The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions, and particularly by all three Russian revolutions in the twentieth century, is as follows: it is not enough for revolution that the exploited and oppressed masses should understand the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; it is essential for revolution that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. Only when the ‘lower classes’ do not want the old way, and when the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way—only then can revolution triumph. This truth may be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters).

V. Lenin - “Left-Wing” Communism

Approaching the matter from the standpoint of the proletariat and the proletarian revolution, Engels, like Marx, upheld democratic centralism, the republic--one and indivisible. He regarded the federal republic either as an exception and a hindrance to development, or as a transition from a monarchy to a centralized republic, as a "step forward" under certain special conditions. And among these special conditions, he puts the national question to the fore.

Although mercilessly criticizing the reactionary nature of small states, and the screening of this by the national question in certain concrete cases, Engels, like Marx, never betrayed the slightest desire to brush aside the national question

Engels proposes the following words for the self-government clause in the programme: "Complete selfgovernment for the provinces [gubernias or regions], districts and communes through officials elected by universal suffrage. The abolition of all local and provincial authorities appointed by the state."

It is extremely important to note that Engels, armed with facts, disproved by a most precise example the prejudice which is very widespread, particularly among pettybourgeois democrats, that a federal republic necessarily means a greater amount of freedom than a centralized republic. This is wrong. It is disproved by the facts cited by Engels regarding the centralized French Republic of 792-98 and the federal Swiss Republic. The really democratic centralized republic gave more freedom that the federal republic. In other words, the greatest amount of local, regional, and other freedom known in history was accorded by a centralized and not a federal republic.

V. Lenin - State and Revolution

I fell we have lost ourselves in the analysis of the situation and therefore need to take a step back, return to the basics and as MLs remember to use diamat to try and see the big picture.

Since the fall of the USSR in the 90s, the principle contradiction in global economics has been the Us-China one. And for most of this period the Us has been the leading aspect of that contradiction, as it already started as a imperialist potency while China was still in the middle of its poverty alleviation plan, but since the 2008 crisis China has begun a process of reducing its dependence on western economics and preparing itself to take the place of the main aspect in the future.

And in my opinion ever since COVID and the consequences of how each country handled it, China has taken the leading role in that contradiction and consequently it is now what defines the nature of world economics, which is why we are seeing so many changes in geo-politics recently, both from China trying to assert its position with the de-dollarisation of global trade and the increase of allied countries with BRICS, and from the Us reaction with the Ukraine war and now with the government trying to re-invest in its own industry.

Without discussing the important aspect of imperialism and whether or not the Us still has the infrastructure to produce goods at a competitive price with China, the main focus of my comment is to bring attention to the fact that this is all part of a ongoing process with both sides struggling for the leading role in the global economy contradiction. So even tough saying that the Us is collapsing or they are powerless is hopelessly unmaterialistic, we should exalt the fact that China is becoming the principle aspect and that process is only going to keep changing, in both quantitative and qualitative ways, until the Us has no more place in the global economic contradiction.

As someone who has actually never read Nietzsche, but some years ago did a course in college that had him, I have to ask: What is so wrong about Dessalines description of Nietzsche?

My takeaway from the course was that he was sort of a proto-fascist saying that society was divided between the weak and the strong, and if wasn't for certain institutions that "glorify" the weak like the Judeo-Christian religions, the strong would rightfully subjugate the weak.

If that is a wrong view of his work I'm open for other interpretations.

I'm a bit of an indies person, so recently I've finished "Session: Skate Sim", a game that really impressed me with the depth of its movement and how rewarding it feels to progress it. I've also just finished "Lonely Mountains Downhill", that even though it doesn't have advanced mechanics, more than makes up for it on the discovery factor by allowing you to forge your own path to finish the tracks.

Right now I've just started "Furi" that seems to be half 2D shooter half beat-em-up where there are only boss fights, all in great combination with the psychedelic graphics and electronic soundtrack. I've also started to play "Disco Elysium" as I've seen multiple people here and in hexbear recommending it, but just some hours in I can tell it's going to take a long time to finish it.

Yes, but in this graph the decline was around 2017-2018.

Wait, is that what the graph is showing? From what I understood the y is the total of the us sanctions, so the bigger the bar there the more sanctioned a country is presently, and even though I can't see an actual number the better Korea does seen to have the biggest bar in the end.

Now that I looked at it once again, it seems the position on the graph is based by when the sanctions began, which is why Russia is so high because they only started in the 90s while China has had then since the 40s.

Pretty messy graph overall.

I also am pretty limited regarding theory, but I do remember seeing an online video of a teacher saying how, at the end of his life, Marx was studying primitive forms of society and their complexity.

So I do have to question you in what do you mean by complex societies, because from what I understand ours is a extremely simple one, you are either a worker or a capitalist, there are in betweens but there isn't any other class you can be part of in capitalism.