I'm explicitly against the vanguard argument. A vanguard is how you end up retaining capital relations (and therefore not actually implementing socialism).
Mikhail and Hodj's Political Thread
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hodj
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Yeah, I did. Every one of these nations were taking different theoretical approaches as proposed by Marxist philosophers and Marx himself, on how to reach the exact state you're saying is a requirement for socialism: A point where the workers owned the means of production.
Every time they tried to reach it, they failed. They were communist. Communism is a history of failure. No tricks needed. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm asking you why you're being dishonest, and can't address the fact that Cambodia, China, Russia, Cuba, and North Korea were all communist states.
I don't think that's true. There's always exploitation in the forms of trade that constitute capital relations (wage slavery, rent, and interest). But I don't think the trade between say, producers and consumers is necessarily exploitative. It certainly could be in certain circumstances, but this kind of blanket statement goes too far.
Loser Araysar
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I dont know how that is possibly true. No one ever sets a "fair price". The price is set by what the producer thinks he can extort from the customer
hodj
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Here's let's take a vote: How many people think that you can't be communist unless you reach the end game as proposed by Communists, which is basically Mikhail's argument, a nation attempting to reach the theoretical communist utopia isn't communist until it reaches that state, and therefore, no matter what that state engages in in order to reach that state, Communism cannot be held accountable unless and until the point of Utopia is reached?
How many people think that's a needlessly convoluted argument predicated on Mikhail attempting to insulate Communism from legitimate criticism?
How many people think that's a needlessly convoluted argument predicated on Mikhail attempting to insulate Communism from legitimate criticism?
Really my argument is that communism can't work until we're willing to slit the throats of those who would inflict capitalism (even if those people call themselves "communists").
hodj
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Communism works great when all you have are a tribe of mostly family members sharing their nuts and recent game catch.
Except that's not communism. Its just tribalism.
Loser Araysar
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Thats weird, no one could own property or a business. Everything was mutually owned. Sure seemed like socialism to me.
hodj
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So you're saying Mao wasn't trying to do just that?
I mean dude only ran a revolutionary war, fought alongside the North Koreans to repel the Capitalists a second time, then went on to kill 75 million of his own people to preserve the Communist revolution, bro.
Mikhail, this is also a etymylogical fallacy you've fallen into here.
You aren't the arbiter of what is a valid communist revolution and what isn't. We have the facts to judge that, and China was most definitely communist until after the Cultural Revolution and Mao's death.
Cambodia too. North Korea too.
No they aren't. Not at all. Nationalization is not some necessary first step (which of course never leads to the second step).
I realize that you haven't actually done any reading but this constant refrain of MARX = SOCIALISM is ridiculous. There were plenty of other socialist contemporaries of Marx who agreed with his critique of capitalism but not his proposed political solutions. This sort of conflation is really REALLY fucking stupid.
Loser Araysar
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What a nice murderous philosophy you got there. Our ideas cant compete on merit or results, so lets just slaughter everyone until there's no one left to disagree.
hodj
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This is what they do bro. They deny anything is communism except their narrow definition of it. Its the only way to insulate their world view from the criticism, which is causing cognitive dissonance in Mikhails brain as we speak.
Literally this is the weakest pro communist argument peddled on the internet, to say I've seen it hundreds of times would be an understatement.
Mikhail wants the right to dictate in this debate what is communism and what isn't. This way he can deny any instance of Communist failure wasn't "really" communist.
Mikhail, do you know what Lysenkoism was?
In a society which lacks a "top" in the first place, the person "rising" would be (necessarily) the aggressor. The advocacy is for self-defense.
Asshat wormie
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No you didn't. Marx isn't equivalent to socialism. His critque of capitalism was fundamentally correct, but his proposed political remedies leave capitalist power relations in place. This was a problem that was pointed out in his time and he had the people who brought it up evicted from the 1st international.
hodj
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I'm aware that Marx and Bakunin and others were at odds and that Bakunin was adamant that Marx's ideas would lead to a meet the new boss same as the old boss effect.
None of that is relevant to the fact that even in academia, the entire school and body of thought is referred to as the Marxist dialectic and Marxist paradigm, etc.
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