I’ve been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to “voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism” and “the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic” and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they’re replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling – in retrospect I’m pretty sure I could’ve built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that’s what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) – and the only reason I’m not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
Are any of your examples actually socialist nations though? From what I understand modern Vietnam is fairly capitalist to the point the US has opened trading with them. Cuba still seem to follow socialist principles to some extent but they also aren’t exactly the most democratic.
It’s also not a purity issue to talk about China not being socialist, that’s just a fact at this point. Ditto for North Korea. A dictatorship cannot be socialist, and neither can a state dominated by large corporations.
Yes, I disagree with much of your analysis, but that would take a long time. However, even flawed implementations of Socialism are still Socialism, and revolution did absolutely change the mode of production.
For a revolution to be successful it needs to produce something better than what was there before. If all we get are failed states it’s kind of pointless. It seems only 1 or 2 have actually come close to succeeding like Cuba. Maybe we need to try a different revolutionary ideology.
You’re shifting the goal posts, the question was whether or not Revolution has successfully changed the Mode of Production.
Additionaly, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and China are definitely better off than before, Chiapas is enjoying their cooperative independence, and none of these can be considered failed states.
I really don’t think you’re trying to honestly engage with the current question, and are trying to make an entirely different point, like you allude to at the end. It seems less like you’re concerned with whether or not Revolution manages to change Mode of Production and instead you wish to talk about your new revolutionary ideology. That’s fine, go for it, but you don’t have to constantly move goal posts to get there.
You’re the one shifting goals here. The guy originally said “successful communist revolutions” not “successfully changed the Mode of Production” or whatever arbitrary line you decided to draw. You came out with that phrase, and are moving the goalposts by presuming what someone else meant.
I don’t think you are being honest at all.
Yes because that’s not the only issue I care about. The question was about a successful revolution, not only about the “Mode of Production”. Stop moving goalposts and then having the absolute gall to accuse the other person of doing that
I suspect you might be right about some of these, though without more research I can’t definitively say. I would be careful about China though given what they are doing with certain minorities in their country as well as protesters.
No, you’re moving the goal posts, lol, and trying to deflect blame is pointless here. “Successful Communist Revolutions” was vague in the first place, and the original point was that reform is extremely difficult to outright impossible, while Revolutions have succeeded.
If you can go back in time and redefine the original question, go for it.
China is indisputably better off than it was under the fascist Kuomintang. This isn’t even a point to argue, China under Mao doubled their life expectency, then under Deng managed to become the industrial hub of the world, and now under Xi has taken China finally to the level of superpower.
China absolutely has numerous issues to this very day. Corruption is high, treatment of minorities is at minimum suspicious, and protesting gets met harshly. However, if you compare China under the KMT to China today, it isn’t even a question.
So yes, you may need to take a look at what these countries were actually like before Revolution and compare with post.
Fair enough I didn’t know what the history of China was like before the revolution. I am sure fascist leadership is terrible. I knew some of these counties has issues with their previous regimes, so it would make sense post-revolution was an improvement.
What I don’t want is a society that’s the better of two bad options (in this case Fascism vs current Chinese society). I want a society that actually functions well. It seems the options you are offering are: fascism, USA-style ultra capitalism, or “socialist” states that suppress their own people. None of these sound like great options to me unfortunately. Can’t we work out how to build something else? Something better? Am I being unrealistic? Probably.
I am not asking for a hybrid economy either, as I know those still have capitalism related problems and could just dissolve into capitalism if there is a recession.
Seems like Socialism is the best option, and to work towards eventual Communism.
Except that ML has mostly ended in despotism. I think we need something else. Maybe Communism isn’t the anwser, or maybe this isn’t the way to get there.