The government is democratically run, and the working class is in control of it. It absolutely is true.

Public ownership is the principle aspect of their economy, and a working class party has domination over their state. The large firms and key industries are overwhelmingly publicly owned, with massive state owned enterprises forming the backbone of their economy. Private, cooperative, and joint-stock ownership covers mostly the small and medium firms, and the larger of these are heavily controlled and influenced by the CPC.

As for being “mixed,” all economies are mixed, that doesn’t mean we can’t identify what the principle aspect of the economy is. Socialism isn’t a “pure” mode of production, and neither is capitalism, you don’t have X% capitalism, Y% socialism, etc. That’s not how modes of production work.

You can’t end leftist infighting by hoping for everyone to become the same kind of leftist, especially because different tendencies are often influenced by the given class character of a country. It’s why agrarian communists are more likely to be Maoists, like what’s found in the Naxalites, whereas western communists tend to be Trots. Marxism-Leninism is found everywhere, because it’s the tendency that has most been tested in real life.

When the Russian revolution failed to inspire successful revolution in the west, they reached a dillema. Trotsky feared the Russian peasantry would attack, and so wanted to go on the offensive first, forcing collectivization early, hoping that would inspire the western proletariat. Stalin wanted to build up socialism domestically, rather than attack the peasantry. The peasantry turned out to be capable allies, and thus Stalin was correct.

Stalin’s insistence on supporting the KMT even later as a bullwark against Japan ended up being wrong, but it’s also worth noting that the Chinese Trotskyists were wrong, wanting to attack both the KMT and Japan before kicking out Japan. Mao and the CPC formed a temporary alliance against Japan, then kicked out the KMT, which ended up being correct.

Ah, didn’t see that, you’re right.

Pretty sure the intention was the PRC’s history, and used China as a way to let people who don’t know what the PRC is. Poor formatting, I agree.

Yep, that’s why we need to have revolutionary optimism. Right now, incredible strides are being made by socialist countries like China to combat climate change and push for electrification and sustainability.

Kinda.

Marx’s point wasn’t that you shouldn’t try to advance modes of production, just that the ideas prevalent among the dominant classes at the time are shaped by their material conditions. Trotsky thought this meant socialism in Russia was impossible due to having a high number of the peasantry, thinking them incapable of allying with the proletariat. He was wrong. Stalin’s decision to not attack the peasantry, and instead focus on developing socialism within the USSR, led to the firm establishment of the first socialist state.

Trotsky was both wrong and an asshole. Trotsky’s plan of Permanent Revolution rested on the idea that the peasantry would erode socialism, because he thought they could not be truly aligned with the proletariat. That’s why he wanted to kick off revolution in the west, hoping that would save Russian socialism. This was, of course, proven false, as socialism survived and trying to build up socialism together with the peasantry worked out.

Trotsky then spent much of his time attacking the soviet union, essentially whining due to his loss.

Trotskyists reject the term ML, instead preferring “Marxist and Leninist” over “Marxist-Leninist” to distance themselves from the soviet union, Trotsky himself rejected the ML label as well.

As far as not seeing many Marxist-Leninists, lemmy.blahaj.zone blocks Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, which have the bulk of the Marxist-Leninists on Lemmy.

Trotsky had some good points, and some terrible points, both theoretically and personally.

Trotksyism has essentially been a western-friendly form of Marxism-Leninism that tries to be what Marxism-Leninism is, but with no party discipline and no support for Actually Existing Socialism. Trotskyist orgs relentlessly bash socialist countries, and split over and over again. They haven’t really done much of anything.

“Friends” is overselling it, and Stalin was the one that was elected because he was a more capable leader with a better understanding of Marxist theory. With Sverdlov and Lenin dead, the choice was fairly obvious.

Trotsky’s plan of Permanent Revolution rested on the idea that the peasantry would erode socialism, because he thought they could not be truly aligned with the proletariat. That’s why he wanted to kick off revolution in the west, hoping that would save Russian socialism. This was, of course, proven false, as socialism survived and trying to build up socialism together with the peasantry worked out.

Trotsky then spent much of his time attacking the soviet union, essentially whining due to his loss. I don’t think using a pejorative meant for those who defend socialist countries and oppose imperialism helps your argument here.

Various, multifaceted reasons. There isn’t a one size fits all answer to that, but compounding problems. Each party has different takes on what was more or less important, but the big takeaway was that it was by no means inevitable.

Capitalism is kinda like a control system, if you aren’t willing to do everything possible for profit you get outcompeted and fall. The billionaires at the top are the ones that truly believe they are doing right, and are building apocalypse bunkers for themselves and their immediate families.

The GOAT

You can’t collectivize all of production and distribution if you keep smashing the state, you’ll just create a bunch of communalist cells at best, at worst you’ll recreate capitalist relations and a new state. The state must wither, and it does so by erasing the basis of the state, ie by erasing class. You can’t erase class without collectivizing all of production and distribution.

Anarchism is primarily about communalization of production. Marxism is primarily about collectivization of production.

When I say “communalization,” I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity’s cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.

For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.

For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx’s beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.

Abolishing the state overnight would not create the kind of society Marxists advocate for advancing towards, and if anything, would result in the resumption of competition and the resurgance of capitalism if Marx and Engels predictions are correct.

Thank you, comrade! 🫡

This is another ridiculous comment.

1. The US being “better” to live in - As I explained, the US is an imperialist country that plunders the world for its resources. It isn’t a closed loop with a system that works, it’s a global parasite.

2. Surviving without aid - Socialist countries recieve sanctions, embargoes, coup attempts, and genocide from capitalist countries, not aid. The US Empire has committed genocide against Koreans, Vietnamese, and far more to serve its own interests. Socialist countries do often start in the third world, not as imperialist countries, and develop on their own labor and not via imperialism like the US Empire.

3. Communism on paper - There’s absolutely nothing about communism that requires people to be in perfect order for it to work. I genuinely have no clue what you mean by this, I’ve heard this before but it doesn’t actually make any sense.

4. Communism and democracy - Communism and socialism are more democratic than capitalism can be, because the working classes are in control, rather than private capitalists.

5. Sweden - Sweden is a capitalist country that, like the US, depends on imperialism to fund its safety nets. Like the US, Sweden is a dictatorship of capital.

No, I’m not “brainwashed,” I’ve just done far more research into the subject of socialism and communism both in theory and in practice. It’s like you’re trying to be someone’s hyper-conservative uncle right now, I’ve heard all of these before and none of them are valid.

Thanks comrade 🫡

No, lol. This was like a bingo-card for generic, lazy, unsourced anti-communism. I’ve heard every one of these arguments before.

1. Deaths by the state - Capitalists, fascists, sabateurs, Tsarists, landlords, and kulaks were targeted by the state. These weren’t random killings, but targeted attacks towards classes of people that had taken up arms against the people, and as such this was popularly supported. The communists weren’t butchers, nor were they killing people willy-nilly.

2. Famine - Prior to collectivization of agriculture in the 1930s, famine was common in Russia. The kulak system of farming, itself a bourgeois model, was extremely exploitative and very inefficient. The 1930s famine was the last outright famine outside of wartime, and was caused by a combination of weather disaster (which collectivized farming was capable of resisting better) and kulaks killing their crops and livestock to resist the Red Army.

3. Life Expectancy - Life expectancy climbed not just because of general sanitation, but because housing and employment were gaurunteed, healthcare and education were free and high quality, and millions were directly lifted from poverty. Housing itself didn’t just increase in quantity, but quality, as prior living conditions outside of major cities were in horrible shacks. Deaths due to hypothermia went down dramatically thanks to improved soviet housing.

4. Lend-Lease - The soviets are understood to have been capable of beating the Nazis without lend-lease. Lend-Lease was very helpful, no doubt, but it arrived after the soviets had turned the tides on the Nazi onslaught. The Red Army was responsible for 85% of the combat against the Nazis, and their large investment in heavy industry prior to the war was crucial in their success, despite coming into the 20th century far behind the rest of Europe.

From 1941 to 1945, total lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union accounted for only 5% of the Soviet GDP in total. And it is a salient point that the majority of the aid was received after the tide of the war had already turned against the Germans on the Eastern Front. The Soviets had already won the critical battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. Germany was already losing the war when Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union had any significant effect, and that effect was minuscule compared with Soviet production at the time. By the time the first Sherman laid its tracks on Soviet soil, the writing was already very much on the wall for the Third Reich.

Although Stalin, Khrushchev, and other Soviet politicians were very complimentary about the Lend-Lease program helping them win the war, the statistics tell a very different story. The noted historian David M. Glantz points out in this regard,

“Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 1941–1942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates….”

He further states that without Lend-Lease, the Soviets still would have won, but the war would have taken 12 to 18 months longer.

Source.

5. Foreign Aid - In all reality, the USSR, Cuba, PRC, and Vietnam don’t recieve much, if anything, in aid. The US Empire is the one that relies on aid, though it doesn’t call it that. The US Empire runs on imperialism. Through export of capital, setting up comprador regimes, and outsourcing while maintaining monopoly on tech, the US Empire plunders the entire global south. Unequal exchange with the global south keeps the south underdeveloped, it’s equal exchange with fellow global south countries like the PRC that is causing actual development in the global south.

You have no clue what you’re talking about.