Maoist China or Soviet Union

[EvilRedGuy]

Which one is better?

Discuiss.

[Queercommie Girl]

Both are deformed worker's states, but at least in Mao's China partial proletarian democracy was introduced during the Cultural Revolution, including the right to freely strike, which Soviet workers never had.

However, after Mao Chinese revisionism went even further than Soviet revisionism did and became even more reactionary.

So in short, during the Mao era, the PRC was the better socialist state, in the post-Mao era, the USSR was relatively speaking the better socialist state. I'd rather have Mao than Stalin but I'd also rather have Brezhnev than Deng Xiaoping.

[Black Sheep]

including the right to freely strike,
What is the meaning of striking in a workers' democracy, really?
The only meaning i can find, is to ask for extra privileges for your own sector, something incosistent with workers' democracy and socialism.
There has to be one standard of living, equal to all, and as best as possible.
Strikes are for class societies, a way of resistance to the oppressive class.

[bailey_187]

What is the meaning of striking in a workers' democracy, really?
The only meaning i can find, is to ask for extra privileges for your own sector, something incosistent with workers' democracy and socialism.
There has to be one standard of living, equal to all, and as best as possible.
Strikes are for class societies, a way of resistance to the oppressive class.

thats what the Soviets argued...

[Vampire Lobster]

What is the meaning of striking in a workers' democracy, really?
The only meaning i can find, is to ask for extra privileges for your own sector, something incosistent with workers' democracy and socialism.
There has to be one standard of living, equal to all, and as best as possible.
Strikes are for class societies, a way of resistance to the oppressive class.

It's essential to allow them in order to keep the workers' democracy intact. Because when we reach the point where the man will come and beat you with the people's stick if you're protesting your conditions by refusing to work, workers' democracy is not what we're having; strike is the most important tool for the working class to actually keep the powers that be in check and I don't see why we wouldn't need that after the revolution, as well. It's not like revolutions haven't gone awfully wrong before.

We should never trust on anybody telling us "yeah it's a workers' democracy pick up your shovel" and we should always be allowed the option of saying "fuck you, it's not, I'm a shark and not doing this shit".

[Queercommie Girl]

What is the meaning of striking in a workers' democracy, really?
The only meaning i can find, is to ask for extra privileges for your own sector, something incosistent with workers' democracy and socialism.
There has to be one standard of living, equal to all, and as best as possible.
Strikes are for class societies, a way of resistance to the oppressive class.

The ideal form of communism does not arrive in a single day.

I agree with the Maoist idea that socialist revolution is a continuous process, not an one-off event.

Utopia will never arrive, there is the risk of bureaucratic degeneration in any kind of socialist society, even Trotskyist and anarchist ones. Workers need to have the potential political power to fight against revisionism should they ever arise. If nothing more, it is a pre-cautionary measure.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Both

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'm with Marxach. Both were worthy allies, even while under revisionism. China today is still a worthy ally to keep a hold of. We've got countries Zimbabwe, Venezuela, DPRK, Cuba, Bolivia, Belarus, etc., that see China as a huge ally. Hell, I've even talked to one of the Maoists in Nepal & they state that China has become an ally to the Maoists. The Soviet Union was the same.

[Queercommie Girl]

Mao did however say that often revisionism can be even worse than capitalism itself.

[theblackmask]

Which one is better?

Discuiss.


Neither.

[∞]

Anarchist Spain.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSgqIVCdn69Tz82L2zzXG1XQvBJ_SnTa cqjxdn22gRUp6tE6Ho&t=1&usg=__dB1pc1kzoFxzfIvdtNNyNWCA-vI=

[Barry Lyndon]

In their entirety, or do we have to pick a period?

Like Iseul has pointed out, the economic and political character of these states was different at different times.

For me personally, I would choose the Soviet Union of Lenin and Trotsky, from 1917-24. But I wouldn't mind Maoist China at the time of the Cultural Revolution 1966-69 either. These, alongside the anarchist uprising in Spain, the Vietnam liberation struggle, and the Cuban revolution, are the revolutionary high points of the 20th century.

VeganMarxist, I think your a good comrade, but your characterization of China as being in some way socialist is beyond delusional. Billionaires? Sweatshops? 'Special Economic Zones'? No more public health care and education for the workers and peasants? Membership of the WTO? Come on!

So Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and other progressive countries have economic ties with China, so what? Those nations also have trade with Russia too. Does that make neo-liberal Putinist Russia an ally of the global working class too?

[Apoi_Viitor]

Well, even though I'm an unrepentant Anarchist, I'm fairly sympathetic towards pre-Stalinist Russia. Honestly, Lenin was probably 70% good, 30% bad in my regards. After Lenin died, well......

Mao was 50% good / 50% bad as a theoretician in my opinion, but his policies were downright awful (however China's local leaders and other leading party officials deserve enormous amounts of blame too).

[Queercommie Girl]

In their entirety, or do we have to pick a period?

Like Iseul has pointed out, the economic and political character of these states was different at different times.

For me personally, I would choose the Soviet Union of Lenin and Trotsky, from 1917-24. But I wouldn't mind Maoist China at the time of the Cultural Revolution 1966-69 either. These, alongside the anarchist uprising in Spain, the Vietnam liberation struggle, and the Cuban revolution, are the revolutionary high points of the 20th century.

VeganMarxist, I think your a good comrade, but your characterization of China as being in some way socialist is beyond delusional. Billionaires? Sweatshops? 'Special Economic Zones'? No more public health care and education for the workers and peasants? Membership of the WTO? Come on!

So Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and other progressive countries have economic ties with China, so what? Those nations also have trade with Russia too. Does that make neo-liberal Putinist Russia an ally of the global working class too?

Sorry, I forgot about pre-Stalin USSR.

Of course, the USSR under Lenin was the best period in both Russia and China in the entire 20th century.

Ranked in terms of the least amount of deformation in the socialist state structure:

1) USSR under Lenin (and Trotsky)

2) PRC during the Cultural Revolution

3) Early Maoist PRC

4) USSR under Stalin

5) Revisionist USSR

6) Revisionist China (Dengist period)

7) Revisionist China (today)

[Marxach-Léinínach]

To formulate my answer more, the Soviet Union of 1917-1953 and Maoist China 1949-1969 were both equally worthy of support. In the Soviet Union revisionism came to the leadership after Stalin's death and the arrest and murder of Beria in 1953 of course, and Mao basically went crazy or something after 1969, not following through on the Cultural Revolution, endorsing the Three Worlds Theory, endorsing the idea of US imperialism being a "lesser evil" than Soviet social-imperialism, personally meeting and shaking hands with Nixon and all kinds of the worst right-wing anti-communists, basically saying to Nixon he "likes rightists", etc.. He was great before 1969 though, mostly.

I've noticed some other Maoists tend to rag on the Stalinist USSR sometimes. Not me, though. I think it was a great dictatorship of the proletariat.

[EvilRedGuy]

Anarchist Spain.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSgqIVCdn69Tz82L2zzXG1XQvBJ_SnTa cqjxdn22gRUp6tE6Ho&t=1&usg=__dB1pc1kzoFxzfIvdtNNyNWCA-vI=

Dont dont get me wrong i prefer Anarchist Spain but this question is between Maoist China and Soviet Union. :)

[Queercommie Girl]

To formulate my answer more, the Soviet Union of 1917-1953 and Maoist China 1949-1969 were both equally worthy of support. In the Soviet Union revisionism came to the leadership after Stalin's death and the arrest and murder of Beria in 1953 of course, and Mao basically went crazy or something after 1969, not following through on the Cultural Revolution, endorsing the Three Worlds Theory, endorsing the idea of US imperialism being a "lesser evil" than Soviet social-imperialism, personally meeting and shaking hands with Nixon and all kinds of the worst right-wing anti-communists, basically saying to Nixon he "likes rightists", etc.. He was great before 1969 though, mostly.


Yes, that in my opinion is probably the greatest mistake Mao ever made. Even orthodox Trotskyists would clearly recognise that a deformed worker's state like the revisionist USSR is still superior to US imperialism qualitatively.

However, the theory of Third Worldism is certainly useful in many ways, except that actually there aren't really "three worlds" at all, just two: developed world and developing world, and Mao certainly wasn't the first or only person to come up with this kind of idea. Marxists from Lenin to Castro all had very similar ideas, e.g. Lenin's idea of the "labour aristocracy" in Western Europe.

Generally speaking Mao was a much more original thinker than Stalin was. Stalin didn't really advance Leninism theoretically, but many of Mao's original ideas, like "continuous revolution", would be useful even for Trotskyists and anarchists.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Stalin's totally underrated as a theoretician IMO. Maybe he didn't full-on advance Marxism-Leninism the way Mao did, but he certainly enriched it tremendously. A lot of Mao's theories have their basis in Stalin as well, if you ask me.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well, certainly in areas like ethnic minority policy, Maoism seems to be a "carbon copy" of Stalinism.

[Kiev Communard]

The PRC of Maoist period is much more preferable to the Stalinist USSR, in my view, but I must say that their anti-USSR foreign policies were incredibly stupid and, had Lin Biao's group triumphed and turned to the more friendly relations with the USSR, the overall outcome would be in many aspects much better than it was.

[Queercommie Girl]

The PRC of Maoist period is much more preferable to the Stalinist USSR, in my view, but I must say that their anti-USSR foreign policies were incredibly stupid and, had Lin Biao's group triumphed and turned to the more friendly relations with the USSR, the overall outcome would be in many aspects much better than it was.

Yes, I agree, but that was in the post-Stalin period.

For all the reactionary natures of Soviet revisionism, it was still quantitatively much better than Chinese revisionism after Mao.

[AK]

Mao did however say that often revisionism can be even worse than capitalism itself.
Which doesn't make much sense, considering revisionism has predominantly taken the form of capitalism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Which doesn't make much sense, considering revisionism has predominantly taken the form of capitalism.

Technically however, the Maoist doctrine is that a revisionist state isn't exactly the same as a capitalist state, despite carrying out capitalist economic policies to a large extent.

In Trotskyist terms, it is like saying a deformed worker's state using state-capitalist economic policies isn't exactly the same as a state that is actually state-capitalist intrinsically.

[∞]

Dont dont get me wrong i prefer Anarchist Spain but this question is between Maoist China and Soviet Union. :)

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTS_9Wt5kooWBLgVV-9Uv1wQ04MteI_HXTabYJDKMGrSCmgNnE&t=1&usg=__G6rYxIEGN7hey3oYdlWAL7UQXQE=

[EvilRedGuy]

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTS_9Wt5kooWBLgVV-9Uv1wQ04MteI_HXTabYJDKMGrSCmgNnE&t=1&usg=__G6rYxIEGN7hey3oYdlWAL7UQXQE=

Huh?

[Wanted Man]

I'm not sure. The Soviet Union had a cooler national anthem, but Maoist China had hotter chicks in uniforms. :rolleyes:

These threads are always silly. How can one possibly define "better"?


Anarchist Spain.

So you can have Anarchy in One Country?

[RED DAVE]

What is the meaning of striking in a workers' democracy, really?
The only meaning i can find, is to ask for extra privileges for your own sector, something incosistent with workers' democracy and socialism.
There has to be one standard of living, equal to all, and as best as possible.
Strikes are for class societies, a way of resistance to the oppressive class.Considering that the USSR and PRC were both state capitalist and not any kind of workers state, deformed, degenerate or de-anythinged, the right to strike was crucial for the workers to defend themselves against the bureaucracy, which controlled the economy.

I wouldn't live in either society on a bet. I have friends who visited the USSR and, apparently, especially in the final decades, there were a fair number of wormholes where intellectuals, artists, dissidents, etc., could hide out and occasionally emerge. But for the vast bulk of the population, imagine a whole socieity ruled like a US industrial corporation, with no union.

RED DAVE

[AK]

So you can have Anarchy in One Country?
Technically yes, but that's not exactly a final goal we should strive for.

[∞]

I would describe it as international anarchism, where the liberation of the workers is carried out by the anarchists and unions themselves. That way there would be no such thing as "implementing anarchism on to people."

Back to USSR and PCR...honestly, this is a ridiculous question.
I'd say if I had a gun to my head I'd go with USSR. China seemed to be in a state of economic chaos. At least the USSR attempted disable central planning to some degree, but then that caused unemployment. Especially Yeltsin's shock therapy, or to me Perestroika on steroids. Now China has a centrally planned capitalism, a very authoritarian Keynesianism.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS2aAh4LRv9S6DlG3fOMBD8jfQTimtSF 62NSgr8Tz5CWr0Ftm8&t=1&usg=__jZkJNsgjozzcw3RzlpVMV2R8Frw=

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSNfLTiPKvzOOUATUchLkLvTDI1szGjE OSPAdQxhW5bY5GXxpg&t=1&usg=__59UfQGyX4GWCcZVqfMtzjUlrNao=

In fact the Soviet economy was almost like a laid back US economy. Since it had like half of the GDP and a larger labor force.
2.6 vs. 5.2
1.5 mil people vs. 1.2

[AK]

I would describe it as international anarchism
How about we call such a global, stateless, classless society communism?

[∞]

How about we call such a global, stateless, classless society communism?

It would confuse liberals...

EDIT(I know, I do it too much): Since Communism has many forms, some require implementation of ideas onto the working class.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm not sure. The Soviet Union had a cooler national anthem, but Maoist China had hotter chicks in uniforms. :rolleyes:


I appreciate your appreciation of Chinese socialist women. :blushing::wub:

[Orange Juche]

I suppose under Lenin, the Soviet Union wins over Maoist china. But that's like saying Justin Bieber wins over Miley Cyrus.

I'll take Jello Biafra, thanks.