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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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Asklemmy
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Marxism is correct and more relevant than ever.
I’m curious what makes you say that. What evidence is there to support Marxism? Isn’t Marxism just communism? Just genuinely curious. I always thought that communism has been proven not to work multiple times throughout history. Not trying to say I think Capitalism is perfect. I definitely agree that Capitalism that is unrestrained and companies that are allowed to reign free is bad for the common people.
The more accurate lesson would be that communist nations have been defeated by capitalist hegemony multiple times throughout history, mainly during the Cold War; the countries didn't just implode of their own accord. Now, it's fair to criticize them for this, if you have an ideology all about material conditions and then you aren't able to survive those conditions, you probably messed up, but I think that's a very different assertion from "communism doesn't work".
You are aware of the many attempts in different countries to leave the USSR, right?
All of them were violently shut down, that's why the system was able to keep going, but without violence against their own population the USSR would've collapsed much earlier.
I'm unimpressed. The US has crushed rebellions from its inception, famously including the civil war but also many other attempts, and I would say that the patterns of what some call the New Afrikan nation within the US to revolt, going solidly up to the 1980s or further depending on your interpretation, are perhaps the most important.
As some guy said, "Revolution is not a dinner party" and establishing and maintaining a revolutionary state requires its own violence. No Marxist says otherwise, as it is the famous quote of Engels: "The proletariat uses the State not in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the State as such ceases to exist."
Marxism is Communism, yes. Communism has been proven to work multiple times, and does to this day.
I suggest reading Blackshirts and Reds if that goes against what you believe to be true, though if you have specific questions I can do my best to answer.
Serious question, are there any true communist/Marxist nations today that would be examples of your statement?
Sorry about terribad formatting, old phone is old
Historically there have been more, such as the USSR, but currently the DPRK, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos are explicitly Marxist. There's a lot of misinformation surrounding them, but they retain Marxism.
Is it your stance that every nominally Marxist country is actually Marxist? That there are no revisionist countries even though, for example, the USSR spent most of its existence being revisionist?
I wouldn't say there are any "orthodox" Marxist countries, most have taken some fair bit of revisionism, but are still Socialist and practice Marxism.
Fair enough, I mostly agree. I can imagine that China, Vietnam, and Laos are on the list because of, uh, capitalist roading, and the DPRK is nationalist to a reactionary degree and kind of culty, but what criticism would you apply to Cuba? Do they do capitalist roading too? I don't hear much about them in that regard.
If we are strictly speaking ideological purity, the DPRK's Marxism-Leninism with Juche influences is probably the least revisionist overall. China is the most "relevant," of course, plus SWCC is legitimately a return to Marxism as compared to Maoism.
Cuba has some Capitalist roading, yes, it heavily depends on the tourist industry and said industry is decently privitized.
Ultimately though, a strong understanding of Dialectics and the Base and Superstructure is necessary when judging the impact of "Capitalist Roading."
Doesn't the DPRK operate under the Juche political concept?
Juche is basically Marxism-Leninism, but with a focus on self-reliance.
I guess in real life that's polarising...
On here it's just preaching to the choir, thus the upvotes.
Depends on the audience. It's polarizing, hence the downvotes as well.
All 4 of them, as of posting, compared to the 25 upvotes.