Cowbee [he/him]

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Marxist-Leninist ☭

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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 31st, 2023

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  • I appreciate you taking the time to read my write-up. I want to ask, why do you claim the PRC isn’t Socialist? 50% of the economy is in the public sector, a tenth in the cooperative sector, and the Private Sector is run with strict central planning and oversight from the government. Socialism doesn’t refer simply to a fully publicly owned economy - it’s a transitional economy towards Communism. In the PRC, the Public Sector further controls key heavy industries and infrastructure that the Private Sector relies on, so the Private Sector is subservient to the demands of the Public. The presense of Markets is not enough to claim an economy isn’t Socialist. From Engels himself:

    Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?

    Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.

    The reason Marxists believe Socialism comes after Capitalism is because Markets have a tendency to centralize in order to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which naturally forces the development of strategies and tools for internal planning. This naturally prepares the way for Central Planning. In the PRC, Capital in the Private Sector is trapped in a birdcage model, and the CPC increases ownership as these markets do their job and centralize. This is Marxism in action. I suggest you read the articles What is Socialism? as well as Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.

    Also, as a side note, “Stalinism” isn’t a thing. Stalin was not much of a theoretician, the proper term is Marxism-Leninism, as it is founded on the writings of Marx and Lenin primarily.

    Additionally, you need to analyze who was happy to see the fall of the USSR. The answer? The West. In the vast majority of the post-Soviet populace, Capitalism brought death and destruction, 7 million people died due to it, and most long for a return to Socialism. In the Global South, the fall of the USSR was seen as an immense tragedy. The only ones benefiting were the Imperialist Capitalists that swooped in and looted the USSR’s former state structures and industry for profit at dirt cheap prices.

    Ultimately, I think you have a lot of research to do if you want to hold a truly internationalist perspective, and not one tainted by Western bias, which is notoriously adversarial to Communism and the Global South in general, as the West relies on export of industrial and financial Capital to the Global South to super-exploit for super-profits. This is what Marxists call Imperalism.







  • A few corrections regarding your misconceptions of Communist theory, for anyone scrolling by but unfamiliar with Marxism:

    1. Marxists advocate for revolution, because Capitalism cannot simply be voted out. Given that following Marxist analysis to its correct conclusions necessitates transitioning to Socialism, this can be seen as a “call to violence.” Yes, it is, but out of necessity. Marxists don’t advocate simply massacring everyone of slightly different beliefs, rather, Marxists are not Blanquists and thus believe revolution is only possible with mass, popular support.

    2. The Marxist conception of a State is a tool of class oppression, not all instances of government. Rather, Marxists advocate for working towards full Public Ownership of Capital and Central Planning by the government. When Marxists say they believe the State will wither away, they mean eventually all property will be folded into the public sector and thus the concept of “classes” will cease to exist as well, gradually as property is folded into the public sector to the degree to which markets have formed Big Industry and Monopolist Syndicates. From Engels:

    “When ultimately it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is no social class to be held in subjection any longer, as soon as class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the anarchy of production existing up to now are eliminated together with the collisions and excesses arising from them, there is nothing more to repress, nothing necessitating a special repressive force, a state. The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away.”

    Socialism: Utopian and Scientific






  • The point about you knowing these people online or in person was secondary to my point about organizing. Individual people considering themselves Communists but unaffiliated with an org vere frequently misunderstand theory, develop strange and contradictory stances, and otherwise fail to bounce their ideas off of actual, practicing Communists who daily test their theory and refine it. That’s why “Party Lines” exist. These “Party Lines” generally form around specific tendencies within Marxism, because there do exist right and wrong answers when faced with material reality and consistent frameworks of analysis. No, a Communist shouldn’t automatically support anything, they should test their theory and keep what works and toss what doesn’t. The fact that the overwhelming majority of actual practicing Communists do support the PRC and USSR does not mean they are doing so thoughtlessly. Blackshirts and Reds is a good book.

    The most major tendency of Marxism is Marxism-Leninism, as it has had the most direct proof of validity and consistency with theory and practice. ML organizations have had numerous successful revolutions, and most AES states follow an ML line. As such, the vast majority of Communists worldwide support the PRC and USSR.

    Maoists, generally, reject Deng’s reforms that returned the PRC to a more traditional Marxist understanding of economics, and see him as a right-deviationist. Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, a more fringe ideology popularized by the Communist Party of Peru, are less consistent on this matter.

    The only other major current of Marxism is Trotskyism, which has produced no real revolutions and no real results. Trots are common in the Western Left because it fits with the West’s overall anti-AES stance, and thus is easier to come to from a Western perspective. Outside of tiny pockets mostly in Latin America, Trots do not exist in the Global South. Trotskyism is a misanalysis of Socialism, Marxism, and Revolutionary Theory, and as such I was not including them as actual Communists. A good article is Trotskyists Don’t Believe Anything.

    Seeing as how you’ve admitted to a European point of view, everything coincides with what I’ve said. I have been speaking internationally, you’ve been speaking from a Trot-heavy Euro-centric point of view. Again, the Western Left’s tendency to reject actual Socialism is more to do with compatability with existing world views. I recommend Jones Manoel’s Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution.