For starters, this is largely gish-gallop. You never back up any of your claims, and you strawman claims I have never made. These two logical fallicies make up the structure of your comment, gish-gallop a bunch of claims I never made and then "dunk" on them. I'll go section by section.
Yeah, projection again. Last time I've provided sources you told me that it was just gish galoping too lol
I'm also trying to cite all your comments I'm responding to, to avoid such claims but well...
This is the "China Bad" section.
No, this is China not perfect section. Starting with a straw-man.
You begin by making racist claims that "Chinese assimilation" is so core to Chinese identity that it is an inevitability.
Yes, because historical materialism is now racism.
It is also racist to consider that the history of power structures in a country/region will impact future power structures.
You also at one point side with the British Empire with respect to Hong Kong, and again provided no evidence that the majority wish to break away from the PRC in any case.
If you see me illustrating that this is still the way China handle other cultures/ethnicity by using the case of Hong-Kong as a support of english colonialism, you might need to also reflect again about straw-manning.
and again provided no evidence that the majority wish to break away from the PRC in any case.
There was and still is an HK independence movement, the "umbrella revolution" and the overall repression of dissent by mainland China during this time. Maybe they are a minority, but we'll never really know since there was no effort to ensure that the people of HK can actually decide for themselves.
Anansi, I need you to carefully consider any subject that leads you to side with the worst Empire in the world in a way that you materially benefit from. Be hyper-skeptical, don't just side with the West and accept its narrative whole cloth, because you have every material reason to.
See, I'd tell you to also carefully consider what you're willing to accept just because some country sides against another you don't like, to be hyper skeptical and not just side with China while accepting its narrative whole cloth, because you want to be right.
China as a whole could do better, and should do better as probably the last country not yet completely gangrened by capitalism. While the BRI is probably the best policy that ever came up for international development and cooperation, especially since it's the only thing that can actually challenge the hegemony of the west, it doesn't excuse the fact that part of it come from ethnic cleansing/forced assimilation/genocide/whatever term you like.
Taking this as an endorsement of western colonial and imperial politics is either fanaticism or bad faith.
You acting like China doesn't have propaganda that is used to serve its interest. Accepting all their declaration as gospel is as naive as believing any propaganda about China coming from the west.
You reducing this whole section as me dismissing all China did is on point for tankies, but missing the actual point.
This section is categorized by the running stream "Marxism bad." Anansi, you make it extremely clear that you have never read Marxist theory beyond perhaps the Manifesto, because you make numerous foundational errors in this section.
Sure bud.
Equating Xinjiang to Palestine when they are entirely different situations. Here's an idea: compare approval rates for the CPC and/or the PRC in Xinjiang and approval rates for Israel in Palestine.
I'm sure approval rates in one case or the other won't suffer from any kind of bias. I'd trust equally the measure of the approval rate taken by Israel in Palestine that I'll trust the one taken by the PRC in Xinjiang.
I'd be glad to get the numbers though, especially if it's coming from a source that can be trusted and take into account the difference between settler votes and "native" population.
What you're missing, is you completely dismissing the question of self determination when we're talking about Xinjiang, but not in the case of Palestine, which I again refer as performative due to the cognitive dissonance needed to have this standing.
The claim that Communists have sided with fascists against Anarchists is unsubstantiated
I mean, that could be my bad I guess for not providing sources, I thought this was part of history teaching everywhere. The purges in spain organized by the NKVD of anti-Stalinist factions and members, like Nin, Robles, Berneri or the overall POUM is not a secret nor was it ever even denied.
This covers a bit more in depth the infighting between the "non Stalinian" front and the USSR lead militia, if you're actually interested. The author can't also really be seen as a CIA agent.
I could also talk about the history of the spanish national front, the influence of the USSR lead comintern in its policies and alliances that created a climate of instability that was strong enough to make it possible for Franco to start shit, if you want, but that'll take quite a bit longer and is far more publicly documented.
The idea that the State "withering away" means that at some point the government needs to dissolve itself and "give itself back to the people," when Marx's idea of Communism is a fully centrally planned publicly owned economy and that the Marxist idea of a State is different from the Anarchist idea of a State
Yes, not sure we're disagreeing here? The democratic centralism comes not from Marx, but from Lenin in his own interpretation of Marx, though, unless you're equating socialism and democratic centralism, which is a bit far fetched.
Marx himself did not really give any "plan" for what "communism" was, did not even really differentiate between "communism" and "socialism", and was pretty tame in his late life when writing his critique of the program of the german worker's party about their view of what communism was.
The withering of the state is also nice and all, but was pretty much put into the backseat when Stalin adapted Lenin's work about Marx's work too, which he also did for anything related to auto-determination rights. This kinda started the split between classical/traditional marxism and state socialism, not sure why you're mixing up everything here, nor what point you're trying to make.
The claim that Anarchists are "more" left than Marxists, which is nonsense ideology measuring and has no materialist basis, both Marxism and Anarchism are left regardless
I'm not talking about "being more left", but about ruining other leftist revolutionary movements to cement yours as the only alternative, while at the same time destroying the core values of communism to end up an authoritarian state capitalist societies with as much exploitation as any other capitalist country, while in the meantime making "communism" a bad word.
The idea that we do not organize is false, many of us are members of Communist or Anarchist orgs and do good work on the ground
Sure.
You fully believe that Marxists support Marxism because they are power-level scalers?
That is not what you asked tho. "Who forms their political ideology around supporting use of authority, and not based on analysis of material conditions and who modern structures serve"
I was also talking about tankies.
You, indeed, tankies, support authoritarians regimes that lost what they could have of "communist" decades ago, while trying to paint any critic as propaganda or counter-revolutionaries.
Why then do they side with national liberation movements like in Palestine, Hawaii, the Sahel States, the Aztlan people, and more?
Tankies side with them because on the opposite side, it's the US, by contrarianism.
When it's not the US or its allies, then it doesn't matter, which is my point, and what I called performative earlier.
Actual marxists, trots, or even leninists would side with national liberation movements for what they are though, but would also side with the Xinjiang liberation movement. If I wanted to be funny, I'd say that even Staline was supporting Xinjiang independence, but we both know that was for control over the natural resources of the region, which is also why the PRC does not want it to secede.
See, that's not my stance. This is you, yet again, demonstrably failing to analyze Marxist positions.
This is you again thinking that tankies are actual marxists and not just cosplayers, and thinking I put both in the same bag.
If you just pretend Marxists purely side against the West
Same remark as above.
(putting the rest in another comment)
Yes, after negotiating a split of Europe with them, because it was in their material interest to do so.
They were "biding their time" by sending german and austrians anti-fascists and communists to the Nazi regime, spreading in baltic territories and western europe, until they were themselves the target of the nazi regime.
They had material interests in their alliance with the nazis, and they only broke that alliance because they were fucked over, not because of ideology, "biding their time", or wanting to liberate people.
The "biding their time" excuse is also only used anymore by tankies due to the abundant proofs that the NKVD ignored all warnings about the Nazis maybe being bad people that were going to betray them, the most famous case being the one of Richard Sorge. This excuse was even said to be false by Gorbachev during the glasnost period, and the initial document made public.
They did it because they didn't really have the option of doing nothing anymore, else they'd have both fascists and capitalist going against them. They allied by material interest.
I mean this is kind of the consequence of Stalin's death, nobody in the party really wanting to be associated with Stalinism and what he did anymore, Khrushchev openly admitting that capitalist countries had better standards of living and promising to reach parity, while slowly having the communist sphere of influence reducing due to the cold war efforts to undermine communist regimes.
You cannot compete against a globalizing capitalist economy when you're not self sufficient and are losing allies, especially when your plan is to pretty much to build a modern country from the bottom.
Alienating China was pretty much the last domino that lead to the USSR having to implode sooner or later. Their "liberalization" was the last breath of their agony.
State owned, yes, not sure what is your underlying question.
If you're asking why they are not a liberal capitalist country, I'd add "yet" to the question.
The economical rise of China is pretty recent, and they're starting to produce billionaires that might still not have had the time to corrupt the whole political system like they did in western economies centuries ago.
Also, saying "reintroducing foreign capital" is a pretty dishonest way to present it.
The recent rise in economic power of China is born from the foreign capital of greedy western capitalists that saw China as an infinite source of cheap labor.
I'd like for China to not become another imperialist capitalistic parasite but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case in a few generations.
Mostly because they represent nothing as far as geopolitics are concerned, that they are an island that make them more able to isolate themselves from international interference compared to large coutries like the USSR or China, and also using the military to keep the current power structure intact.
There is pretty much no will since the fall of the USSR to fuck even more with Cuba from the west, and no possibility to "leave" socialism if they ever wanted to, that's why. I'll also make clear that I'm not implying that Cubans want to change their government, just to defuse the incoming strawman, just that the material reality is that they can't.
Sure, not sure why you're then citing unrelated shit after that but you do you.
For someone that is proud to be knowledgeable about Marxism theory, I'm a bit surprised by that statement.
The whole point of Marx's analysis is that socialism is a natural consequence of the power struggle linked to capitalist production, which will irremediably lead to a proletarian revolution.
Marxists that want to accelerate this phenomenon absolutely do it for moral reason. Because they consider that capitalists exploit the proletariat, and that a change is required for more justice.
Marxists see the use of socialism, as in the broader marxist definition, as a way to replace the capitalists in the control of these "monopolist syndicates", yes. Not because they just happen to be there, but to repair a social injustice.
Yes, and I never even implied that?
Indeed, which is why I specifically wrote "Democratic Centralism in practice in your MLs countries irremediably end up as a farce", which I though was pretty clear in saying that there is a stark difference between actual Democratic Centralism, and what ends up with this name.
Yes, and again, I never even implied the contrary.
I could also point out that it strangely took Staline's death for that to happen, and that the differences between his early writings and what he actually did once in power are pretty stark.
Guess what happened to actual internationalists from Trotsky or Lenine's school of thought when Staline got into power.
Once again, seems that you think tankies are actual marxists, and that you'd rather take writing as material facts than actual material facts.
Sure bud.