My favorite part so far was Noam Chomsky telling Epstein that “Venezuela isn’t real socialism,” lmao.

Chomsky’s always been terrible.

Political power does flow from the barrel of a gun, but a revolution is doomed to fail without popular support, including a socialist government. The working classes were not oppressed by socialist states but instead uplifted, dramatically more than capitalist peer countries. The only countries that supercede socialist ones are ones that rely on imperialism.

The implication that Marxism-Leninism is a religion is baseless, the purpose of Marxism-Leninism is to abolish classes, not to maintain a ruling class like liberalism is.

Why are you going through old comments of mine to reply to?

Again, you are confusing how propaganda works. Propaganda doesn’t “create” sentiment, it appeals to underlying sentiment. The working classes aren’t morally just, nor gullible, nor intelligent, but instead rational, and therefore generally seek narratives that conform to their felt conditions.

It’s not that I confuse cause for effect, it’s that I go deeper, the cause is actually the devastation in capitalism compared to socialism resulting in rising socialist sentiment, the effect is that the nationalists take notice and are trying to twist it into Russian nationalism, causing a struggle between Russian nationalism and socialist nostalgia playing out in the Russian Federation, the effect of which is large increases in CPRF membership and restoration of soviet monuments and nomenclature. Cause and effect do not exist in a vacuum, but are instead the result of endless spirals. Dialectics at work.

Further, the CPRF supports Russia United against Kiev in the war, and has taken a stance of critical support. The fact that United Russia is doing better electorally right now doesn’t mean communism is falling out of favor, but that communist analysis is rallying around the nationalists in Russia, and partisans aren’t willing to advocate for overtaking the current system at the moment.

This also explains why polling suggests that sympathies for the Soviet Union mostly (not fully) consist of cultural and military pride.

Polling does not suggest this, it suggests that the increase in poverty, austerity, sex work, drug abuse, homelessness, and overall devastation of capitalism wasn’t worth it for the broad majority of society. You seek to explain sentiment derived from real, material economic conditions via culture and vibes, when the culture and vibes are a reflection of the economic base. You did it earlier with the idea that the nationalists are creating soviet pride in a vacuum, ignoring economic conditions, and you do it here again.

As for Ukraine, it’s very convenient that you skip over the Banderite coup in 2014 where the nationalists took political power. Ukraine did used to be more pro-communist, especially in the Donbass region, but after the western-backed Euromaidan coup the nationalists took political supremacy and started punishing communists. Same for East Germany, after reunification the communists were punished in show trials and purged, leaving the right-wing West German political force with supremacy. This purge of leftists created a vacuum for far-right populists and nationalists, as capitalist devastation combined with a lack of leftist organizing results in the faf-right having free-reign.

Overall, when we take your convenient framing of trends and insistence on explaining demographic shifts not by real, material conditions but instead by a battle of vibes and ideas alone, we have to question your entire thought process. It’s clear that you view history not as a long process that progresses in spirals, but as static snapshots, and the ideas held by the people not as coming from their real conditions economically but instead as beamed from above, and these failures in analysis are why you come to incorrect conclusions.

A rise in party membership in the CPRF does indeed suggest that they are growing, and further establishing legitimacy. National election results in war-time aren’t a major indicator of popularity of the CPRF. Further, no, the nationalists are not creating soviet sympathies, but trying to take advantage of them. Capitalism has been devestating for Russia, and people yearn for the old days when their needs were better taken care of. The nationalists are appealing to that and trying to turn it into Russian pride.

The idea that the nationalists are just beaming sympathies to the heads of the citizenry, rather than the citizenry longing for a working system after the devastation of cspitalism and the nationalists are trying to take advantage of that, is absurd. That’s not how propaganda works, you have to identify actually felt beliefs and leverage them.

• They recieved 63,000 new members over 4 years

• The CPRF has restored ties with communist parties around the world

• Stalin’s popularity in Russia in general is rising dramatically, to the point of being reported in the west

And much more. At the end of the day, the Russian Federation is a bourgeois dictstorship, so it isn’t going to just accept rising communist sympathies at a state level. The nationalists have a balancing act to play, trying to take advantage of rising soviet smpathies without legitimizing socialism.

Gorbachev had also implemented Perestroika, and his policy of Glasnost had weakened the soviet system. The seeds for radical change for the worse and instability were already there. My point isn’t that there was 0 discontent and it flipped to 100% discontent, but that people, despite the various nationalist movements in some of the member-states, overall did support the socialist project up to the end. After the vote, there was the hardliner coup, dramatic sharpening of contradictions, and the internal, anti-democratic dissolution by Yeltsin claiming legitimacy from the rising nationalist movements.

You have no evidence supporting your claims other than the idea that there was some discontent, which I never denied, and that people ultimately lost faith in the stabilty of the soviet union right at the end itself. Further, support for returning to socialism doesn’t simply “evaporate,” and again, it depends highly on the political fuckery in the region, the purging of communists by westerners, and the sheer devastation these countries went through. Trying to chalk it all up to simple pride in a stronger nation instead of the actual material benefits is an extraordinary claim.

Russia and Belarus, for example, are seeing rising waves of socialist sympathy among the populace. The CPRF is rising rapidly, and people fundamentally feel that capitalism should not last any longer. This represents the large majority of the post-soviet population.

The biggest issue is that non-violent protest doesn’t really change anything. They can be useful for organizations to practice and develop logistics and mobilization, but not as a direct method of change. Lady Izdihar made a great graphic on the Leninist theory of revolution:

This is how we need to organize for actual change. Non-violent protest is helpful in practicing revolution, but not in achieving change itself.

Join a party like PSL, and be ready for violence. Pacifism is handcuffing yourself and handing the gun to your captor. That’s not to say that protest should only be violent or adventurist in nature, of course, but we should prepare and be ready for revolution, and that starts by studying strategy and tactics, training in firearms, first-aid, logistics, etc, and organizing in working class parties.

People did have a massive swing in opinion. I’m aware that dissolution was not an option, but your claim that people didn’t change their opinion in light of the immense political turmoil between that vote and the second vote requires more evidence than “people don’t change their minds that quickly.” Rather, to the contrary, large shifts in opinion do happen more swiftly than gradually.

Further, the fact that the large majority regret the fall of the soviet union is relevant in showing that it clearly wasn’t as simple as saying everyone hated living in the soviet union, but realized how good they had it afterwards. Polling is often inconsistent not because of bad polling, but political instability caused by the immense fuckery of capitalism and imperialism in these countries, and forces like NATO.

No problem! The material is great, but unfortunately it needs to be formatted on Prolewiki, haha.

Not nearly as in-depth due to time limits (and mostly focused on the Xi Jinping era) but Red Pen’s A Summary of Xi Jinping’s Governance of China can be a good primer! There’s also This is how China’s economic model works: Explaining Socialism with Chinese Characteristics by Geopolitical Economy Report.

Really, in order to understand the PRC, you at least need to understand Mao, the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. There were other leaders, but these have perhaps had the largest impact on the PRC of today. Xi Jinping Thought upholds Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, while believing the Gang of Four to have been left-deviationists and the Cultural Revolution to have contained more excess than was worth.

Also, the Prolewiki page for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners is pretty poorly formatted, and extremely lengthy, so I recommend either going to the anna’s archive link and downloading the source directly, or reading these:

1. Qiao Collective’s Introductory Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Study Guide

2. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics ProleWiki page

3. Socialist Market Economy ProleWiki Page

4. People’s Republic of China ProleWiki Page

5. My “Read Theory, Darn It!” Introductory Marxist-Leninist Reading Guide

6. Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism by Domenico Losurdo

7. China Has Billionaires by Roderic Day

8. The Long Game and its Contradictions

9. Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

10. Super-Imperialism: The Origins and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance by Michael Hudson

11. Marxism is a Science by Deng Xiaoping

12. Regarding the Construction of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics by Xi Jinping

I’m aware that after the votes, crisis in politics caused a dramatic swing in faith in the system. The question of viability of the socialist project wasn’t unclear, however. The dissolution of the USSR was something that happened not due to some inevitable death clock in socialism. Contrary to what you believe, popular opinion can swing that fast, such as in the US Empire, where within a single month sentiment on Israel flipped from overwhelmingly positive to majority negative.

Further, as I already showed, the large majority of people in post-soviet countries feel worse off and/or regret its fall. Socialism was an effective system at meeting the needs of the people, and though liberalization and a harsh recovery process from World War II strained the system, it was not on the way to collapse.

Rogue unions aren’t simply “workers trying to organize against unfair labor practices,” though, which is my point. There are already unions, and the state already punishes bad actors. There’s extremely minimal grassroots opposition to the socialist system in China, so recognizing this context is important.

And no problem, let me know if you have any questions!

The US taking over Tik Tok isn’t “PRC style domestic policy,” though. The PRC has knowledge transfer agreements with any company that does business with China, I think this may be what you’re hinting at, but this is just the standard “sell it to us or we’ll ban it” style of US policy.

The PRC isn’t committing ethnic cleansing nor is it enslaving Uyghur peoples in Xinjiang, just like South Africa wasn’t committing “white genocide,” nor is there “christian genocide” in Nigeria. These are all examples of atrocity propaganda, where the west heavily distorts and often fabricates narratives in order to foment resistance and to give their own populations free excuses to not support anti-imperialism, in essence supporting it.

In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of “genocide.” Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens. I highly recommend Qiao Collective’s Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation for more on this subject.

In the context of tighter control between the state and business, it’s important to understand the class dynamics. The US Empire is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the large firms and key industries are privately owned, and the state entrenches their power. In the PRC, public ownership is the principle aspect, and the working class is in control of the state. The commanding heights of industry in China are all SOEs, and the bourgeoisie that controls small and medium firms are kept in check by the socialist state. You’re confusing form for essence, by only looking at similarities and ignoring the differences, you come to false conclusions.

Here’s more on the SOEs governing the commanding heights of industry in China:

As for surveillance, the US Empire has a far deeper level, the PATRIOT Act makes that clear. The US never copied China on this, they’ve always been worse. Further, in China surveillance is largely used against capitalists, while in the US Empire it’s used against the working classes.

On to the PRC side.

The PRC is expanding trade, but not dominance, nor does its trade deals come at the barrel of a gun. The PRC recognizes territory that has been consistent with what China had while the ROC held the UN seat for China, until it was transfered over to the PRC, leading to territorial disputes, not naked piracy and invasion like the US Empire does. They also are not “exporting surveillance and censorship systems.” They trade with pretty much everyone, and support their allies, but this is not imperialism.

To the contrary, the PRC is acting against imperialism.

• The CPC punishing Chinese landlords for improper treatment of Africans, mass arresting the landlords, passing reforms, and apologizing to the African Union

• China has forgiven over 10 billion in foreign debt

• Belt-Road Initiative: An Anti-thesis of Colonialism

• Evo Morales speaks on claims of "Chinese imperialism

• Five Imperialist Myths About China’s Role in Africa

• Is China a Better Partner for Africa than Europe and the West?

• Challenging US Imperialism with Chinese Multilateralism

• The Fallacy of Denouncing Both Sides of the US-China Conflict

And many, many more sources back this up. It’s no secret that imperialists have been trying to smear China into being “no better” than the west, but the reality on the ground is that partnering with China results in mutual development and cooperation, while partnering with the west results in stripped autonomy, underdevelopment, and exploitation.

What you called “clear worker rights violations,” was just the fact that unions are required to be a part of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and aren’t allowed to be independent from that federation. This isn’t a violation of worker rights, though, as the only purpose rogue unions would serve is undermining the socialist system, and would be vulnerable to foreign backing (such as from the US Empire).

The socialist state is already run by the working classes, I recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the Theory and History of Socialist Governance to get a better idea of how and why socialist countries hold the structures they do. Roland Boer also has a good book called Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners, which is more specifically about the PRC and goes beyond the structures of governance to the more broad system of socialism in China.

Regarding your participation in MeanwhileOnGrad, you should know that EmoPunker cut off the final replies, where they called defenders of Pol Pot “genuine socialists.” These are the kinds of posts on that comm, they selectively remove context that makes themselves look worse, deliberately misframe reasonable comments, and the comm itself is run by a zionist. This kind of anti-communist bar is a gathering spot for genuine fascists, but it seems you’re fine with participating there.

You were temp-banned, for dogmatically repeating debunked claims pushed by liberals, in the face of evidence to the contrary. You appear to be free to comment there.

Executing or otherwise punishing capitalists guilty of subversion and corruption, such as Bai Tianhui, is a good thing. “Dissidents” aren’t virtuous by “dissenting,” it’s important to know what dissent means in practice and what they are dissenting against.

Can you elaborate? The US isn’t adopting PRC style domestic policy, nor is the PRC adopting British nor US-style imperialism, so I have no idea what you’re talking about. The PRC isn’t imperialist to begin with, it has no colonies nor neocolonies and isn’t plundering the surplus value created by the global south. Trade deals with China don’t come at the barrel of a gun either.

How exactly am I boot-licking? How am I trying to “fool” anyone?

The US Empire is currently exporting mass death and destruction globally, threatening Greenland and Canada with annexation, kidnapped another country’s president and first lady, is performing piracy for oil, threatening Cuba, and on top of all of these overt acts of terror, is super-exploiting the global south for super profits. The PRC, on the other hand, as a socialist country, is far more peaceful, maintains a defensive millitary, has ~3 overseas millitary bases compared to the hundreds of the US Empire, and offers mutual development opportunities like Belt and Road.

The differences are staggering. When countries in the global south partner with the US Empire, they are trapped in cycles of underdevelopment, where their surplus value is plundered. When countries in the global south trade and partner with the PRC, they achieve rapid development, and escape the never-ending cycle of impoverishment. This win-win development isn’t because China is more morally good, but because their economic structure and geopolitical position compels them towards mutual cooperation over plunder and terror.

Further, there isn’t really an alternative to the US Empire and PRC. The US Empire is actively invading countries to make sure they comply. The EU is vassalized by the US Empire. When we look at who the global south goes to for development opportunities, they are increasingly rejecting western imperialism in favor of cooperation with China and BRICS, and forming mutual partnerships with neighboring countries (like the Alliance of Sahel States).

The bad of the US Empire isn’t why the PRC is better, the sheer benefit of working with the PRC is why the PRC is better.