Infighting
Infighting
I looked it up, and yep, looks like the PCF abandoned Marxism-Leninism in 1979 and adopted Eurocommunism, which is a vulgarization of Marxism that upholds western imperialism. MLs would consider them to be patsocs, same as the American Communist Party which espouses "MAGA Communism."
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Regarding approval rates, all classes were interviewed, including the bourgeoisie. Further, you will not find 100% of people agreeing that the Earth is round, flat-Earthers exist. What should be recognized is that the PRC has some of the highest approval rates in the world, and that that number appears to be increasing over the course of the study. I don't think your argument that there being a non-zero number of Chinese citizens that disapprove of the government doesn't mean the people aren't in charge of it, Chinese citizens aren't a hive-mind nor is the PRC a classless society. Class struggle is very much alive in China.
As for state-ownership, that doesn't mean those in government are the actual owners. That's not how public ownership works, again, the state isn't a class, but an extension, in the PRC's case of the proletariat. Public ownership rests on ownership among all citizens, just because said citizens elect managers and administrators doesn't mean these managers and administrators are the owners. If I am a local manager of a McDonalds store, I'm not the owner, I'm still a proletarian.
I don't consider the state to be equivalent to the people. I do consider the state to be an extension of the ruling class. Further, I see the state the same way Marx did, as purely the repressive elements of government that uphold the ruling class and oppress the other classes, and that once production is all centralized and democratized globally, fully collectivized, there won't be any class and thus no state, but there will be administrators, managers, accountants, etc as there must be in the kind of large-scale and interconnected production that the Marxist conception of communism holds as its basis.
The principle distinction between anarchism and Marxism is in decentralization and horizontalism vs centralization and collectivization. I hold both as socialist, and much prefer the Marxist framework of analysis, but don't really waste much time trying to discredit anarchism or anarchists.
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My point is that being "anti-authoritarian" is meaningless unless you qualify that with how you wish to get rid of the state and class, as until you do, there will always be one class in control of the state that oppresses the rest. "Authoritarianism" as a thing does not exist, what exists is differences in how much a state exerts its authority, and that depends on which class is in control and which circumstances it is responding to.
As an example, both Nazi Germany and modern Germany are capitalist, bourgeois states. Modern Germany doesn't need to exert its authority as much as Nazi Germany because the Nazis came to power in economic crisis, where private ownership itself was in danger. Modern Germany is just as willing to use its authority as it has the same class character, but only does so to the extent it needs to, like crushing protestors for Palestine.
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Regarding Marxists and imperialism/state capitalism, I suppose I just disagree with you there, either we are using different definitions of imperialism just like we are using different definitions of socialism and state capitalism, or you're seeing something I don't.
As for me, and socialism vs capitalism, socialism is essentially a mode of production by which collectivized ownership forms the principle aspect of society, ie the base. In practical terms, that means the large firms and key industries, which have control over the rest of the economy (controlling the rubber factory means you have power over the rubber ball factory, as an example). Capitalism is the reverse, privatized ownership of the large firms and key industries, and thus bourgeois control.
Returning to the state, the state is an extension of the ruling class, not a class in and of itself. This is principly the Marxist stance, here. The reason state ownership in a principly publicly owned economy is socialist, is because that necessitates proletarian control. If the bourgeoisie only control the medium firms, and only to the extent that they cannot work against the common, collective plan, then they have no political power, the proletariat does. The small firms are largely cooperative or petite bourgeois property in the PRC, meaning the bourgeoisie proper really only has the non-essential, smaller-scale industry. As a side note, 10% is actually higher than the disapproval rate. Disapproval is highest at the township level, but gets higher the more central you get, with only 4.3% disapproving at the top level:
State ownership is not juxtaposed with proletarian ownership, if the proletariat actually directly owned and controlled the tools they used, they would not be proletarian, but petty bourgeois. Cooperative ownership, in small-scale firms, is petty bourgeois ownership. This isn't intrinsically an issue in a broader socialist economy, but without collectivized ownership you cement class divisions, ie each cooperative is its own competing cell, rather than existing in the context of a collectivized economy run by all in the interests of all.
Capitalism, on the other hand, relies on the M-C...P...C'-M' circuit of reproduction. State-run industries don't have to adhere to this, they don't need to run a profit and they don't need to compete in a market, but in capitalism, this is the dominant mode of production over the largest and key firms and industries. The difference between how the US, for example, and PRC functions is dramatic, and its why the PRC has such large approval rates.
As for the state, Marxists and anarchists have different views. Marxists see the state as an instrument of class oppression that exists as long as class does, and so in order to get rid of it, all property needs to be gradually sublimated into collectivized property, across all of society. The principle difference is between centralization and collectivization vs decentralization and horizontalism.
I appreciate the link, but as a former anarchist myself I'm already familiar with the anarchist perspective. I'm not trying to debate anarchism, or try to explain why I agree more with Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, just defend Marxism from what I recognize as misrepresentations of it. Anark's central premise seems to be that the state creates classes, which fundamentally relies on either a different definition of class at best or a misunderstanding of the state and class at worst.
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Yep! Just having a fairly consistent and coherent understanding of the world is usually sufficient to get things more right than not, not everyone needs to be a grandmaster-level Marxist-Leninist with decades of reading and practice to view the world in a constructive way. Theory and practice is still necessary, but even liberals can acknowledge reality.
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I'm saying it because I've seen them make the same argument, as I have done myself, in different ways.
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I believe what @BrainInABox@lemmy.ml is getting at is that all states are authoritarian, and that there are positive and negative uses of authority. Executing SS officers is a positive use of authority. Since all states are an extension of the ruling class, it is better for that ruling class to be the proletariat, rather than the bourgeoisie, and for the proletariat to use its authority to oppress the bourgeoisie and gradually sublimate capital until all production is collectivized, class ceases to exist, and by extension the state withers away, leaving only administration, management, etc.
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Would be funny considering how much Vaush hates Marxism-Leninism.
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Your claim, sarcasm aside, was that Marxist-Leninists have a history of glorifying imperialism and state-capitalism, which I rejected, and said not just Marxism-Leninism but all Marxism rejects both. Either you're trying to say Marxism-Leninism isn't Marxist, in which case some heavy justification is required, or I misunderstood your point, in which case I'd appreciate elaboration.
As for the PRC, I didn't list it as state-capitalist for the same reason I wouldn't list the US as socialist. The PRC has a socialist market economy. The large firms and key industries of the PRC are publicly owned, and the medium firms are heavily controlled by the state and rely on the publicly owned key industries to function. Private property and the bourgeoisie don't have political power because they don't control the large firms or key industries.
What distinguishes state capitalism from socialism is private ownership of the large firms and key industries, or public ownership. The US, Singapore, ROK, etc all have large megacorps with firm control of the state, which uses its power to relatively guide and plan the economy for private interest. In the PRC, the opposite is the case, since the large firms and key industries are publicly owned and planned, the bourgeoisie doesn't have political control, the proletariat does. This is reflected in over 90% approval rates for the government in the PRC.
The reason the PRC has a bourgeoisie and private property to begin with is because they haven't yet developed out of it. They are still in a relatively early stage of socialism, market forces are quite useful for small and medium firms to grow into centralized firms that can be gradually sublimated and folded into public ownership. This is a Marxist understanding of economics, and while it isn't what an anarchist would want, I don't personally define socialism in a manner that excludes Marxism.
Does that make sense?
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Not really sure what you're trying to say here as "Marxism and Marxism-Leninism." Are you saying these are antagonistic ideologies? Marxism is an umbrella, not a tendency within itself. History has progressed since Marx, and Marxist theorists since Marx have developed theory and practice accordingly. By far the largest tendency in Marxism is Marxism-Leninism, the closest to a "pure" Marxism you can get is Orthodox Marxism, which itself is ironically anti-Marxist and is overall an extreme fringe belief among Marxists.
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Correct. Neither imperialism is glorified, nor is state-capitalism like the US Empire, Republic of Korea, Singapore, or Bismarck's Germany if you want an earlier example, are glorified by Marxism of any kind.
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I'm a communist, I support communism. Socialism isn't welfare, it's a transitional status towards the gradual sublimation of private property. The US is firmly capitalist and is in no way socialist, socialism isn't "when the government does stuff."
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The communists were never "buddies" with the Nazis. The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis.
Yep, tragic in retrospect.
Fantastic work, that really goes to show just what a mistake it was for Poland.
The Soviets and Nazis were never allies. They hated each other from the very beginning, and spent a long time preparing for war with the other. The Soviet Union in particular had to be careful, as it had an extremely short time spent on industrialization, which it began in earnest after toppling the Tsar, while Germany had a century of industrialization on its side.
They were never on the same side. There were numerous treaties with Britain, France, etc that the Soviets proposed in order to take on the Nazis together, but they were denied, as western Europe and the US were doing a ton of business with Nazi Germany and were more opposed to the soviets. In fact, Western Europe already signed numerous non-aggression pacts with Nazi Germany, similar to the soviet-Nazi pact, but far earlier. The soviet pact was made on the eve of war to buy time, the soviets and Nazis never trusted each other.
This is only more clear if you look into how each country portrayed the other in the 30s. Communism and fascism are, again, polar opposites in property relations, they hated each other. The Nazis even saw Slavic peoples as being genetically inferior. Marxists were always opposed to fascism, and that didn't change when the Nazis came to power. They were never on the "same side," the soviets only went into Poland weeks after the Nazis did.
When it came time for World War II, all of that tension came to a head. The Nazis despised the communists above all else, and unlike Britain and France, tried to commit genocide against them. The communists despised the Nazis, and liberated Berlin years later.
Yep, overall the Soviets paid by far the largest price, and were responsible for ~85% of Nazi deaths. This should be unsurprising for anyone, though, considering communism and fascism are polar opposites, the former throughly devoted to thr working class and the collectivization of property, the latter thoroughly devoted to violently retaining bourgeois property and killing all who are percived to risk that. Blackshirts and Reds is a good read.
Yep, history from a liberal perspective only makes sense if you selectively cut out and any all context and erase common sense.
If your stance is that administration and managers are incompatible with socialism, and that democratically elected representatives are not a genuine form of democracy for the people, then your stance is that Marxism in general isn't socialist to begin with. I think this is more of a semantical argument than a moral or logical one, if I ceded that Marxism isn't socialist by your definition that says nothing about whether or not Marxism is a sound framework and that Marxist "socialism" is something worth pursuing.
Further, I don't see how you could have large-scale society while requiring every decision to be made collectively, so either you're pushing for the small-scale commune model with individual or small cooperative production, or there's something else you agree with that I'm not aware of. Most anarchists recognize "justified" hierarchies of some sort to get around this issue, usually with different models like participatory economics, but I do understand that the maximally horizontalist anarchists do also exist.
As for how decisionmaking is made in the PRC, it depends on the scale. Much of the larger decisions are made centrally at the level of the NPC, but local decisions are often made directly through township councils or regional councils. It works well for its people, which is why it gets such widespread support.