I've been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to "voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism" and "the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic" and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they're replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling -- in retrospect I'm pretty sure I could've built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that's what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) -- and the only reason I'm not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
Marxism and Christianity only share the fact that they contain frameworks for analyzing material reality(Marxism through Materialism and Christianity through representing reality as though it is divine, and thus explainable via the divine), and this post seems to not be willing to honestly engage with Marxism as a concept.
Marxists do not oppose incremental change. Marxists believe that minor concessions under Capitalism are insufficient to actually fix the underlying problems, and this point of view is built on a thorough understanding of the Marxist critique of Capitalism.
Marxists do not oppose reform, they just believe it is impossible to do successfully without sliding backward, because the state is built in a manner that supports Capitalism and resists change.
Marxism is an economic critique of Capitalism, a philosophical framework, and a call to action. It is a complete set of tools to look at the world, analyze it, and how to fix it. In this manner, it can be superficially compared to Christianity, but only on the surface.
That's really it.
So Marxists are not opposed to incremental change, except they actually are. And Marxists are not opposed to reform except they consider it impossible.
What in the Ministry of Truth?
Marxists are not opposed to incremental change. They do not believe incremental change is a bad thing, and do not move against it. Incremental change is a nice-to-have, when revolutionary change is seen as necessary.
Marxists are not opposed to reform. If it is shown to be legitimately possible to reform a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, ie a Capitalist State, into a Socialist one, Marxists would be first in line. However, history has shown this to be extraordinarily difficult to outright impossible, akin to politely asking a bear to stop mauling you, so Marxists seek other methods. Marxists are Materialists, not Idealists.
Hope that helps!
Successful reform of capitalist countries to socialist: 3 - 10 ish depending on how you define it
Successful communist revolutions: ZERO
Curious how Marxists have not adjusted their beliefs when confronted with these statistics
Wrong, actually.
Successful reform of Capitalist countries to Socialist: 0.
Successful Communist Revolutions: 5-10.
Curious how Cryophilia thinks they are making coherent points when they just redefine established terms until it looks like they have a point.
Where are these 5-10 nations?
The USSR disbanded, same with Anarchist Catalonia and Burkina Faso, but China, Cuba, Chiapas, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea are all examples of states that all managed to establish a Socialist government via revolutionary means. I don't consider the Paris Commune to be successful either, it was extremely short lived.
The overall success of these states is definitely arguable, obviously, but it is inarguable that they managed to establish a Socialist state via revolution.
It's also worth mentioning that I am not endorsing these countries, just pointing out some examples of revolutions successfully changing economic systems.
I am sorry but China and North Korea are not socialist states. You are going to have to try harder than that.
That's what the 5-10 bit was for, if you want to play the purity game and claim China and North Korea aren't pure Socialism, that's fine. There are still other examples, which I already gave.
Are any of your examples actually socialist nations though? From what I understand modern Vietnam is fairly capitalist to the point the US has opened trading with them. Cuba still seem to follow socialist principles to some extent but they also aren't exactly the most democratic.
It's also not a purity issue to talk about China not being socialist, that's just a fact at this point. Ditto for North Korea. A dictatorship cannot be socialist, and neither can a state dominated by large corporations.
Yes, I disagree with much of your analysis, but that would take a long time. However, even flawed implementations of Socialism are still Socialism, and revolution did absolutely change the mode of production.
For a revolution to be successful it needs to produce something better than what was there before. If all we get are failed states it's kind of pointless. It seems only 1 or 2 have actually come close to succeeding like Cuba. Maybe we need to try a different revolutionary ideology.
You're shifting the goal posts, the question was whether or not Revolution has successfully changed the Mode of Production.
Additionaly, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and China are definitely better off than before, Chiapas is enjoying their cooperative independence, and none of these can be considered failed states.
I really don't think you're trying to honestly engage with the current question, and are trying to make an entirely different point, like you allude to at the end. It seems less like you're concerned with whether or not Revolution manages to change Mode of Production and instead you wish to talk about your new revolutionary ideology. That's fine, go for it, but you don't have to constantly move goal posts to get there.
You're the one shifting goals here. The guy originally said "successful communist revolutions" not "successfully changed the Mode of Production" or whatever arbitrary line you decided to draw. You came out with that phrase, and are moving the goalposts by presuming what someone else meant.
I don't think you are being honest at all.
Yes because that's not the only issue I care about. The question was about a successful revolution, not only about the "Mode of Production". Stop moving goalposts and then having the absolute gall to accuse the other person of doing that
I suspect you might be right about some of these, though without more research I can't definitively say. I would be careful about China though given what they are doing with certain minorities in their country as well as protesters.
No, you're moving the goal posts, lol, and trying to deflect blame is pointless here. "Successful Communist Revolutions" was vague in the first place, and the original point was that reform is extremely difficult to outright impossible, while Revolutions have succeeded.
If you can go back in time and redefine the original question, go for it.
China is indisputably better off than it was under the fascist Kuomintang. This isn't even a point to argue, China under Mao doubled their life expectency, then under Deng managed to become the industrial hub of the world, and now under Xi has taken China finally to the level of superpower.
China absolutely has numerous issues to this very day. Corruption is high, treatment of minorities is at minimum suspicious, and protesting gets met harshly. However, if you compare China under the KMT to China today, it isn't even a question.
So yes, you may need to take a look at what these countries were actually like before Revolution and compare with post.
Fair enough I didn't know what the history of China was like before the revolution. I am sure fascist leadership is terrible. I knew some of these counties has issues with their previous regimes, so it would make sense post-revolution was an improvement.
What I don't want is a society that's the better of two bad options (in this case Fascism vs current Chinese society). I want a society that actually functions well. It seems the options you are offering are: fascism, USA-style ultra capitalism, or "socialist" states that suppress their own people. None of these sound like great options to me unfortunately. Can't we work out how to build something else? Something better? Am I being unrealistic? Probably.
I am not asking for a hybrid economy either, as I know those still have capitalism related problems and could just dissolve into capitalism if there is a recession.
Seems like Socialism is the best option, and to work towards eventual Communism.
Except that ML has mostly ended in despotism. I think we need something else. Maybe Communism isn't the anwser, or maybe this isn't the way to get there.
So we have established that ML has drastically improved over previous conditions, and based on vibes alone you've washed away material reality entirely?
What are you actually advocating for? This is just idealism, coupled with a fair shake of red-scare vibes.
Quit beating around the bush, it's clear that you have a point you want to get across, but you haven't revealed it. If you're just going to continue to play coy with it then we can just stop here, this is a waste of time.
The material reality is that ML regimes normally end up in despotism that's as bad as modern capitalism, or just revert to capitalism in the end.
It's not idealism. Reality bears me out here. Believing in Marxism-Leninism and that this time the revolution will fix everything and not back fire is idealism.
My point is we need to move away from ML ideas to something better like anarcho-communism, Anarcho-syndicalism, socialist market economy, lesalism, heck even libertarian marxism and so on. If we know something doesn't work why don't we try something else?
That logic doesn't follow.
First, you are just calling all AES countries "just as bad as Capitalism," when that's a complete whitewashing of history. Unless, of course, you want to say that Cuba is now worse off, same with China, same with Vietnam under French colonialism, same with Laos. All of these countries overthrew fascist or Capitalist regimes and have seen a moderate to a vast increase in metrics regarding quality of life and material conditions.
Secondly, you have to do a lot of legwork to explain why China isn't in the Socialist stage. 70% of their top 500 companies are state-owned, including 24/25 of the top revenue companies. It isn't a Communist state, but just reading Critique of the Gotha Programme and The Communist Manifesto should be straightforward enough to inform you that eradicating Capitalism takes time and requires gradual improvements.
On to your point, Anarcho-Communism failed miserably in Revolutionary Catalonia, and even then still had some form of a state for administration and police, Syndicalism hasn't yet seen success, China, Vietnam, and Laos are currently close to Socialist Market Economies anyways, and neither Lesailism nor Libertarian Marxism (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) have seen success either.
The closest to working out a Libertarian Socialist society has ever been is the Chiapas region. Even then, they exist as an anti-colonial pseudostate resisting Mexico, and as such it cannot be reasonably assumed that their strategy can apply elsewhere.
Without speaking in vibes, idealism, or whitewashing history, why do you believe an Anarchic strategy would see more success than a Marxist one? What part of Marxism do you specifically reject, without calling to idealism? Ie, revolution necessarily means despotism, which is false as proven previously.
I was not comparing against their previous regime before, I was comparing them against other contemporary nations. If you want to make that comparison between now and then the ML regimes still haven't done any better than capitalist hybrid economies. If anything they have done worse. Germany used to be run under fascists too, as did Spain and Italy, yet both have done well under hybrid economies, in fact better than places like Cuba since they don't have constant shortages.
Actually I don't have to do hardly any legwork. Socialism requires democracy, and China are not democratic. Cuba is not completely democratic either. Therefore neither are truly socialist even if they have socialist-like elements. Plenty of Marxists including the Trotskyists organization I used to be a part of don't support China. You don't have to support that regime to be a Marxist so I don't know why you are making excuses for them.
I don't necessarily reject Marxism either. As I said Libertarian Marxism is fine. There are probably variations of classical Marxism that could be made to work if you ignore anything written by Lenin, Mao, Stalin, etc. It seems that's primarily where it went wrong, starting with Lenin. If my understanding of Marxism is correct, it doesn't suggest a singular way to organize socialist societies, it only highlights the problems with capitalist and other societal models. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. The problem with with the later additions like Marxism-Leninism or Maoism.
The reason I don't have a problem with Anarchism is that they have never attempted to form or justify dictatorships and other non-democratic regimes like you keep trying to. Like dude/dudette stop supporting China, it's not that hard. That's the least you can do. Like the bare minimum.
What you are saying doesn't add up logically, it's not just about vibes. Though frankly you don't pass the vibe check either which is far more important than you give it credit for. I can justify eugenics using logic if I have to. It doesn't pass the vibe check so to speak. When dealing with humans you have to consider the human aspect of the situation.
Why are you comparing developing countries with developed countries, especially when these developing countries have been the targets of sanctions, imperialism, colonialism, and other horrific events that stunted their growth?
Germany, Spain, and Italy maintained global trade with America and other European nations, while other countries were sanctioned, bombed, or otherwise fought against.
Socialism requires Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and is a transitory state towards Communism. Cuba and China are both democratic, just not via liberal democracy. You can read up on the process yourself. It's fine to believe Liberal Democracy to be a superior system to Democratic Centralism, but you are going to have to defend your statement that Cuba and China are not Democratic.
You do not have to support Cuba and China to be a Marxist, this is a correct statement. However, you do have to be a Materialist and perform Materialist analysis, not vague idealism. Though, if I may take an admittedly cheap shot, it's entirely clear why you have been arguing purely off idealism and vibes now that you revealed you used to be in a Trotskyist org, lol.
Libertarian Marxism does not exist, if you are talking about Libertarian Socialism that is fine, but Marxism is pretty clearly laid out as a siezing of State power and weilding it in the interests of the Proletariat until Class, State, and Money are abolished.
There we go. Your understanding of Marxism is indeed incorrect. Please, revisit Critique of the Gotha Programme. This is a primary source from Marx himself where he depicts what a Socialist state may look like. Marx has never advocated for Anarchism or Libertarianism, and spent much of his time arguing against such concepts. You seem to be referring to what Anarchists accept from Marx, which is purely his analysis of Capitalism, rejecting Dialectics, Historical Materialism, and how he believes a Communist society may come to be.
Lenin, Mao, and even Stalin were in fact Marxists. I suggest actually reading Lenin. Additionally, a Trotskyist rejecting Lenin is unheard of, Trotskyism is built on Lenin's works! Lenin, unlike Marx, actually held deep respect for Anarchists like Kropotkin, even if he disagreed with them. Lenin's contributions to Marxism largely consist of the idea that revolutions should be guided and assisted by a Vanguard Party, the notion of Democratic Centralism, and his analysis of Imperialism, all of which coincide with Marxism. This isn't even an endorsement of Lenin, by the way. Just proving his ties to Marxism. If you consider Lenin to be nonsense, then it would make sense that you also consider everything Marx wrote outside of Capital to also be nonsense worth ignoring.
I haven't expressed support for China or Cuba, just stated that they are better off than they were before, are Socialist, and indicated that they practice Democratic Centralism, rather than Liberal Democracy. Your gatekeeping of Socialism behind pure vibes is again, Idealism.
The fact that you suggest Anarchism without any actual mechanical reason for it other than vibes and idealism is Utopianism, which Marx and Engels rejected in favor of Scientific Socialism. Try reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific for more info on what I am talking about.
All in all, we cannot argue what's good and what's bad if you purely are arguing off of vibes, and not actually analyzing anything. You've been making blatant emotional statements with no analysis for us to actually discuss, so it is difficult to even begin talking.
This entire convo started because you don't believe Revolutions have been successful at changing Mode of Production, and now we are at a point where you have been debatebro-ing only off of vibes.
I'll leave you with some homework you can choose to do if you wish to correct your confusion: please, if you want to actually understand Marxism, read Critique of the Gotha Programme and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. The first has Marx critiquing a Socialist program and advocating for a different approach to Socialism, and the latter goes over Historical Materialism, Utopianism, and Scientific Socialism. You currently do not appear to understand these, which is why you are confused right now.
You forget there was a whole world war in Spain, Italy, and Germany?
Then why are there people fighting for democracy in China? How long have the Castro family been in charge of Cuba? I don't think it's unreasonable to question if these are really democracies. I would have a look at a democracy index like the one by The Economist, or the one here: http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/. Before you say anything the USA is considered a flawed democracy by the first index, and is something like number 16 on the second, so it's not like they have an overt US bias.
Libertarianism just means giving people and the press freedom. Things like freedom of speech, freedom of association, and so on. If Marx is against this I frankly don't want to follow Marx.
I wasn't claiming them to not be marxists. I am saying I don't agree with their ideas. I am also not a Trotskyist? Where did I say this? I said I used to be part of a Trotskist organization. I left for a reason.
I never claimed that Marx supported Anarchism, just that he didn't give an exact plan for forming a socialist nation.
I would also remind you that this is politics not engineering or science. There are no mechanical reasons, only human and mathematical ones.
You don't seem to have realized it yet but I don't care what you label "idealist". Idealism has become a word marxists use against anything they don't like. Plenty of normal people would call Marxists idealists for crying out loud. If you mean in the philosophical sense idealism includes all kinds of different things including solipsism, which is probably one of the more solid philosophies out there and is basically impossible to disprove.
I will have a look at the reading material though. I don't read much political stuff, last thing I read would be The Conquest of Bread. Unless you count things like the Dune series, which do have political themes but aren't a non-fiction manifesto.
No, I did not forget. I was specifically referring to the post war period. That's why I ask that you analyze countries over time. If you want extra points, analyze a country pre-Revolution as compared to post-Revolution, then compare them with their contemporaries as they stand within global geopolitics. For example, Cuba was and still is brutally sanctioned, but retains a high life expectancy, literacy rate, and so forth, even beating blow for blow with the US on those.
Would you mind giving a contemporary example of a "pro-democracy protest" in China? According to Harvard, the CPC has an over 90% approval rate among their citizens. I am not saying these protests don't exist, but they should be taken at a broader context. The Economist's Democracy Index is an index that measures Private Propety rights and Liberal Democracy, Socialist states are designed to lose these. The US loses too just a bit because it has lower economic mobility than Social Democracies. President Diaz-Canal is the current non-Castro President of Cuba. Is your argument that George W. Bush should have been barred from office because H.W. preceded him?
Libertarianism does not mean freedom of press and people. Libertarianism specifically refers to small government. If you want to see it in action, see the Chiapas region. Marx is in favor of a Socialist and eventual Communist government, this does not mean the press does not have freedom or the people, it just means the state is publicly run and operated. Read Engels On Authority if you have questions about this.
Fair enough about mislabeling you a Trot. However, the rest of the comment needs to be addressed. Politics is entirely the product of Material reality. People are driven by their Material Conditions, not just random vibes! This is crucial.
When I say you are being an Idealist, I mean you have been arguing off of Vibes and not Metrics. You don't have clear measures of Material Reality, you have been arguing using your preconcieved notions and optics. That, in my opinion, is a problem when discussing what remains to be done by Leftists like yourself and me.
That all being said, I do appreciate you accepting to read theory. I still have The Conquest of Bread on my reading list (coincidentally, Lenin was a big fan of Kropotkin and debated him in person). I'll give a short reading list if that helps:
Critique of the Gotha Programme - Karl Marx Covers a criticism of a contemporary (to Marx) Socialist program, with advocacy for what he believes to be a better path
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Engels Goes ovef Utopianism, Scientific Socialism, and Historical Materialism. Crucial for understanding the philosophical aspects of Marxism and more relevant to our conversation addresses the failures of Utopian Idealists like the Owenites and how Scientific Socialism fixes this
On Authority - Engels goes over Anarchism vs Marxism, and what it means to use a state
Bonus Section! Only if YOU want further understanding, if the previous sections leave you confused or wanting more
How Marxism Works - Chris Harman written as a short, 40 or so page pamphlet going over the absolute basics of Marxism, from a Trotskyist perspective (even MLs recommend this work). You can read this one instead of any of the above if you are short on time or care
The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism - V.I. Lenin 1 page summary of Marxism from Lenin's perspective. This is the sparknotes for the sparknotes, but leaves a lot out.
State and Revolution and Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism - V.I. Lenin These are the ones you could choose to read if you want to understand exactly where a Marxist-Leninist is coming from. This is 80% of Lenin's major contributions to Marxism, it goes over the role of the State within the context of revolution, and how Capitalist states resorted to export of Capital to the third world to super-exploit workers for super-profits in much of Western Europe and America in order to combat The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, leading these countries to develop far quicker and slow the development of third world countries.
"Nuh UH!" is: a. Childish, b. Not an argument, and c. Not going to change the facts.
But, you know. Enjoy your hot wheels or whatever.
Tell me, what countries have democratically decided to change from Capitalism to Socialism via electoral means? You offered exactly 0 explanation for your answer and ignored pretty much all of the last 150 or so years.
Let's just skip the part where I provide a researched answer and go straight to you saying "nuh uh! That's not REAL socialism!"
I mean, if you're just talking about an expansion of the welfare state, then you aren't talking about Socialism. We have had this convo before, you just prefer to use established terms in a manner that right-wingers use them, basically, so the convo just becomes arguing over correct use of terms and not an actual discussion of the topic at hand.
The irony here is that you define "right wing" more arbitrarily than I define "socialism".
But yeah, that's fair. However I think it's also fair to point out that even though you've defined the countries I consider socialist as not-socialist, there's still never been an effective socialist/communist revolution.
There have been, is "effective" just a vibe? What on Earth happened in the last hundred or so years?
Additionally, Right Wing just means you support Capitalism as the dominant Mode of Production, which you certainly do.
See? Arbitrary. You're defining the majority of the world as right wing, which is nonsensical.
Name effective revolutions. We could debate Cuba, but I'll give you that one for now. Other than Cuba, what socialist revolution led to a stable socialist country?
It is absolutely not arbitrary, it's entirely clear. Yes, the majority of the world is right wing, why does that make the definition of right wing more arbitrary?
Cuba, Chiapas, USSR, China, Vietnam, Laos, and more have successfully transformed their Mode of Production to Socialism.
One thing I won't let you sneak in: you clearly added "stable" as a pure vibe, moving the goalposts entirely. Again, the original argument is that Socialism has never been achieved electorally, the closest is Bolivia and Chile, Chile was couped and Bolivia isn't Socialist yet. Instead, there have been Revolutions that successfully shifted Mode of Production to Socialism, and now you wish to debate even Cuba about "success" based on nothing but vibe.
Lol nope
And yeah, who gives a fuck about a successful revolution if it falls apart almost immediately. Revolution is not the end goal. A stable, functioning socialist society is the end goal, and with the possible exception of Cuba that just has not happened.
Ah, yes, "lol nope" is about what I expected from you. Every time you're presented with an argument, you duck and run.
Those are all Socialist examples, the USSR is the only one of those examples that is no longer here, and that took a century. You can't actually argue against them being Socialist, so you try to redefine what words mean, or just say "lol nope" and refuse to answer.
Typical right-winger, refusing to actually engage meaningfully.
I don't need to argue against China being socialist, I just need to laugh every time you suggest such a ridiculous thing.
70% of China's top 500 companies are state-owned, they have democratic measures in place in the workplace, and have maintained strong state influence over their Bourgeois class, not the other way around. It cannot be considered pure Socialism just like nothing can be considered pure Capitalism, so trends must be observed and recorded. You claimed Cuba to be Socialist, or at least arguably so, correct? Here is a conversation where Castro argues that China is indeed Socialist.
If all you do is laugh, you'll be left behind, having contributed nothing.
Lol
Point me to socialist country that got there through reform.
In case you try to claim these the UK/Sweden/Norway is not a socialist country. They are hybrid economies. Hybrid economies are not socialist.
No true Scotsman
Oh man... This is well stated and clear. But confusing because people from lemmy.ml are irrational and authoritarian. Not sure what to do? Should I confront that confusion? Nah. Fuck it downvote.
Hmmm.... This seems a little hypocritical. fair enough. Downvoting my comment as well.
I was kinda hoping instead of just downvotes someone would attempt to engage, and there could have been a productive discussion, but that's excessively difficult on Lemmy.world. Unfortunate.
For the most part, I like lemmy.world. Probably because I'm comparing it to Reddit.
Unfortunately, most people want to have their half baked ideas based upon what they've been told or their limited, mostly online, experiences with certain people. These people are few, but loud. And unfortunately, many go through this phase in their learning journey where they know more than their liberal counterparts, but haven't necessarily done the work to see its depths or had life experiences and real connections to temper the presentation.
So as far as some most people are concerned, there are a "worrying number of leftists" who present a loud and inflexible view of Marxism.
So there's no ability for people to engage. It's just non-sensical and you'll be a quickly forgotten anomaly.
I hear you, but I have had reasonable conversations and encouraged liberals here on Lemmy.world to engage with Leftist theory. It's rare, but it happens enough that I keep trying to push people to read Marx or Goldman or whoever it takes to deprogram the inner, liberal biases they have.
It is rare, but it happens.
That's great! I'm heartened to hear that. I agree, it rare, but is definitely rewarding. I'm glad to hear you're doing that!