Call for 'Jasmine Revolution' circulates in China

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

BEIJING – Chinese authorities cracked down on activists as a call circulated for people to gather in more than a dozen cities Sunday for a "Jasmine Revolution" apparently inspired by the wave of pro-democracy protests sweeping the Middle East.

The source of the call was not known, but authorities moved to halt its spread online, and police detained at least 14 people, by one activist's count. Searches for the word "jasmine" were blocked Saturday on China's largest Twitter-like microblog, and the website where the request first appeared said it was hit by an attack.

Activists seemed not to know what to make of the call to protest, even as they passed it on. They said they were unaware of any known group being involved in the request for citizens to gather in 13 cities and shout, "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness."

Some even wondered whether the call was "performance art" instead of a serious move in the footsteps of recent protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Libya.

Always on guard to squelch dissent at home, China's authoritarian government has appeared unnerved by the events in the Middle East. It has limited reporting, stressing the instability caused by protests in Egypt, and has restricted Internet searches to keep people uninformed.

Authorities appeared to be treating the protest call seriously. Families and friends reported the detention or harassment of several activists, and some said they were warned not to participate Sunday.

Police pulled Beijing lawyer Jiang Tianyong into a car and drove away, his wife, Jin Bianling, said. She told The Associated Press by phone that she was still waiting for more information Saturday night.

Su Yutong, an activist who now lives in Germany, said that even if Chinese authorities suspect the call to protest wasn't serious, Saturday's actions showed they still feared it.

"If they act this way, they'll push this performance art into the real thing," she said in an e-mail.

In a Twitter post, Su listed at least 14 people who had been taken away and called that count incomplete.

Tensions were already high in recent days after a video secretly made under house arrest by one of China's best-known activist lawyers, Chen Guangcheng, was made public. Chen and his wife reportedly were beaten in response, and some of Chen's supporters reported being detained or beaten by authorities after meeting to discuss his case.

The call for a Jasmine Revolution came as President Hu Jintao gave a speech to top leaders Saturday, asking them to "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society." Hu told the senior politicians and officials to provide better social services to people and improve management of information on the Internet "to guide public opinion," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The ruling Communist Party is dogged by the threat of social unrest over rising food and housing prices and other issues.

In the latest price increase, the National Development and Reform Commission announced Saturday that gasoline and diesel prices would be raised by 350 yuan ($53) per ton.

Meanwhile, Shanghai became the latest city to place new limits on housing purchases to tamp down soaring home prices. Residents who already own two or more homes in Shanghai would be prohibited from buying more, while outsiders would be limited to one, Xinhua reported.

The call to protest was first posted on the U.S.-based Chinese-language website Boxun.com. "Boxun has no way to verify the background of this and did not participate," it said.

The Boxun site was unavailable Saturday, and reported being attacked.

"This is the most serious denial of service attack we have received," it said in a statement. "We believe the attack is related to the Jasmine Revolution proposed on Feb. 20 in China."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

China tries to stamp out 'Jasmine Revolution'

BEIJING – Jittery Chinese authorities staged a show of force Sunday to squelch a mysterious online call for a "Jasmine Revolution" apparently modeled after pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping the Middle East.

Authorities detained activists, increased the number of police on the streets and censored online calls to stage protests in Beijing, Shanghai and 11 other major cities. Citizens were urged to shout "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness" — a slogan that highlights common complaints among ordinary Chinese.

Many activists said they didn't know who was behind the campaign and weren't sure what to make of the call to protest, which was first posted on the U.S.-based Chinese-language advocacy website Boxun.com.

China's authoritarian government has appeared unnerved by recent protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Libya. It has limited media reports about them, stressing the instability caused by protests in Egypt, and restricted Internet searches to keep people uninformed.

The call to protest in China did not seem to garner much traction among citizens. In Beijing, 25-year-old Liu Xiaobai was stopped by police after he placed a white jasmine flower on a planter in front of a McDonald's restaurant that was the planned protest site and took some photos with his cell phone.

"I'm quite scared because they took away my phone. I just put down some white flowers, what's wrong with that?" Liu said. "I'm just a normal citizen and I just want peace."

Security agents tried to take Liu away, but he was swarmed by journalists and eventually was seen walking away with a friend.

Two other people were taken away by police, including a shabbily dressed old man who was cursing and shouting, though it wasn't clear if he was there because of the online call to protest.

Any potential protesters were far outnumbered by hundreds of rubberneckers at the busy Wangfujing pedestrian mall, who wondered if there was a celebrity in the area because of the heavy police presence and dozens of foreign journalists and news cameras.

In Shanghai, three people were taken away by police after scuffling in front of a Starbucks coffee shop in what appeared to be an attempt to attract attention. They were not holding placards and their intentions were unclear.

There were no reports of protests in other cities where people were urged to gather, such as Guangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan and Chengdu.

Ahead of the planned protests, more than 100 activists in cities across China were taken away by police, confined to their homes or were missing, the Hong Kong-based group Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. Families and friends reported the detention or harassment of several dissidents, and some activists said they were warned not to participate.

On Sunday, searches for "jasmine" were blocked on China's largest Twitter-like microblog, and status updates with the word on popular Chinese social networking site Renren.com were met with an error message and a warning to refrain from postings with "political, sensitive ... or other inappropriate content."

Mass text messaging service was unavailable in Beijing due to "technical issues," according to a customer service operator for leading provider China Mobile. In the past, Chinese authorities have suspended text messaging in politically tense areas to prevent organizing.

Boxun.com said its website was attacked by hackers Saturday after it posted the call to protest. A temporary site, on which users were reporting heavy police presence in several cities, was up and running Sunday. The site said in a statement it had no way of verifying the origins of the campaign.

The call for a Jasmine Revolution came as President Hu Jintao gave a speech to top leaders Saturday, asking them to "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society." Hu told the senior politicians and officials to provide better social services to people and improve management of information on the Internet "to guide public opinion," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The ruling Communist Party is dogged by the threat of social unrest over rising food and housing prices and other issues. In the latest increase, the National Development and Reform Commission announced Saturday that gasoline and diesel prices would rise 350 yuan ($53) per ton.

Tensions were already high in recent days after a video secretly made under house arrest by one of China's best-known activist lawyers, Chen Guangcheng, was made public. Chen and his wife were reportedly beaten in response, and some of Chen's supporters said they were detained or beaten by authorities after meeting to discuss his case.

___

Associated Press writers Cara Anna and Charles Hutzler in Beijing and Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai contributed to this report.

[the last donut of the night]

in b4 the idiots who think china is a socialist country

[Dire Helix]

China needs a revolution, but definitely not a "Jasmine" one.

[EvilRedGuy]

Yeah no shit they think everything around them is socialist/communist instead they are soviet fetishists or free-market capitalists. :laugh:

[Rafiq]

Fuck! Since China calls itself Socialist already there is no hope for a Socialist uprising among the Chinese workers. If there is, they are going to bring massive Neo-Liberalism and 'Democracy' and become another American-Allied superpower. After this, a workers revolution is sure to be crushed around the world.

[Crux]

Fuck! Since China calls itself Socialist already there is no hope for a Socialist uprising among the Chinese workers.
Wait, what?

Redscare: China does not need a series of revolts, closely associated with striking worker's, toppling the political leadership and opening up for the independent organization of the working class, as the Jasmine Revolution has in Tunisia?
A rose by any other name and all that.

[Crux]

Chinese regime fears “Egyptization”

Thursday, 3 February 2011.
The words “Egypt” and “Tunisia” have been added to the list of censored items on the internet in China

Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info

Earlier this week, the League of Social Democrats held a protest at the Egyptian Consulate in Hong Kong in solidarity with the mass struggle against dictator Hosni Mubarak. The protesters held placards with the message “Egypt today, Hong Kong tomorrow”. In a similar vein, the website Tibetan Review ran an article headlined “As Egypt sneezes democracy, China fears catching a cold.” This idea, of the mood of revolt gaining an echo in China, is taken very seriously by the strategists of the Beijing regime.

The magnificent popular uprisings sweeping North Africa and the Arab world are causing jitters not just for Middle Eastern autocrats. In addition to forcing the governments of the United States and Israel into crisis meetings, the appearance on the streets of hundreds of thousands – even millions – against corrupt dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan, has also unsettled China’s so-called ‘communist’ rulers. This is more than a little ironic considering Communist Parties have been banned for decades in Mubarak’s Egypt, Ben Ali’s Tunisia, and most of the other states now facing mass upheavals.

But there is no mistaking on which side the Chinese regime stands today. It has been a close ally of Mubarak’s repressive regime. While it does not have the same strategic presence in the region as US imperialism, trade with Egypt increased threefold over the past five years to reach US$7 billion in 2010, making it China’s second largest trading partner in Africa and the Middle East, excluding oil. Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said “Egypt is a friend of China and we hope Egypt will return to social stability and normal order as soon as possible.”

“China’s concern is the same as America’s,” declared Yin Gang, a Middle East expert at the government’s Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “China is worried about chaos, because that is bad for Egypt and for other countries.”
http://www.chinaworker.info/get_img?NrArticle=1325&NrImage=9
LSD protest outside Egypt’s Hong Kong Consulate – “Egypt today, Hong Kong tomorrow”


Media censorship

Using a technique long-used by the Chinese regime to filter domestic news of ‘mass incidents’, they are blocking all independent coverage of events in Egypt and Tunisia and replacing this with a ‘sanitised’ official version. Thus, China Central Television showed footage of Mubarak meeting top officials, but omitted any mention of the massive street demonstrations.

When the mass movements are mentioned they are routinely described as ‘anti-government riots’. The revolutionary masses in Egypt are portrayed as rioters and looters. The crude message is that this lawlessness is bad for business, bad for society, and ‘order’ needs to be restored. Beijing’s decision, copying Washington, to send several chartered jets to Cairo to bring home Chinese citizens is also an element in this propaganda campaign.

Beijing’s message is essentially the same one adopted by Mubarak and his thugs who are attempting to roll back the mass movement using the methods of terror. “Yes to Mubarak, to protect stability,” read one banner carried by the hundreds of pro-Mubarak demonstrators who were allowed by the Egyptian army to enter the mass gathering in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and attack anti-Mubarak protesters with knives, petrol bombs and small arms fire. These shady pro-Mubarak columns are largely composed of police and security forces personnel.

Repeating a line used during the so-called “colour revolutions” in former Soviet republics in the past decade, the state-run Global Times ran an editorial on Sunday about the Tunisian and Egyptian protests with the headline: “Colour revolutions will not bring about real democracy.” This article, falsely equating the movements in Egypt and Tunisia with what took place in Georgia and Ukraine, claimed the revolts would trigger chaos, adding that some economies in Asia and Africa were “taking hit after hit from street-level clamour”.

“It’s clear that the [Chinese] government fears that wide coverage of Egyptian and Tunisian unrest will cause a domino effect for China,” political commentator Ivan Choy Chi-keung commented.

Another factor is the sensitivity of China’s rulers towards images from the streets of Egypt of mass demonstrations and tanks that can cause a collective “flashback” reminding Chinese people of the brutal suppression of a similar movement in Beijing in 1989. “Many netizens have compared the Egypt situation to the events in Tiananmen Square 22 years ago, and expressed support for the protesters,” said one active Chinese blogger.

Not surprisingly, while cranking up its own propaganda against revolution in the Arab world, Beijing has also clamped down hard on the internet where 450 million netizens in China congregate to discuss alternatives to the official line. Three sites – Sina.com, Netease.com and Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – have seen “Egypt” blocked as a keyword. Also, the search engines on some of the most popular micro-blogging sites show no results for the words “Egypt,” “Cairo,” “Tunisia” and “Jasmine Revolution.” Users are instead told the search result could not be displayed “because of the relevant law, regulations and policy.” Thus, Egypt has joined “Tibet” and “Tiananmen Square” in being expunged from Chinese cyberspace.

“All media nationwide must use Xinhua’s reporting on the Egyptian riots,” read a recent government directive. “It is strictly forbidden to translate foreign media coverage,” the order said, warning that websites that did not censor comments about Egypt would be “shut down by force.”

Mubarak’s regime went even further of course in the past week, closing down the internet altogether inside Egypt. But even this is a method it shares in common with the Chinese regime, which similarly shutdown the internet in its massive and restive Xinjiang region, home to a majority muslim population, for over six months following anti-Chinese riots in 2009. As in Egypt, where the net has reportedly been restored in recent days, the Xinjiang shutdown inflicted huge economic losses given the importance of internet in today’s economy.

http://www.chinaworker.info/get_img?NrArticle=1325&NrImage=8
Tanks in 1989 and censorship today


Political reform?

These events have led to more calls inside China for “political reform” – the idea that the ruling party, rather than a mass movement from below a la Egypt and Tunisia, can re-design itself, opening an “orderly” transition towards a more democratic system of government. This concept, of regime-engineered change, is put forward by liberals such as Liu Xiaobo, who like Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed El Baradei is a Nobel Laureate, and the manifesto Charter 08 for which Liu was imprisoned in 2009.

The risks involved of not making progress in political reform are getting higher and higher, according to Beijing-based analyst Hu Xingdou, in the South China Morning Post (1 February). “If the economy slows down or even crashes, China is likely to see turmoil again and widespread discontent with the government,” he said. Even with high GDP growth, there have been more than 90,000 mass protests in China each year since 2007.

One wing within China’s state officialdom, who sympathise openly with liberals such as Liu Xiaobo, express increasing exasperation at the utter lack of momentum – rather a marked regression – towards “reform” of the political system. State repression has intensified as shown by the brutal 11-year sentence imposed on Liu and other landmark prison terms for dissidents in recent years. Spending on internal security has risen 44 percent since 2008. The central government now spends as much on its internal repressive apparatus as it spends on its military, around 530 billion RMB. This is more than it spends on healthcare!

The numerous statements by Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, floating the need for “political reform” cannot be taken as a serious statement of intent. Wen has been given a certain license to make such statements, especially to the foreign media, but they are not backed up by any concrete measures or proposals, not even for a partial relaxation of the dictatorial system. A good example of the mismatch between talk and practise is the interview Wen gave last October to CNN. In this the premier stated, “The people’s wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible”. But his speech was censored in the Chinese media. When the words of the head of government himself fall under the censor’s knife, this speaks volumes about political realities in China.

The extremely complex edifice of China’s ruling party, which has evolved through decades of bureaucratic planning followed by resurgent state-led capitalism, contains internal “firewalls” – the resistance of competing and powerful interest groups – that act as a block on any tampering with the existing political model of authoritarian government. Commenting on the occasion of Liu Xiabao’s Nobel award and his call for multi-party democracy, the Global Times protested, “China’s fate would perhaps be no better than the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia”.

This fear – of China’s break-up – serves time and again to trump calls for a “transition” or “reform” away from the dictatorial system. This is despite the regime’s growing dread of social unrest. Yu Jianrong, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, last year reported a discussion he had with a group of retired “ministry-level” cadres (officials), one of whom told him: “You think that China’s society will not experience upheaval. I think that it will definitely experience upheaval, and that time is not too far distant.”

Could China be next?

Clearly, the Chinese dictatorship, with its morbid fear of “instability” and especially of independent mass movements, looks upon events in the Middle East with foreboding. While the close links of language and culture that exist across the Arab world do not apply to China, it is the speed of this movement, its proliferation from one state to another, and also the outward “stability” that characterised many of these regimes only weeks ago, that spooks China’s leaders.

“It is unbelievable to imagine that autocracies controlled by political strongmen can easily become unstable and be overthrown almost overnight,” commented Beijing-based political scientist Liu Junning.

Nor is this lesson lost on many Chinese: “In my view, many Chinese netizens and intellectuals believe that China’s future is Tunisia-ization,” noted one Beijing-based blogger. The parallels with Egypt, and its invocation of images from China’s 1989 mass democracy movement, are even more striking. “The waters of the Nile flow into the Yellow River,” wrote another Chinese netizen.

Other commentators are quick to add that China is different. Why? Because, they argue, the Beijing regime has delivered great economic progress, while the dictators of the Middle East and North Africa have failed in this respect. This view is misleading and based on an exaggeration of the achievements of the Chinese regime, especially when viewed from below.

Food crisis

As Shanghai-based economist Andy Xie noted: “The conflagration in North Africa may be just the beginning of more widespread inflation-triggered instability. While the [United Nations] Food Price Index is at its highest level, the rice price is still at half of the 2008 peak. The odds are that East Asian governments are releasing reserves to keep the price down. How long can this artificial price suppression last? When the tipping point is reached, the rice price could double or even treble. Instability could spread to rice-eating Asia.” [South China Morning Post, 2 February]

The Chinese regime itself has been increasingly nervous over the upturn in inflation and especially food price inflation that has so far defied government measures to hold it in check. Food prices in China rose at an annual rate of 9.6 percent in December, although many observers say this is an underestimate.

Living in Beijing is now more expensive than in Hong Kong, a city where the median salary is three times higher. A Big Mac at MacDonald’s, often used as a comparison of international prices, is now more expensive in Beijing than in Hong Kong. The prices of vegetables and other basic foodstuffs are similarly higher in mainland cities, showing the ravages of inflation over the last year. While rising costs are not the sole factor explaining the revolutionary ferment in Tunisia, Egypt and throughout the region, there is no denying they have played a very important role.

Those commentators who see China as immune from large-scale popular unrest due to its “stellar” economic performance are missing the point. In an article entitled “The Youth Unemployment Bomb”, Business Week compared China’s “ant tribe” – millions of recent college graduates who are excluded from well-paying jobs – to the “hittistes” or unemployed youth who helped trigger Tunisia’s popular revolt. A recent poll published in the People’s Daily shows that only 18.9 percent of “ant tribe” youths regard Chinese society as “fair”, and a majority harbour a strong resentment towards the “second-generation rich”. A closer look shows, therefore, that those Middle Eastern countries now facing mass upheavals suffer a malaise not so different from China’s: spiralling food costs, mounting youth unemployment, endemic corruption and bureaucracy, land grabs and rural misery, and an increasingly hated police force and regime.

http://www.chinaworker.info/get_img?NrArticle=1325&NrImage=7
Protests in Tahrir Square, Cairo, February 2011


Wealth gap

Egypt’s GDP growth was over 7 percent in both 2007 and 2008, slowing to 4.5 percent in 2009 and an estimated 5 percent last year. As we know, GDP data does not accurately reflect the real position in an economy. This is true in China and elsewhere. The widening gap separating rich from poor – a fact of life in both China and most Arab states – means that headline GDP growth rates say nothing about how the vast majority of society are faring. In China too, a great many workers and the majority of the 750 million-plus rural population have been excluded from the economic “miracle”.

A look at the so-called Gini Coefficient, used by economists to measure inequality, also suggests that booming China is closer as far as the masses are concerned to conditions in many North African states than capitalist pundits would have us believe. In China, where the rich now employ over two million bodyguards and systematically underreport their true wealth to evade popular anger, the Gini Coefficient is now 47. This is far worse than in Tunisia (with a Gini Coefficient of 40) Yemen (37.7) and Egypt (34.4).

The higher the Gini index, the more unequal a society is. Arguably, the figure for Egypt is actually higher, but again so is China’s. Professor Wang Xiaolu of the China Reform Foundation recently wrote that “China’s Gini index is likely to be more than 55”. Sociologists argue that a Gini index level of 40 marks the “international danger level” at which major social unrest becomes likely.

Turbulent decade

It is already evident that the second decade of the millennium has begun in the most startling, revolutionary fashion. A region-wide mass revolt coming after decades of reaction and unspeakable oppression, leaping across national boundaries, demonstrates also the validity of Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Whether this wave of mass struggle reaches East Asia and China remains to be seen, but its effects on consciousness, not least by shattering the myth of the ‘all-powerful regime’, are already considerable.

The significance of these massive class battles must be studied everywhere by youth and workers who want to build a movement for change. These events raise vital questions about the role of the state, the role of “democratic” imperialism (which was behind the dictators all the way to the finish), the need for independent organisation of the working class, the need for a party, and the need for a socialist programme to replace not just corrupt elites, but also the brutal system of capitalism they rest upon. This is the only way to achieve real and lasting democratic rights and an end to poverty and oppression.

[RedStarOverChina]

The reports of censoring the word "Egypt" has been widely circulated in Western media like a shit load of other false information regarding China.

In actuality, news about Egypt has been flooding every news outlet, online or otherwise. I personally went to several major networking sites and posted issues regarding Egypt as well as browsed other Egypt-related issues.


The protest they called for was supposed to be on the 20th of Feburary, which has already come to pass. The biggest "protest" so far happened in Beijing, in which according to one protestor, about 500 people showed up. There's no way of telling how many of these 500 people are actual protestors, how many are on-lookers or how many are cops. No banner was unleashed.

[Crux]

The reports of censoring the word "Egypt" has been widely circulated in Western media like a shit load of other false information regarding China.

In actuality, news about Egypt has been flooding every news outlet, online or otherwise. I personally went to several major networking sites and posted issues regarding Egypt as well as browsed other Egypt-related issues.


The protest they called for was supposed to be on the 20th of Feburary, which has already come to pass. The biggest "protest" so far happened in Beijing, in which according to one protestor, about 500 people showed up. There's no way of telling how many of these 500 people are actual protestors, how many are on-lookers or how many are cops. No banner was unleashed.
Three sites – Sina.com, Netease.com and Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – have seen “Egypt” blocked as a keyword. Also, the search engines on some of the most popular micro-blogging sites show no results for the words “Egypt,” “Cairo,” “Tunisia” and “Jasmine Revolution.”

[The Red Next Door]

I wonder if this is, another upper bebe middle class kids led revolution that need to be spank with the belt.

[RedStarOverChina]

Three sites – Sina.com, Netease.com and Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – have seen “Egypt” blocked as a keyword. Also, the search engines on some of the most popular micro-blogging sites show no results for the words “Egypt,” “Cairo,” “Tunisia” and “Jasmine Revolution.”
I actually have an account at Sina.com, it is the biggest of the three that you have mentioned. I have several tweets with regards to Egypt. Search results are available for Egypt, Cairo, Tunisia, but not Jamine Revolution.

[RedStarOverChina]

China police break up 'protests' after online appeal


Police in China showed up in force in several major cities after an online call for a "jasmine revolution".
Calls for people to protest and shout "we want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness", were circulated on Chinese microblog sites.
The message was first posted on a US-based Chinese-language website.
Several rights activists were detained beforehand and three people were arrested in Shanghai, but the call for mass protests was not well answered.
Reports from Shanghai and Beijing said there appeared to be many onlookers curious about the presence of so many police and journalists at the proposed protest sites, in busy city-centre shopping areas.
Police in the two cities dispersed small crowds who had gathered. There were no reports of protests in 11 other cities where people were urged to gather on Sunday.
The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says the men arrested there were roughly handled as they were dragged away shouting "why are you arresting me, I haven't done anything wrong".
Our correspondent says it was not clear what prompted the arrests and the men had not shouted any political slogans.
China's authorities blocked searches for the word jasmine on the internet.
Protesters in Tunisia who overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January called their movement the Jasmine Revolution.
On Saturday President Hu Jintao called for stricter controls on the internet "to guide public opinion" and "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society".


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12517909

[RedStarOverChina]

Most of these "revolutionaries" are middle class keyboard commandos who, like the Egyptian Twitterers (who promptly went home to "dream" after Mubarak is replaced with the military), are beneficiaries of China's free-market economic policies. It's not all that surprising that they prefer not to risk everything in an open confrontation with the state. The real victims are not sufficiently organized to have their own voice.

[Crux]

Most of these "revolutionaries" are middle class keyboard commandos who, like the Egyptian Twitterers (who promptly went home to "dream" after Mubarak is replaced with the military), are beneficiaries of China's free-market economic policies. It's not all that surprising that they prefer not to risk everything in an open confrontation with the state. The real victims are not sufficiently organized to have their own voice.
The Egyptian revolution is far from over. Might it well be true that those few who has gone out now are mainly from the middle class, china has seen some pretty serious strike waves recently, as you are well aware. I remain optimistic.

[gorillafuck]

I wonder if this is, another upper bebe middle class kids led revolution that need to be spank with the belt.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/10/china-farmer-fights-evict_n_606626.html

do you think the only chinese people who oppose china are middle class kids?

[Crux]

I wonder if this is, another upper bebe middle class kids led revolution that need to be spank with the belt.
Just like the massacre of the students and worker's in Tianmen square, am I right? Does the PSL still maintain fraternal relations with the bureaucracy of the, so called, "Communist Party of China"?

[The Red Next Door]

Overthrowing the current chinese government, would cause capitalism to move further in China. Under the CPC capitalism is under control to a certain extended to the point. That the government can protect and intervene in foreign businesses, trying to exploit the people of china . The only good thing about capitalism in china under the cpc is that. the capitalist reform can be dismantle depending on, new leadership within the CPC.

[Crux]

Overthrowing the current chinese government, would cause capitalism to move further in China. Under the CPC capitalism is under control to a certain extended to the point. That the government can protect and intervene in foreign businesses, trying to exploit the people of china . The only good thing about capitalism in china under the cpc is that. the capitalist reform can be dismantle depending on, new leadership within the CPC.
The current chinese government causes capitalism to move further in china.
Domestic chinese capitalists do not exploit the chinese working class?
The CCP regime does not exploit and repress the chinese working class?
PSL: Defend the chinese bureacracy and capitalist class against the threat of being of overthrown!
And a shift in politics is merely down to changing the leadership of the CCP?
Nice.

[GPDP]

Who the hell comes up with these names? Whose stupid idea was it to name revolutions after colors?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Fuck! Since China calls itself Socialist already there is no hope for a Socialist uprising among the Chinese workers.

Hungary, 1956.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Hungary, 1956.
A socialist uprising that had widespread participation by fascists, backing by the west, and anti-semitic pogroms? I'm sure there were a fair amount of workers who had genuine grievances with the way things were run but c'mon... Ultimately, it's clear as day it was a counter-revolution

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yeah! Just look what they did to poor Koba!

http://i52.tinypic.com/rh5r39.jpg

:crying:

[Pretty Flaco]

Overthrowing the current chinese government, would cause capitalism to move further in China. Under the CPC capitalism is under control to a certain extended to the point. That the government can protect and intervene in foreign businesses, trying to exploit the people of china . The only good thing about capitalism in china under the cpc is that. the capitalist reform can be dismantle depending on, new leadership within the CPC.

Yes, I'm sure the upper class Chinese who benefit the most from capitalism are about to demolish it. I bet Marx would have said "those workers are too dumb to overthrow capitalism on their own!", am I right?

[Bright Banana Beard]

Yes, I'm sure the upper class Chinese who benefit the most from capitalism are about to demolish it. I bet Marx would have said "those workers are too dumb to overthrow capitalism on their own!", am I right

Where does he said this? He didn't even say the word only.

[The Red Next Door]

PSL: Defend the chinese bureacracy and capitalist class against the threat of being of overthrown!

Nice.


Oh that is the type of the Iceburg, just imagine if, it was replace by a US back government and the current government is beneficial for the Cuban, Venezuelan and nations in Africa.

It would be bad, if those governments lose the cpc.

[pranabjyoti]

I want the present CPC replaced by a real Maoist CPC, and probably that would be the best in this situation. In any condition, I don't want Chinese working class to fall in the traps of pseudo leaders who want China to be a fully pro-imperialist capitalism.

[The Red Next Door]

I want the present CPC replaced by a real Maoist CPC, and probably that would be the best in this situation. In any condition, I don't want Chinese working class to fall in the traps of pseudo leaders who want China to be a fully pro-imperialist capitalism.


That would weaking China, then you have US back forces trying to get into power, What are we going to do, if they win? Also, China is not imperialist; the last time, I check imperialist countries try to under develop other countries, China been helping Cuba, Sudan, Venezuela develop into independent functioning nations.

[Jose Gracchus]

A socialist uprising that had widespread participation by fascists, backing by the west, and anti-semitic pogroms? I'm sure there were a fair amount of workers who had genuine grievances with the way things were run but c'mon... Ultimately, it's clear as day it was a counter-revolution

How was their "widespread participation" by "fascists"? Can you give some evidence? How did the West "back" it either by rhetoric? Evidence?

A 'fair amount' of workers had 'genuine grievances'? (I do love how MLs slip exactly into the most pathetic liberal-esque apologia for their adored regimes). Actually there was a general strike and a nascent workers' council and factory committee movement.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Why would a real Maoist government weaken China? Because your tankie excuses can't explain how a more radical and revolutionary government would actually be a blow to the world movement. Actually Maoist China helped more revolutions (without opportunist motives) than any other country really in history (granted Cuba never had the amount of people and or money that China had.) The US can not just walts into China and take it. The Chinese people are no strangers to imperialism and would surely fight off any U$ attempt to take over China.

[gorillafuck]

Overthrowing the current chinese government, would cause capitalism to move further in China. Under the CPC capitalism is under control to a certain extended to the point. That the government can protect and intervene in foreign businesses, trying to exploit the people of china.Chinese workers are clearly very exploited, half of American goods come from Chinese sweatshops.

And capitalism is under control to a certain extent by any capitalist state, look at Scandinavian social democracies. It's "under control".


The only good thing about capitalism in china under the cpc is that. the capitalist reform can be dismantle depending on, new leadership within the CPC.The CPC is firmly controlled by capitalists. And if it plans to dismantle capitalism, uh, when?

[Pretty Flaco]

Where does he said this? He didn't even say the word only.

I was being sarcastic. There is nothing remotely socialist about the CPC, except for their name of course.

[The Red Next Door]

Why would a real Maoist government weaken China? Because your tankie excuses can't explain how a more radical and revolutionary government would actually be a blow to the world movement. Actually Maoist China helped more revolutions (without opportunist motives) than any other country really in history (granted Cuba never had the amount of people and or money that China had.) The US can not just walts into China and take it. The Chinese people are no strangers to imperialism and would surely fight off any U$ attempt to take over China.

Government are weak after a major shift and the mcpc are just as bad.

[the last donut of the night]

I In any condition, I don't want Chinese working class to fall in the traps of pseudo leaders who want China to be a fully pro-imperialist capitalism.

gee thanks for your worries, i don't think the working class can do it without you, pranab

:sneaky:

[Niccolò Rossi]

I wonder if this is, another upper bebe middle class kids led revolution that need to be spank with the belt.

You're a disgrace.

Nic.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Oh that is the type of the Iceburg, just imagine if, it was replace by a US back government and the current government is beneficial for the Cuban, Venezuelan and nations in Africa.

It would be bad, if those governments lose the cpc.

A US-backed government in China?

... what?

China is an imperialist nation. They are the second most powerful nation in the world, with great potential to become even more powerful than the U.S. Why would they EVER give in to American pressure? That makes absolutely no sense.

[Toppler]

I want the present CPC replaced by a real Maoist CPC, and probably that would be the best in this situation. In any condition, I don't want Chinese working class to fall in the traps of pseudo leaders who want China to be a fully pro-imperialist capitalism.

Yeah, because cannibalization of "class enemies" in Guanxi during the Cultural Revolution (including children), mass murder of teachers, professionals and whoever angered the mobs of glorified angry teenagers "Red Guards", "struggle sessions" and the Great Leap Forward were such good ideas...

It was probably the worst regime ever under Mao.

[Toppler]

How was their "widespread participation" by "fascists"? Can you give some evidence? How did the West "back" it either by rhetoric? Evidence?

A 'fair amount' of workers had 'genuine grievances'? (I do love how MLs slip exactly into the most pathetic liberal-esque apologia for their adored regimes). Actually there was a general strike and a nascent workers' council and factory committee movement.

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2006/10/hungarian-legacy.html

The reason for the 1956 revolt was not "fascism", but the fact that Rakosi was horrible and many kids were hungry.

It wasn't really a failiure after all through. The new Kadar goverment was pro-Moscow, but it made Hungary into one of the best communist countries (and probably also one of the best countries at Earth) to live in.

[Delenda Carthago]

Yeah, because cannibalization of "class enemies" in Guanxi during the Cultural Revolution (including children), mass murder of teachers, professionals and whoever angered the mobs of glorified angry teenagers "Red Guards", "struggle sessions" and the Great Leap Forward were such good ideas...

It was probably the worst regime ever under Mao.
Dont forget that Mao used to kill people for fun when he had his lunch.There was no TV at the time so he had to amuse himself someway...

[Toppler]

Dont forget that Mao used to kill people for fun when he had his lunch.There was no TV at the time so he had to amuse himself someway...

Sorry but this is not propaganda. Mao's rule was a catastrophe, that's true.

The "I lunch when looking at rotting enemies on spikes" guy was Vlad Tepes.

[RedHal]

Sorry but this is not propaganda. Mao's rule was a catastrophe, that's true.

The "I lunch when looking at rotting enemies on spikes" guy was Vlad Tepes.

and how much study did you do about the Maoist period from 1949-1976? Did you just watch a bunch of TV shows and Jung Chang books and come to your conclusion?

If the Maoist period was a catastrophe, why did life expectancy improve from 32 to 65 years?

[Toppler]

and how much study did you do about the Maoist period from 1949-1976? Did you just watch a bunch of TV shows and Jung Chang books and come to your conclusion?

If the Maoist period was a catastrophe, why did life expectancy improve from 32 to 65 years?

I don't watch TV and I've read about the CR on the Internet.

And I don't fucking excuse cannibalism, 3 years of horrible famine and political repression in the "parade tortured enemies around the city and execute them in front of people who are splashed with the blood of them" just because "life expectancy improved". Tell that to the people whose kids were eaten in Guanxi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Struggle_sessions_and_purges .

It was improved because infant mortality was lower. People didn't really live just 32 years http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/common-misconceptions-about-science-ii-life-expectancy .

Seriously, until the Left stops excusing Mao and Stalin for "improving life expectancy" (which is bullshit anyways, as it tells more about infant mortality than anything, which was common in pre-industrial societies and that's why Western "intellectuals" think ancient and 3rd world people lived 32 years while it is more like "half of all babies die before the 1st year of their life, the rest lives to old age"]") till that time we will be hated. And this is coming from a guy who recognizes the merits and advantages and the high living standard achieved without sweatshop labor in the Eastern Bloc.

If you really want to defend a communist leader, defend somebody sane. Like Kadar, Dubcek, or Honecker. Somebody who is actually worth defending and has brought their country to a living standard in some ways higher than in the West http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,824560,00.html .

Some quotes about the results of Mao's "great rule":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine#Outcome


I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people]


In the second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi. Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead. In one county, Guangshan, one-third of the people had died. Although there were dead people everywhere, the local leaders enjoyed good meals and fine liquor. ... I had seen people who had told the truth being destroyed. Did I dare to write it?


Liu Desheng, guilty of poaching a sweet potato, was covered in urine . . . He, his wife, and his son were also forced into a heap of excrement. Then tongs were used to prise his mouth open after he refused to swallow excrement. He died three weeks later.

If you support a leader whose forces forced starving people to "disclose their (nonexistent) hidden grain supplies" by covering them in shit and urine just because the statistics show that he "improved life expectancy" (in the 3 year famine, it plummeted to 32 years for a while again, and as low as 8.8 years for Anhui and 13 for Sichuan).

Sorry, I don't support leaders who force a starving family to wallow in shit and piss. Even if they brought world peace and the second coming of Christ, Buddha, Vishnu and Muhhamed simultaniously.

[Omsk]

Horrible thing's indeed,Mao was clearly not normal,nor was the leading top of the time,excluding some of the regime member's,the cultural revolution was one of the grimmest moment's in the newer history of China.
But Mao's may be the most fascinating life of the Twentieth Century. He is a man who did everything right in the rise to power, and almost everything wrong after achieving it. He nearly destroyed China with his economic policies, but if not for Mao's brilliance as a guerilla leader and strategist, China wouldn't exist at all.

[Crux]

Oh that is the type of the Iceburg, just imagine if, it was replace by a US back government and the current government is beneficial for the Cuban, Venezuelan and nations in Africa.

It would be bad, if those governments lose the cpc.
Yes, because the exploitation of african worker's by chinese multi-nationals is very progressive. Do I need to remind you China is one of the U.S main trading partners? You must be very naive if you think the current chinese regime is in any way, shape or form progressive. But clearly backing of the BRIC countries is the duty of any socialist. Rather than, you know, standing on the side of the chinese worker's fighting against the very same regime.

[Queercommie Girl]

Fuck! Since China calls itself Socialist already there is no hope for a Socialist uprising among the Chinese workers. If there is, they are going to bring massive Neo-Liberalism and 'Democracy' and become another American-Allied superpower. After this, a workers revolution is sure to be crushed around the world.


This idea is totally ridiculous.

In case you don't know, China is officially a "Maoist country", but revolutionary Maoists are already active in China at the moment, despite the risk of being sent to prison for it.

Ever heard of the concept of a Second Revolution?

[Queercommie Girl]

Overthrowing the current chinese government, would cause capitalism to move further in China. Under the CPC capitalism is under control to a certain extended to the point. That the government can protect and intervene in foreign businesses, trying to exploit the people of china . The only good thing about capitalism in china under the cpc is that. the capitalist reform can be dismantle depending on, new leadership within the CPC.

The Chinese leadership is already selling the Chinese people out to the West. How did such huge amounts of foreign capital flood into China in the first place? Didn't you see that the majority of the strikes in the last major strike wave in China occurred in Japanese-capital enterprises? Can't you see that Foxconn, one of the most oppressive capitalist enterprises in China at the moment, causing multiple worker suicides, is a Taiwanese-capital company (not mainland Chinese)?

This is why even many left-wing Chinese populist-nationalists are highly critical of the Chinese state in various ways, because unlike those at the top, these people at least genuinely care about the welfare and interests of the Chinese people as a whole.

[Queercommie Girl]

In any case, while a mass protest against the Chinese state won't automatically be progressive in the concrete sense, without genuine progressive and socialist forces leading it, it's certainly not something we can try to hold down either.

Otherwise we would end up on the wrong side of the picket line to say the least.

[Queercommie Girl]

Oh that is the type of the Iceburg, just imagine if, it was replace by a US back government and the current government is beneficial for the Cuban, Venezuelan and nations in Africa.

It would be bad, if those governments lose the cpc.

In Africa, some countries have a relatively positive view of China (compared with the West) but some don't. But no-one seriously sees China as "socialist" in anyway. It's just a matter of whether the Chinese exploits Africans in a more humane way or a less humane way compared with the West. Both are capitalist, there is no qualitative difference.

You should know that recently there was a Chinese documentary praising Cuba but the CCP leadership literally banned it from circulating. The capitalists in power are afraid of any kind of genuine socialist propaganda, even from a partially distorted country like Cuba.

The Chinese leadership does not give a shit about Cuba or Venezuela in any genuine ideological sense, you would be a fool to believe otherwise. China is only using countries like Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Islamic countries like Iran, as a strategic counterweight against Western imperialism, in order to further its own interests abroad.

While I disagree with the West's "demonisation" of the Chinese state, China today is certainly not "socialist" or even Stalinist in any concrete sense, and it is no better on the whole than Western capitalism. In some ways it may even be worse than some Western capitalist countries. But it's true that China is still far less of a reactionary force on the international level compared with US imperialism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Horrible thing's indeed,Mao was clearly not normal,nor was the leading top of the time,excluding some of the regime member's,the cultural revolution was one of the grimmest moment's in the newer history of China.
But Mao's may be the most fascinating life of the Twentieth Century. He is a man who did everything right in the rise to power, and almost everything wrong after achieving it. He nearly destroyed China with his economic policies, but if not for Mao's brilliance as a guerilla leader and strategist, China wouldn't exist at all.

While Mao made many mistakes, trying to paint him as some kind of "brutal dictator" who is "mad" and "abnormal" is just Western imperialist propaganda. It's like those people who keep on trying to portray Stalin as a kind of Hitler-like figure and a crazy mass murderer.

I won't defend everything Mao did, since I'm only a semi-Maoist, but I think on the whole he was better than Stalin (I don't completely reject Stalin either). Mao Zedong was the only "Stalinist" who explicitly gave Chinese workers the right to strike, which was officially written into the Chinese Constitution, and only negated by Deng in 1982.

[Omsk]

I am not trying to demonize Mao,im tyring to say that he made huge mistakes,although,in the end,China prevailed.On the countrary comrade,i want to say that mao saved China in WW2,which was a hard task,he fought of the imperialist's and his home-land enemies and he saved China from falling into the influence of the western world.So,basically,we have the same opinion,at some thing's he shined,at some thing's he failed.

[Queercommie Girl]

I am not trying to demonize Mao,im tyring to say that he made huge mistakes,although,in the end,China prevailed.On the countrary comrade,i want to say that mao saved China in WW2,which was a hard task,he fought of the imperialist's and his home-land enemies and he saved China from falling into the influence of the western world.So,basically,we have the same opinion,at some thing's he shined,at some thing's he failed.

China today has not "prevailed" from a Marxist perspective. China has become an ultra-capitalist economy with a huge economic inequality and a state structure that is highly oppressive, where workers frequently commit suicide due to overwork.

At least under Mao, China had a planned economy and universal public welfare, despite the distortions in the political super-structure.

This is why radical Maoists in China are calling for a second revolution.

[Omsk]

state structure that is highly oppressive
Same as in Mao's time.

China today has not "prevailed" from a Marxist perspective.
I was not talking about the modern China,i was talking about the China that had risen from the ashes after WW2,Mao saved it,and in some points made damage to it,especialy with his economic policies.

[Queercommie Girl]

Same as in Mao's time.


The Ginni Index in Mao's China was around 0.18, today's China has a Ginni Index of around 0.5. This is extremely significant for anyone who claims to be a socialist.

Or are you like one of those liberal bourgeois pro-democracy activists who only cares about the political superstructure?

What is the use of an "aristocratic republic" for the poorest layers of society? How can "political democracy" help them in any way?

Economic base determines political superstructure.

[Omsk]

No,i am a socialist,but i dont support the rule of a man such as Mao.

liberal bourgeois pro-democracy activists You sure pick your word's to provoke.:)
Dont speak of opression if you are defending Mao,that was the original cause of which i commented your original post.
And you are escaping from the main subject,i was trying to clear out something-
Mao's politics and leadership did great in the war,after the war,he started to make alot of bad moves.

[Queercommie Girl]

No,i am a socialist,but i dont support the rule of a man such as Mao.
You sure pick your word's to provoke.:)
Dont speak of opression if you are defending Mao,that was the original cause of which i commented your original post.
And you are escaping from the main subject,i was trying to clear out something-
Mao's politics and leadership did great in the war,after the war,he started to make alot of bad moves.

Mao made economic mistakes sure, though much of it has been over-exaggerated.

But for me the Ginni Index figure of 0.18 means something. Mao may have made mistakes, but from a socialist perspective, those were far less than the mistakes of totally abandoning socialism that the Chinese revisionist leadership is making today.

[Omsk]

So many milion people dead,from the famine,which can be considered as a product of the wrong policies on the economie and production.But i must say,Mao was a brilliant military - guerila leader.

[Queercommie Girl]

So many milion people dead,from the famine,which can be considered as a product of the wrong policies on the economie and production.But i must say,Mao was a brilliant military - guerila leader.

The famine was not totally Mao's fault. Seriously, a lot of it could be blamed on local level bureaucrats. Also, no-one can control the weather.

Yes, I do think the famine, which was partly Mao's fault, is still a smaller mistake than the mistake of turning away from socialism which the leadership is making today.

[red cat]

The famine was not totally Mao's fault. Seriously, a lot of it could be blamed on local level bureaucrats. Also, no-one can control the weather.

Yes, I do think the famine, which was partly Mao's fault, is still a smaller mistake than the mistake of turning away from socialism which the leadership is making today.

This one is not a mistake for the leadership. It is a mistake for the lower level cadres who still hope to achieve communism under the present regime, but it is not a mistake for the leadership. For them it is a conscious act of betraying the masses.

[khad]

So many milion people dead,from the famine,which can be considered as a product of the wrong policies on the economie and production.But i must say,Mao was a brilliant military - guerila leader.
The aggregate death rate at the height of the famine was still lower than typical year-to-year death rate during the nationalist period.

[RED DAVE]

Considering the fact that Maoism rejected the working class as the leading class of the Chinese Revolution, any Maoism in the beliefs of Chinese revolutionaries will lead to disaster. It will lead to the same class collaboration as created the current situation.

The present regime in China is a direct descendant of the previous regime with no change in class character. The only difference is that we now have corporate capitalism in addition to state capitalism.

By forging the "bloc of four classes," instead of putting the working class forward as the only class that could change China root and branch, the Maoists were the bridge that the bourgeoisie walked on on the way to state power.

So go and argue about who betrayed who, where and when. Maoism was a betrayal of the working class from the beginning.

The fact that some people still have the illusion that somehow, some way, somewhere, the current regime will do anything but foster capitalism is bizarre.

What they probably need is something like Maoism Anonymous.

STEP 1 - I admitted I was powerless over Maoism; that my life had become unmanageable.

STEP 2 - Came to believe that a power greater than myself, the working class, could restore me to sanity.

RED DAVE

[Omsk]

@khad:Why are you comparing these two regimes?The high death-toll of the famine is closely connected to Mao and his bureaucrats.And we are talking about Mao,not the casualties and the general loss of life during those hard years.You all act as if i am compleatly against Mao,im not,i just think that after the hard won battle for freedom against the nationalists and Japan,he made some bad moves,which resulted in the loss of alot of human life.

[Queercommie Girl]

Considering the fact that Maoism rejected the working class as the leading class of the Chinese Revolution, any Maoism in the beliefs of Chinese revolutionaries will lead to disaster. It will lead to the same class collaboration as created the current situation.

The present regime in China is a direct descendant of the previous regime with no change in class character. The only difference is that we now have corporate capitalism in addition to state capitalism.

By forging the "bloc of four classes," instead of putting the working class forward as the only class that could change China root and branch, the Maoists were the bridge that the bourgeoisie walked on on the way to state power.

So go and argue about who betrayed who, where and when. Maoism was a betrayal of the working class from the beginning.

The fact that some people still have the illusion that somehow, some way, somewhere, the current regime will do anything but foster capitalism is bizarre.

What they probably need is something like Maoism Anonymous.

STEP 1 - I admitted I was powerless over Maoism; that my life had become unmanageable.

STEP 2 - Came to believe that a power greater than myself, the working class, could restore me to sanity.

RED DAVE

Maoism believes that the working class is the leading class, while the peasantry is the semi-leading class.

If you think Maoism is completely wrong simply because of the state China is in now, I could also say that the doctrines of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 must be wrong too, since the Soviet Union that they have created has completely fallen.

In fact, it can say it's even worse than Maoism since the PRC hasn't completely fallen yet.

Well, I'm not an orthodox Maoist, but if you look at most of the active Marxist forces in the world today, the majority creatively draw on the ideological resources of multiple tendencies, such as Maoism and Trotskyism etc, rather than just dogmatically hold onto one narrow tendency all the time.

[Queercommie Girl]

@khad:Why are you comparing these two regimes?The high death-toll of the famine is closely connected to Mao and his bureaucrats.And we are talking about Mao,not the casualties and the general loss of life during those hard years.You all act as if i am compleatly against Mao,im not,i just think that after the hard won battle for freedom against the nationalists and Japan,he made some bad moves,which resulted in the loss of alot of human life.

Mao and the bureaucrats weren't in the same camp, which was partly why Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution against bureaucratism.

In Mao's writings, there are lots of instances where he explicitly denounces the bureaucracy.

[Omsk]

Oh i didnt mean that Mao and the bureaucrats were getting along good,i just listed that because i think that bureaucrats are responsible for the bad situation and hunger of that time. The bureaucrats exaggerated the amount of grain produced,they usaly didnt do their job well,and that resulted in the working class having alot problems.They wanted to see themselves atop the working class,and i am glad Mao was against that.

[StalinFanboy]

Maoism believes that the working class is the leading class, while the peasantry is the semi-leading class.

If you think Maoism is completely wrong simply because of the state China is in now, I could also say that the doctrines of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 must be wrong too, since the Soviet Union that they have created has completely fallen.

In fact, it can say it's even worse than Maoism since the PRC hasn't completely fallen yet.

Well, I'm not an orthodox Maoist, but if you look at most of the active Marxist forces in the world today, the majority creatively draw on the ideological resources of multiple tendencies, such as Maoism and Trotskyism etc, rather than just dogmatically hold onto one narrow tendency all the time.

When something leads to failure it is necessary to re-evaluate it.

[Queercommie Girl]

When something leads to failure it is necessary to re-evaluate it.

Well, technically Lenin and Trotsky's 1917 revolution is also an empirical failure now, since the Soviet Union is no more. So don't apply a double standard to Maoism and Trotskyism.

By the way, the radical Maoists in China and elsewhere who are calling for a Second Revolution do have an analysis of why China turned capitalist, just like Trotskyists have an analysis for the degeneration of the USSR.

Whether these are objectively right or not is another thing, and beyond the scope of this thread, but you can't just say genuine Maoists have no analysis for the situation in China.

[Jose Gracchus]

Why would Maoism be really relevant now in China anyway? China is not some "semi-feudal" quasi-colonial state, with almost both feet still in medieval agriculture. The working class today is enormous.

[red cat]

Maoism holds true for capitalist countries too. In capitalist countries the implementation of Maoism is different from that in semi-colonial countries.

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm not always being antagonistic or argumentative, y'know. But you make it hard to agree with you when you never explain what you're talking about without recourse to merely allusion or rhetoric.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Government are weak after a major shift and the mcpc are just as bad.


Well I didn't say the MCPC but even then it would be much better and more socialist than the current party. what you are saying is chauvinist (which is my biggest problem with the tankie stance on anti-imperialism) because you are claiming that the Chinese people are weak and for some reason (that you or any other tankie would not and could not ever give) think that the Chinese people would hand the keys of their country over to the imperialist. Most of the protesting going on in China that are usually reported here as "pro-democracy" are most always anti-capitalist. I think it is a bullshit cop-out to say "any revolution weakens a nation" it can also embolden a people and create a revolutionary fever. You underestimate the spirit of the Chinese and any other people when you make such statements. Long Live Maoism and fuck Dengism

[Delenda Carthago]

Why would Maoism be really relevant now in China anyway? China is not some "semi-feudal" quasi-colonial state, with almost both feet still in medieval agriculture. The working class today is enormous.
this.

[Omsk]

China is not some "semi-feudal" quasi-colonial state, with almost both feet still in medieval agriculture
Who put China on it's feet?Who defeated both the Japaniese and the nationalist while ignoring the help offers from the capitalist's and imperialist's?
Mao.He made tremendeous war efforts which paid off.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Who put China on it's feet?Who defeated both the Japaniese and the nationalist while ignoring the help offers from the capitalist's and imperialist's?
Mao.He made tremendeous war efforts which paid off.

Those are a lot of accomplishment for one guy. He must have had super powers.

[red cat]

I'm not always being antagonistic or argumentative, y'know. But you make it hard to agree with you when you never explain what you're talking about without recourse to merely allusion or rhetoric.

The Maoist theories of the mass-line, revolutions within revolutions, and the method of dividing the enemy when required are applicable everywhere. Moreover, a people's war is necessary in a capitalist country to achieve socialism. There it usually takes the form of the armed working class conducting urban insurrections first, and then consolidating power in the villages, like in the Russian revolution for example.

[The Red Next Door]

Well I didn't say the MCPC but even then it would be much better and more socialist than the current party. what you are saying is chauvinist (which is my biggest problem with the tankie stance on anti-imperialism) because you are claiming that the Chinese people are weak and for some reason (that you or any other tankie would not and could not ever give) think that the Chinese people would hand the keys of their country over to the imperialist. Most of the protesting going on in China that are usually reported here as "pro-democracy" are most always anti-capitalist. I think it is a bullshit cop-out to say "any revolution weakens a nation" it can also embolden a people and create a revolutionary fever. You underestimate the spirit of the Chinese and any other people when you make such statements. Long Live Maoism and fuck Dengism

Fuck Ultra Leftism and idealism. I am not being a chauvinist, I am being real even thought. It seem like America want to be friends with the revisionist of china, but in reality. It want to get rid of this government.

They will use any opportunity including hijacking this movement to ousted the government, then ..... will cpc capitalism is just a tip of the iceburg, what happen; again. If some us back forces take over?


You going be really having something to ***** about, I do not trust a color revolution unless it red, but it not. So i am going to camp with CPC.

Until otherwise,


Also, you should no better, you preach to me about color revolutions are CIA back movements.

[pranabjyoti]

Fuck Ultra Leftism and idealism. I am not being a chauvinist, I am being real even thought. It seem like America want to be friends with the revisionist of china, but in reality. It want to get rid of this government.

They will use any opportunity including hijacking this movement to ousted the government, then ..... will cpc capitalism is just a tip of the iceburg, what happen; again. If some us back forces take over?


You going be really having something to ***** about, I do not trust a color revolution unless it red, but it not. So i am going to camp with CPC.

Until otherwise,


Also, you should no better, you preach to me about color revolutions are CIA back movements.
Wait a minute, can you show some examples of hijacking of a Maoist movement by imperialism. The Indira Gandhi regime of India was pro-USSR and much more anti-US. The US leaders of that time didn't consider India and Indira to be their friend. But still, not even Indian state backed media accused the Naxalite movement, a Maoist movement, to be backed by imperialism. The present CPI(Maoist) called itself a successor of that movement and it has been in the list of "terrorist" organizations by US and other imperialist countries and as the "greatest internal threat" by the comprador bourgeoisie Indian state.
So far, there is no evidence that CIA backed any RED revolution.
Moreover, there is no mention of imprisoning and sentencing of Maoist and pro-worker activists in imperialist media while they just jump into any news of any pro-western "human rights activist" or like that. If they have any intention to hijack any Maoist movements, then their backed pro-imperialist media will certainly highlight this kind of news i.e. the imprisonment of Maoist labor activists.
Moreover, Maoism is the flourished form of Marxism and it have an international base at present. Do you think, other Maoist parties around the world would let the movement hijacked by CIA? Without their active support and contribution, a Maoist movement can not grow properly in China at present.

[The Red Next Door]

Wait a minute, can you show some examples of hijacking of a Maoist movement by imperialism. The Indira Gandhi regime of India was pro-USSR and much more anti-US. The US leaders of that time didn't consider India and Indira to be their friend. But still, not even Indian state backed media accused the Naxalite movement, a Maoist movement, to be backed by imperialism. The present CPI(Maoist) called itself a successor of that movement and it has been in the list of "terrorist" organizations by US and other imperialist countries and as the "greatest internal threat" by the comprador bourgeoisie Indian state.
So far, there is no evidence that CIA backed any RED revolution.
Moreover, there is no mention of imprisoning and sentencing of Maoist and pro-worker activists in imperialist media while they just jump into any news of any pro-western "human rights activist" or like that. If they have any intention to hijack any Maoist movements, then their backed pro-imperialist media will certainly highlight this kind of news i.e. the imprisonment of Maoist labor activists.
Moreover, Maoism is the flourished form of Marxism and it have an international base at present. Do you think, other Maoist parties around the world would let the movement hijacked by CIA? Without their active support and contribution, a Maoist movement can not grow properly in China at present.


You had misunderstood, what i said. This revolution is being called the Jasmine Revolution and i do not trust a movement that is called that, because if it is called anyother color besides Red, then it is probably a CIA back movement. I did not say that red movements are being led by the cia, Everyone knows that the CIA and Imperialists hate the color red. :)

[RED DAVE]

The Maoist theories of the mass-line, revolutions within revolutions, and the method of dividing the enemy when required are applicable everywhere.So are you saying that the working class in the USA should ally itself with the "native bourgeoisie" and the peasantry?


Moreover, a people's war is necessary in a capitalist country to achieve socialism.Right: guerrilla warfare in the hills of West Virginia.


There it usually takes the form of the armed working class conducting urban insurrections firstThis is as much a fantasy as guerrilla warfare. The working class in major industrial countries cannot fight the army head on.


and then consolidating power in the villages, like in the Russian revolution for example.We don't have villages like in Russia.

You have no concept of the political situation of the USA.

RED DAVE

[Omsk]

We don't have villages like in Russia.
You have villages in the US,you probably dont call them villages,rather 'small towns'.Its like the larger urbanized villages of Russia.

[Jose Gracchus]

Jesus. No. You haven't a =clue what you're talking about. I used to be more positive on Maoists, but the shit they say makes me move further and further over to the Trotskyists' polemic against them.

The issue is not the 'size' of the villages, but their productive relations, sociological characteristics, etc. Over 70-80% of the American population is urbanized or suburbanized. Suburbs are lower density, certainly, but they are in essence nothing but detached dormitory zones for workers. They are totally dependent on central industry and social services, ad nauseum. There is nowhere to 'melt' back into a countryside. What you are talking about is terrorism, in practice. It is totally divorced from First World conditions. The United States has, broadly speaking, no villages. Furthermore the U.S. is so urbanized rural-based terrorism or guerrilla warfare is much more impractical and much more divorced from the majority of the masses.

Do you really not grasp the different material conditions in waging people's war in 1930-1949 China on one hand, versus the U.S. today? There is no peasantry. Quite literally. The United States of America is the bourgeois society par excellence, completely converted to shopkeeping and industrial production - including in agriculture. Less than 1% of the U.S. population even qualifies at petty bourgeois agriculture, family farms. The U.S.'s working class must surely be 70-80% of the population.

Why is "people's war" a requirement to establish socialism? The fact is the Bolsheviks waged no "people's war" in the sense Maoists use the term. The Bolsheviks rose to power on strikes, mass assemblies and councils, and demonstrations. The actual October coup, and the fighting for Moscow and elsewhere, was based on the already mass defections in the Army and Navy, allowing the workers' movement to field Red Guards in support of their revolutionary aims.

This isn't 1949 anymore. Why shouldn't First World and Newly Industrialized States seek urban worker revolution? It makes demographic and social sense. Capitalism has moved forward, and the countryside is much more invaded by capital relations today than 60 years ago.

[RED DAVE]

Maoism believes that the working class is the leading class, while the peasantry is the semi-leading class.There is no indication in Maoist practice that this is true. In every Maoist-led revolution, the working class is, at best, subordinate to the petit-bourgeoisie, as represented by the party. There is no independent role for the working class in the Maoist schema. This is evident in China, Nepal and India.


If you think Maoism is completely wrong simply because of the state China is in now, I could also say that the doctrines of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 must be wrong too, since the Soviet Union that they have created has completely fallen.In the Soviet Union, there was (a) a independent fighting working class; (b) an observable civil war in which the working class and especially its vanguard took a terrible beating; (c) a demonstrable replacement of the working class by petit-bourgeois elements in the party, resulting in counter-revolution,.

In Maoist China (a) the working class never had an independent role in the revolution; (b) when private capitalism replaced state capitalism in the 90s, there was no civil war; (c) the working class was never the leading force in the party.


In fact, it can say it's even worse than Maoism since the PRC hasn't completely fallen yet.Welcome to Fantasy Island.


Well, I'm not an orthodox Maoist, but if you look at most of the active Marxist forces in the world today, the majority creatively draw on the ideological resources of multiple tendencies, such as Maoism and Trotskyism etc, rather than just dogmatically hold onto one narrow tendency all the time.Anyone creatively drawing on Maoist must, first of all, get rid of such fundamental element as the bloc of four classes, the stalinized party and honestly reassess the role of the party in creating state and private capitalism in China and now Nepal.

RED DAVE

[Omsk]

Jesus. No. You haven't a =clue what you're talking about.
You dont have a clue.

rather 'small towns'.Its like the larger urbanized villages of Russia.
Did you skip this part of my post?
I was referring to the US 'villages' as 'small towns' So i was not talking about the agriculture-maintaining population,by 'urbanized' i mean,"more sophisticated" - the population in the small towns of the US is mostly doing jobs that dont have any connection with the agricultural villages of Russia,in fact,only a small number of russian 'villages' are like the small town of the US.

And yes,i am not a Maoist,and i must add,if you are going to call my post's shit,without even reading them properly,i wont insist in further argue with you.:(

[Jose Gracchus]

Yeah, except the whole point of basing yourself on rural villages in Maoism is based on their ability to support themselves, and once liberated, support further struggle elsewhere. American suburbs CANNOT do this. In all sense they are cities with more trees, not American analogues of Indian or Chinese or Nepalese or Philippine villages based on relative agricultural self-sufficiency.

[Omsk]

You have a point there,but this little conversation was based on a misunderstanding,i was trying to say that the US has its own 'villages' but these villages are not like Russian ones,or Chinese,they are all little towns with administration,healt-department,school's,and basicly everything that cities have,while most of the villages in Europe, (the counterpart's of US 'small towns) are self-supportive and usally depend on the small towns (in terms of finance,health,administration) while the US 'small towns' depend on the agriculture-centered villages.Its all a chain realy.

[RED DAVE]

You have a point there,but this little conversation was based on a misunderstanding,i was trying to say that the US has its own 'villages' but these villages are not like Russian ones,or Chinese,they are all little towns with administration,healt-department,school's,and basicly everything that cities have,while most of the villages in Europe, (the counterpart's of US 'small towns) are self-supportive and usally depend on the small towns (in terms of finance,health,administration) while the US 'small towns' depend on the agriculture-centered villages.Its all a chain realy.We don't have "agriculture-centered villages" in the US.

The center of our economy is in the cities. Any strategy based on any place else is a joke. Madison, for example, is a city!

RED DAVE

[Omsk]

All right,not the US,but in some countries in the world,usaly,the villages provide the towns with food,and the towns serve as health,administration quidance,supplies provider.While in the US,as you pointed out in your post,the cities are self-supportive.
Since there are no villages in the US,(as you say) it is normal that the system does not work on the same basics.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Fuck Ultra Leftism and idealism. I am not being a chauvinist, I am being real even thought. It seem like America want to be friends with the revisionist of china, but in reality. It want to get rid of this government.

They will use any opportunity including hijacking this movement to ousted the government, then ..... will cpc capitalism is just a tip of the iceburg, what happen; again. If some us back forces take over?


You going be really having something to ***** about, I do not trust a color revolution unless it red, but it not. So i am going to camp with CPC.

Until otherwise,


Also, you should no better, you preach to me about color revolutions are CIA back movements.

I mean by chauvinism that for whatever reason you seem to think that people in other nations can't use self determination after a revolution. I hate the "a revolution will weaken the government" argument cause hopefully a revolution will smash a government. But I've heard tankies stand against socialist parties in Iran, China, and a few other places in the name of "anti-imperialism."


Unfortunately I was unclear by what I meant and I wanna make myself clear. I do not support the Jasmine revolution, there is no evidence or reason for me to believe that this is popular, progressive or even unfunded protest. All color "revolutions" have been outed as CIA backed and funded plans. I have no reason the believe this is any different. Further more I'd really like to see how things change when their next president comes into office as he has called himself a Maoist and plans to change a lot when he takes power next year (I think it is next year)

[The Hong Se Sun]

All right,not the US,but in some countries in the world,usaly,the villages provide the towns with food,and the towns serve as health,administration quidance,supplies provider.While in the US,as you pointed out in your post,the cities are self-supportive.
Since there are no villages in the US,(as you say) it is normal that the system does not work on the same basics.

Don't listen to Dave, small towns built around farms in the country are what feed the country and Madison is just the current "Look I swear the American people are revolutionary" but will probably amount to nothing. Either the workers will win and go home or they will lose, be mad then go out looking for new jobs and forget all about it.

[Jose Gracchus]

All right,not the US,but in some countries in the world,usaly,the villages provide the towns with food,and the towns serve as health,administration quidance,supplies provider.While in the US,as you pointed out in your post,the cities are self-supportive.
Since there are no villages in the US,(as you say) it is normal that the system does not work on the same basics.

In the U.S. we literally produce food in factories with a complete industrialization and Taylorization of the whole process. There are landowners, but they are usually absentee businessmen who hire out some professionals to run a business. There is no 'organic' rural agriculture anymore.


Don't listen to Dave, small towns built around farms in the country are what feed the country and Madison is just the current "Look I swear the American people are revolutionary" but will probably amount to nothing. Either the workers will win and go home or they will lose, be mad then go out looking for new jobs and forget all about it.

Except again, those small towns aren't based around native farmers. Con-Agra feeds Americans, not Joe Farmer. What's your solution, turn your nose up at Madison? Are you a Third Worldist who thinks we should just protest in support of Third World national liberation movements and wait for someday for the Third Worlders to conquer America or the U.S. to collapse? Rural struggle in the U.S. IS labor struggle in the workplace.

[Omsk]

@Inform Candidate:but that food is usally unhealthy,so i support the system of a agriculture village supplying a city with the needed things,and then,in return,the city supplies the village with medical supplies,machinery,industrial product's.
In my opinion,the difference between the US and some European countries is far to great for us to even talk about any connecting points and similarities.

[RED DAVE]

All right,not the US,Okay, not the leading capitalist nation in the world.


but in some countries in the world,usaly,the villages provide the towns with food,and the towns serve as health,administration quidance,supplies provider.Not in the US.


While in the US,as you pointed out in your post,the cities are self-supportive.They are not self-supportive. Agriculture is done largely on massive corporate farms.


Since there are no villages in the US,(as you say) it is normal that the system does not work on the same basics.Completely different. Maoists need to learn something about the major industrial countries. They're all like that: England, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, etc.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Don't listen to Dave, small towns built around farms
in the country are what feed the countryYou're crazy. The farms you're talking about are corporate entities. The towns around them are basically residences for farm workers and suppliers for the farms. They have nothing to do with the kind of villages in rural societies where much of what is produced is consumed locally.


and Madison is just the current "Look I swear the American people are revolutionary" but will probably amount to nothing. Either the workers will win and go home or they will lose, be mad then go out looking for new jobs and forget all about it.Why don't you go home, clown?

RED DAVE

[Omsk]

Completely different. Maoists need to learn something about the major industrial countries. They're all like that: England, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, etc.
That is basicly what i said.
And i repeat,i am not Maoist.

The towns around them are basically residences for farm workers and suppliers for the farms.
Is the situation same with,for instance,mineing facilities?

[Jose Gracchus]

I think the history of imperialism shows the folly of writing off the First World for revolution. Besides, isn't that really Third Worldism-via-the-back-door? At the end of the day its still imagining some absurd righteous struggle between the impoverished Third Worlders and the First World.

[Crux]

kxd9J1MqkXw

[Queercommie Girl]

I think the history of imperialism shows the folly of writing off the First World for revolution. Besides, isn't that really Third Worldism-via-the-back-door? At the end of the day its still imagining some absurd righteous struggle between the impoverished Third Worlders and the First World.

The exploitation of the Third World by First World imperialism (mainly US imperialism) is an objective fact. To ignore this, to treat the global working class simply as a single uniform category, like a "single slab of concrete", is to favour abstract dogmatic representations of the world over direct and concrete empirical evidence.

Personally, I tend to be more on the side of empiricism than dogmatism when it comes to socialist ideology.

This is not to say that Third World polities are progressive, in fact, many are more oppressive and reactionary than First World polities. But the masses of the Third World have immense revolutionary potential, due to their super-exploited status, as the current wave of mass movements and revolutions in the Middle East have very vividly demonstrated.

You should study Lenin's theory of "capitalism breaking at its weakest link".

[the last donut of the night]

although i was right b4 the idiots defending the CPC regime, i definitely was not b4 any other kinds of idiots

[Queercommie Girl]

Welcome to Fantasy Island.


What "fantasy"? As much as I am against the Chinese state as it exists now, technically the counter-revolution hasn't completely occurred yet, and in many ways the PRC today is still in better shape than the former Soviet Union/Russian Federation.

Surely you know about the massive decline in life expectancy of former Soviet workers after the fall of the USSR?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The exploitation of the Third World by First World imperialism (mainly US imperialism) is an objective fact. To ignore this, to treat the global working class simply as a single uniform category, like a "single slab of concrete", is to favour abstract dogmatic representations of the world over direct and concrete empirical evidence.

Personally, I tend to be more on the side of empiricism than dogmatism when it comes to socialist ideology.

This is not to say that Third World polities are progressive, in fact, many are more oppressive and reactionary than First World polities. But the masses of the Third World have immense revolutionary potential, due to their super-exploited status, as the current wave of mass movements and revolutions in the Middle East have very vividly demonstrated.

You should study Lenin's theory of "capitalism breaking at its weakest link".

Comrade, that was a reference to breaking the weakest of the Big Powers, not to some remote colony or ex-colony in the Third World.

[Queercommie Girl]

Comrade, that was a reference to breaking the weakest of the Big Powers, not to some remote colony or ex-colony in the Third World.

You would need a working class to have a worker's movement, sure, which in the early 20th century you didn't have in many parts of the world.

But today even the most impoverished country in the world has a significant working class, greater in proportion than the tiny working class in Tsarist Russia that pulled off the great 1917 revolution.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes, but still most Third World countries do not have a proletarian demographic majority. How, in detail besides "through the party," will workers be the "leading class" in your scenario?

[Queercommie Girl]

Yes, but still most Third World countries do not have a proletarian demographic minority. How, in detail besides "through the party," will workers be the "leading class" in your scenario?

I dispute your claim here. What exactly do you mean by the "proletariat"? Apart from a few "Fourth World" African countries, every state in the world today has at least a working class that is demographically a significant minority.

[Jose Gracchus]

The exploitation of the Third World by First World imperialism (mainly US imperialism) is an objective fact. To ignore this, to treat the global working class simply as a single uniform category, like a "single slab of concrete", is to favour abstract dogmatic representations of the world over direct and concrete empirical evidence.

Personally, I tend to be more on the side of empiricism than dogmatism when it comes to socialist ideology.

This is not to say that Third World polities are progressive, in fact, many are more oppressive and reactionary than First World polities. But the masses of the Third World have immense revolutionary potential, due to their super-exploited status, as the current wave of mass movements and revolutions in the Middle East have very vividly demonstrated.

You should study Lenin's theory of "capitalism breaking at its weakest link".

All I'm saying if you're tangling a with a snake, you should cut off its head if you can.

Russia was a lagging Great Power (especially under Western European, in particular French capital) and maybe would have ended up seconded to the European Great Powers in the long run, but it was no colony or quasi-colony. So its not really a good comparison from Russia 1917 to Global South today.

I'm sure DNZ meant to say "proletarian demographic minority". I agree, unless the peasants are politically expropriated and openly subordinated institutionally, in what sense will the workers "lead" the peasantry?

[red cat]

So are you saying that the working class in the USA should ally itself with the "native bourgeoisie" and the peasantry? No.


Right: guerrilla warfare in the hills of West Virginia. You are amazingly imaginative, because I have not hinted to anything close to that in my post.


This is as much a fantasy as guerrilla warfare. The working class in major industrial countries cannot fight the army head on. The working class fights the revolutionary war by creatively applying MLM according to the social conditions, and that might include winning over a portion of the army to its side. Your defeatist attitude is very disturbing.


We don't have villages like in Russia. If you don't have villages then the working class will not need to consolidate its power in villages.


You have no concept of the political situation of the USA.

RED DAVEYou say that you don't have villages like in Russia, yet you speak of a peasantry in the USA, all in the same post. How am I supposed to have a concept of the American political situation if you keep on confusing me like this ? :crying:

[The Red Next Door]

I mean by chauvinism that for whatever reason you seem to think that people in other nations can't use self determination after a revolution. I hate the "a revolution will weaken the government" argument cause hopefully a revolution will smash a government. But I've heard tankies stand against socialist parties in Iran, China, and a few other places in the name of "anti-imperialism."


Unfortunately I was unclear by what I meant and I wanna make myself clear. I do not support the Jasmine revolution, there is no evidence or reason for me to believe that this is popular, progressive or even unfunded protest. All color "revolutions" have been outed as CIA backed and funded plans. I have no reason the believe this is any different. Further more I'd really like to see how things change when their next president comes into office as he has called himself a Maoist and plans to change a lot when he takes power next year (I think it is next year)


If those parties was based in socialists countries, we would probably argue for them or not, since. Again the CIA like to take advantage of the problems.

But no, they have their asses lazying around cracker Europe and other imperialist countries.

[The Red Next Door]

although i was right b4 the idiots defending the CPC regime, i definitely was not b4 any other kinds of idiots


If we are idiots, why don't you remove friend of the PSL?

[Queercommie Girl]

All I'm saying if you're tangling a with a snake, you should cut off its head if you can.


"Snake" in what sense?



Russia was a lagging Great Power (especially under Western European, in particular French capital) and maybe would have ended up seconded to the European Great Powers in the long run, but it was no colony or quasi-colony. So its not really a good comparison from Russia 1917 to Global South today.


So you think only European "Great Powers" can lead a genuine socialist revolution? :rolleyes:

Is there any reason to assume that colonial peoples today cannot lead a genuine socialist revolution, if the size of their working classes is just as big or even bigger than the size of the Russian working class in 1917?

From a Marxist perspective, what exactly is so special about the "Great Powers"?

Or maybe you are not paying any attention to the great waves of mass movements and revolutions in the Middle East at the moment?

You are just a Western-centrist.

Even in the early 20th century, it wasn't just Europe that had industrialised or semi-industrialised "Great Powers". Japan, for instance, was also an emerging power at the time, who actually defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. (This indirectly helped to trigger the 1905 Revolution in Russia)

In fact, even a semi-feudal semi-colonial country like China wasn't significantly far behind Russia in terms of industrial development in the early 20th century. Do you know anything about the Chinese Revolution of 1925 - 1927? Probably not, since I bet all you ever focus on is Western history. If the correct leadership was there, this could potentially have been China's 1917.

Do you seriously think that potentially the Chinese working class today cannot lead a global-scale socialist revolution?



I'm sure DNZ meant to say "proletarian demographic minority". I agree, unless the peasants are politically expropriated and openly subordinated institutionally, in what sense will the workers "lead" the peasantry?


It is a mistake to assume that workers and poor peasants have fundamentally divergent interests. The socialist symbol is "hammer" and "sickle", not just the "hammer", after all.

Seriously, I really suggest you need to self-criticise and get rid of your Eurocentrism.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm sure DNZ meant to say "proletarian demographic minority". I agree, unless the peasants are politically expropriated and openly subordinated institutionally, in what sense will the workers "lead" the peasantry?


He said: Yes, but still most Third World countries do not have a proletarian demographic minority.

Which is objectively untrue.

[RED DAVE]

What "fantasy"?What you are going to say next.


As much as I am against the Chinese state as it exists now, technically the counter-revolution hasn't completely occurred yetWelcome to Fantasy Island. China is completely and wholly capitalist. It is either state capitalist or private capitalist.


and in many ways the PRC today is still in better shape than the former Soviet Union/Russian Federation.

Surely you know about the massive decline in life expectancy of former Soviet workers after the fall of the USSR?So what? That's a liberal argument. what you're saying is that cjhinese capitalism is "nicer" and Russian capitalism.

Workers in France are better off than workers in either place. Does that make France anything less than a capitalist country that needs to be overthrown?

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Yes, but still most Third World countries do not have a proletarian demographic majority.So? Since when did socialism require such a majority, except in the mind of an obtuse social democrat looking to win a bourgois election?


How, in detail besides "through the party," will workers be the "leading class" in your scenario?By leading the revolution, seizing state power and running society.

RED DAVE

[Toppler]

The aggregate death rate at the height of the famine was still lower than typical year-to-year death rate during the nationalist period.

Yeah, because this excuses thousands of bodies in ditches and torturing families with shit and piss. Go fuck yourself with your statistics, all of you who support Mao. You want to believe that he was a great revolutionary leader and not a mass murdering madman because you desperately cling to him as a symbol. Basically "Don't insult Mao!!! It is really me!!!"

And one cannot "demonize" anything that is already demonically evil. Is stating that Ted Bundy was a serial killing psychopath "demonization"? And stop excusing him by passing on the responsibility on the lower ranks. You are just pissed off that I show how disgusting your icon is.

Was Ted Bundy a good guy too because he's been generally kind to everybody who he was not brutally murdering at the time? Because he saved a child from drowning? Still, he was a serial killing monster. NEWSFLASH: Psychopaths are capable of doing good too, it enhances their ego. They are defined by the fact that they don't feel any conscience when hurting others, not that they always do evil. They are still sick, incomprehensible, evil, individuals.

Also, I am shocked for the fact that disputes against Mao generally revolve around stupid sectarian shit disputes over the leadership of the working class rather than the fact that he tortured starving people by putting shit into their mouth and that people ate human flash in Guanxi in the Cultural Revolution, including child flesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolution#Struggle_sessions_and_purges


Some of the most extreme violence took place in the southern province of Guangxi, where a Chinese journalist found a "disturbing picture of official compliance in the systematic killing and cannibalization of individuals in the name of political revolution and 'class struggle'."[49] Senior party historians acknowledge, "In a few places, it even happened that 'counterrevolutionaries' were beaten to death and in the most beastly fashion had their flesh and liver consumed [by their killers]."[50] Not even the minor children of "enemies of the people" were spared, as more than a few were tortured and bludgeoned to death, dismembered and some of their organs - hearts, livers, and genitals - eaten during "human flesh banquets".[51] As a result of this frenzied killing and "obligatory cannibalism", an estimated 100,000 people were killed in Guangxi alone.[51]

Fuck your smiling fat despot. If he were alive I would make him suffer the same treatment he inflicted on his victims. Of course you'll say that this is "Western propaganda" and demonization, despite coming from senior CPC historians. Denialism, typical for the more psychotic segments of the right and the left.

[Queercommie Girl]

Yeah, because this excuses thousands of bodies in ditches and torturing families with shit and piss. Go fuck yourself with your statistics, all of you who support Mao. You want to believe that he was a great revolutionary leader and not a mass murdering madman because you desperately cling to him as a symbol. Basically "Don't insult Mao!!! It is really me!!!"

And one cannot "demonize" anything that is already demonically evil. Is stating that Ted Bundy was a serial killing psychopath "demonization"? And stop excusing him by passing on the responsibility on the lower ranks. You are just pissed off that I show how disgusting your icon is.


And I'd bet you would rather have the right-wing Chinese nationalists who were capitulating to Japanese imperialism, or the Chinese "communist" leadership today who is restoring capitalism and has made China into one of the most unequal countries in the world, more than the US, or even Tunisia and Egypt, and consider them to be more "leftist" than Mao?

You are just a ridiculous imperialist tool-bag, who cannot engage in objective analysis of historical issues.

It's funny that you like to demonise "Stalinist" leaders, yet would never say anything close to this to those bourgeois founders of the United States who genocidally massacred native Americans and enslaved millions of blacks. Who is the real "demon" I wonder? And whose side are you on? Capitalism or socialism?

[Geiseric]

Yeah! What he said! Also, I wouldn't be afraid of the U.S. invading if the CCP is overthrown, that invasion would be a disaster. Most of our active army is already in the middle east, and China is just way too big to invade. If we can't get Afghanistan finished off, i doubt we have the potential to invade China. It would be basically WW3. Anybody who takes place will have the consent of the people, just like Egypt. Only with a x30 population.

[the last donut of the night]

If we are idiots, why don't you remove friend of the PSL?

"friend of the PSL" doesn't mean i agree with everything the PSL says

[Geiseric]

And I'd bet you would rather have the right-wing Chinese nationalists who were capitulating to Japanese imperialism, or the Chinese "communist" leadership today who is restoring capitalism and has made China into one of the most unequal countries in the world, more than the US, or even Tunisia and Egypt, and consider them to be more "leftist" than Mao?

You are just a ridiculous imperialist tool-bag, who cannot engage in objective analysis of historical issues.

It's funny that you like to demonise "Stalinist" leaders, yet would never say anything close to this to those bourgeois founders of the United States who genocidally massacred native Americans and enslaved millions of blacks. Who is the real "demon" I wonder?

This isn't about the american founding fathers, that has about as much significance nowadays as condemning Richard the Lionheart. Also, Toppler, I totally called it :P

[Queercommie Girl]

This isn't about the american founding fathers, that has about as much significance nowadays as condemning Richard the Lionheart. Also, Toppler, I totally called it :P

Well, generally only those who are heavily influenced by capitalism and imperialism would demonise Mao like that. I didn't just mention the American "founding fathers", (though you under-estimate the effects they still have today, check out the "is Jefferson a liberal socialist" thread in History) I also mentioned the Chinese capitalist KMT (which is basically a semi-fascist regime under Chiang), and the Chinese "communist" leadership today.

Today in mainland China, many people who are very pro-market demonise Mao very heavily as well. You don't really get this among the left, especially the revolutionary left. Many anarchists and Trotskyists would criticise Mao heavily and basically reject his ideology, but they wouldn't "demonise" him like that. The CWI for instance explicitly states that Maoism was partly progressive in that it abolished landlordism and capitalism in China and initiated great advancement in industrial productivity, despite the severe distortions in the political super-structure.

So I have suspicion whether he is a genuine socialist or not.

[Jose Gracchus]

The working class fights the revolutionary war by creatively applying MLM according to the social conditions,

Handwavium. What does this mean in practice? You know, if you want people to side with Maoism, maybe you should clearly explain at least something of the how it would work here, rather than indulging in requisite "LEFTER THAN YOU AHHH" or historical arguments that do not explain anything.


and that might include winning over a portion of the army to its side. Your defeatist attitude is very disturbing.

We're not defeatists. We recognize the U.S. lacks the social and material conditions to support prolonged guerrilla warfare based on a non-existent rural base.

Either the revolution will "flip" the masses and the army, as in 1917, or it will fail. This is military science common sense.


If you don't have villages then the working class will not need to consolidate its power in villages.

Then there's no independent base regions from which prolonged guerrilla war can be launched. Furthermore guerrilla war never succeeds without mass and urban worker agitation and organization or foreign aid (which we will not get here).


You say that you don't have villages like in Russia, yet you speak of a peasantry in the USA, all in the same post. How am I supposed to have a concept of the American political situation if you keep on confusing me like this ? :crying:

He's being sarcastic. There's no American peasantry, and the U.S., being the imperial power par excellence, obviously has no 'national bourgeoisie', even if I were to accept that Maoist paradigm. Which as I asked earlier, invalidates the basis of the Bloc of Four Classes, and questions the relevance of MLM to First World urbanized proletarian struggles.

[Geiseric]

I think that Maoism was just a failure personally, it led to the state we have now, same way that Stalinism was a failure, in that it led to Mega-Capitalist Russian Federation. And, like it says in my Sig, Being anti-Stalin/Mao isn't being Anti-Socialism.

People are pro free market because they don't trust the CCP with the economy i'm thinking. They had a bureaucratically controlled Command Economy, and people are usually prone to fighting that. If it was a workers controlled one, we would have probably seen different results. However, CCP is allowing sweatshop labor in their country, I don't see how that's socialist. In a matter of fact, it seems like the opposite of Socialism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Handwavium. What does this mean in practice? You know, if you want people to side with Maoism, maybe you should clearly explain at least something of the how it would work here, rather than indulging in requisite "LEFTER THAN YOU AHHH" or historical arguments that do not explain anything.

We're not defeatists. We recognize the U.S. lacks the social and material conditions to support prolonged guerrilla warfare based on a non-existent rural base.

Either the revolution will "flip" the masses and the army, as in 1917, or it will fail. This is military science common sense.

Then there's no independent base regions from which prolonged guerrilla war can be launched. Furthermore guerrilla war never succeeds without mass and urban worker agitation and organization or foreign aid (which we will not get here).

He's being sarcastic. There's no American peasantry, and the U.S., being the imperial power par excellence, obviously has no 'national bourgeoisie', even if I were to accept that Maoist paradigm. Which as I asked earlier, invalidates the basis of the Bloc of Four Classes, and questions the relevance of MLM to First World urbanized proletarian struggles.


You might not believe in Maoism, but why should anyone take you, who has the chauvinistic attitude that only First World (and only "Western" First World for that matter) urban proletarians are fit to "lead" the genuine socialist movement, seriously?

[Queercommie Girl]

I think that Maoism was just a failure personally, it led to the state we have now, same way that Stalinism was a failure, in that it led to Mega-Capitalist Russian Federation. And, like it says in my Sig, Being anti-Stalin/Mao isn't being Anti-Socialism.

People are pro free market because they don't trust the CCP with the economy i'm thinking. They had a bureaucratically controlled Command Economy, and people are usually prone to fighting that. If it was a workers controlled one, we would have probably seen different results. However, CCP is allowing sweatshop labor in their country, I don't see how that's socialist. In a matter of fact, it seems like the opposite of Socialism.

No country with a Ginni Index of 0.5 can be fucking "socialist" in any concrete sense. Jesus, even the orthodox Dengists realise that.

[Crux]

Since I feel this thread has left the original subject I put up another thread witht the latest article from chinaworker on these protests: http://www.revleft.org/vb/showthread.php?t=150549

[Geiseric]

Anyways, i don't see a reason for no change in the chinese leadership. I'm sure the workers are against the sweat shops.

[Queercommie Girl]

Anyways, i don't see a reason for no change in the chinese leadership. I'm sure the workers are against the sweat shops.

No it's not just the "sweat-shops", it's the gross economic inequality.

Socialism is about economic egalitarianism. Significant economic inequality is absolutely unacceptable under socialism. The wealth of the rich must be taken and given to the poor.

[Geiseric]

I know damnit!! What are we even arguing any more? Does everybody agree that ousting the CCP would be a good thing?

[Jose Gracchus]

"Snake" in what sense?

Global imperial capitalism. A socialist revolution in the United States would incredibly debilitate global imperialism's ability to maintain repression and clienthood in the Global South.


So you think only European "Great Powers" can lead a genuine socialist revolution? :rolleyes:

No, I think you have to have a large proletarian population and industry. I think attempted socialist revolutions in isolated Third World/Global South states will probably lead rapidly to degeneration, co-optation, and elimination.

Just look at history; to the extent the bourgeois are even repressed and property relations altered depended on the relative economic scale and power of the state in question, the original strength of its proletariat, and being part of a wave of revolution.

Look at 1917, and even 1949 on one hand, and then consider the FSLN basically got stuck in a left social democracy (just like Chavez) because they cannot extricate themselves all alone from global capital. Single small countries cannot suppress the law of value, and this problem has only gotten worse as capitalism has matured and society globalized.


Is there any reason to assume that colonial peoples today cannot lead a genuine socialist revolution, if the size of their working classes is just as big or even bigger than the size of the Russian working class in 1917?

I think they could, we're talking about its likely prognosis. I also, incidentally, think this is connected to the perspective among some of de facto revolutionary fatalism, where people think the only - in practice - thing to do is to host anti-war and anti-imperialist cross-class 'fronts' and solidarity 'activism'. Basically, the argument of the form, American workers are reactionary, so we are going to cheerlead Third World radicalism and hope the U.S. just declines.


From a Marxist perspective, what exactly is so special about the "Great Powers"?

Sometimes I really question the sincerity of the remarks on this forum. Is this real? I don't know, their pre-existing overwhelming military strength? You don't think Russia having first-rate modern dreadnoughts and shit helped dissuade imperialism in some manner? Russia did not endure post-revolution Bay of Pigs attacks, because they would be impractical and fundamentally doomed to failure. Russia was a plausible economic autarky. The Dominican Republic, for example, is not. Not all states and nations are created equal, and endowed with the same material conditions. Sounds to me like you are the one who allows sentimentalities to roll over cold hard facts.


Or maybe you are not paying any attention to the great waves of mass movements and revolutions in the Middle East at the moment?

Of course I am. We're talking about if a socialist revolution could succeed. I think we should try to aim for a Security Council power, or one of the would-be ones (Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, India, China, Japan, Germany, etc.). Or a substantial bloc (like if the entire Arab Revolt produced a socialist revolution, it could probably oil-blackmail the imperialists, but I think mass intervention and crushing would still be highly likely). I am sorry I lack the pollyannaish adoration for "people's war" being able to overcome any and all obstacles. The People's Republic of China was a sacking-of-MacArthur away from getting nuked and invaded by the United States in the 1950s. Only the support of the USSR really made a difference. We should acknowledge and consider these facts when looking to the future.


You are just a Western-centrist.

No, I'm not. I think a true proletarian revolution in China would be sustainable.


Even in the early 20th century, it wasn't just Europe that had industrialised or semi-industrialised "Great Powers". Japan, for instance, was also an emerging power at the time, who actually defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. (This indirectly helped to trigger the 1905 Revolution in Russia)

I never said "European Great Powers". Its just almost all the GPs back then were European. Any Great Power, including Asian states like Japan, China, and India, would help.


In fact, even a semi-feudal semi-colonial country like China wasn't significantly far behind Russia in terms of industrial development in the early 20th century. Do you know anything about the Chinese Revolution of 1925 - 1927? Probably not, since I bet all you ever focus on is Western history. If the correct leadership was there, this could potentially have been China's 1917.

I would like to hear about this, I don't doubt it though. The biggest problem is no one has come up with a convincing way to translate pre-capitalist or immature capitalist labor and property relations into socialism in an authentic way that matches the urban industrial proletariat's movements toward socialism. Invariably attempts involved either shitting on the peasantry while singing yarns about 'leading' them (like Russia) or in demagogic party-army struggles based on peasant recruits and anti-landlordism, unconnected from urban proletarian struggles in any fashion and inaugurated an undemocratic polity from the outset (like China). Spain might be the only exception, where socialist peasant collectivization occurred in tandem with urban industrial proletarian collectivization.


Do you seriously think that potentially the Chinese working class today cannot lead a global-scale socialist revolution?

Certainly. I think a future socialist revolution's prognosis is much warmer should it secure the participation of a thorough Chinese Revolution. I said "why does old-style Maoism matter in China because its clearly got a large modern industrial proletariat now?" I thought that would be a clue that I think socialism is quite possible in China.


It is a mistake to assume that workers and poor peasants have fundamentally divergent interests. The socialist symbol is "hammer" and "sickle", not just the "hammer", after all.

I agree. But I think there needs to be serious ways that peasant majorities do not result on one end with their disenfranchisement (thanks Lenin!) or with the rhetorical-only proletarian participation (thanks Mao!).


Seriously, I really suggest you need to self-criticise and get rid of your Eurocentrism.

I'm not a Eurocentric.

[Toppler]

Anyways, i don't see a reason for no change in the chinese leadership. I'm sure the workers are against the sweat shops.

Aren't you being a bit naive? The sweatshops are a stage of economic development. In my opinion, overthrowing the today's CCP would worsen the conditions in China, fully sell it out to Western powers and the sweatshops would remain.

[Jose Gracchus]

You might not believe in Maoism, but why should anyone take you, who has the chauvinistic attitude that only First World (and only "Western" First World for that matter) urban proletarians are fit to "lead" the genuine socialist movement, seriously?

Big words for a Trotskyist. Have you ever, EVER heard a Trotskyist deal seriously with the Bolshevik party's relations with the peasantry? Disenfranchising them from the soviet democracy? Hm?

In any case, you're just mining for complaints - I already upheld the collectives of the Spanish Revolution as a precedent for genuine socialist peasant-worker cooperation.

[Jose Gracchus]

Aren't you being a bit naive? The sweatshops are a stage of economic development. In my opinion, overthrowing the today's CCP would worsen the conditions in China, fully sell it out to Western powers and the sweatshops would remain.

So workers should hold out for magical palace intrigue changes back to happy socialism within the CCP? And here I thought Marxists thought independent working-class political organization is essential - the CCP dictatorship prevents the proletariat from realizing itself as a class-for-itself.


He said: Yes, but still most Third World countries do not have a proletarian demographic minority.

Which is objectively untrue.

I meant I am sure, from his arguments before, he must mean Third World nations lack proletarian demographic majorities.

[Geiseric]

Aren't you being a bit naive? The sweatshops are a stage of economic development. In my opinion, overthrowing the today's CCP would worsen the conditions in China, fully sell it out to Western powers and the sweatshops would remain.

My Sarcasm detector is bleeping.

[Toppler]

My Sarcasm detector is bleeping.

:)

In seriousness through, I don't know what to think. I think Libya-like semi-civil war is undesirable for China.

[Jose Gracchus]

So? Since when did socialism require such a majority, except in the mind of an obtuse social democrat looking to win a bourgois election?

By leading the revolution, seizing state power and running society.

RED DAVE

So peasants will have no vote, no ability to self-organize politically and push their individual and collective interests in the public arena in any respect? How will it that be accomplished? How will that be prevented if (when) they attempt to do it? They are just to sit there and listen to the workers' party talk about their alliance with the peasantry, without it being realized institutionally in any fashion?

Suppression of majoritarianism is not possible without political terror. So unless you think political terror to keep the peasants in line is an intrinsic part of socialism, you need to deal seriously with the Bolshevik's antagonistic relationship in fact, by Spring 1918, with the peasantry, and their exclusion in practice from soviet democracy (massive disproportionate representation for urban constituencies).

[Geiseric]

China won't turn into Libya, I think if anything it'll be a much larger version of egypt with a bunch of different factions, but a few will be popular since they cater to the working class's demands. Several incidents like those massacres like Tienamen square may happen if the army doesn't turn, but if the ccp secures them it's all over. Now that you mention it, china is much more propagated then egypt, but I think we're seeing the first steps for a massive reform of chinese government.

[Queercommie Girl]

Global imperial capitalism. A socialist revolution in the United States would incredibly debilitate global imperialism's ability to maintain repression and clienthood in the Global South.


A genuine socialist revolution would also be much more difficult in the most powerful imperialist nation.



Look at 1917, and even 1949 on one hand, and then consider the FSLN basically got stuck in a left social democracy (just like Chavez) because they cannot extricate themselves all alone from global capital. Single small countries cannot suppress the law of value, and this problem has only gotten worse as capitalism has matured and society globalized.
No reason why a successful socialist revolution in one small country cannot lead to a domino effect across a whole series of small countries in the local region.



I think they could, we're talking about its likely prognosis. I also, incidentally, think this is connected to the perspective among some of de facto revolutionary fatalism, where people think the only - in practice - thing to do is to host anti-war and anti-imperialist cross-class 'fronts' and solidarity 'activism'. Basically, the argument of the form, American workers are reactionary, so we are going to cheerlead Third World radicalism and hope the U.S. just declines.
I don't believe American workers are "reactionary", that's a ridiculous line. However, I certainly don't believe in the opposite either: like the US workers somehow have a proletarian version of the "white man's burden" or some racist shit like that.

"Third World radicalism", if it simply cheerleads Third World polities, tends to be reactionary. I told you this before. First World polities are generally less oppressive than Third World polities/states.

What genuine socialists should cheer for is the mobilisation of the Third World masses, the workers, peasants and poor of these countries.



Sometimes I really question the sincerity of the remarks on this forum. Is this real? I don't know, their pre-existing overwhelming military strength? You don't think Russia having first-rate modern dreadnoughts and shit helped dissuade imperialism in some manner? Russia did not endure post-revolution Bay of Pigs attacks, because they would be impractical and fundamentally doomed to failure. Russia was a plausible economic autarky. The Dominican Republic, for example, is not.
It's funny you mention Cuba vs. the USSR, since actually the USSR has long ago fallen to revisionism and capitalist restoration, despite being a "military superpower", while Cuba is still partly genuine socialist, despite the extremely tough external circumstances it is facing.

Did anyone not tell you before? Pure military power isn't the primary consideration for socialists. Mass movements can potentially defuse any military superpower, not matter how strong, if they can genuinely spread globally, because much of the military can be won over to the socialist side.

Socialism conquering capitalism isn't like one nation-state conquering another.



Not all states and nations are created equal, and endowed with the same material conditions. Sounds to me like you are the one who allows sentimentalities to roll over cold hard facts.
Conditions are created and transformed by human beings. They are never static. The idea of "endowment" as some kind of "natural order" sounds very reactionary. Sounds like you are influenced by some implicit version of national chauvinism and vulgar materialistic fatalism.

Next thing you might say would be "not all races are created equal". :rolleyes: Since surely "physical race" in the most strict sense (going by your complete cold hard facts) is ultimately underpinned by "material conditions" too? I doubt even your great "American founding father" heroes would approve of this line though.

If you think anti-racism is "sentimentality", then I am indeed extremely proud to be completely "sentimental", and you can stuff your "cold hard facts" in your face.

Who the fuck told you that Marxism is just a set of mechanical dialectical equations? Marxism is about real productive relations, real human relations, real human suffering.

I am a humanist Marxist, and I'm very proud of it. As the great revolutionary Che Guvera once said, all genuine revolutionaries are guided by love. Marxism is ultimately a humanist program, as it's all about ending the alienation of human beings that result from capitalist exploitation and all other forms of class societies.

And this is one area in which Third World Marxism beats First World Marxism. We have given Marxism and socialism a genuine human heart, rather than just relying on "pure abstract rationality floating in thin air"-style analysis.



I am sorry I lack the pollyannaish adoration for "people's war" being able to overcome any and all obstacles.
Not surprising since you seem to have a chauvinistic contempt for the peasantry.



The People's Republic of China was a sacking-of-MacArthur away from getting nuked and invaded by the United States in the 1950s. Only the support of the USSR really made a difference. We should acknowledge and consider these facts when looking to the future.
I doubt even nukes could completely defeat China in the early 1950s. And while the USSR did provide China with some help during the Korean War, China's industrialisation was largely done by the Chinese ourselves.



I never said "European Great Powers". Its just almost all the GPs back then were European. Any Great Power, including Asian states like Japan, China, and India, would help.
Keep going with your "Great Power" fetish.

The more advanced a capitalist system is, the more difficult it is to have a genuine socialist revolution there, and the more serious the threat of counter-revolution would be.

Capitalism tends to break at its weakest link first. Of course it would have to then spread across the world, but it's extremely difficult to genuine break capitalism at where it is the most powerful.



I would like to hear about this, I don't doubt it though. The biggest problem is no one has come up with a convincing way to translate pre-capitalist or immature capitalist labor and property relations into socialism in an authentic way that matches the urban industrial proletariat's movements toward socialism. Invariably attempts involved either shitting on the peasantry while singing yarns about 'leading' them (like Russia) or in demagogic party-army struggles based on peasant recruits and anti-landlordism, unconnected from urban proletarian struggles in any fashion and inaugurated an undemocratic polity from the outset (like China). Spain might be the only exception, where socialist peasant collectivization occurred in tandem with urban industrial proletarian collectivization.
And why would the Spanish peasantry be so different? If such a thing can happen in Spain, why can't it happen elsewhere too?

I was saying that the objective conditions of China in 1925 wasn't so different from the conditions of Russia in 1917.



Certainly. I think a future socialist revolution's prognosis is much warmer should it secure the participation of a thorough Chinese Revolution. I said "why does old-style Maoism matter in China because its clearly got a large modern industrial proletariat now?" I thought that would be a clue that I think socialism is quite possible in China.
Well, I'm only partly Maoist, and Chinese workers and socialists today believe in a multitude of socialist ideologies, and not just Maoism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Aren't you being a bit naive? The sweatshops are a stage of economic development. In my opinion, overthrowing the today's CCP would worsen the conditions in China, fully sell it out to Western powers and the sweatshops would remain.

I've guessed very accurately indeed. You are an ultra-revisionist scum.

"Sweatshops are a stage of economic development"? Give me a fucking break, you hypocritical piece of shit. I thought you believed in "socialism with a human face"? :rolleyes: Typical revisionist hypocrisy.

Where is the "human face" in the Foxconn worker suicides, in the illegal coal mines, in the ultra-exploitative factories owned by Japanese capital?

Next thing you will say, I'm sure, would be that mass slavery of blacks and native Americans in the capitalist United States was a "necessary stage of development" too? :rolleyes: Or how about going even further back to apologise for the mass human sacrifice under the Incas and Aztecs?

Everything is "rational" and "necessary" for those who put productive force, instead of productive relation, at the normative centre of Marxist discourse!

Why don't you join your ultra-revisionist buddies of the former Soviet Union who completely capitulated to capitalism and US imperialism?

[Queercommie Girl]

Big words for a Trotskyist. Have you ever, EVER heard a Trotskyist deal seriously with the Bolshevik party's relations with the peasantry? Disenfranchising them from the soviet democracy? Hm?

In any case, you're just mining for complaints - I already upheld the collectives of the Spanish Revolution as a precedent for genuine socialist peasant-worker cooperation.

I'm neither an orthodox Maoist nor an orthodox Trotskyist.

And I didn't say I necessarily disagree with the "Spanish model". But that's only a basis for further development at best.

[Geiseric]

Hey Iseul, he was being sarcastic.

[Queercommie Girl]

Hey Iseul, he was being sarcastic.

I don't like a revisionist fucker like him who "demonises" Stalinists more than capitalists and imperialists of the West.

[Queercommie Girl]

Fuck your smiling fat despot. If he were alive I would make him suffer the same treatment he inflicted on his victims. Of course you'll say that this is "Western propaganda" and demonization, despite coming from senior CPC historians. Denialism, typical for the more psychotic segments of the right and the left.


Yes, and we all know that these corrupt douchebags of the elitist CCP bureaucracy are really trustworthy people. I mean, they are the ones who brought neo-liberalism to China, crushed the student protests at Tiananmen in 1989, and allied with Western imperialist interests to exploit their own people! :rolleyes:

[Geiseric]

Like I said, he was being sarcastic. Everybody's to blame, Capitalist corporations needing labor and the CCP for allowing the sweatshops to open up. The solution is to provide structure during the revolution to make sure that present day china and russia don't happen. Regardless of tendencies, the russian revolution and chinese revolution failed to do these in the end. So we have to recognise where it turned for bad and make sure we don't do the same thing.

[Queercommie Girl]

Like I said, he was being sarcastic. Everybody's to blame, Capitalist corporations needing labor and the CCP for allowing the sweatshops to open up. The solution is to provide structure during the revolution to make sure that present day china and russia don't happen. Regardless of tendencies, the russian revolution and chinese revolution failed to do these in the end. So we have to recognise where it turned for bad and make sure we don't do the same thing.

You have a point of course regarding the need to critically re-evaluate certain aspects of previous revolutions, but I don't think Toppler was trying to be funny or sarcastic in his ultra-demonisation of Mao though.

[Geiseric]

Don't U.N. Stats, or something more reliable then CCP stats provide an acuratate representation to the death toll? Or can't we just see the programs as failures and move on?

[Jose Gracchus]

A genuine socialist revolution would also be much more difficult in the most powerful imperialist nation.

No shit. But, it would also be less assailable. How do you think things would have turned out if Germany had fallen to the revolution in 1919?


No reason why a successful socialist revolution in one small country cannot lead to a domino effect across a whole series of small countries in the local region.

That is no trivial task itself. The organizational framework for attempting a massive regional or global revolution is no simple task.


I don't believe American workers are "reactionary", that's a ridiculous line. However, I certainly don't believe in the opposite either: like the US workers somehow has a proletarian version of the "white man's burden" or some racist shit like that.

I said "Great Power" and "First World". That's not the same thing as white. China, India, Russia, Japan would all be great basis for sustainable revolution. I am no longer going to reply to your absurd allusions that I am being an ethnocentrist, because I believe material conditions favor a socialist revolution that includes a major power. Where did I say "only white" or "only European" powers, hm?


"Third World radicalism", if it simply cheerleads Third World polities, tends to be reactionary. I told you this before. First World polities are generally less oppressive than Third World polities/states.

What genuine socialists should cheer for is the mobilisation of the Third World masses, the workers, peasants and poor of these countries.

I have no problem with this. I don't know why you think I do.


It's funny you mention Cuba vs. the USSR, since actually the USSR has long ago fallen to revisionism and capitalist restoration, despite being a "military superpower", while Cuba is still partly genuine socialist, despite the extremely tough external circumstances it is facing.

Cuba is 'revisionist' in the same sense as the Brezhnev era USSR and even mid-80s USSR. It is increasingly dependent on increasing foreign capital and the law of value's influence in the economy to survive. Cuba 'socialism', to the extent it ever existed, was dependent on a major 'socialist' power's support. This is exactly my point. Now if Cuba had gone over to socialism along with a MERCOSUR-esque bloc of nations, that would be much more sustainable.


Did anyone not tell you before? Pure military power isn't the primary consideration for socialists. Mass movements can potentially defuse any military superpower, not matter how strong, if they can genuinely spread globally, because much of the military can be won over to the socialist side.

This is not going to happen magically where the organizational framework isn't there. I don't think you should account for the fact that America or other imperialist nations will just be paralyzed by solidarity off-handedly.


Socialism conquering capitalism isn't like one nation-state conquering another.

There will be no workers' democracy in a lone 'socialist' state like Cuba. It is simply going to be where the pressures end up taking it, because it will be so vulnerable to intrusion. I'm playing it safe and presuming militarily and economically powerful imperialist capitalist powers will remain an issue after a revolution. Certainly it would be nice if that was not the case - but that's EXACTLY why I think we need to go back to the Marxist emphasis on the centrality of revolution in the most industrialized and wealthy powers, at least complementing Third World/neo-colonial national liberation and socialism.


Conditions are created and transformed by human beings. They are never static. The idea of "endowment" as some kind of "natural order" sounds very reactionary. Sounds like you are influenced by some implicit version of national chauvinism and vulgar materialistic fatalism.

:rolleyes:

Grow up. Are you telling me the material and environmental realities of Russia on one hand, and the Dominican Republic on the other, are negligible facts? Some states are basically not self-sufficient or plausibly autonomous. I'm the materialist DEALING WITH ACTUAL HISTORY here.


Next thing you might say would be "not all races are created equal". :rolleyes: Since surely "physical race" in the most strict sense (going by your complete cold hard facts) is ultimately underpinned by "material conditions" too? I doubt even your great "American founding father" heroes would approve.

You know I'm not saying that, but nice attempt at playing to your puerile crowd. Are you saying it is irrelevant if a country is capable of feeding itself? Of sustaining industry with domestic materials? Are you serious?

I'm sorry, but the idea that all nations have an equal capacity to achieve socialism autonomously is just ridiculous. Why do you call yourself a Trotskyist? You clearly lack even the most facile understanding of their politics.

What the fuck do you think "material conditions" means? Economic sustainability matters if you want to hope for socialism in one country, otherwise you must remove the major imperialist opposition to socialist expansion by revolution, and/or bring over a large bloc of countries to socialism, so they can survive and thrive, and do not endure what Russia did in the 1930s or China in the late 1950s.


If you think anti-racism is "sentimentality", then I am indeed extremely proud to be completely "sentimental", and you can stuff your "cold hard facts" in your face.

You're a fucking moron. I'm sorry, but you are. It is plain as day to anyone who is capable of reading the English language I am talking about the fact that if you have NO FUCKING IRON ORE or the like, you can't have Marxian socialism because you'll have to self-impose the law of value while groveling for resources in trade with capitalist powers. How is that not obvious?


Who the fuck told you that Marxism is just a set of mechanical dialectical equations? Marxism is about real productive relations, real human relations, real human suffering.

No shit. But there was thousands of years of illiterate oppressed peasant suffering, and even egalitarian revolts against it. Marxism (though I am not a Marxist, unlike - purportedly - you) is presupposed that the techological and scientific and economic achievements of the modern era are material prerequisites for socialism that cannot be overcome with human will alone. Have you never read Lenin on the Narodnichestvo? Have you never heard of Engels' The Peasant War in Germany?



I am a humanist Marxist, and I'm very proud of it.

No, if this post is anything to go by, you're not even a materialist. I am a materialist, and highly influenced by anarchism and humanist Marxism. The fact is whether a country can economically support itself matters. I gave you a specific case like the Sandanistas and modern cases like Chavez, where it is simply impractically difficult to extricate themselves from international capitalism by autarky, and still develop their country. Your post suggests you're simply historically and economically illiterate.


As the great revolutionary Che Guvera once said, all genuine revolutionaries are guided by love. Marxism is ultimately a humanist program, as it's all about ending the alienation of human beings that result from capitalist exploitation and all other forms of class societies.

I agree.


And this is one area in which Third World Marxism beats First World Marxism. We have given Marxism and socialism a genuine human heart, rather than just relying on "pure abstract rationality floating in thin air"-style analysis.

You're right, fruit farm colonies of the U.S. will magically industrialize themselves without the law of value through the power of love. Funny you mention Guevara, since Cuba remained dependent on the USSR's gross purchase of the sugar export in order to economically survive. :rolleyes:

Economy does matter. Of course people matter, but we must mobilize people in a way that respects and realistically manages the economic conditions - that's exactly what Marx's challenge to utopian and idealist socialism was.


Not surprising since you seem to have a chauvinistic contempt for the peasantry.

You're a moron. I'm only arguing with Trotskyists and you on this very thread on how peasants would really be brought into socialist democracy. I provided the only case I've ever heard of actual democratic peasant-worker socialist cooperation in Spain. You support an organization which apologizes for peasant disenfranchisement, forced requisition, and blames its fuck ups like Kronstadt on "too many filthy peasants". Give me a fucking break.

And yeah, Mao's China had so much peasant socialist democracy. :rolleyes:


I doubt even nukes could completely defeat China in the early 1950s.

Again, you show what you call "humanist Marxism" is really just magical thinking and spiritualism. Nuclear groundbursts in the major river valleys of China would exterminate the majority of the Chinese population because they would be rendered uninhabitable the full length of the rivers for hundreds of years.


And while the USSR did provide China with some help during the Korean War, China's industrialisation was largely done by the Chinese ourselves.

The CCP and the PLA could only come to power as they did with the USSR's assistance and the unique circumstances of the post-World War II settlement. An ex nihilo Maoist revolutionary movement without support would never have achieved Maoists' historical success.


Keep going with your "Great Power" fetish.

Keep imagining that somehow the sheer force of will can reverse fundamental resource asymmetries in distribution across global physical geography.


The more advanced a capitalist system is, the more difficult it is to have a genuine socialist revolution there, and the more serious the threat of counter-revolution would be.

Yet somehow we don't have to worry about intervention because global waves of revolution will somehow immobilize the imperial armies without causing domestic revolutions among them? :rolleyes:


Capitalism tends to break at its weakest link first. Of course it would have to then spread across the world, but it's extremely difficult to genuine break capitalism at where it is the most powerful.

Germany 1919. Again, why are you in the CWI? You clearly share zero of their politics.


And why would the Spanish peasantry be so different? If such a thing can happen in Spain, why can't it happen elsewhere too?

I do. That's why I brought it up.


I was saying that the objective conditions of China in 1925 wasn't so different from the conditions of Russia in 1917.

Maybe you could explain that, instead of expecting me to take your word for it.


Well, I'm only partly Maoist, and Chinese workers and socialists today believe in a multitude of socialist ideologies, and not just Maoism.

You need to go the whole way, since you seem to have no clue what Trotskyism is, and I don't think it suits either an organization or an individual to have membership where there is no shared affinity.

[The Red Next Door]

"friend of the PSL" doesn't mean i agree with everything the PSL says

We do not call our friends stupid.

[Queercommie Girl]

No shit. But, it would also be less assailable. How do you think things would have turned out if Germany had fallen to the revolution in 1919?


Less assailable from without perhaps, but not necessarily less assailable from within.



That is no trivial task itself. The organizational framework for attempting a massive regional or global revolution is no simple task.
Still not as difficult as trying to have a completely successful revolution in an advanced imperialist country.



I said "Great Power" and "First World". That's not the same thing as white. China, India, Russia, Japan would all be great basis for sustainable revolution. I am no longer going to reply to your absurd allusions that I am being an ethnocentrist, because I believe material conditions favor a socialist revolution that includes a major power. Where did I say "only white" or "only European" powers, hm?
You were specifically referring to the American working class, which has a white majority.



I have no problem with this. I don't know why you think I do.
Just illustrating a point.



Cuba is 'revisionist' in the same sense as the Brezhnev era USSR and even mid-80s USSR. It is increasingly dependent on increasing foreign capital and the law of value's influence in the economy to survive. Cuba 'socialism', to the extent it ever existed, was dependent on a major 'socialist' power's support. This is exactly my point. Now if Cuba had gone over to socialism along with a MERCOSUR-esque bloc of nations, that would be much more sustainable.
Cuba's problems are more external, but the former USSR completely degenerated within.



This is not going to happen magically where the organizational framework isn't there. I don't think you should account for the fact that America or other imperialist nations will just be paralyzed by solidarity off-handedly.
Nothing will happen magically. But the direction of the movement should be geared towards international socialism, rather than just "socialism in one country".



There will be no workers' democracy in a lone 'socialist' state like Cuba. It is simply going to be where the pressures end up taking it, because it will be so vulnerable to intrusion. I'm playing it safe and presuming militarily and economically powerful imperialist capitalist powers will remain an issue after a revolution. Certainly it would be nice if that was not the case - but that's EXACTLY why I think we need to go back to the Marxist emphasis on the centrality of revolution in the most industrialized and wealthy powers, at least complementing Third World/neo-colonial national liberation and socialism.
Cuba actually has more worker's democracy than post-Lenin USSR ever had, despite the latter's superior military and economic strength.



Grow up. Are you telling me the material and environmental realities of Russia on one hand, and the Dominican Republic on the other, are negligible facts? Some states are basically not self-sufficient or plausibly autonomous. I'm the materialist DEALING WITH ACTUAL HISTORY here.
It is you who is treating "nations" like some kind of intrinsic entity. "Socialism in one country" is fundamentally flawed, no matter what the country is.



You know I'm not saying that, but nice attempt at playing to your puerile crowd. Are you saying it is irrelevant if a country is capable of feeding itself? Of sustaining industry with domestic materials? Are you serious?
I don't believe in "socialism in one country" or autarky. I was referring to the fact that a socialist revolution could indeed begin at a relatively small and weak country and spread across the region.

A socialist revolution spreading across a region of several small countries is certainly no less likely than a revolution spreading across a single large country.

And actually I can't read your mind, and the point you make did sound like some kind of "national chauvinistic determinism" on the face of it.



I'm sorry, but the idea that all nations have an equal capacity to achieve socialism autonomously is just ridiculous. Why do you call yourself a Trotskyist? You clearly lack even the most facile understanding of their politics.

What the fuck do you think "material conditions" means? Economic sustainability matters if you want to hope for socialism in one country, otherwise you must remove the major imperialist opposition to socialist expansion by revolution, and/or bring over a large bloc of countries to socialism, so they can survive and thrive, and do not endure what Russia did in the 1930s or China in the late 1950s.
You obviously know nothing about Trotskyism, not that I am an orthodox Trotskyist by any means. Trotskyists fundamentally oppose the idea of "socialism in one country". I was never talking about that.



You're a fucking moron. I'm sorry, but you are. It is plain as day to anyone who is capable of reading the English language I am talking about the fact that if you have NO FUCKING IRON ORE or the like, you can't have Marxian socialism because you'll have to self-impose the law of value while groveling for resources in trade with capitalist powers. How is that not obvious?
Your point wasn't clear. You just sounded like some nations are "naturally superior" to others. Perhaps you were thinking of "nations" as purely geographical entities rather than as "nations of people".

The point is that "socialism in one country" is a flawed idea. A revolution must spread across the world within a relatively short space of time, or it will degenerate, in different ways depending on what kind of country it first arose in.



No shit. But there was thousands of years of illiterate oppressed peasant suffering, and even egalitarian revolts against it. Marxism (though I am not a Marxist, unlike - purportedly - you) is presupposed that the techological and scientific and economic achievements of the modern era are material prerequisites for socialism that cannot be overcome with human will alone. Have you never read Lenin on the Narodnichestvo? Have you never heard of Engels' The Peasant War in Germany?
What are you talking about? I never disputed any of this. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of countries in the world today already have a sufficient level of industrial development to act as the first block in a series of international revolutions.



No, if this post is anything to go by, you're not even a materialist. I am a materialist, and highly influenced by anarchism and humanist Marxism. The fact is whether a country can economically support itself matters. I gave you a specific case like the Sandanistas and modern cases like Chavez, where it is simply impractically difficult to extricate themselves from international capitalism by autarky, and still develop their country. Your post suggests you're simply historically and economically illiterate.
Well, you are ideologically illiterate, because one reason I'm influenced by Trotskyism is precisely that I don't believe in "autarky" or "socialism in one country" fundamentally. A revolution must spread.

How am I not a materialist? The point is not for a socialist state to directly compete economically with capitalist states in a "state-capitalist" manner, because that itself will lead to degeneration of the socialist system. The point is for the socialist state, wherever it is, to spread the revolution globally.

As I said, despite being economically isolated and weaker, socialism ideologically is actually in a much better shape in Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela compared with a larger and more powerful state like China.

You can't analyse socialist ideology like how you would analyse capitalist economics.



You're right, fruit farm colonies of the U.S. will magically industrialize themselves without the law of value through the power of love. Funny you mention Guevara, since Cuba remained dependent on the USSR's gross purchase of the sugar export in order to economically survive. :rolleyes:
It's not about industrialisation, because it's not about directly competing with capitalist states in a "state-capitalist" manner, but rather it's about directly spreading the revolution world-wide. For this the human factor is more important.

You accuse me of being a non-materialist, but you don't know what you are talking about. I don't believe in any kind of "morality" or "love" in any abstract sense. I believe in them as a social construction imbedded in concrete productive relations.

Cuba's problem is not primarily economical, but rather ideological; it is not spreading the revolution.



Economy does matter. Of course people matter, but we must mobilize people in a way that respects and realistically manages the economic conditions - that's exactly what Marx's challenge to utopian and idealist socialism was.
Well, sure, once we have a socialist society world-wide, we need rational economic planning and the like.

But we are not talking about that here, are we? We are talking about socialist revolutions. And I agree with Trotskyists that the most important thing is to spread the revolution world-wide, and for this the human factor is the most important. It's not about direct economic competition with capitalism.



You're a moron. I'm only arguing with Trotskyists and you on this very thread on how peasants would really be brought into socialist democracy. I provided the only case I've ever heard of actual democratic peasant-worker socialist cooperation in Spain. You support an organization which apologizes for peasant disenfranchisement, forced requisition, and blames its fuck ups like Kronstadt on "too many filthy peasants". Give me a fucking break.

And yeah, Mao's China had so much peasant socialist democracy. :rolleyes:
Well, you are just demonising Leninism now, it seems. Stalin did implement forced collectivisation policies, but Lenin and Trotsky never did. Lenin believed in an alliance of workers with the peasantry, so did Mao. Mao made some mistakes, but collectivisation under Mao was not like how it was under Stalin.



Again, you show what you call "humanist Marxism" is really just magical thinking and spiritualism.
Spiritualism? :confused:



Nuclear groundbursts in the major river valleys of China would exterminate the majority of the Chinese population because they would be rendered uninhabitable the full length of the rivers for hundreds of years.
How many nukes did the US have at the time? Two were dropped on the tiny islands of Japan and destroyed two major cities, but basically had no long-term effects. How much more are required to "exterminate" a huge nation like China?



The CCP and the PLA could only come to power as they did with the USSR's assistance and the unique circumstances of the post-World War II settlement. An ex nihilo Maoist revolutionary movement without support would never have achieved Maoists' historical success.
Well, the Soviets did provide some assistance, but seriously you shouldn't overstate this. Stalin was actually on KMT's side more during the Civil War in many ways. When the Maoists drove KMT off the mainland, Soviet ambassadors escaped with the KMT regime to Taiwan. Both the USSR and the USA at the time actually wanted to have a "divided" China (similar to how it was like in Korea and Germany) with the Yangtze River as the border. Neither wanted to see a strong, united China, which would threaten their geo-political interests.



Keep imagining that somehow the sheer force of will can reverse fundamental resource asymmetries in distribution across global physical geography.
You are missing the point, because I don't believe in "autarky" as a sound socialist strategy. I was talking about spreading the socialist revolution globally within a short space of time, not directly economically competing with capitalist states as a "state-capitalist" regime.



Yet somehow we don't have to worry about intervention because global waves of revolution will somehow immobilize the imperial armies without causing domestic revolutions among them? :rolleyes:

Germany 1919. Again, why are you in the CWI? You clearly share zero of their politics.

You need to go the whole way, since you seem to have no clue what Trotskyism is, and I don't think it suits either an organization or an individual to have membership where there is no shared affinity.
I'm not a CWI member. Nor am I a formal Trotskyist. I'm only a critical supporter of Trotskyism and of the CWI.

But you show no understanding of Trotskyism. One of the most fundamental tenets of Trotskyism is precisely the rejection of "socialism in one country"/autarky/state-capitalist-style competition with capitalism, in favour of directly spreading the revolution world-wide within a relatively short period of time.

Russia 1917 succeeded while Germany 1919 failed, empirically demonstrating Lenin's idea of "capitalism breaking at its weakest link", and that achieving a successful revolution in an advanced capitalist country is more difficult because of the immense weight of the conservative reactionary leadership of the labour movement.



Maybe you could explain that, instead of expecting me to take your word for it.
Well, it's just a matter of objective considerations of productive forces, etc, but I could send you some articles on this topic.

[Geiseric]

Can somebody explain, in a nutshell, what they're bickering about?

[Omsk]

Well,over the course of the last few pages,they have changed their subject at least 20 times,but i am preatty sure the current one(s) probably have something to do with socialism and China,a revolution too. :lol:

[red cat]

Handwavium. What does this mean in practice? You know, if you want people to side with Maoism, maybe you should clearly explain at least something of the how it would work here, rather than indulging in requisite "LEFTER THAN YOU AHHH" or historical arguments that do not explain anything.



We're not defeatists. We recognize the U.S. lacks the social and material conditions to support prolonged guerrilla warfare based on a non-existent rural base.

Either the revolution will "flip" the masses and the army, as in 1917, or it will fail. This is military science common sense.



Then there's no independent base regions from which prolonged guerrilla war can be launched. Furthermore guerrilla war never succeeds without mass and urban worker agitation and organization or foreign aid (which we will not get here).



He's being sarcastic. There's no American peasantry, and the U.S., being the imperial power par excellence, obviously has no 'national bourgeoisie', even if I were to accept that Maoist paradigm. Which as I asked earlier, invalidates the basis of the Bloc of Four Classes, and questions the relevance of MLM to First World urbanized proletarian struggles.


You might not believe in Maoism, but why should anyone take you, who has the chauvinistic attitude that only First World (and only "Western" First World for that matter) urban proletarians are fit to "lead" the genuine socialist movement, seriously?


Big words for a Trotskyist.

Iseul is a semi-Maoist. And she makes a very valid point. Your replies to my posts are also characterized by arguments that have nothing to do with Maoism or what I write, but only emphasize what you think of Maoism while not knowing most of it.

[Queercommie Girl]

What you are going to say next.

Welcome to Fantasy Island. China is completely and wholly capitalist. It is either state capitalist or private capitalist.

So what? That's a liberal argument. what you're saying is that cjhinese capitalism is "nicer" and Russian capitalism.

Workers in France are better off than workers in either place. Does that make France anything less than a capitalist country that needs to be overthrown?

RED DAVE


"Liberalism" or not, I don't believe in the ultra-leftist line that "everything non-socialist is equally reactionary". That's basically just looking at quality while forgetting about quantity.

But for what it's worth, I will be frank with you: I don't give a damn about the Chinese regime as it exists now. The only thing I defend in China now is the territorial integrity of the Chinese state. I don't believe in Tibetan and Uyghur separatism. Otherwise I don't really support the current Chinese regime in any way.

So I would basically rather have a Taiwanese "counter-revolution" in mainland China at the moment instead of the status quo, despite technically labelling the PRC as an "extremely deformed worker's state". At least this way basic democracy and worker's rights would become comparable to the levels of advanced capitalist countries. At least Chinese workers would be able to form independent trade unions. And the Taiwanese regime has a better policy on LGBT rights too. Taiwanese political parties ruling China would also not lead to China breaking up along the lines of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

[Dimmu]

I would be interested to know what kind of government the Chinese would want to get if their "revolution" succeeds..

[khad]

Yeah, because this excuses thousands of bodies in ditches and torturing families with shit and piss. Go fuck yourself with your statistics, all of you who support Mao. You want to believe that he was a great revolutionary leader and not a mass murdering madman because you desperately cling to him as a symbol. Basically "Don't insult Mao!!! It is really me!!!"
I'm actually one of the most critical of Mao here, but don't let that stop your hysterics.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm actually one of the most critical of Mao here, but don't let that stop your hysterics.

What do you expect? Toppler is a hysterical psychopath.

[Queercommie Girl]

I would be interested to know what kind of government the Chinese would want to get if their "revolution" succeeds..

There is no "revolution" in China at all. There are just a few individuals saying certain things, no more. There is no mass movement.

Most of the activists that have surfaced so far have generally pro-US and pro-capitalist views.

[Dimmu]

There is no "revolution" in China at all. There are just a few individuals saying certain things, no more. There is no mass movement.

Most of the activists that have surfaced so far have generally pro-US and pro-capitalist views.

I am aware of that.. I was just speculating..

Also can China even go "more" capitalistic then they are now?

[Queercommie Girl]

I am aware of that.. I was just speculating..

Also can China even go "more" capitalistic then they are now?


Yes, of course it can become even more capitalist. It could sell off even more sectors of the economy, or it could even become fascist.

But to use this as an excuse to defend the Chinese regime is a mistake.

[Omsk]

Well,'our' goal is not to make it more capitalistic,so there is no point in discussing that.But,il try to answer that-yes,it can be even more capitalist via massive trade agrements with the US for example,there are several implications. Let’s just mention a few crucial ones: on the one hand, the more China plays a key role in the world capitalist market (important) the more they will be dependent on China,and the more global capitalism will have a stake in the stability of capitalist China (as in,its productivity and mass produced product's) .And not to mention the horrible state of the working class of the Chinese social structure,low wages and immense labour.

[The Hong Se Sun]

I know I'm late getting back to this but I'd like to say this; that I live in a area that is mainly farm land and thus I know many farmers. Not every farm is a corporate farm like you would love to believe because it is good for your argument and your statements are still mainly incorrect because corporate farms are still mainly run by families like yours that feed the nation. I think farmers are among the hardest working and most oppressed people in this nation. There are little towns in the middle of these areas that grain, corn, beef, pork etc is brought to to be distributed to the rest of the nation.

And to the person who just called me a MTWist to support his argument; farmers do see themselves in the same class as labor style workers but they have little to no free time to organize and politicize.

One week the local farmers all went on a general strike because the two local competing distributors were lowering their pay out for soy beans and soy stalks (big crops here) it was the most militant and greatest example Ive ever seen of radical democracy and ya know what? they won their struggle with full support from the police, unions in the surrounding areas, the people and they didn't need a labor union to organize them. They all know each other they all eat together and go to church together. It is dogmatic and just plain silly (and a bit chauvinist) to write off the country farmers and workers of that sort. Also I never claimed to be a TWist so please keep the straw arguments and pig statements in your head

[Jose Gracchus]

Of course poor farmers can be allies of working people in the U.S. However, they are just not large or independent enough to be a base of sustained rural guerrilla war. That's all I was saying; the U.S. has had capitalism much more fully transform the countryside than, say, India.

[The Red Next Door]

You're a disgrace.

Nic.


Bakunin shot up herion and i don't give a fuck what ya think, that your opinion, I think the same about you.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Of course poor farmers can be allies of working people in the U.S. However, they are just not large or independent enough to be a base of sustained rural guerrilla war. That's all I was saying; the U.S. has had capitalism much more fully transform the countryside than, say, India.

True enough but the farmers themselves see the government as a problem connected to why they work so hard and get so little money.