Marxists.org hacked by China

[cormacobear]

For those of you who may not know, the Marxists Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) is one of the best on-line resources for Marxist literature that exists in cyberspace today. They have a remarkable collection of material from a large number of authors (ie. Marx/Engels, Mao, Stalin, Castro, Lenin, etc.), all alphabetized and organized according to subject matter. They even have works done by people not considered Marxist (ie. Bakunin, Max Weber, etc.), and the best part about this is that it is all FREE. In true communist fashion, the site is run by volunteers and one can access their entire collection without having to give them any info., setting up an account, or any nonsense like that.

Unfortunately, to my surprise (and extreme disappointment), it appears as though the site has been attacked either by officials of the Chinese government or by hackers who have been using Chinese government servers. I sincerely hope that this isn't something perpetrated by members of the "communist" government in Beijing, though I suppose that if they are now willing to "recognize" the importance of private property rights, perhaps attacking a Marxist web-site may not seem so bizarre after all.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/cont...1227_760653.htm (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2006/gb20061227_760653.htm)

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

ny times article on mia attacks (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/technology/05marxist.html?ex=1328331600&en=01640e6eb6cffcc0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

[Publius]

That's just too funny.

[Whitten]

Well this is a rather shocking degree of betrayal, even for China.

[apathy maybe]

If is true, why is it a betrayal? China has never been communistic, though they may have once tried to move towards communism.

But for at least the last 20 years, the bosses in China have been anti-communism. They have been progressively moving towards fuller capitalism, they join the WTO in 2001 after all.

Personally I can understand to a limited extent why, perhaps, the Chinese authorities would attack marxists.org, because they don't want the people in China to have access to Marxist writings and realise what a fucked up place China is, but they could just block the site. So why don't they just do that?

[Honggweilo]

It hasnt been proven that it was the PCR goverment. Besides, think of the Free Economic Zones which had unlimited internet acces.

Also from the NYT article

Of course, since the Chinese have banned the archive before, it raises the question of why it would use computer attacks. Also, security experts say that Chinese machines can be exploited by people outside the country, making the attacks appear to come from China, because they often lack sophisticated protections.

Anyway, see this topic
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=61384

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Thanks for bringing this up, cormacobear....


Well this is a rather shocking degree of betrayal, even for China.

Why?

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 07:43 am
Thanks for bringing this up, cormacobear....


Well this is a rather shocking degree of betrayal, even for China.

Why?
Yeah, seems like more of a material-interest thing.

Chinese citizen: Hey look! The reason we didnt progress into communism is because we had a peasant majority, characteristic of feudalism not capitalism, and a dictatorial party cadre (which of course would not want to "wither away" because of material interests)! So the central Marxist hypothesis, historical materialism and proletarian revolution as a result of class conflicts in capitalism, still stands!

Chinese gov: They&#39;re finding out how bad the PRC fucked up marxism with the "great leap forward" and how historical materialism with a class basis still works? Oh shit <hack>

What I don&#39;t get is why self-proclaimed communists are defending China.

A) Maoist China didn&#39;t work. It didn&#39;t transition to communism, it transitioned to capitalism because pre-"communist" China was pretty much feudal (peasant majority), and also because party leaders had material interests to stay in power--becoming the new bourgeois instead of abolishing class. The best China ever could have been is anti-imperialist.
B) China is not maoist anymore. They are a capitalist imperialist power, and the transition to such was helped by the Maoist regime.

[Honggweilo]

oh boy, here we go again with the peasant discriminitation.. nice petty bourgeois rethoric.. in this way your actually defending the capitalist developement stage? because that no better then defending "market-socialism"

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

oh boy, here we go again with the peasant discriminitation..

Peasant consciousness means they want their own share of land, even Lenin recognised this, with his famous slogan.

[Matty_UK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 01:03 pm
A) Maoist China didn&#39;t work. It didn&#39;t transition to communism, it transitioned to capitalism because pre-"communist" China was pretty much feudal (peasant majority), and also because party leaders had material interests to stay in power--becoming the new bourgeois instead of abolishing class. The best China ever could have been is anti-imperialist.
I actually view Maoist China as a success, because the historical task of the Chinese Revolution, even if not consciously aimed for by specific individuals, was to modernise in order to be able to compete with imperialist capitalists on the world market. We all know that imperialism hinders industrialisation, with capitalists only investing in fields that complement rather than compete with imperialist industry (such as agriculture) and necassary raw materials and capital leaving the country. Maoist China defeated that, increased industrial output 13fold, introduced free education and healthcare, doubled life expectancy, gave equal rights to women, and established the historical tasks of the bourgeoisie (agrarian revolution, national independance and unification to allow industrial growth) who in countries dominated by imperialists are fucking useless with no progressive tendencies and held back with ties to foreign imperialists and old ruling classes.

It might not have been successful in building socialism but that&#39;s because Trotsky&#39;s Permanent Revolution theory (in non-imperialist countries, the proletariat must complete the tasks of bourgeois revolutions by seizing power, and once in power it will continue revolutionary reforms towards socialism) ain&#39;t gonna work unless the ruling class has material interest in building socialism; and unless the proletariat is the ruling class that&#39;s never going to happen, but Maoist China did succeed in it&#39;s progressive historical task.

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by Matty_UK+February 08, 2007 02:34 pm--> (Matty_UK &#064; February 08, 2007 02:34 pm)
[email protected] 08, 2007 01:03 pm
A) Maoist China didn&#39;t work. It didn&#39;t transition to communism, it transitioned to capitalism because pre-"communist" China was pretty much feudal (peasant majority), and also because party leaders had material interests to stay in power--becoming the new bourgeois instead of abolishing class. The best China ever could have been is anti-imperialist.
I actually view Maoist China as a success, because the historical task of the Chinese Revolution, even if not consciously aimed for by specific individuals, was to modernise in order to be able to compete with imperialist capitalists on the world market. We all know that imperialism hinders industrialisation, with capitalists only investing in fields that complement rather than compete with imperialist industry (such as agriculture) and necassary raw materials and capital leaving the country. Maoist China defeated that, increased industrial output 13fold, introduced free education and healthcare, doubled life expectancy, gave equal rights to women, and established the historical tasks of the bourgeoisie (agrarian revolution, national independance and unification to allow industrial growth) who in countries dominated by imperialists are fucking useless with no progressive tendencies and held back with ties to foreign imperialists and old ruling classes.

It might not have been successful in building socialism but that&#39;s because Trotsky&#39;s Permanent Revolution theory (in non-imperialist countries, the proletariat must complete the tasks of bourgeois revolutions by seizing power, and once in power it will continue revolutionary reforms towards socialism) ain&#39;t gonna work unless the ruling class has material interest in building socialism; and unless the proletariat is the ruling class that&#39;s never going to happen, but Maoist China did succeed in it&#39;s progressive historical task. [/b]
Seconed

[Matty_UK]

I&#39;m moving to China for 6 months starting from tuesday. I&#39;m bringing a fair amount of socialist literature with me, it&#39;ll be interesting to see how I fare at customs. I might bring a copy of Ernest Mandel&#39;s Introduction to Marxism (an AWESOME book, very useful if you want a synopsis of wider Marxist Theory even if there is an obvious Trotskyist slant) in my hand lugguage to ensure it&#39;s noticed and it&#39;ll be interesting to see if it gets confiscated.

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 08:13 am
oh boy, here we go again with the peasant discriminitation.. nice petty bourgeois rethoric.. in this way your actually defending the capitalist developement stage? because that no better then defending "market-socialism"
I&#39;m defending the capitalist development stage because it&#39;s better than feudalism.


Matty: seconded.

But all you socialists upholding China as an example need to shut up, because China didn&#39;t work in the sense that what Mao meant it to do didn&#39;t happen.

Yeah it worked in that China progressed to capitalism. And I like that. But everyone is acting like China was in some way "socialist" as well. That never happened, let alone communism, so stop losing your heads over me criticizing China&#39;s methods.

And "peasant discrimination"? Peasants are a product of feudalism. Anyone knows that communism cannot happen without capitalism happening first, peasants becoming proletarians. Peasants led the bourgeois revolutions because they wanted land of their own - private property. Again, what people want doesn&#39;t matter. Material conditions do. And if there is still a mode of production in which there are peasants (feudalism), communism is impossible to reach from there. The only attainable goal is a bourgeois revolution and capitalism. Peasants help to create capitalism, not classless society.

[Honggweilo]

And if there is still a mode of production in which there are peasants (feudalism), communism is impossible to reach from there. The only attainable goal is a bourgeois revolution and capitalism. Peasants help to create capitalism, not classless society. Yeah.. lets just scrape the sickle then. C&#39;mon do really you belive that the peasantry, the most oppresed part of the proletariat helps create capitalism?? They majority of the third world, maybe of the world is considerd peasantry. The peasantry in China formed collectivized farms and communes which we&#39;re the backbone of chinese society, they we&#39;re not privatly owned.. I think you are confused with the NEP



Peasants are a product of feudalism
You claim the peasantry made a peoples revolution possible due to their horrible living standards due to fuedalism and they we&#39;re trying to emancipate themself together with the urban working class. China has come a long way and industrialized, educated and improved living standards for its people, mostly due to a revolutionary peasantry that demanded emancipation with the working class. They fully educated themselfs and each other in cooperation with the urban working class, and did come a long way. China industrialized and mechanized agriculture through education of the peasanty. Through this way they where slowly desolving the difference between the peasantry and urban workers.

But due to reformism, international conflicts, the Sino-Soviet splitt, the fall of the SU and fierce reaction things came to a halt and the Chinese Goverment grasped towards world markets.. which was a horrible blow to the peasantry.

The peasantry got rid of feudalism through socialism, and peasants got largely emancipated, without having to resort to capitalism first.


Anyone knows that communism cannot happen without capitalism happening first, peasants becoming proletarians You know the current chinese goverment claims the same thing, a simulated capitalist fase under socialist guidelines :rolleyes:.

European and American society is already industrialized and has a fully mechanized agricultural sector wich is controlled by large corporations mostly. And of course exploits the third worlds agriculture in addition.
Claiming that the third world isnt right for socialism because some of it is fuedal is exaclty what the right winged social democrats from the 2nd international said during the 1st world war.

[RevMARKSman]

Claiming that the third world isnt right for socialism because some of it is fuedal is exaclty what the right winged social democrats from the 2nd international said during the 1st world war

I don&#39;t care what some group of nutballs thought because A) that&#39;s irrelevant and B) I&#39;m a communist, not a socialist.


C&#39;mon do really you belive that the peasantry, the most oppresed part of the proletariat helps create capitalism??
Yes. The feudal peasantry free themselves by creating capitalism. Then the proletariat free themselves by creating communism.


You know the current chinese goverment claims the same thing, a simulated capitalist fase under socialist guidelines rolleyes.gif.

I know China&#39;s government is trying to hide that they&#39;re capitalist. But they still are. I don&#39;t care about the "socialist guidelines", if capitalism happens as opposed to feudalism, so be it. I don&#39;t want some sort of semicapitalist state "socialism", I want communism, and that only happens after capitalism, whether some government official says it&#39;s simulated or not.


They fully educated themselfs and each other in cooperation with the urban working class, and did come a long way.

Yeah...to capitalism.


China industrialized and mechanized agriculture through education of the peasanty. Through this way they where slowly desolving the difference between the peasantry and urban workers.

No shit. THat&#39;s what happens in the transition of feudalism to capitalism.

[Comrade Marcel]

I still haven&#39;t seen any proof this is perpetrated by China.

Besides, they would be more like to go after M2M.org or MIM you would think.

[Janus]

I would think that the Chinese gov. would be a lot more discrete in their attacks. Some of the IP origins are blatantly from government sites (such as Xinhua) which seems to give off the sense that this was simply routed through Chinese channels in order to cover one&#39;s tracks. This is how denial of service attacks usually work.

[cormacobear]

I too have doubts it was an &#39;official&#39; action their are millions of people in the government who could have taken it upon themselves to do this. And it is very true that the Chinese network is highly susceptible to proxy access, I myself have a program on my computer that allows Chinese internet users access denied sites through western computers it could have been done from anywhere. But if China will block the site, it makes you wonder what the copies of these works published in China look like.

Capital
Karl Marx

pg 1
[ Edited for Content]

The End.

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 08, 2007 11:20 pm
I still haven&#39;t seen any proof this is perpetrated by China.

Besides, they would be more like to go after M2M.org or MIM you would think.
M2M, perhaps. But MIM? Seems doubtful.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 03:43 am
I too have doubts it was an &#39;official&#39; action their are millions of people in the government who could have taken it upon themselves to do this. And it is very true that the Chinese network is highly susceptible to proxy access, I myself have a program on my computer that allows Chinese internet users access denied sites through western computers it could have been done from anywhere. But if China will block the site, it makes you wonder what the copies of these works published in China look like.

Capital
Karl Marx

pg 1
[ Edited for Content]

The End.
I don&#39;t think they edited any Marx. I think it is Mao that has been heavely edited actually. They just released his "works" like last year.

Before that you could only get the 5 volume "selected works", and volume V is very contraversial.

In India apparently you can get Mao&#39;s works in about 36 volumes.

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 11:14 pm

Claiming that the third world isnt right for socialism because some of it is fuedal is exaclty what the right winged social democrats from the 2nd international said during the 1st world war

I don&#39;t care what some group of nutballs thought because A) that&#39;s irrelevant and B) I&#39;m a communist, not a socialist.


C&#39;mon do really you belive that the peasantry, the most oppresed part of the proletariat helps create capitalism??
Yes. The feudal peasantry free themselves by creating capitalism. Then the proletariat free themselves by creating communism.


You know the current chinese goverment claims the same thing, a simulated capitalist fase under socialist guidelines rolleyes.gif.

I know China&#39;s government is trying to hide that they&#39;re capitalist. But they still are. I don&#39;t care about the "socialist guidelines", if capitalism happens as opposed to feudalism, so be it. I don&#39;t want some sort of semicapitalist state "socialism", I want communism, and that only happens after capitalism, whether some government official says it&#39;s simulated or not.


They fully educated themselfs and each other in cooperation with the urban working class, and did come a long way.

Yeah...to capitalism.


China industrialized and mechanized agriculture through education of the peasanty. Through this way they where slowly desolving the difference between the peasantry and urban workers.

No shit. THat&#39;s what happens in the transition of feudalism to capitalism.
You&#39;re futile -_-, you are basically saying that peasants (which only can be feudal and have no relation to the working class) are as worse as capitalism and a communist revolution isnt possible in the third world because of the current revisionist chinese goverment. Thats sounds pretty petty to me.

[Comrade Marcel]

The idea that peasants can only liberate themselves to capitalists is Trotskyite dogma.

[RNK]

feudal peasantry

It isn&#39;t the peasantry but the nobility that create capitalism, or in some cases certain very limited elements of the peasantry. Mud-diggers didn&#39;t suddenly leave the farm and their 30-year-lives to open factories and usher in the industrial revolution. Whether a country be fuedal or not, there still exists the contradiction between the lower and the upper echelons of society and therefore the starting point for revolution. Like ddxt pointed out, the sickle is there for a reason.

Anyway what does this have to do with China? China is still largely a peasant country with the majority of its population making a living working the land and sustaining themselves semi-independantly. A large portion are industrialized workers in the cities, who have been turned into the pawn-things of multinational corporations with the approval of the government. They have become the proleteriat and it would seem their bourgeoisie is either multinational corporations with the approval of their government, or the government itself. And while a rapidly-growing home-made bourgeoisie explodes from the cities, the peasantry is left behind by a state that has suddenly found the addiction of money.

[Honggweilo]

It isn&#39;t the peasantry but the nobility that create capitalism, or in some cases certain very limited elements of the peasantry. Mud-diggers didn&#39;t suddenly leave the farm and their 30-year-lives to open factories and usher in the industrial revolution. Whether a country be fuedal or not, there still exists the contradiction between the lower and the upper echelons of society and therefore the starting point for revolution. Like ddxt pointed out, the sickle is there for a reason.
Good point ernest, there&#39;s a big differnce between landlords and peasantry.


Anyway what does this have to do with China? China is still largely a peasant country with the majority of its population making a living working the land and sustaining themselves semi-independantly. A large portion are industrialized workers in the cities, who have been turned into the pawn-things of multinational corporations with the approval of the government. They have become the proleteriat and it would seem their bourgeoisie is either multinational corporations with the approval of their government, or the government itself. And while a rapidly-growing home-made bourgeoisie explodes from the cities, the peasantry is left behind by a state that has suddenly found the addiction of money.

Indeed. The peasanty is China is being subjected by privatisation and are flung back into fuedal situations. Most of the collective farms and former communes have been privitized, and farmers are forced to become landless or small time farmers. Due to the major problem of local corruption farmers loose their land, are cut from subsidizing and are neglected in favor of multinationals. The main force against the privitization (thus against capitalism) in China is the peasantry these days, as also is the communist legacy in China. The The urban workingclass is quite tame and passive due to their rapid economic growth in the major cities, and in effect the rise in living standards. Also the Hukou system is a dicrimination of countryside citizens in favour of urban citizens, it prevents peasants to became urban workers. With the cutback on alot of countryside social programs since the 70&#39;s (like rural community modernization, education, healthcare), this creates a major gap in wealth. Although the chinese goverment is stressing to fight corruption, distribute the wealth trough social programs and canceling the Hokou system in thecurrent 5 year plan, the practice of these plans still remain. If there is going to be a change of course in China, it will be largely due to the presure of the peasantry.

[Janus]

But if China will block the site, it makes you wonder what the copies of these works published in China look like.

Capital
Karl Marx

pg 1
[ Edited for Content]

The End.
There are copies of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin&#39;s works made by the Beijing Press. As far as I can tell they&#39;re pretty much the same.


I too have doubts it was an &#39;official&#39; action their are millions of people in the government who could have taken it upon themselves to do this.
Someone with the technical expertise to do this should&#39;ve at least had the simple knowledge of trying to cover up their tracks especially if they were pros (MIA&#39;s security was pretty old as was their Linux kernel so it probably didn&#39;t require a lot of skill). My guess is that it was probably committed either by some Western political conservatives or maybe the Taiwanese ( they have the chance to damage two birds with one stone).

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 01:03 pm

Yeah, seems like more of a material-interest thing.

agree


Chinese citizen: Hey look&#33; The reason we didnt progress into communism is because we had a peasant majority, characteristic of feudalism not capitalism, and a dictatorial party cadre (which of course would not want to "wither away" because of material interests)&#33; So the central Marxist hypothesis, historical materialism and proletarian revolution as a result of class conflicts in capitalism, still stands&#33;

or just the charcteristcs of a underdeveloped, overexploited country. What the fuck is up with all the peasant bashing? Of course it was a dictatorial party every party has dictatorial class interests. The CCP under Mao implemented a dictatorship of the proletariat (this guy marx, ya, he came up with it. Check it out), in which the bourgiousie are suppressed by the proletariat.


Chinese gov: They&#39;re finding out how bad the PRC fucked up marxism with the "great leap forward" and how historical materialism with a class basis still works? Oh shit <hack>

The Great Leap Forward didn&#39;t "fuck up marxism" it took socialism to a whole new level. People&#39;s Communes in which everything was collectively organized and ran, were set up marking the begining of the socialism&#39;s farthest advance thus far in human history. Real worker and peasant control of the means of production was being implemented. Yes, the immediate economic plans were sabotaged when Krushchev pulled all all advisors out of the PRC and took the blueprints which were central to the GLP with him (coupled with the worst weather in Chinese history until I think the 90s), however new social and productive-relation achievements were made as never before in history, as well as economic ground work was laid so that by 1976, crop failure and famine, a common phenomenon in Chinese history, were erased forever.


What I don&#39;t get is why self-proclaimed communists are defending China.

It&#39;s obviously not however, those third positionist, Chinese revisionists who do say it is use the arguement you&#39;re using: "we have to build capitalism before socialism, silly goose".


The best China ever could have been is anti-imperialist.

Or... the farthest advancement towards socialism in human history thus far.


B) China is not maoist anymore. They are a capitalist imperialist power, and the transition to such was helped by the Maoist regime.

No, that was what Chiang Kai-Shek was planning, Maoism built socialism, by itself, all alone, aside from several small countries fighting, capitalism, soviet social imperialism, and internal capitalism like that of Liu Shaqui and Deng Xioping. In 1976, the proletariat lost to the Deng Xioping Mafia, in a coup of power.

[ComradeSnowball]

I think that everyone has made valuable points. I think the Chinese government, which is obviously an authoritarian bureacratic capitalist nightmare, is especially afraid of writers such as Marx, Engels, DeLeon, and Hal Draper who advocate for "socialism from below," rather than the top-down state socialism that blossomed under Lenin and especially under Stalin and Mao. If one embraces Lenin, the PRC still has a lot of explaining to do -- that is, if it wondered to explain anything. I&#39;m not sure whether a peasant society can, in fact, leap-frog over capitalism to get to true socialism; it seems possible because the bureacratic collectivism of Maoist China occupied the same historical space as capitalism -- that is, it did not present any significant advance over it. Still, the commercialization of Mao pictures and the PRC&#39;s unseemly, slatternly embrace of Western multinational corporations is disgusting. It is not at all surprising that its henchmen would hack an invaluable resource of revolutionary TRUTH.

However, I will concede that the PRC&#39;s form, Maoist or Dengist, is an improvement over feudalism.