It’s fascinating to me how the same people who like to do purity tests for China or Vietnam claiming they’re not actually communist are also the ones who’ll defend places like US or Canada saying yeah it’s not perfect, but it’s the ideal of the system that matters.
It’s such an incredible example of cognitive dissonance. These people able to recognize that their own system doesn’t live up to the ideal they have in their heads, but still treat it as a valid interpretation of the idea, but when it comes to a system they dislike then the same logic doesn’t apply all of a sudden.
“China isn’t real Socialism because they have billionaires and corporations”
“Nordic Socialism is a better form of Socialism than Marxism-Leninism, because it’s democratic and happiness is high in those countries”
Meanwhile, China has democratic elections and scores high on citizen happiness, and the Nordic countries also have billionaires and corporations. China has a ML government, while the Nordic countries are capitalist. Make it make sense.
welcome to the wonderful world of westoid logic
Also, the slant of this, when Liberals talk about how Russia lacks a fair democracy and a small group of people hold a majority of the power within the political system. Then argue that all you have to do to change conditions in Western countries is to vote.
And, ya know, Russia’s just “the villain,” so they’ll talk and talk about how bad that situation is, but when you talk about the US, who they see as “the hero,” they get defensive and act like you’re the problem for implying that the US has the exact problems and voting doesn’t matter.
“my dumpster fire is pure and perfect, all of the issues that my dumpster fire has can be fixed if we just vote on it. Your dumpster fire is evil and impure. The only way to fix its problems is if my dumpster fire invades it.” literally their take.
Nordic countries also have the highest anti-depressant use, so it’s questionable how good the society is at making them happy.
I mean, probably because they don’t have to pay for them
They also have very little sunlight in the winter months so seasonal depression is just going to be a thing there no matter what.
As a Nordic person, let me say that nobody here thinks our system ever was “socialist”. Welfare state, yes, social democratic, yes, but no socialism. I don’t know who came up with the idea.
Besides, even the social democratic welfare state has been stripped down by neoliberal reforms since the 90s and is a shadow of what it used to be. The rhetoric is always the same: we can’t afford this, we can’t afford that, we have to privatize, we have to make cuts to save our welfare state, there’s no alternative etc.
The Nordic countries literally have race-baiting fascist parties that are slowly gaining power through elections that they are allowed to participate in.
Totally something that’s supposed to happen in pure, unauthoritarian socialism. /s
What’s weird to me is that China and Vietnam’s turn towards a market economy is usually framed as a betrayal, especially by other socialists. The way they portray it, it’s as if the CPC or CPV are secretly neoliberals behind closed doors. All the debate over reforms in either country was apparently just an insincere and cynical grift. You’d think listening to these people that China and Vietnam didn’t lift millions out of poverty through their economic policies.
It’s especially baffling since we can look to the USSR where the revolution and working classes were genuinely betrayed. The net consequence was a massive decline in living standards for working people. That is decidedly not what happened in China and Vietnam.
I get the impression is that what it ultimately comes down to is that admitting this requires also admitting that better things are indeed possible. The whole mantra in the west is that yeah shit sucks, but everything else is worse, so let’s not rock the boat too hard. Hence, most of the western left is invested in reformism. Admitting that China or Vietnam actually work the way it was intended means having to accept that ML approach was correct all along, and that western left has shat the bed.
I do suspect that part of the problem is better things are not currently possible in a western context. As such, the western left finds itself searching for that one weird trick which will spark off a revolutionary movement. This search inevitably leads them away from historical materialism and towards idealism.
I do think this may be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy though. Since people feel that better things aren’t possible they’re not trying to work towards them. If we look at the way the right has been organizing, it’s pretty clear that there are a lot of people who are disillusioned with the western political mainstream. These people could be educated and recruited into a communist movement if there was active organization happening. The main problem that I see is that a lot of people on the left are rejecting effective methods for building a movement that have been proven in the past as being authoritarian.
The main problem that I see is that a lot of people on the left are rejecting effective methods for building a movement that have been proven in the past as being authoritarian.
Occupy Wall Street comes to mind. It’s like a natural demobilizing ideaolgy that grows in reaction to neoliberalism. People get focused on grassroots and bottom up approaches, which makes sense and is necessary. But then they get taken over by astroturfing because their leadership is basically unofficial and nothing more than a friend group that got their first. I’m looking at you David Graeber (RIP). And now the whole “99% vs 1%” rhetoric is all but entirely used by the right wing.
Exactly, and the sad part is that all this is just a rehashing of the exact same arguments that happened at the start of the 20th century. You can pretty much take what Lenin said in What Is To Be Done verbatim and it’s still just as relevant today.
Yeah, it’s the whole spontaneous movement thing people have been peddling.
I agree to some extent. However, the flip side of the coin is that great organizers often burn themselves out and then stop organizing altogether. I’d much rather western communists take things slow and organize more sustainably. The alternative is to maintain revolutionary optimism even in non-revolutionary times. Unfortunately, I think that’s just a recipe for burnout, idealism, and opportunism.
Yeah, sustainability is definitely an important factor. I think at the stage we’re currently at, education is the most important thing people could be doing. I kind of see it as an inoculation campaign. Once you get people to understand the actual economic relations they’re subjected to and how they relate to the political system, then they become largely immune to capitalist propaganda. The more people we can get immunized the better position we’ll be at when the conditions are right.
Oh! I think this might be a good explanation for a lot of the western left. Revolutionary movements are hard, and arguably they are the hardest in the imperial core. So it can often feel hopeless, but if those other socialist countries “failed” then it isn’t so bad, because hey, everyone sucks at revolution, not just “us.” And if there is some magical “universal” solution that will always succeed, even better, we can just do the one special thing that always works.
I’ve been thinking about “hope” and the western left a lot lately. A lot of the western left, like most people in the west, are constantly downtrodden and have their self-esteem torn apart by the system. And unlike libs who don’t even notice this breaking down and just purchase the next distraction to ignore it, the western left are aware of how the system tears people apart, but feels utterly hopeless and trapped within it. So a “perfect” solution gives them what they sorely need: Hope.
Unfortunately, revolutions are not won on hope, but on pragmatic action. But I think there are a lot of reasons why the western left tends to fall for idealism a lot. (And that’s ignoring the elephant in the room that actual materialist communists are targeted by the state, while idealists make excellent controlled opposition.)
It is always very strange. They attribute an almost lib-like mentality to these reforms. Treating them like evil Deng or Le Duan took over the country and forced them to stop being socialist, and everyone just…went along with it. Denying these nations agency or looking at their actions in the context of the time. They just act like Deng woke up one morning, rubbed his hands together cackled evilly about how he “must destroy that gang of four, and their dumb dog too!”
They are really hooked over the weird idea of “hiding the power level”. For them, socialist governments consequently realising plan of building socialism are the hidden neoliberals, while succdems like Bernie, consequently participating in imperialism and neoliberalism are real socialists who only wait for finally being in power to suddenly push the communism button (and they also accuse us ML’s of being “blanquists”).
It’s a lot easier to critique what socialist countries are doing while living off the exploitation of the global south in western imperialist countries
Indeed
Yeah it also comes up during election cycles in the US. If you say you don’t want to vote Democrat, you might hear someone say that you shouldn’t focus on purity and vote pragmatically™.
Of course they are either unable to understand that there are different politcal aims at play, or they are trying to extort you.
When the “Republican friend” tries to suggest a moderate or alternative dem for “pragmatic purposes” it’s often taken in bad faith. RFK Jr is a decent example of this today, a lot of Dems hate him because he sucks and is an obvious grifter. But if a communist or some other ‘lefty’ doesn’t want to vote for Democrats, they are selling everyone out to Trump because of a dangerous lack of pragmatism.
Yup
I’ve taken to telling reformist liberals that I have literally no reason to want to see the state that murders people like me in the streets routinely perpetuating. Like, telling me that “it could be the end of our democracy” is threatening me with a good time, bc frankly, don’t no one in the hood live in a democracy. They’re out here criminalizing New Afrikans for so many things that it can genuinely be umbrella’d under “existing while Black”, and it’s an even 50/50 as to whether or not your ass gets sent to the morgue because of that criminalization; so why should I care for a nation that won’t change? That won’t humor the first inklings of accountability or reparation?
I don’t like to speculate as a matter of principle, but given what I’ve seen in my own evolution and what I can see traces of in some others, I suspect fear underlies a lot of it, as well as pride; fear of the implications of what it means and pride in not wanting to lose the idealized self image of western supremacy. If the US, for example, is genuinely terrible to the core on a fundamental state foundation level, that means a lot of pretty big change is necessary and change can be scary. And further, if a place like China or Vietnam is actually just a genuinely better system on a fundamental level and has better QOL for its people, that means the west is not only not superior, it’s not even on an equal level of political competency. Instead, it’s actually lower and in the capitalist caste socialization of “everything is a rung on a ladder,” that means the west is part of the “gross/bad class.”
People don’t have to see it this way though. They can see it as it’s not something to be afraid of, but a wakeup call that what’s being done is not working for most people and never has; they can consider the notion of major upheaval as an opportunity for fantastic expansion of the possibilities they’ve previously had presented to them, within which can carry drastic healing, improved quality of life, both personal and collective empowerment. They can also see the pride thing not as a designation of lesser nation, but as a designation of better or worse quality of life and empowerment and so on. It’s important that people unlearn the notions of it all being about caste, and who is and isn’t “superior.” Socialist projects doing better for their people are superior in the sense of quality of life, people power, etc., not in the sense of some colonizer-centric mindset of civil and savage.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Fear plays a huge role in this, and it’s generally what keeps people going along with the system even when they know it’s not working for them. Most people want their lives to be predictable, they might not like their jobs and their overall situation, but at least they know where their next paycheck and their next meal are coming from. You go in, do the work you know is expected from you, get your pay, and repeat. Losing that is really scary, and it’s a big part of the reason people tend to stay on at jobs they hate. A huge social change has a lot of unknowns associated with it, and people don’t want to take the the plunge to risk losing what little stability they have. I imagine this becomes many times compounded for people who have kids or other dependents they’re responsible for. I imagine this is why there’s the whole trope that older people become more conservative. The other aspect you mention is also important. Admitting that the system that oppresses you is not the best possible and that there are better alternatives out there is a hard pill to swallow.
I do hope that more people start looking at social upheaval from a positive perspective as well. I think we do need a vision of a positive future that inspires people towards change. This has to be the basis for an serious socialist movement. It’s not just about improving current conditions slightly, it’s about building a whole new society that’s more just and that empowers people to reach higher potential.
The “TL;DR” version of below is that it is not bad to have opinions of how other places do things. I agree with you. It is stupid to demand that other places do things while the place making those demands can’t even make good on those same things. I like that I have a right to free speech and many other rights. But it is also very true that the people and orgs with the real powers in the US give zero fucks about violating those rights. So pretending that we are “number one” while others are completely evil is stupid.
Hardest part I run into is trying to just simply get more of my liberal/progressive friends/co-workers to see the self-traps they set for anything changing (outside of “vote blue and stop trying to make it easier for the Republicans!”). I both catch the shit about how “evil the CeeCeePee” is and the Russia of it all. I don’t really care about what they are doing in the way that those I know do. They see me as being brainwashed (more or less even if they don’t say it out loud) for “always defending them.” But what they misunderstand is that I am not “defending” and just try to point out how they don’t really attempt to even see the other side and how they are not questioning why our outlets seem to sync up on shit. How those outlets treat similar things done by any AES or post-socialist nations vs the US or other Western nations. I am not in those nations and just really want for those friends/co-workers to simply get out of the headspace of being binary about it all. At which point I do find the post-9/11 push for war as a good point of reference as to how most of the US was super for it up until they weren’t.
I have plenty of things I don’t agree with or support in China/Russia/etc, but I also think that the US is the only nation I have any real reason to change. As it is the nation I live in, and it is not our place to be the sole voice of what everyone should do because we say so. We can somehow send so much money and weapons to “help” everywhere, but we can’t find fucking resources to fix our own home. Even if for some reason another nation did want us to “nation build” them. It would be a farce from the jump, as the poor and houseless in the US would be pissed off to see us make that other nation in any way better than the poorest part of the US. So it means that our efforts need to be in putting our home in order, and try to help out and work with other nations (when they actually ask for it and not by force) after. Having opinions are fine and can be helpful, but they don’t if they are just “they need to do it our way or no way.”
There will always be things that one place does that other places will dislike. The best way to deal with many of those things requires that we unlearn the idea that we can only “fix” it by force. To be the best examples of how we would like to be treated by how we treat others. Which are nice words that lots of people of the whole class spectrum say in some form to appeal to their populaces (while most certainly acting otherwise). I think that socialism/communism are the most realistic ways to actually put those words into practice (though I will be fair to say that many real revolutionary anarchists do truly wish for this as well even with real differences in how to do it). While also requiring the most effort from each person to be alert enough to keep watch for regressions and bad faith actors that try to use the revolutions for greed.
This is actually another interesting aspect of the whole thing. People keep dredging up how bad things were in USSR, or how authoritarian China is today, etc. as if people are proposing just mindlessly replicating that kind of a system in the west. It’s a really naive argument because each country is uniquely shaped by its culture, history, and its material conditions.
USSR was the way it was because of all the factors that was present when it was created. China is the way it is because of its conditions. It’s a fallacy to nitpick negative aspects of these systems and fear monger about them. The reality is that if there is ever a serious socialist movement in the west then it will necessarily be rooted in western culture, history, and the conditions that are present in the west today. It’s going to be a unique project with its own positive and negative aspects.
When we point to USSR or China as examples, we’re not saying that we just want to copy that. We’re showing the positive achievements these systems accomplished that we too could accomplish by learning from their experience. However, as long as people keep refusing to even learn about these systems then no positive change is possible.
