never meant to...
@dessalines
I just read "Isnβt China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isnβt it fully planned like the USSR was? ", and it made so much sense. Thanks for sharing. I'm going to read the rest soon.