OK, and so that means you can’t say 1 bad thing about China? That makes no sense, especially in our circles. I understand defending China when talking with liberals or conservatives, cause they have no right criticizing China when they support systems that are 20x times worse and more cruel.

But I don’t understand why a leftist shouldn’t be able to bring up the number of billionaires in China, for example, when talking to other leftists without being labeled as some sort of traitor or propagandist or some other dumb bullshit. “They have less and more regulated billionaires than the U.S.” – yeah, I think that’s awesome, I would still prefer if billionaires didn’t exist though. And me saying that doesn’t mean I’m equating China to the U.S.

Or human rights – yeah, I know and constantly criticize the U.S. on their human rights violations – what kind of hypocrite would I be if then I stay silent or just says “well, the U.S. is worse” when China is brought up. Fuck that.

Leftists that don’t support American/western bullshit should absolutely have a right to level reasonable criticism towards China or any Marxist country.

You’re acting like I’m putting my criticism of China above criticism of the U.S. and other countries when that is clearly not what I said. I said I support China, but that shouldn’t mean complete blindness and absolute support in absolutely every fragment of their rule.

I should be allowed to think their economic system isn’t perfect without getting berated that “you just don’t get it, it’s all part of the plan man, just wait a few more years, you’ll see.” I’m not calling for the destruction of Chinese communism or saying the U.S.'s system is better for fucks sake.

Why are you telling us this and not bringing your vague concerns to the CPC itself?

What is this even supposed to mean???

What is the reason any western leftist even brings this up in the first place anyway?

Because you’re allowed to criticize stuff you support dude. What, if China tomorrow started, I don’t know, killing gay people for example, should I just not talk about it ever?? Come on, don’t be such babies. Or if you have a friend that you love and support, is it a sin to criticize them or call them out when they’re doing something bad?

I’m gonna be honest, some people in these circles have a way too delusional view of China for my liking, and will defend basically every part of it.

I personally think you don’t have to do that. There’s a lot of problems in China, and it doesn’t make you a “bad Marxist” to admit that. I still support it however, while it’s not perfect I wouldn’t say it’s a capitalist country like the U.S. and I think the world is a better place with China in it than if the U.S. had zero competition in the world stage.

The U.S., Brazil, and India all have far-right crazies in charge. Can you imagine the world if China wasn’t what it is? The world would literally be dominated by fascists. I’ll always prefer a “not so perfect” communism to fascism and shit like that. God knows what kinda leadership China would have right now if it wasn’t for the communist party.

Yeah, I wish it was better and I do think there are serious issues. But compared to the alternatives, I’m glad China exists and I support them.

I might’ve used the wrong word there (sorry, no my 1st language) – not sure if I did or not, but what I meant was like: “in a perfect world, would you prefer a Marxist society where no authoritarianism was needed or an authoritarian Marxist society.”

Like, yeah in a perfect world I would love the first option, but we don’t live in a perfect world, and I know authoritarianism is indeed needed.

I love the idea of Anarchism, but it’s entirely unrealistic on a major scale. I think there’s one anarchist autonomous zone in Mexico (forgot the name), but it’s like a few tens of thousands of people in one smaller region. They also never even had to deal with a full-on fascist leader of Mexico who was willing to spill blood in order to destroy their society – if one came to power or if they posed a big threat, they would be crushed in 2 seconds.

Anarchists also bring up Rojava in Syria, but it’s only been around for 7 years, and recently when Turkey invaded they immediately had to ask Assad for help. And honestly, I’m not even sure how “anarchist” it even is, I’m not uber familiar with the situation there, only read a couple of things, and it seems more like a mix of different ideas.

In a purely idealistic discussion, I would probably side with anarchism more than with communism. HOWEVER, I’m also realistic and realize that’s a pipe dream.

Yeah, I would love a free society where no authority was needed and everyone just got along and helped one another, but that’s just not a reality we live in. It never worked on a large scale and it never will. You need a centralized power to enforce marxism and fight off any attempts at reactionary takeovers or outside influences (like, how would an anarchist country split among many different sections and no centralized military force fight off an invading fascist force for example?) and just, in general, take care of a million other problems that come with not having a centralized government.

The funniest thing to me that they love to bring up is the CNT-FAI – which was super authoritarian towards people who didn’t want to participate – but they brush that off as “not real authoritarianism.”

Destiny is a bad example cause he isn’t really breadtube or a leftist. He’s a self-described neoliberal.

And I disagree, you need YouTubers and internet personalities for this shit. You’ll never get a big percentage of the population to your side by just them “reading theory.” That’s one of the reasons the right has been so successful online, they had a bunch of content creators just pushing people into that fascist pipeline, while leftist had just books for the longest time.

Sure, not all of them are ML communists, but I still think having more normie socialists is better than just having a bunch of nazis online.

Like, I started as a simple dem-soc who liked Bernie and occasionally watched Destiny debate Nazis and shit, then eventually I grew out of that, started getting exposed to some more radical lefty views and started following some actual lefty content creators, etc. And eventually, I came to where I am now – very unlikely to happen if someone just said “read a book” to me.

You can’t relly on just books in this day and age.