Its like Hillary walking into a working class kitchen for the first time.
They’ve been shielded from even critical support of China and other AES for so long they literally, not figuratively, literally cannot process that people exist that have beliefs that aren’t Reddit Approved. They immediately assume it’s bots or wumao. Human beings can’t possibly hold these beliefs, so they must be Oriental hordes or actual robots.
Few people here think that the CPC is “genuinely dedicated to communism”. It is a party with millions of members, including communists, liberals, nationalists, and others (happy to chat about the specific major factions in the party if you’re interested). Many in the party are not ardent communists, and have mediocre to poor historical and political literacy from the perspective of a lot of the Marxist nerds on here.
Some people look at the party and see “hey they’re called communists, and many of them are communists, sure as hell better than whatever is going on in the US or wherever” and kinda hop on board with some enthusiasm that way.
I think they’re pretty clearly dedicated to communism. It’s a long process and a lot of work, especially in a hostile world. Anything I read where they state their intentions perfectly matches their actions. The challenge will be when the actual expropriations begin. The capitalist backlash will be extremely violent.
Overall yes I’d agree that the communists are winning, I like most of what Xi is doing personally and respect him far more than any other world leader.
At the same time the ideological discipline isn’t there in the same way that it was during the Maoist period. Liberals and business owners are allowed to be party members. I don’t think it’s wise to give them such a foothold, but I don’t know enough to comment much further or offer any useful criticism.
At the end of the day, I’d love to see the PRC introduce a worldwide expansion of socialist principles as much as anyone else here, although my hope is more cautious than other comrades here. As you say, the result speak for themselves, and they still have a couple decades of runway to dial in their targeting systems and fire off the communism button at the right time.
I think the big signs of hope are the anti corruption campaigns that Xi took, and the fact that billionaires are still losing their wealth (and lives) quite regularly, and will smash any outspoken ones like Jack Ma as well
He’s doing very well for the position he’s been in
Unfortunately their foreign policy is mid, mostly constrained by US hegemony. To me a shift toward supporting socialism in other countries is what will really convince me, but they aren’t there quite yet.
I think there are a lot of valid criticisms to make about China, but this take is ridiculous. China has only survived by taking reserved foreign policy, and it does support socialist states that are actually established like the DPRK, Cuba, and Vietnam (though that relationship is especially complicated). The DPRK would have collapsed with the USSR’s dissolution had China not helped them.
That’s all good and well, but to me, it reflects that the party has strong socialist ideological roots (of course it does, thanks to Mao), but “past performance does not indicate future returns” and there is still room for them to lib tf out instead of push for socialism. Xi is not an example of this, but his predecessors were liberal dweebs imo. My understanding is that we are lucky to have a Marxist in his position at all (kinda like how Corbyn slipped upward through the cracks due to some Labour infighting).
Im not concerned with Xi specifically, or the track they’re on today, but if they ever achieve status as a hegemonic power, are they going to make the push for global socialism? I’m not convinced, but it’s far from impossible. I definitely don’t see them cracking down and becoming a great Satan 2 or anything, so it’s all positive anyway.
yeah my dream is I wake up tomorrow to “China has invaded Russia to spread socialism” (/s nuclear holocaust and all that but I can dream)
“Russia nationalizes key industries in preparation to join an economic union with China, other BRICS countries expected to follow within the next 5 years”
I mean if we’re going full fantasy land lets go all the way right? "Both Putin and Zelenskey assassinated in military coups, new juntas rumored to be mulling reformation of the USSR.
I’m down
Dream of it every night. I just want it back
It’s an odd thing to think, like I said there are many communists, but it’s far from everyone, and the politics are not as straightforward as they are here on our site where we aren’t actually in charge of anything.
Many academic Marxists comment on this, read Wang Hui as an example
See other comments, but I would suggest that statement is overly broad on it’s own. There is a large liberal continent within the party, although they are still on their heels.
I see what you’re getting at, but even the Bolsheviks formed a broad front with liberals, no? Not that that’s a wholly comparable situation, but I’m sure the Party has its reasons, even if we aren’t privvy to them.
Right, and if I bothered to read more theory/history I’d probably have some criticisms about that too. It is a necessary aspect of having a functioning socialist government while capitalist forces still reign supreme. It doesn’t mean it’s above me carefully analyzing it, rather than calling it fine and overlooking it.
Oh, naturally. It raised my eyebrows too the first time I learned of the Bolsheviks doing it, and I’d like to read more about it. Might help understand why the CPC took a similar course. Of course, Chinese sources would be better for that, but I haven’t the faintest idea where to find them, much less in English.
Hey, at least I didn’t say that most communists that support China are doing it because they want to be contrarian. That would be an incredibly ignorant statement to make.