There's way too much going on right now for me to really focus on any one country this week. The aftermath of the fall of the Nepal government has, somewhat surprisingly, reverberated around the world, and not only in countries that are enemies to the West as you'd expect; for example, Morocco's government battle fiercely with Egypt's and Jordan's to be first in line to lick the dogshit off the boots of Zionists, and yet Morocco is currently embroiled in a large protest wave based primarily around a youth unemployment crisis (though their population is also remarkably pro-Palestinian, which generates additional friction). We're also seeing similar protests in Madagascar, Peru, and Paraguay, and perhaps more will come. I'm personally fairly doubtful in the potential for meaningful economic results from these protests (the current imperialist system seems too deeply embedded for a movement that isn't explicitly communist and anti-imperialist to alter conditions), but it is quite possible for new political results at least.
Outside of the developing world, it appears that the unpopularity of western leaders, such as in the UK, France, and Italy, is creating new levels of unrest. In Britain, the political system has become so utterly moribund that even the artificial democracy of a two-party system (more-or-less; the Lib Dems do exist I suppose) no longer suffices, with both Conservatives and Labour gradually sinking. The Reform party appears like it may become the new standard-bearer of the capitalists and petit-bourgeois - that is, the historical wellspring of fascism - and the Left Party (whatever name they eventually choose) may or may not rise to meet the occasion. In France, they're on their fifth Prime Minister in two years, after Lecornu lasted about a month, attempting the liberal classic: promising change, and then appointing the exact same people who have ruled for the last few decades. And pro-Palestinian protests and general strikes have erupted in Italy, in defiance of their rightwing government under Meloni.
While there's plenty of other events (e.g. continuing aggression against Venezuela that might soon erupt into a war) it would be remise of me not to mention the very much ongoing events vis-a-vis Palestine and a potential peace deal there, seemingly supported to some degree by Trump. It could be legitimate, and it could be some big act (very likely the latter, IMO). Both Trump and Netanyahu seem to believe that they're very talented political masterminds, producing manoeuvres and feints that would make Machiavelli blush. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I trust the militant organizations inside Palestine to outplay these American failsons. Hamas and similar groups are not nearly as gullible as the Iranian reformist faction - though few people are!
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Y'know, I'm pretty much at the point where I don't profoundly care too much about the socialist-capitalist-chinese debate, I'm mostly invested in the idea of being able to give people an example of how you can do stuff differently and still very visibly succeed, even if it's not REALLY that different, because then they might give you a chance, so I think China = Socialism is somewhat useful. But anyway, here's the communist party of Greece's view
I keep having to remind people that China is not socialist in the traditional sense, nor is it capitalist at all.
It is Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Failing to understand this is what makes both supporters and detractors to continue to miss the point.
In brief, China is trying to build Socialism using Neoliberal principles.
And keep in mind that this is not a static phase - for the first 10 years of Xi Jinping’s administration, he vowed to fight and reverse the neoliberal trend that has becoming endemic within the country. This was an ambition supported by many Marxists in China at the time (路走歪了 aka “we had deviated from the path”), until the stunning reversal from last year and more explicitly, earlier this year, when Xi vowed the CPC unambiguous support for the sanctity of private capital.
With people like Li Qiang promoted to premier (famous for bringing Tesla into Shanghai to spur the Chinese EV industries, as well as the infamous “co-existing with Covid” ideology as Shanghai emulated Western-style targeted lockdown in defiance of Zero Covid), there is no doubt at this point that the reversal of neoliberal trend is being stopped in its tracks. The Dual Circulation Strategy has failed, and Covid had disrupted many of the local government finances. I don’t think Xi has a choice at this point.
It will be very interesting to see what comes out of the 15th Five Year Plan and we should have the details very soon: will the recklessness of local governments be curbed through re-centralization of power, or the ceding of power to private capital instead?
Having said that, China can immediately gain the recognition of left wing movements worldwide as a socialist superpower, while resolving its own internal contradictions, by simply doing the following:
I will note that there is no resource constraint in China to do any of the above - there is no shortage of skilled labor, technology and resources that can achieve all of the above. It is entirely self-imposed ideological constraints due to the need to adhere to IMF principles. All it has to do is to run up the deficit - a tough indoctrination to break.
Some people will argue “but what about poverty eradication??” - I will remind you that this was exactly the same path taken by other Asian capitalist countries including Japan and South Korea. Through industrial policy and export-led growth strategy, these countries/economies before China (remember the Four Asian Dragons?) were able to turn themselves into advanced economies through exporting huge amount of surplus values to Western countries before they are allowed to invest domestically to raise their own living standards - exactly as intended by IMF-led neoliberal free trade ideology.
So, in the end, it’s an ideological battle. We will see how the material conditions will force a change in policy by the Chinese leadership, who is now frantically battling low consumption, plunging property sector and an export sector vulnerable to tariff shocks. The 15th Five Year Plan will be very interesting indeed…
I think this is a non starter rethorically because you're making a rather subtle point. You're not arguing that there are no things in China which a normie would identify with western capitalism, you're the biggest accuser of Chinese neoliberalism. Nor are you arguing the reverse. You're saying, if I'm not mistaken, that the government is still at the top of things and is at a crossroads when it comes to dealing with the ongoing characteristics: re-centralize development, cede power to the privates or, more likely, some combination of the two.
I say this is a non-starter rethorically because 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics' is a phrase used in the west with a bit a smirk, its the Chinese pretending they are still socialist.
Yes, the phrase “socialism with Chinese characteristics” came from the CPC itself, how foreigners define it is irrelevant.
Although, its definition is somewhat flexible in itself, and will be bent to suit the ruling ideology of the particular time for political legitimacy purpose. However, it is not hard to see how much it is entangled with the introduction of neoliberal ideas into the country.
I will maintain my point that neoliberalism is a phase in Chinese socialism, just like how NEP was a phase under USSR pertinent to a particular time period and its specific context. My argument has always been that transitioning beyond this phase should have been done at least 10 years ago. It probably isn’t easy given how entrenched it is at this point, which is probably why we see little progress, but it is ultimately necessary to move beyond that.
I do not subscribe to the idea that the so-called “reform and open up” ideology can be positively sustained at this stage of economic development in China. We need to resolve the wealth inequality issue as soon as possible to allow the domestic economy to stimulate and sustain itself, especially with the unwinding of property/infrastructure building era and the slowing export sector.
At this point, I don't think it's Socialism with Chinese Characteristics that have to be emphasized as an ideology
I feel like it's more like Asian Tiger model with Communist Party of China characteristics - because frankly, while I'm let down by the lack of socialism, I'm nonetheless interested in its technological and social progress.
Well, good luck!
I will argue that it is still socialist in the sense that it remains the committed goal of the CPC.
One might as well argue that the USSR was not socialist because it had 7-8 years of NEP, which anti-communists love to claim as evidence of “socialism doesn’t work!” or it was nothing more than “state capitalism”.
The question is in what specific path should one take to reach Socialism? And bear in mind that the developmental path is always dynamic. We’ve had Mao’s planning era, we’ve had Deng’s reform and open up era, we’ve had the Hu/Wen’s neoliberal era, and we are now in Xi’s “attempt to reverse neoliberalism” era. The specific policies are always changing. (It is always funny to see people say China is still in Dengist reform stage, when we have moved so far beyond that. It’s like saying Obama’s or even Trump’s America is Reaganism - technically true, but Reagan himself would be shocked to see the hyper-financialization of America in its current form)
What lies ahead remains undetermined, although I am obviously concerned about the hold of Western neoclassical theories (or more specifically, the localized version in the form of New Structural Economics by Justin Lin Yifu) on Chinese economic policy.
I think even "attempt to reverse neoliberalism" is not wholly accurate - I get the impression it's more about better controlling, regulating and directing neoliberalism - which also entails continued opening up but trying to do in a way that balances the harms of neoliberalism with the potential benefits of the private market approach
I agree entirely that a deeper and accelerated transition to the next step on a the socialist developmental path would overwhelmingly address China's current contradictions
did the Three Red Lines/三条红线 help with this in practice? i remember xi jinping's slogan when he announced this being "houses are for living, not for speculation." did it succeed or fail or was it a compromise or what?
I too hold a similar view that practical experience which leads to tangible successes matters far more than theoretical or ideological validation. I am a Marxist after all, and as such I abide by the scientific method when analyzing political economy.
There are many valid criticisms of China, both from a theoretical and material standpoint, but from a practical standpoint I believe they still serve the goals of Socialism by, in much the same way the USSR once did, acting as buffer against Western imperialism and total US domination, as well as being a pressure valve for the international proletariat in the Global South to relieve economic and political pressure from the Global North. They could stand to do a much better job in those respects, but this is still a concrete truth in 2025.
Also, allow me to share the views of the late Fidel Castro on China, from an interview he made with an Italian liberal journalist in 1993:
Full interview if anyone is interested: https://redsails.org/fidel-and-gawronski/
Criticism of China, however valid in theory, functions as deflection from critique of western empire. I just don't see any socialist benefit from this rhetoric. Just reads as a manifestation of the frustration one feels when you're unable to achieve political revolution in your own nation.
If the Chinese people agree that their revolution has been betrayed, then let them re-assert it.
I'm much more understanding of criticism in spaces like Hexbear, where we're all communists striving for the same thing and it's a fair debate over what China's role in the world is today. There's no room for it to get out and reinforce hegemonic imperialist narratives. A communist party putting out a public statement like this, though, is embarrassing.
Me talking finer points with other communists, versus defending China against the libs at large
Thats more the ideal than the actual truth of the matter…
There's a room for internal criticism to enrichen the perspectives and improve analysis, I wouldn't translate that to the outside unless in the Gulag Museum Problem manner: there's nothing intrinsically wrong with criticism of China as long as it's surrounded by proportional, i.e. 10x larger, criticism of the western empire
Thanks for putting into words why this sort of thing frustrates me so much. It can feel like people are more determined to be winning some hypothetical argument than they do actually trying to build socialism.
"China is capitalist" gets hard-countered by "then what's the point of socialism then if China could do all this with capitalism?" and "then why did capitalism with Chinese characteristics brought much development to China while capitalism with Indian characteristics didn't do shit to India?"
Thus, "China is capitalist" is only effective among people who are already Sinophobic which would predispose them to deny any achievements by China. This is why you see it among the West, which is already Sinophobic. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the MLMs in India and the Philippines live within societies that have latent Sinophobia.
The only other group that's easily swayed by "China is capitalist" are various Chinese petty bourgeoisie and reactionary Chinese ultranationalists who dickride Lee Kuan Yew and see Mao as some dumbass commie who didn't completely ruin China because Chinese civilization is too enduring for any single individual to fuck over. Their answer to "why did capitalism with Chinese characteristics brought much development to China while capitalism with Indian characteristics didn't do shit to India?" is "because Chinese people are heirs of a 5000 year old civilization while Indians are cow poo eaters lmao."
It's extraordinarily ironic that the greatest believers of "China is capitalist" are Sinophobes and Chinese chauvinists. Truly a match made in heaven.
Its also shortsighted that socialists are screaming loud and proud, now that the prc is wiping the floor with the west, how its actually caused by „capitalism“ of the chinese system.
Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
What you’re seeing in China today is really the lingering effect of an infrastructure building boom started in 2008 that should have been forcefully curbed 10 years ago.
Instead, we had the Monetization of Shantytown Redevelopment policy (棚改政策) in 2015 that will go down in history as a singular policy that spurred an unfettered and frenzied property speculation at a scale never seen before in human history. Basically, it allowed local governments to, instead rebuilding old houses for the poor people as per urban planning policy, simply gave the allocated money to the poor people to purchase new houses that were already in oversupply at the time.
It kicked off the unexpected effect of driving the house prices higher, and encouraged normal people to take out huge loans to jump on the bandwagon, for fear of missing out, and hoping to benefit from the spike in asset prices. For many people, the fear is in waiting too long and the house prices would become unaffordable by then. So, it formed a positive feedback loop and further drove the property price higher.
At first, this was only a phenomenon in Tier 3/4 cities, but as the Tier 1/2 cities saw what they were missing out, they too started to jump on board to take advantage of the property speculation. From 2015-2019, we had an incredible property speculation frenzy as everyone feared they would miss out on a good price for a new home if they didn’t act then. Most people bought their houses during this period, and are the first to suffer from the bubble bursting. Shanghai’s property price has fell down to 2017 level, and Beijing is now at 2016 level. There are many people who have lost 40-50% of their housing asset value - which explains why the middle class has mostly stopped consuming.
For the local governments, knowing that the housing was already in oversupply, it was the one last big bet taken to make a killing. It would have paid off the already mounting debt they owed at the time, with spares some more. The gamble was to take out huge loans themselves to allow the one last huge property sector boom, allowing the land prices to spike, then cashing out the land premium in 10 years by 2025.
And to be honest with you, the big gamble might have just worked… if not for Covid. The pandemic changed everything, and accelerated the unwinding of the property market bubble while decimating local land finances. Instead of cashing out big, many local governments are saddled with huge debt with little ability to repay, exacerbated by the slowing consumption that further drains the local governments of their revenues.
This is what happened when the government doesn’t simply deficit spend to build infrastructure, but instead resorted to let local governments taking out loans from financial institutions to finance infrastructure building, and ended up with a huge debt bubble instead. All because the government wanted to keep the deficit to stay within an arbitrary number of 3% GDP.
Not that I disagree with you, but to nitpick a bit, Deng himself was a huge fan of Lee Kuan Yew and much of his reform and open up policies were rooted in the Singaporean model.
A funny story: when Deng visited Singapore in 1978, he wanted to see for himself what the living quarters (apartment units) of the average Singaporean household looked like. Singapore has a very interesting public housing system where the government holds a large portion of the land (relatively speaking) compared to the rest of the capitalist world.
China’s dwelling situation at the time was nowhere near the standard of the average Singaporean apartment units, so Deng was especially interested in seeing for himself what they looked like.
Due to security reasons, he was not allowed to deviate from the official path, so his request to visit the residential area and the industrial park was denied. However, just before departure, he learned that his translator was actually accommodated in one of those public housing unit. So, unannounced, he went to showed up at her apartment and spent every last minutes he had carefully inspecting the unit - especially the bathroom (lol) and was apparently very satisfied with the design. This was according to the recollection of his translator during the Singapore visit, Shi Yanhua.
I am generaly a quite pro China guy around these parts but as a Greek here are some things to consider:
For one that this was basicaly the standard position on China for most (not in power) ML parties that didnt turn Eurocommunism or socdem (thus not caring of what is or isnt revisionism and socialism). Unironic Dengism in the sense of "this is actualy building socialism, stagism stuff etc" was almost non-existant as a position and argument in communism circles around the globe 10, 20 or 30 years ago and its relative spread recently tracks China's development and western decline more than any obvious qualitative changes in how chinese economic and productive relations are structured. KKE is a famously slow to adapt party even among communist parties (and that has played in their favor in some sense), no surprise if their position didnt meaninfully changed in a decade (since the most rapid and telling results and changes in Chinese socialism have been under Xi).
Secondly, is this even a KKE quote from some recent article or official analysis. I do know that their position is close to this sure, tho maybe not as harsh but it could be a quote from any random party newspaper article or geopol analysis from any time within the last 20 years. The idofcommunism tag is suspect. Thats a dude on twitter that reposts and pushes KKE stuff but isnt actualy a party member. The only thing i have found about him is that he was a candidate in local elections in the KKE aligned/front party. One of thousands. So i wouldnt be so sure thats some fresh KKE statement or official position iron out and published.
Another nuance is that some of the biggest labour fights and wins involving KKE lead unions and orgs were in disputes with Chinese (state owned even) companies and enterprises, primarily ones in Pireaus, like Cosco . With years of strikes and labour organizing led by KKE members, politicians and unions fighting various anti-union, anti-worker, low labour safety policies and conditions. Its easy for situations like these to reinforce a "China is capitalist and imperialist, no two ways about it and not that different from western capital" when the direct organizing experience involving Chinese capital wasnt that different.
As a last point ill just mention that i have had extensive conversations with high ranking KKE members and even ones in charge of foreign policy and geopolitical analysis. And despite criticism they have admitted positives and possibilities of the Chinese model from a socialist perspective despite retaining the main spirit of the above analysis. And i have heard admissions that "yeah if/when we come into power here in greece we have plans to expand our relations with China considerably and ways and party connections to do it, even if its out of geopolitical necessity". The last scenario is off course almost science fiction, albeit less so than in 95% of the western countries
I think so too, although not my party, the communist party of portugal, which didn't turn eurocom nor socdem, and sure inside the party there are people who think both ways about china but the party won't be putting out any "China is capitalist" statements anytime soon, imo there's just no political point in doing so aside from shrugging off a "pro-china" image, which the party does have.
I got from the In Defense Of Communism twitter, supposedly taken from the party's recent theses or congress, I though the site was literally owned by the KKE so I didn't suspect this post
This was a thing I reached before I even became a pro-china guy, that if my party ever got into power (lmao) we'd have a lot of stuff to worry about and a lot of institutions opposing us, most of all the EU, and in that scenario it'd be ridiculous to not try and approach china, especially because China likely wouldn't push economic sanctions against us.
Thank you for the perspective though, I already knew this was KKE's position regarding china but I wasn't aware of how disputes with chinese capital might've influenced it. We haven't had the same happen in portugal, where the most the chinese did was buy up a big public electricity company when an austerity right-wing government put it up for sale, I guess if the country now tried to nationalize it again (which isn't likely) and found that difficult for unfair reasons that could be blamed on china it would be a different story
Thanks for the context.
They have an embarrassing POV on China, much like many Western CPs and can be dogmatic oftentimes. Still, they are currently the most significant Marxist association/party in Greece and their views are valid on other topics.
They have my critical support for lack of a better and more realistic alternative for Greece.
Yeah, the KKE can fuck off with this shit. This is an utterly embarrassing message for a self-proclaimed communist party to put out. This is "neither Washington nor ~~Moscow~~ Beijing" type nonsense. Unfortunately it's typical for Trotskyists which is what the KKE broadly speaking are, or at least that is the socialist milieu that they have chosen to align themselves with (which includes the Venezuelan "communist" opposition that calls itself communist while it just serves the interests of the imperialists).
This is opportunism that seeks to demoralize and demobilize the most potentially revolutionary segment of the working class at a critical moment in history, just as the global struggle against imperialism is reaching a new zenith, when it is more crucial than ever to stand in solidarity with anti-imperialist forces, to defend existing socialism, and not to repeat talking points that are being fed to the western left by the imperialist propaganda machine with the express purpose of breaking our solidarity with the forces that are most actively resisting imperialism.
I might be wrong but from my understanding of they're history that's not what they are, I'm pretty sure the party straight up sided with stalin back in the day and defended the ussr until the end, IIRC.
Well that would also explain their China skepticism given the Sino-soviet split
sort of correct, largely mediated by weird position of china decreasing it's net outflow position in imperial core/periphery, but their consistent fumbling solidarity and lack of anything approaching socialist targeted reforms points to one direction, unfortunately. at most they could make green transition for the world, which in hell world in still more than imperial core countries, but pitiful compared to what could have been.