Many people are reformist, even if they're impoverished proles, because they think revolutionary rhetoric is Vague, Amorphous, Pie-In-The-Sky, Irrelevant, Delayed (assuming they don't think it's outright bonkers).
What would be the best counter-argument to those people?
>>573998>>574000you legit should get your brains checked if you cant associate just that one paragraph with what op is talking about and what the replies i.e.
>>573990 brought up
>>573989all of the assumptions in the second half of this image are wrong and have answers if you bother to do the reading. it is also a vague blending two different critiques, revolution itself, and the transition to communism, which are separate things. the first half sounds like a guide for making advertisements or internet content, so its not really a critique of whether revolution is necessary, just on how it is assumed to be marketed or propagandized for. that might be good for cheap dopamine or quarterly profits but not applicable to something that takes multiple decades of dedicated work that might not pay off in your lifetime.
this feels like bait, because it is designed to exclude the answer, which is that it depends on material conditions and not the ideas people have in their heads.
the best counter argument to reformists is current reality. reforms don't stick because capitalism is a bourgeois dictatorship. reforms were temporary to protect capital from the threat posed by the ussr. even socdem countries are rolling back healthcare and pensions now.
the other part of this same point is that reforms have historically never actually lead to communism and the reforms have only been minor around the edge tweaks, never addressing ownership of major industry and the commanding heights of the economy. when demands like this are made by the people through democratic means they are always subverted by those in power through force, often employing state terrorism, which in turn proves the necessity of revolution as a method of self defense.
>>574006I think this is a really good post that gets to the core of the problem with the capitalistic assumptions behind the OP, as if we can put a date on revolution. I also think that it exhibits the critiques by the OP when you say that reforms never lead to communism. This is irrelevant because the question for most people is "reform or communism?" and not "reform now, communism later, or straight to communism?" (which, even when we understand the futility of reforms in this period of capitalism, we have to admit that part of struggling towards revolution is achieving the immediate aims of the working class wherever possible). Maybe a better way to frame this point would be emphasizing what happens when capitalism fails and we don't get communism, or like in Germany in the 1930s when the reformist socialists saw themselves and the communists as opposites, and decided to fund reactionary forces because they feared communists more. That said, overall you hit the nail on the head and the main point is as you said, reforms don't cut it, and they are much more difficult to get and impossible to keep in this current period.
>>574006>the first half sounds like a guide for making advertisements or internet contentnot really, it's what goals should be 'in general.' you want your goals to be specific, because if they aren't specific you'll have internal disagreement in your organization (political or otherwise). You want your goals to be measurable, because if they aren't, you won't know whether your goal has been achieved or not. You want your goal to be attainable, because if it's not, you're literally trying to achieve the impossible. You want your goals to be relevant (to some bigger picture), because if they aren't, you just have a dumb goal that's isolated from any larger context, and you want your goal to be time-bound because if it's not, it won't get done. Of course it *sounds like* some marketing bullshit, but if you divorce it from a Capitalist context it actually makes a lot of sense.
>not applicable to something that takes multiple decades of dedicated work that might not pay off in your lifetime.it absolutely is because revolution is the bigger picture, but how you get there requires a lot of smaller goals to be met. Nobody wants to think about those smaller goals, or to link them to each other because it's not as interesting as the vague, amorphous, pie-in-the-sky, irrelevant, and delayed "decades long" goal of the revolution, which is just supposed to happen magically at some point in the future once TRPF makes capitalism unsustainable. Of course capitalism won't last forever, but in order to
actually replace it with something that isn't worse you have to be in position to fill the power vacuum when it collapses, and what I see daily is that reactionaries (at least in the imperial core) are organizing to fill that vacuum way better than socialists are.
>this feels like bait, because it is designed to exclude the answer, which is that it depends on material conditions and not the ideas people have in their heads. it depends on both, because there actually has to be ideologically dedicated socialists who are organized to take advantage of the material conditions as they progress. The Bolsheviks actually had to coup Kerensky's provisional government to take power. It wasn't just matter of waiting around for the material conditions to finish cooking. The Chinese communists had to actually win a civil war against the Kuomintang, it wasn't just a matter of waiting around for the material conditions to finish cooking. DPRK and Vietnam had to survive the imperialist assaults of the United States. It wasn't just a matter of waiting around for the material conditions to finish cooking. The Cuban revolutionaries had to actually wage guerrilla warfare against the Batista regime. You get the point. This requires small, short term, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound goals that are related to a bigger picture (revolution) being planned and executed constantly. And I don't see this kind of organization being done in the imperial core by the socialists and communists at all. I see it being done by the reactionaries. And that is paving the way for a fascist takeover. That is paving the way for another Rosa Luxemburg floating face down in another Landwehr canal.
>the best counter argument to reformists is current reality. reforms don't stick because capitalism is a bourgeois dictatorship. reforms were temporary to protect capital from the threat posed by the ussr. even socdem countries are rolling back healthcare and pensions now. Yes. but their reactionary rollbacks are every bit as unsustainable as the broader capitalist system is. Either capitalism will be destroyed, or capitalism will destroy us, and unless the organization to carry out a revolution is being done, the latter is going to happen.
>the other part of this same point is that reforms have historically never actually lead to communismYes, agreed.
>which in turn proves the necessity of revolution as a method of self defense.revolution is necessary, yet it requires discipline and organization that is not manifesting itself where it needs to. And more importantly it requires key players in the military to defect to the cause of the revolutionaries (as happened in the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Korean, and Vietnamese revolutions), which also seems increasingly unlikely.
>>574012>They were able to do it BECAUSE of the material conditions. How stupid you need to be to not get that?I didn't deny this. How stupid do
you need to be to not get that? Had their organization not been ready, had they not decided to make a move, had they not successfully executed their coup, the critical opportunity would have passed. Material conditions need to be ready, but people also need to be organized and ready to take advantage of those material conditions.
When Lenin returned from exile after the February revolution, the Bolsheviks were not actually ready to take full advantage of the situation, and Lenin knew it. That's why he wrote the April Theses, which was a series of ten directives issued to his fellow Bolsheviks He called for workers' councils to rapidly seize state power, denounced liberals and social revolutionaries in the Provisional Government, called for Bolsheviks
not to cooperate with the government (which most of them were actually about to do until he returned and convinced them not to), and called for new communist policies. So not only do you need material conditions, you need discipline and organization to take advantage of the opportunities that the material conditions present.
You can't just wait around for "material conditions" to create a revolution on their own. "Material conditions" will only provide the
opportunity for revolution. Disciplined revolutionaries need to have a
disciplined organization
actively working every day and they need to be
ideologically dedicated to revolution and
ready to seize the moment when it presents itself. Otherwise that moment will pass and reactionaries will seize it instead. That is why the KPD and SPD failed and the NSDAP seized Germany.
>>574016Pre ukraine war leftypol used to be way more anti dengism
Did the anti dengists just give up lol
>>574016>rnt freeweird how the few obsessive posters left have such a hardon to defend their failing and droped in quality website.
Why does it bother you so much to accept you ruined this place? I find in life it is bestand healthieest to be as honest with yourself as you can.
>>574029If private property, money, abstract value production, class society, and the state, are abolished prematurely, when the oppressive logic and power of capital still controls the entire world, China would become vulnerable to both external imperialist violence and internal reactionary sabotage (no doubt under the banner of “democracy”). The Communist Party would be immediately compromised by foreign backed elements; the country might be torn apart once again by civil war, and once again subjected to imperialist domination. The Chinese revolution, what so many millions fought, worked tirelessly, and sacrificed their lives for, will have been for nothing.
Marxism is anything but rigid and dogmatic, and has always been about adapting to the ever changing objective conditions of each era, using what ever is available toward revolutionary goals. The opinion of those baizuo who think that China should have chosen the disastrous course of action described above, or at least remained underdeveloped, poor, and weak, in order to satisfy their fundamentalist interpretation of Marxism, should not be indulged. These myopic and short-sighted “left com”, “ultra-left”, or modern “Maoist” types love to denounce modern China as a betrayal of socialism, without considering that it is the failure of the Western left to do successful revolutions in their countries which made it necessary for existing socialist states to adapt to the global conditions of entrenched neo-liberal capitalism.
Those who think that 1.4 billion people, who for 200 years suffered so immensely under vicious colonial rule and brutal capitalist domination, will so quickly forget what their true enemy is, don’t know much about capitalism, colonialism, or people.
The fight against capitalism continues, but on economic grounds. Because war is the way of imperialism, and military spending accounts for 90% of US GDP, while Chinese socialism is developing alliances with Africa, South America, Europe, and other parts of Asia based on mutual development. Socialists will beat the capitalists at the (what they consider their own) game of markets with rational planning, and through peaceful trade and prosperity for all, end bourgeois global hegemony.
>>574030So instead China joined the ranks of capitalists, became the world biggest scab, helped detroying USSR and become imeprialist predator. Great plan. That is how you bring socialism, lol.
All your argument were debunked the moment they came from your upper anus and every time you just ignored any counter argument and pretended that you "won".
>Those who think that 1.4 billion people, who for 200 years suffered so immensely under vicious colonial rule and brutal capitalist dominationAnd now suffer from a brutal capitalist exploitation so Jack Ma can talk about how 996 is great for them.
>>574041No. I actually read what Communists of past eras were saying.
>Certain comrades affirm that the Party acted wrongly in preserving commodity production after it had assumed power and nationalized the means of production in our country. They consider that the Party should have banished commodity production there and then. In this connection they cite Engels, who says:
>"With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer".
>These comrades are profoundly mistaken.
>Let us examine Engels' formula. Engels' formula cannot be considered fully clear and precise, because it does not indicate whether it is referring to the seizure by society of all or only part of the means of production, that is, whether all or only part of the means of production are converted into public property. Hence, this formula of Engels' may be understood either way.
>Elsewhere in Anti-Duhring Engels speaks of mastering "all the means of production," of taking possession of "all means of production." Hence, in this formula Engels has in mind the nationalization not of part, but of all the means of production, that is, the conversion into public property of the means of production not only of industry, but also of agriculture.
>It follows from this that Engels has in mind countries where capitalism and the concentration of production have advanced far enough both in industry and in agriculture to permit the expropriation of all the means of production in the country and their conversion into public property. Engels, consequently, considers that in such countries, parallel with the socialization of all the means of production, commodity production should be put an end to. And that, of course, is correct.
>There was only one such country at the close of the last century, when Anti-Duhring was published - Britain. There the development of capitalism and the concentration of production both in industry and in agriculture had reached such a point that it would have been possible, in the event of the assumption of power by the proletariat, to convert all the country's means of production into public property and to put an end to commodity production.Stalin, Economic Problems of the USSR, 1951
>>574042I think they're angry that so many retards are calling a capitalist state socialist, its hard to have a discussion about the workers movement on a supposedly communist site when so many people here do not even know what socialism is
>>574045You should keep reading stalin lmao
>Let us now pass to the point that they want to introduce socialism in the countryside forthwith. Introducing socialism means abolishing commodity production, abolishing the money system, razing capitalism to its foundations and socialising all the means of production. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, want to leave all this intact and to socialise only the land, which is absolutely impossible. If commodity production remains intact, the land, too, will become a commodity and will come on to the market any day, and the "socialism" of the Socialist-Revolutionaries will be blown sky-high. Clearly, they want to introduce socialism within the framework of capitalism, which, of course, is inconceivable. That is exactly why it is said that the "socialism" of the Socialist-Revolutionaries is bourgeois socialism.https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/03/x01.htm >>574052I'm quoting stalin when he was still a marxist, Economic Problems of the USSR is him trying to justify the existence of things like the law of value and commodity production and calling it socialist. Which it isn't and is something he called out. It shows that stalin was just saying anything to justify the state of things in the USSR.
>>574053Is your point that since a global revolution isn't close to happening that it's ok to just substitute a global revolution with supporting capitalist nations
>>574055>I'm quoting stalin when he was still a marxist, no. you're quoting stalin experience and time wore down his naive preconceptions of how things
should be.
>Economic Problems of the USSR is him trying to justify the existence of things like the law of value and commodity production and calling it socialist.He lived through a civil war, an internal power struggle in the party, and a fascist invasion that tried to genocide the soviet people, a fascist invasion that was funded by western capitalists. He understood the difference between the naive idealism of how things should be, and how they actually turned out, and he adjusted his expectations accordingly. I suggest you do the same.
>stalin was just saying anything to justify the state of things in the USSR.as imperfect as the USSR was, and as imperfect as the PRC is, the bourgeoisie were/are constantly seething about their very existence, and actively striving to make them worse. Why? Because they won't tolerate the existence of a country that even
calls itself socialist. They want to stamp the idea of socialism out of the human mind completely. So even if China is just a bourgeois state larping as communist, that's still a threat to the bourgeoisie. But I would argue that they aren't larping. The CPC really believes in Socialism as a long term goal, they just differ with idealists on how to get there. You want global revolution, but you have no idea how to make it happen. And the countries that have already had revolutions where millions sacrificed themselves to make it happen are supposed to live up to your ridiculous expectations?
>I think China is a socialist country, and Vietnam is a socialist nation as well. And they insist that they have introduced all the necessary reforms in order to motivate national development and to continue seeking the objectives of socialism. There are no fully pure regimes or systems. In Cuba, for instance, we have many forms of private property. We have hundreds of thousands of farm owners. In some cases they own up to 110 acres (some 150 hectares). In Europe they would be considered large landholders. Practically all Cubans own their own home and, what is more, we welcome foreign investment. But that does not mean that Cuba has stopped being socialist.<Fidel Castro, Interview with La Stampa reporter Jas Gawronski, published 2nd of January, 1994You hate this kind of statement. You think these guys are just trying to justify their failures, but they are rather acknowledging the
incompleteness of their success, and that there is still a long road ahead.
>>574042>I didn't say China is perfect. I just find it funny how Western communists are seemingly more angry at China than they are with their own government.I am way more angry at my own government
i am from Russia which will probably make you seethe twice as much, doesn't mean i won't take an opportunity to kick a deng beetle fashoid.
>>574066Говна сожри, гандон штопаный. Фашня блять ебаная.
Do you really think that google translate will impress me, deng beetle?
>>574065>magayou think i like trump? when have i stated anywhere in this conversation anything about trump? at this point you're just piling one assumption on top of another
<you're white<you're suburban<you're maga<you like capitalismNone of these are true. I'm mixed. I lived in apartments in urban areas most of my life. I hate Donald Trump. I despise capitalism. I just don't shit on countries where people have bled and died for Communism just because they have not abolished the commodity form. It's kinda hard to do that when you're embedded in a global capitalist economy and nukes exist.
>>574059Based post.
Reminder that ultras are anti-communist idealists.
>>574071Create a prompt in english or some other languae that would result in google translate with this output, you fucking clown.
Burgers projecting being burgers on everybody around them post #2342358093485
Another thread destroyed by the westoid's pathology (nothing exists outside myself, I am the arbiter of history)
>>573989We can answer OP's question now. In most cases they are absolutely right. Not only do these people talking of global revolution not have a plan, they never intended to even try.
>>574059>as imperfect as the USSR was, and as imperfect as the PRC is, the bourgeoisie were/are constantly seething about their very existenceGreat argument, which is instantly forgotten by dengoids as soon as China's collaboration with USA againsr USSR is brought up.
Capitalist China turned it's back on communism, on workers and on it's former allies and helped creating the era of blackest reaction.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/02/18/great-wager-spy-soviet-union
<Turner and Deng met for about 45 minutes — a relatively short meeting when you take into account time for interpreters. Still, the meeting marked a turning point in the U.S.-China relationship. Deng and Turner agreed that their two countries would build and run spy stations in Western China to spy on the Soviet missile program, allowing the Americans to keep tabs on the Soviets, and for the Chinese to get technology they’d never had access to before.
<But before the CIA supplied the Chinese with the high-tech gear for the stations, they wanted even more confirmation to ensure that the Chinese would follow through on the agreement.
<A few months after Deng’s visit, a delegation from Congress traveled to China. Among them was Joe Biden, then the junior senator from Delaware.
<Fox Butterfield was The New York Times correspondent in China, the paper’s first to have access to the mainland run by the Communists. He recalls how Biden reached out and grabbed Deng’s hand to shake it.
<“I think that Deng was very perplexed, if not horrified,” Butterfield said. “But Biden grabbed his hand and flashed a big smile and somehow got through.”
<Biden asked Deng whether he’d really build the joint stations. And he got the confirmation the CIA needed: The stations were a go.Yeah i can see all the "seething" going on about PRC lol
>>574059>no. you're quoting stalin experience and time wore down his naive preconceptions of how things should be. Private property, commodity production and the like are not things that exist in socialism, that's not an opinion that's a fact
>a fascist invasion that was funded by western capitalistsNice of you to leave out the USSRs trade deal with them and collaboration in taking over eastern europe, i'm sure stalinists in france loved that when they got their brains blown out by a pistol made out of soviet steel.
Also his change up wasn't him realising that all of a sudden private property, money and value exists in socialism, it was him making shit up to justify the USSR so retards in other nations can peddle the Moscow party line. I'm not saying that The USSR chose to not abolish capitalism, for that to happen the world revolution had to have succeeded which it didn't so the USSR inevitably decayed. But that doesn't suddenly make capitalist production socialist.
Property, money, value etc do not exist in socialism, in a society where the means of production are held in common those things literally cannot exist.
> the bourgeoisie were/are constantly seething about their very existenceRival competitors are always angry that the other firm is competing with them, that doesn't make it socialist.
> So even if China is just a bourgeois state larping as communist, that's still a threat to the bourgeoisie.Why would workers or communists give a shit about capitalist competition, the point of the workers movement is to abolish capital and move to a higher form of social organisation, not to support this capitalist over another.
> You want global revolution, but you have no idea how to make it happen.History is not up to one person nor can it really be predicted like that, today there are workers councils in iran, massive rank and file organising in the first world such as tenants unions and a war in europe, 4 years ago all of that would have seemed as unimaginable or highly unlikely yet they are now a reality, there is no step by step plan to this and the forms of organising workers are not beholden to this or that person. If you want to talk about issues facing worker organising then that is very specific to what nation you are talking about, workers in australia will face different problems then workers in germany.
However this seems to be indicative of why people like you even take up these capitalist nations. This is what happens when people have too much fun out of critical support for periphery nation-states fighting empires. There is no significant international communist movement at the moment so people like you put your hopes in emerging power blocs. You take the thesis that a multipolar world is more conducive to revolution & the incontestable truth that US empire is the single true global hegemon, and put them together to somehow get to a position where you think its just simply obvious that the russian federation, iran, the prc, etc are a meaningful stand-in for an international communist movement. Maybe it's just too scary for people like you to confront the fact that the labour movement is essentially starting at square one, even with the recent surge in rank and file organising around the world it's still in a very nascent stage of revival and still very weak and maybe that fact in itself scares people like you out of ever actually trying to develop or even look at the labour movement and instead you just settle for treating world politics as a spectator sport, or maybe you just do not care and use it as a way to deal with the ennui in your life. Just hop on leftypol to call ukranians nazis or praise the han mans burden in civilising africa when you're bored. Campists like you are like baby ducks whose mom was killed by a fowler so they start following around a goose instead.
>I would argue that they aren't larping. The CPC really believes in Socialism as a long term goalThe only way you can believe that is if you actually take the chinese states propaganda and rhetoric at face value. China is thoroughly capitalist and the way it divides the working class through the hukou system and how it batters workers with wage arrears goes against the idea that they are somehow socialist.
> And the countries that have already had revolutions where millions sacrificed themselves to make it happen are supposed to live up to your ridiculous expectations?I don't expect them to be socialist, i expect people who call themselves communist to know what socialism actually is.
>>574081The obvious question to ask liberals like this poster/bot (not anarchists, they are largely ok) is
What have you ever done in your life? Anything of value at all?
>>574082>Nice of you to leave out the USSRs trade deal with them and collaboration in taking over eastern europeJust like i said previously, on current leftypol if it's not some zigger/deng beetle hybrid, it some fucking shitlib.
Honestly, fuck all of you.
>>574082>Private property, commodity production and the like are not things that exist in socialism, that's not an opinion that's a facti was never arguing that socialism has been achieved. neither did stalin. neither does the CPC.
>We often say that our republic is a socialist one. Does this mean that we have already achieved socialism, done away with classes and abolished the state (for the achievement of socialism implies the withering away of the state)? Or does it mean that classes, the state, and so on, will still exist under socialism? Obviously not. Are we entitled in that case to call our republic a socialist one? Of course, we are. From what standpoint? From the standpoint of our determination and our readiness to achieve socialism, to do away with classes, etc.<Stalin, Reply to Kushytev, 1928The USSR was *pursuing* socialism more actively than any other state on Earth, but unfortunately did not achieve it. The PRC is *pursuing* socialism more actively than any other state on Earth, but unfortunately has not achieved it.
>>574085You took personally lmao.
>>574086>i was never arguing that socialism has been achieved. neither did stalinYou didn't read the text then as stalin explicitly calls the production of the USSR socialist production throughout the text, also nice of you to ignore everything else i wrote.
>>574096never argued that china has achieved socialism. I'm just not going to shit on them since millions of them bled and died to carry out a revolution, bring a communist party into power, and begin the long road towards socialism. But because their nation is embedded in a larger context, because nuclear weapons exist, because of many considerations, because of the threat of sanctions, embargo, etc. They couldn't just abolish everything at once. It was actually a better strategy to slowly build themselves up to near-equal strength of their biggest rival the united states, while forcing the united states to be dependent on them. This is smart. What would have been dumb was trying to do an endless cultural revolution, getting sanctioned, embargoed, and couped by the CIA, then replaced with Kuomintang reactionaries returned from Taiwan… but hey, that would have been PURE!
>>574108>I'm not complaining that they aren't socialist, i'm complaining that people think they're socialist.again:
>We often say that our republic is a socialist one. Does this mean that we have already achieved socialism, done away with classes and abolished the state (for the achievement of socialism implies the withering away of the state)? Or does it mean that classes, the state, and so on, will still exist under socialism? Obviously not. Are we entitled in that case to call our republic a socialist one? Of course, we are. From what standpoint? From the standpoint of our determination and our readiness to achieve socialism, to do away with classes, etc.<Stalin, Reply to Kushytev, 1928 >>574110Stalin explicitly says that the USSR has socialist production especially in the economic problems of the USSR.
>>574109> with zero consideration to existing structuresvery abstract lmao
>>574113Yeah that's not what socialism means, taking state rhetoric at face value is actually something engels critiques.
>Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, [See Robert Owen and François Fourier] both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the “educated" classes for support. Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself Communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still, it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class to produce the Utopian communism of Cabet in France, and of Weitling in Germany. Thus, in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm >>574119Internal consistency is not an extreme.
Whether you are anarchist or tankie don't let them dictate the terms.
>>574120Yes
>>574119Socialists, communist are people who are in communist parties that assist the labour movement, not super-humans that destroy social relations at will
>communist parties that assist the [working people]Did the communist party of China assist the working class when they abolished extreme poverty in their country?
>>574124yes according to ultra logic
I don't have a problem with them if they take it to the end
>>574128>Would you start a nuclear war with the united states?So your argument is that as soon as China at least stops privatizing healthcare, US will immediately strike it with nukes, lol?
You don't even know a single thing about China economy, do you? Because you are just some westoid coping, larping as if there is a communist country in the world and we need to support it.
>>574132Again, that is what you dengoids do when you have no argument.
But yes, it shoudl be overthrown. By chinese workers. Duh.
>>574144It's a "retreat" that is happening for the past 30 years. It's not a retareat, it's a full on surrender. Suprestructure can't keep agains the base for very long.
It's a retreat from positions that China already managed to achieve, so it's even more damning.
China is a capitalist country ruled by capitalist class.
>So why talk or even think about itYeah, don't talk, don't think, just do what you are told by people who know better. Totally not a reactionary sentiment constantly used in capitalist propaganda.
>>574151By the ultra logic
Because the arrow has to go half the distance and so on
>>574153I think Marx is too hard for you. I've seen it happen hundreds of times.
Read philosophy, start with the basic stuff
>>574157You are not special
You will not save the world, hell you won't even save the girl
>>574056To recap:
The ultras never understand this most simple logic (I don't believe in dengists existing, they are very obviously a chimera).
There isn't anything wrong with saying socialism doesn't exist in the real world. This is going all the way on the idealism and has internal consistency. Anything less than that is pathetic.
>>574177The world is a cruel place
Wise words from the prototypical liberal over here
>>574030>If private property, money, abstract value production, class society, and the state, are abolished prematurely, when the oppressive logic and power of capital still controls the entire world, China would become vulnerable to both external imperialist violence and internal reactionary sabotage (no doubt under the banner of “democracy”). The Communist Party would be immediately compromised by foreign backed elements; the country might be torn apart once again by civil war, and once again subjected to imperialist domination. The Chinese revolution, what so many millions fought, worked tirelessly, and sacrificed their lives for, will have been for nothing.How does this explain the alliance between the US and China as well as Deng coming to power prior to the fall of the USSR? China itself has invited in or even cultivated these "internal reactionary" elements by its capitulation to capitalism. It doesn't even explain policy choices. Why, for example, did China allow for businesses within China (not simply multinationals or Western-created businesses) to be structured as traditional Western corporations rather than
solely as worker-owned cooperatives? Why did China decide to save the US during the subprime mortgage crisis if the two are so opposed?
If the idea is that socialism is impossible so long as significant capitalist powers exist elsewhere, then socialism in China will for the foreseeable future be waiting for a socialist revolution in the West beforehand, but it's exactly contrary to what I'm told by Dengists. Instead, they hedge on constructs like "multipolarity" when this is actually wholly irrelevant to whether they continue to justify anything China does as "building socialism." If anything, the world is already multipolar, and it's been so for at least a decade if not longer.
I don't believe the catastrophism Dengists engage in during every single one of these conversations either. "Things could go wrong," but I'm not sure why this "things could go wrong" scenario is always treated as the more likely option when it's just as theoretical as the success scenario (this is equally true of the "success" scenario for Dengists: has communism ever been realized this way? obviously not, yet we're supposed to believe it to be more credible than any alternatives). And one can always predict "things going wrong" in some way and not act, then justify oneself on the basis of projected futility and catastrophe.
The opposition between the possibilities of success and failure won't be resolved through argument anyway, because one can always add more speculations as to what might or might not happen. It's more important to look at this catatrophism's practical function for Dengists: a psychological crutch for a belief system, used to justify the distance between the radical professions of faith and the existing state of things, much like the related "historical necessity." In this sense, they're no different from the "left communists" they hate, just less self-aware.
>>574189That's right
but remember to have fun or it's pointless
>>574191Self-awareness is a funny thing
I think it can be forced into people. I will run an experiment with all the (messianic) cultists here
>>574187>If the idea is that socialism is impossible so long as significant capitalist powers exist elsewherethats not the idea, its a relative comparison. socialism is impossible while capitalist powers are stronger than socialist ones and china is still underdeveloped given its population size. once chinas GDP is overwhelmingly higher than the usa in one or two decades the construction projects and media that they are currently working on will serve as global propaganda for people to adopt their development method as they transition to a more socialist society people will see their success and start nationalizing key industries to follow their example.
they have to wait until they have the industrial equivalent of the top ten navies or whatever britian and the us did before so that their rise is unopposed and they don't risk a nuclear tantrum from the imperialists
>>574082> the incontestable truth that US empire is the single true global hegemonit really is the great satan. its significantly WORSE than people here go on about. the US is the fourth riech.
>>574200The "ultras" are powerful enough to dictate the direction of the left now?
>>574201Do you really think most people wouldn't find Marxism-Leninism "repulsive" if it weren't for so-called ultras? It's ridiculous how you blame everyone else for the manifest mistakes and failures of your own tendency, then cry about how others are too sectarian and "ultra" to accept "actually existing socialism," but it's par for the course here.
>>574202>Do you really think most people wouldn't find Marxism-Leninism "repulsive" if it weren't for [propaganda]Oh absolutely. But the point is saying "socialism has never been tried" makes you a lying liar.
>blame Everyone that has ever done anything has made mistakes. This is boring beyond what is tolerable.
The way you misunderstand so hard the causality makes it clear you are an unreflected ultra. It's not that ultras have any power or are responsible for anything. That is exactly the point. They are easily cowed into nothingness and doing nothing. This is their character fundamentally.
It's not that I blame them for anything but that they are of no use to anyone. That's just a simple fact. Blame doesn't factor into it.
Evil is a word used by the weak and cowardly.
>>574205If you are hungry, eat.
If are unable to see, open your third eye.
Unique IPs: 32