Would like to know too! I use a proprietary OS for now and want to jump ship with my next phone.

I generally don’t.

I don’t believe social democracy or democratic socialism are enough, but if they are baby steps against Imperialism then I think it’s a good move, if only to later hope for a Marxist revolution. That’s really my core point, I suppose.

Thanks for the discussion!

I want to start this off by reponding to your closer, I agree entirely, this is a good-faith convo I appreciate among fellow Marxist comrades, and I do enjoy it!

I ageee that it isn’t ideal to pick between the lesser of two evils, but I believe one can support a lesser of two evils between 2 evils while supporting good revolutionary or corrective movements within.

As for the bit on Social Democracy within the periphery, I know it isn’t Socialism and will never be Socialism, but third world Social Democracies do help focus on domestic nationalization and throw off Imperialism from the Global North. Those movements against Imperialism in my opinion are much better than going along with it, as they increase the revolutionary potential in their neighbors and former Imperialists.

It’s like a multi-layered level of support, there are very few truly hard-line Marxist movements, so we have to work with what exists presently. We can advocate for better while also critically supporting movements that would better allow better movements later.

Kinda like supporting Palestine. Even if Hamas is reactionary, Palestine will never move forward socially until it throws off its oppressors, which is why supporting Palestinian Liberation is straightforward.

I appreciate your thoughts!

So it seems to me that we are in agreement that the PRC is certainly not full Socialism, and definitely has more internal than external funding. In this instance, in a contradiction between US and PRC hegemony, would the Global South be better off with the PRC or US as the global superpower? I understand that we do not fully support the PRC, as it is revisionist in many ways and does enact some level of Imperialism, but in contrast to the US it focuses on Peace and internal development, rather than forever wars.

I guess if we can both agree that neither are good that’s a step forward, but I see the PRC as a lesser evil in the global context. It certainly isn’t a strong ally for the Global South, but seems to present fewer challenges for the Global South to throw off the reigns of Imperialism themselves and transition to a Social Democracy, or even Socialism outright.

I really do think that’s the point here with the PRC vs the US.

What are your thoughts on that?

By your definition all states are authoritarian, it doesn’t matter if I want a democratic state or not, that’s authoritarian in the eyes of an Anarchist.

Council Communists get a pass because they are relegated purely to academia and never to praxis, seemingly.

No, as in the ones pushing the revolution the hardest, and typically the ones with the strongest level of understanding of leftist organizational theory, be it Marxist or Anarchist or even whatever else.

You’re free to make that critique, I would just hope that you can actually make concessions just like Marxists do when it comes to unifying theory and practice.

The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party, yes. Among the entire revolution, they were among the most radical. In any revolution, there will be a group that is the most radical and moving the most, even if they don’t formalize it. Do you expect everyone to be an Anarchist before the revolution?

As for the Imperialism bit, you’re being even more dishonest than usual, haha. I explicitly said that it was expansionist and Imperialist in the liberal sense of the word. That doesn’t mean wrong! This is silly, the rest of your paragraphs are nailing down on a point I never made.

As for the jab about Anarchists, Marxists can’t trust Anarchists either, infighting is always a 2 way street among leftists. You may be interested in reading this meeting between Lenin and Kropotkin. Kropotkin criticizes Lenin, and Lenin criticizes back, it’s a really interesting meeting and neither makes themselves a fool IMO.

100% agreed on Alt-History, no questions from me on that.

However, I do want to flip this around just a bit, for the sake of a thought experiment. For critical supporters of the PRC, it seems that opposing US hedgemony and creating a multipolar world is the primary means by which Lenin’s Imperialism can be fought in our present moment, even if we lack any hardline Marxist powers.

In your eyes, what should these Marxists instead be supporting? The US? It seems everyone is agreed on supporting the Global South, but when it comes to countries with any real influence on global geopolitics, are all of them bad and unworthy of even critical support, generally, or is there a force you believe is on somewhat of the right track, as a Marxist?

This isn’t a gotcha, I am genuinely interested in this conversation.

It does not. Revolution occurs without prompting, yes, but there will always be a group of the most radical within the larger group, the group taking the majority of the action.

As for the Workers Councils, yes, they were replaced with the Union system.

As for Imperialism, I absolutely agree that it was expansionist, and follows the Liberal definition of Imperialism. This isn’t good! However, if you’re focusing on Lenin’s definition, Castro had this to say: “if the USSR was imperialist then where are it’s private monopolies? Where is its participation in multi-national corporations? What industries, what mines, what petroleum deposits does it own in the underdeveloped world? What worker is exploited in Asia, Africa or Latin America by Soviet capital?”

The reason most Marxists accept Lenin’s definition of Imperialism as a sort of bourgeois/proletarian relation at international scale, is because countries in the Global South can’t become Socialist until they throw off the thumb of Imperialism, and Imperialist countries won’t become Socialist until they stop being Imperialist.

Again, liberal meaning of Imperialist? Yes, absolutely. Expansionist? Yes, absolutely. Marxist definition of Imperialism? Eh, closer to no than yes.

The USSR absolutely wasn’t perfect, it was highly flawed, just as we should expect the first major Marxist state in history to be. We can learn from what worked and what didn’t.

Yep, at this point Linux just does what I need it to.

Yes, I’m aware, Deng is absolutely a revisionist. I was explaining what most Marxists at least on Lemmy believe about China.

Personally, I understand why they went down that road after the fall of the USSR, but it remains to be seen if this will actually end up being the correct play. I think it would have been better had they taken a more hard-line stance in favor of Marxism than Revisionism, but we are now so far from that point that the entire last 35 years of global history would have been completely different.

Someone is organizing any revolution, otherwise it just won’t happen.

The Soviets formed the basis of the Democratic process of the Soviet Union. The Worker’s Councils weren’t killed and forgotten, they were replaced.

It’s cool if you want to deviate from Marx’s analysis of Capitalism and go for a vibes-based approach, but people who take Marx seriously can plainly see that even if the USSR was flawed, it was Socialist.

Could be.

Either way if .world defeds, I will probably stick with .ml, I’d rather not deal with what will become of .world if they succeed in becoming both the largest instance and one of the least federated with other large instances among the major instances.

So because Castro and the gang weren’t brutal authoritarians, they weren’t Marxists? This is getting sillier.

As for your quote from Malatesta, believe it or not, is the Marxist-Leninist stance. The most radical among the Anarchists are a sort of Vanguard. All a Vanguard is is a group of radicals that are helping organize the revolution, at the forefront.

If you’re trying to say that everyone should be equal in terms of theory, in terms of purpose, spontaneously before a revolution is possible, then this is pure Idealism.

As for State Capitalism, Lenin was purely referring to the NEP, and had this to say: “The whole question is who will take the lead. We must face this issue squarely—who will come out on top? Either the capitalists succeed in organising first—in which case they will drive out the Communists and that will be the end of it. Or the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove capable of keeping a proper rein on those gentlemen, the capitalists, so as to direct capitalism along state channels and to create a capitalism that will be subordinate to the state and serve the state.” State Capitalism was not meant to describe the whole of the USSR.

Please explain how there was competition, accumulation among bourgeois elements competing in markets, forcing prices lower and thus rates of profit, with private corporations. This is silly.

Castro and the other revolutionaries were Marxist-Leninists. What would be a Marxist revolution in your eyes, if not a revolution against Imperialism by Marxists? Marxism isn’t a static dogma, but a tool to be applied to material conditions. Of course it would have Cuban characteristics, that’s the point of Marxism.

Secondly, I truly don’t see what the purpose of advocating against change is for, is that just a way to say that Anarchists don’t actually need to make consistent progress as long as they continue to perform mutual aid and help people? Sounds great for a charity, but not for liberating the workers.

The USSR was Socialist, this is silly. A worker state where the workers collectively own production is what Marx advocated for. There were numerous struggles and problems with the USSR, but being Capitalist is not one of them. There was no competition, no M-C-M’ circuit resulting in accumulation among borgeois actors, no tendendcy for the rate of profit to fall. You can argue against the effectiveness of the USSR without saying it was actually Capitalist, the mode of production was entirely different from Tsarist Russia.

Alright, fair enough. You express support for the direction Cuba looks to be going down, not the figures and movements that allowed that to happen, got it. It’s more consistent with your other views, at least.

As for your last statement, I really don’t think it makes any real sense. Taking Cuba as our example, Marxism guided the revolution, and it hasn’t seemed to fail yet, and in your own words looks to be going down a promising path. Is this not what you are hoping for, or is it a freak accident?

Secondly, if Anarchism is an ever-evolving theory that hasn’t really seen any large-scale results, would it not make sense to concede that Anarchism can play a valuable role outside of Revolutionary change while Marxists actually change the whole of society? It seems Marxists have a far better track record in changing the Mode of Production, while Anarchists do a lot of good charity work that is also valuable.

As are many. He still openly supported Stalin and read Stalin:

“In the so called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Series of things that are very good.” -Che Guevara

I think it’s a bit hypocritical to wash the words of revolutionaries you claimed were good Marxists. Of course he was critical of Stalin, everyone is. He banned homosexuality, was generally a brutal person, and ended up building a cult of personality that partially helped lead to the collapse of the USSR. Che still supported him.

The comparison to America was because people can easily find nuance within liberalism but only accept the purest and most righteous of Socialism, even if it ends up never existing. It loses its revolutionary potential and becomes Idealism.

As for your bans, I don’t really have the full picture. Based on what you have claimed and that alone, I believe they went too far, but I would also like to see it from the mod’s perspectives.

It’s a tech forum run by Marxists, there are other Tech forums run by Anarchists or Liberals or even conservatives.

They would. If China cracks down too hard too quickly on Capitalists domestically, Capitalists may start to pull out.