That’s odd, given that China has a sizeable “market-ish” economy
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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They misspoke, he's a Market Leninist
Damn, that's good lmao
Mass-market Leninist
Lenin advocated for a mixed system of capitalism under state control as a country transitions to communism called the new economic policy . Stalin abandoned this and went with full centralized state control which had it's own problems as any Ukrainian can tell you.
A lot of Marxists, and Marx himself, subscribe to to a two stage theory of development and revolution. First there would be a revolution against the feudal system in favor of a capitalist system led by the bourgeoisie. The capitalists and workers would then industrialize and develop the means of production to a point where most necessities are mostly automated. The capitalists would then fire the unnecessary workers and use unemployment as a threat to maximally exploit the remaining workers until they revolt and bring about a communist state where the new abundance made by industrialization is shared by all.
If you believe that communism can only be achieved under the conditions of abundance that industrialization creates then you have to have some way of developing. You can do it through centralized state run planning like Mao or Stalin, which had mixed results to say the least. Or you can do it by allowing capitalism on a tight leash with a powerful state so that once abundance is achieved you can easily disposses the capitalist class like modern day China and Vietnam.
Either way the process of development tends to be a very brutal affair for most of the workers. There's an argument to be made to let capitalism take the blame for this brutality instead of associating it with socialism as it will sully the name. You can see this in that most people associate communism with the horrors and starvation of Stalin's 5 year plans.
Interestingly, Marx became much more Anarchist-y later in life, influenced by the Paris commune. He began to backtrack on his earlier proclamations about needing to wait 100 years or so for an agrarian country to industrialize under capitalism before communism could commence.
He previously believed only industrial workers could be relied upon to understand class and mobilize with each other due to their urban proximity and increasingly poor conditions, but later acknowledged that rural peasants could understand their exploitation as well (he was a little elitist), so the need to let capitalism run rampant was eliminated.
He also later advocated for a bottom up system of control, instead of top down 'transitionary' state that Lenin and Stalin and even Trotsky all doubled down on. Marx's later writings were never published in Russia purposefully, as it would've given credence to Anarchism, which advocates for decentralized control and abolishment for any hierarchy that cannot justify its existence.
Unfortunately, Marx never tried to repair the rift between Marxists and Anarchists, mostly due to ego, as far as I can see.
If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend this video on the subject, and the second part here.
People downvote information, why? Thanks for the link.
Probably because people are so wary of tankies by now that they've gotten a Pavlovian reaction to any mention of communism that isn't immediate condemnation. Even when it's just neutrally relayed information like in this case.
And then there's the people who just have a learned allergy to communism regardless of ever having interacted with tankies, of course. Those are unreachable zealots though, so best to ignore them.
I have been on Lemmy since last June. I see virtually no tankie content (I stick to Lemmy.world like 99% of the time) but see long thread discussions by anti-tankies (including rants about calling progressives tankies) all the time. Just stay off lemmy.ml and lemmygrad... Problem solved.
At least with Lemmy the tankies contributed more to the world than reddit with it's racist garbage subreddits like r/worldnews.
Just stay off lemmy.ml and lemmygrad... Problem solved.
Lemmy.ml has one of the best meme communities on Lemmy and World News is actually usually pretty good when you don't trigger the Tankie swarm just like the .world political communities are pretty good unless you criticize Biden, Buttigieg or other prominent neoliberals.
No problem staying away from lemmygrad, though lol
I'm not actively trying to avoid them. I'm just saying that I don't see any actual communist content but I see a huge number of complaints about it.
Lemmy.ml is centered on privacy and FOSS, it has a lot of leftists as well but unlike Lemmygrad Lemmy.ml isn't explicitly Marxist-Leninist, and as such also has a ton of other types of Leftists, like Anarchists. In fact, one of the largest Anarchist communities is hosted on Lemmy.ml.
If you want to block MLs, blocking Lemmygrad is enough to get rid of 80% of them, while still giving you access to great communities on Lemmy.ml, like the News, Privacy, Linux, Memes, etc. communities.
Socialism isn't anti-market, necessarily, nor do MLs believe in immediately implementing Communism like Anarchists do. MLs are characterized among Leftists by focusing on the immediate material conditions of the Proletariat, and aiming to improve those via ramping up industrialization so that Communism can eventually be achieved, rather than direct implementation from current systems. It's perfectly in line with ML leadership to be over a state at different stages in the general transition towards Communism, at least when judging within the overall ML belief.
Whether or not Xi is an actual ML is another question entirely, with arguments on both sides of the aisle, even among leftists.
China is getting to the point of economic and technological development that they should soon be giving the means of production to the people. It's time for China to transition into a true socialist state. The test of whether or not they're real ML is whether they make that transition or not.
If they don't, they're ML. If they do they're M.
Lenin believed the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be a temporary solution to Russia's unique economic system (being super underdeveloped, uneducated, and big as fuck.) The whole point being to use the State's resources to rapidly develop the country until they can establish a true socialist economy. The problem is, they never get that far. If they ever do cross the goal line, they're just successful MLs
Most MLs I know extoll the achievements of actually existing socialism though, so while that may be true for Lenin I don't think it is very accurate to Marxist-Leninists.
Sure, that's a perfectly valid stance to hold. I do think the people of China should make that decision for themselves, democratically, if they are ready or not to make that transition. Much of China is still rural, but I imagine in cities and other more developed areas this could be done currently.
they should soon be giving the means of production to the people.
Yeah... I'm looking forward to the Second Coming, too. I sure do hope these two momentous (and totally real) events don't occur in the same time slot.
bullshit, he's a Xi Jinping-ist and nothing else.. he wishes he could claim Lenin as a teacher.. this is a ridiculous propaganda post..
Winnie the Pooh only loves honey in his tummy
How about authoritarian-dictator?
I dont think the leader of any country with that level of weath inequality could be considered marxist.
God willing he becomes an actual Marxist.
That could be a nasty burn if they’re saying it to mean he’s in sufficiently Maoist
Xineocide xi.
He hasn't put an end to israel's war on Gaza so he is 110% at fault.
You can’t blame Xi for something Biden is doing:
They're besties who planned the genocide of Palestine together. Their continuing lack of action to stop it is all the evidence I need apparently.
Not to defend Xi and immediately get called a tankie by pro-genocide centrists, but is Xi selling Netanyahu weapons and vetoing things on his behalf at the UN?
Because Biden still is.
Holy shit. Next you're going to tell me Biden is a liberal!
What do they think the middle "C" in "CCP" means?
Realistically capitalist
I think China thinks it means dictatorship, Winnie always struggled with the alphabet
Capitalism?
Corruption
Copium? Cocaine? Cuddly?
In other news;
Putin loves puppies!
It was bad enough when the libs learned of the term "tankie" - now their cousins know the term "Marxist-Leninist."
Let the bizarre misapplication begin!