Another new anti-liberal

Greetings all,

I have for some time now tried to rationalize away my support for such horrible regimes as the USSR, DPRK, Mao's PRC etc. I tell myself, "you are just attracted to the glamour of revolution and want in a self-hating way to give in to the cold hand of dictatorship, you should take to heart the idea of opposing these brutal lies and blah blah blah". No longer! I declare myself anti-liberal and eagerly seek the real, philosophical and historical roots for my liberal, human-rights-focus induced nausea and disillusion.

If I could be directed to resources which would help me understand the basis of anti-liberalism, that would be greatly appreciated.

fundamentally, liberalism is the stance of reformists and closet capitalists. you cannot be revolutionary and at the same time liberal.


human rights is not the calling card of liberals though.

revolutionaries are revolutionaries because of their desire for justice and human dignity. but, its not always peaceful, and its not always nice. its called class war for a reason.

Welcome comrade

Regarding the above post, Mao's work "Combat Liberalism" is good but its more about personal liberalism than political liberalism. That is, its about how someone deals with other people rather than with their actual political views. Of course it is closely related and the piece contains a good description of the essence of liberalism -

Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.

Political liberalism is our principal concern here.

We reject and oppose it because it puts the individual's "right" above what is good for the whole of humanity, or the working class. Even when it appears as benevolent humanism is stems from a selfish world view. One clear is example is "the right to private property"; while its great for the bourgeois individual it means exploitation and suffering for the rest of humanity.

Liberalism is the ideology of bourgeois rule. It was progressive and revolutionary before, as capitalism was up and coming centuries ago and it challenged the 'divine right' of the king and the feudal system etc. But now capitalism has become a reactionary oppressive force, and so is liberalism.

I have for some time now tried to rationalize away my support for such horrible regimes as the USSR, DPRK, Mao's PRC etc. I tell myself, "you are just attracted to the glamour of revolution and want in a self-hating way to give in to the cold hand of dictatorship, you should take to heart the idea of opposing these brutal lies and blah blah blah".

One should be careful here though. When we criticise liberal attacks on socialist countries we do not mean "human suffering doesnt matter, we must support dictatorship regardless!". If the people do suffer and if it is the fault of the government, then we shouldn't ignore those facts. But we should always consider the entire picture, the objective situation, etc , and not get carried away with the highly selective and often slanderous portrayals of socialist movements by the liberal media. For example, in the west we have a lot of 'scar literature' by bourgeois Chinese who suffered during the cultural revolution, and we are encouraged to drink it up and form our opinions of socialist china based on it. a liberal will do just that and say "who could support such a movement !? This innocent human was treated so horribly by that angry mob! what an evil regime that caused such suffering etc etc" whereas a socialist would say "terrible suffering on the individual human level yes, but overall its a great movement as the people are fighting against backwards ideology and institutions etc etc" and will form their opinion based on what things meant for the people in general

Many in this group oppose some of the governments of the DPRK, the PRC, the USSR, etc. The only dictatorship we support is dictatorship of the proletariat. That is, the workign class as the ruling class.

I'm really tired so sorry if this is a terrible explanation haha. please ask more questions if you want