No? This is ridiculous, all major change has come through revolution.

Revolutions are won through organized groups of disciplined revolutionaries preparing for crisis. You are speaking to the opposite of historical revolution.

Revolution does not spontaneously become organized, organization needs to happen prior to revolution to turn crisis into a struggle against the system.

It doesn’t really matter if bigger countries finger-wag the DPRK or try to commit genocide on its population via sanctions, they still cannot turn back time to an era where the DPRK was nukeless. That’s why it’s been able to steadily develop over time, and reduce reliance on other countries like the USSR, which was a major factor in the 1990s famine. The DPRK has been sanctioned since its inception, this is nothing new for them.

The reason the DPRK is allowed to have nukes is because they already have nukes. Iran would not have been bombed if it had nukes.

Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul is an excellent documentary on the treatment of most defectors from the DPRK in the ROK.

The idea that defectors’ families are slaughtered by the DPRK is a myth, about 25% of defectors seriously consider returning home, many to return to their families. The actual reason why this is a scandal is that it hurts ROK President Lee Jae-Myeung’s recent desire to ease hostilities on the peninsula and re-open cooperation.

The idea that defectors’ families are slaughtered by the DPRK is a myth, about 25% of defectors seriously consider returning home, many to return to their families. The actual reason why this is a scandal is that it hurts ROK President Lee Jae-Myeung’s recent desire to ease hostilities on the peninsula and re-open cooperation.

Yep.

This is all vagueposting on your part, again. You keep fighting a vague strawman and not directing your criticism at an actual existing group, and your criticism avoids any direct references because then it falls apart immediately. You still have a shallow understanding of Marx.

The biggest problem I have with your analysis here is the idea that communist parties are simply a new boot, so to speak. The idea that any group that successfully gains political power, no matter the class character, will turn evil and start doing evil things regardless of the economic formation is a defeatist lie told to make the working classes fear socialism. Socialist countries have historically been tremendously progressive for the working classes, and they all have working class parties at the helm. This is really just workers getting organized.

As for the US constitution, it was written of, by, and for the historical equivalent of billionaires. The progressive language betrayed the actual intent: create a stable shell by which capital would forever dictate the lives of the people. George Washington, for example, was one of the wealthiest slavers in the entire colonial society. They fought Britain both for taxation, and because Britain was posturing about banning slavery and banning expanding settler-colonialism, which the Iroquois people supported (which is why George Washington sent his army to commit genocide). This wasn’t because Britain was good, but because they had their own class interests opposed to the colonies.

My point here is that the US constitution is a bourgeois constitution through and through. Why not skim through the USSR’s 1936 constitution?

The Nordic Model isn’t “socialist ideals” keeping “capitalism in check,” it’s welfare capitalism using the spoils of imperialism to placate the working classes. As it is a capitalist system, it has structural contradictions that run into boom and bust, crises of profitability, and problems like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. This is all not to even speak of imperialism, which is where these social democracies rely on.

The proletariat is in power in socialist countries run by communist parties. You are treating job positions as though they are classes, but that’s not how Marxists see class. Class is a relation to ownership of the means of production, not simply a managerial position being a class.

There is no hard line between church and state, or business and state. Interconnection exists between all things. The idea that businesses are free and independent really means that the state does not interfere in their ability to run, only in protecting them.

Again. This isn’t true at all. Marx would not support your class reductionism, and Marx would support the Marxists of today that take firm anti-imperialist stances. You have a simplified, non-Marxist view of imperialism and nations.

To put it very simply, Marx’s internationalism supported movements against colonialism and imperialism. He believed the proletariat had more in common with the proletariat of other countries, and called upon them all to work together. This, however, as understood by Marx meant supporting the movement of Ireland as a whole against the British Empire, of Poland against the Russian Empire. He correctly understood that without combatting colonialism, the proletariat of oppressor and oppressed countries could not be free. The quest for national sovereignty is principally an anti-colonial movement.

The abolition of borders is not the same as the abolition of nations. Marx never stated that the nation would wither, but that states would. He did not believe nationality to be a “bourgeois construct.” The state, borders, all of this withers as society gradually collectivizes across the entire globe, in international revolution, according to Marx and Engels alone. At this point, no developed theories of nations or imperialism or self-determination exists yet as core to Marxism-Leninism, but even within Marx himself there is a strong understanding that colonialism is a barrier to proletarian revolution, not merely capitalism at a state level.

“Workers of all countries, unite!” The international struggle is one that combats the bourgeoisie of all states, of all nations. However, it principally fights the colonizing bourgeoisie as the primary antagonist when this is a barrier to revolution, as it was in Poland and Ireland. This is the national question before Lenin and Stalin.

Any condescension you see on my part is a response to the repeated, incorrect claims that I am revising Marx. Reading Marx’s work on Ireland and Poland make it clear that Marx understood colonialism to be a core obstacle, and thus simply saying “fight the bourgeoisie” without any nuance to it would be reductive and vulgarize Marx. This is why Marx supported the Statesian north against the south, despite both sides being bourgeois.

More than attempt, the socialist countries run by communist parties, the ones attempting to build towards communism, have been responsible for some of the most rapid improvements in living conditions in history. Socialism and communism aren’t like birds and ducks, but more like a sprout and a tree. Socialism is a transitional process between capitalism and communism, where production and distribution are gradually collectivized into communism.

Again, nations are not states. They aren’t borders, they aren’t whatever confusing idea you believe they are. Marx factually supported proletarian internationalism, which included explicit support for Irish and Polish liberation, to list two examples, against colonialism. Reaching over national borders to support national liberation is a core facet of internationalism as Marx believed the proletariat has more in common with each other than their own bourgeoisie. These ideas are mutually supporting, not contradictory.

You continue to butcher the national question as it exists today. Marx supported the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is a state that cannot but wither as it abolishes class. Socialist states do not stand against Marx, but for them. Your idealist understanding of Marx is closer to anarchism than Marxism. National sovereignty does not mean the establishment of permanent borders or anything of the sort. It means that a nation oppressing another cannot be free, a call for the international proletariat to support the proletariat in oppressed countries against the oppressor countries. This is internationalism.

Regarding China, their socialist market economy is entirely in line with Marx. The basis of markets are decentralized production, the basis of socialized production is highly centralized production. So as to not introduce antagonisms, and develop the productive forces rapidly, markets are employed in underdeveloped industries. This is straight out of Principles of Communism and Manifesto of the Communist Party when Marx and Engels talk about how it is impossible to abolish private property at one stroke as its impossible to multiply the productive forces to their necessary levels overnight.

You collapse internationalism into blindness to imperialism and colonialism. This is the peak of revisionism against Marx, who I again will state supported the Polish and Irish against colonialism as a necessary blow to capitalism for both oppressor and oppressed.

Again, I am upholding Marx’s position on internationalism. I’ve explained that you have vulgarized it repeatedly by painting Marx as an idealist. Marx supported Ireland, Poland, and more against colonialism precisely because he was an internationalist, he directly said that no nation can be free while it oppresses another.

State it clearly: where am I contradicting Marx?

Vagueposting? Seriously?

Nations are not states. I am not confusing Marx, here, you continue to vulgarize his views. Marx was an internationalist, on this we agree, but because you do not understand the concept of a nation you vulgarize what that internationalism means. Looking at Marx’s view of Ireland, Marx stressed that the national liberation of Ireland from British colonialism was in fact the correct step towards proletarian internationalism, and that therefore the primary task was liberation from colonialism before liberation from capitalism could be achieved.

Marx indeed said that the international working class has no country. This is indeed true, the overall goal is not individual national supremacy, but international solidarity towards an interconnected future. However, Marx also understood colonialism and the struggle for national liberation, and supported these movements. Lenin and Stalin would go on to develop these ideas further, but they did not divert from Marx on this point.

Socialists today are not more nationalist. You fundamentally misunderstand how internationalism actually works according to Marx himself. Marxists today have a more developed theory of the national question than existed with Marx, but this does not make socialists today “more nationalist.” You’ve fundamentally confused the national question as it existed in Marx’s time, and vulgarized him into a class reductionist, one that does not understand primary and secondary contradictions.

The embrace of proletarian internationalism, which includes support for the national sovereignty of all peoples, is what’s common on Lemmy. Not these bourgeois ideas of national supremacy of nations, which you have inserted into the equation. Marx and Engels themselves stated that no nation can be free while it oppresses other nations, meaning even in Marx’s time national liberation was a core aspect of proletarian internationalism. You turn him into an idealist that does not recognize the real, material process of nations.

States and nations are not the same thing, and I think you are confusing me and Marx by conflating the two. Nations are historically constituted, stable communies of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and culture. Nations seek sovereignty, through the establishment of a state in their interests. The abolition of the state can only be done once a nation is sovereign, and this is intrinsically tied to the class struggle between workers and the bourgeoisie.

Secondly, regarding private ownership within socialism. The economic basis of markets is in decentralized production. The economic basis of social production and distribution is large, centralized production. Trying to force one into the other forces antagonistic contradictions. The very same contradiction that gives rise to the proletariat taking power through revolution, the centralization of markets creating a new economic basis for social production, also works against socialist construction if this economic base does not exist yet and a socialist state dogmatically collectivizes even decentralized production. This is the basis for the marketization that exists in socialist countries in secondary and underdeveloped industries.