u/Entkomm - originally from r/GenZhou
I understand that the CPC is dedicated to building socialism in China, but that makes me wonder: Why don't they have a maximum wage?

Couldn't the CPC set a maximum wage or set a maximum amount of money that citizens are allowed to have privately, then have the rest of the money go into public works projects or just the Chinese Treasury in general?

Couldn't the CPC even redirect a lot of that same money into working class people's bank accounts by heightening the minimum wage, too?

What would happen if they did this? How would billionaires respond? Surely they couldn't funnel all their money into Switzerland and Europe overnight, could they?

Has anything like this been tried already? How did it go? Where can I read up more about it, and this subject in general?

u/Rukamanas - originally from r/GenZhou

u/th0mas_papill0n - originally from r/GenZhou
I've seen many people here and on r/GenZedong describe totalitarianism as a meaningless word, and I don't fully understand what they mean. I'd appreciate it if someone could clear this up for me!

u/Atryan420 - originally from r/GenZhou
In my personal experience nothing contributed more to pushing me away from liberals than this video. Recently i started watching "Second Thought" and his videos are also great, but i think he's just doing stuff most of leftists already agree on, i'm looking for video that you could show to a DemSoc and they would be like "Damn, maybe i really am brainwashed, maybe i really should critically support China?".

No disrespect to Hakim, i'm subscribed to him and i watch his videos, they're also really good, but i don't think they're on the same quite level of effectiveness as what i'm talking about. I don't really how to explain it, but i think it has something to do with people tending to believe more in people who live in these countries or at least who traveled there. If this video wasn't called "We Went To North Korea To Get A Haircut" but instead "Media Is Lying To You About North Korea" i don't think people would give a shit. Also i don't think it would be as effective if this video was just a vlog about travelling to NK, instead they talked about US involvement in Korean War, mentioned Hiroshima&Nagasaki, and completely exposed hypocritical media.

I think you could make a similar video about "Chinese Ghost Cities" for example.

u/allinwonderornot - originally from r/GenZhou
I know Trotsky is hated because he betrayed Stalin. However, simply by looking at the idea of Trotskyism (permanent revolution, etc), it may seem impractical, but far from bad?

u/sanriver12 - originally from r/GenZhou

u/BetterInThanOut - originally from r/GenZhou
I’m not an ML by any stretch of the word. In fact, I think I’m closer to a classical libertarian despite being a Marxist, if that makes any sense. However, I do have critical support for the Soviet Union in many things, while simultaneously criticizing them for many other things. One thing I’ve supported them for was Soviet Democracy, which I believed was an amazing accomplishment and an interesting topic on its own. That being said, a user pointed out that my understanding of the power of the soviets is flawed, saying that:

Soviets in bolshevik sence were more instrument of party-control, than democracy. Soviet democracy died twice, in time of October revolution, when different parties more often than not were repressed from soviets, and in time of Civil war, when soviets were subjugated by party. Trade unions were subjugated too. Independent socialist parties were repressed and banned. Bolsheviks attacked socialist Georgia and destroyed menshevist government there, and occupied ukrainian leftist government than to extract resources and have full political and cultural control of the country. XII party conference officially banned party fractions and destroyed any notion of inner-party democracy (multy-party democracy was destroyed before). And then, logically from this, it gave ground for crimes against humanity. When worker class was have no power left whatsoever, national self-determination destroyed and political parties outlawed, nobody cant put up a fight to a collectivization and mass purge, that happened after. It was truly an totalitarian state, not a democratic in any sence. And there is no point in critical support of it. Democracy — is the most left wing value, and strengthening democracy by overcoming capitalism — it is the point. Totalitarian ways have nothing in common with this, and, as such, there is no point supporting it.

What do you people, as Marxist-Leninists, think of this assessment? Any critiques or comments? Many thanks!

u/PM_ME_CARLOW_PICS - originally from r/GenZhou

u/KimochiiiNe - originally from r/GenZhou

u/AyyItsDylan94 - originally from r/GenZhou
Why or why not? I've been struggling to understand fascism and am curious.

[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
[deleted]

u/epic_gamerman12 - originally from r/GenZhou

[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
[removed]

u/Sharp-Score-2254 - originally from r/GenZhou
I constantly hear that Mao starved millions, is that true?

u/xfritz5375 - originally from r/GenZhou
[removed]

u/Means-of-production - originally from r/GenZhou
Part 2 of this post. I know this looks long, but according to word counter this should take about fifteen minutes to read.

In the original post, I was happy to read and interact with your agreements and criticisms of my original critique. Now, I will deal with the solution, on how patriotism and nationalism is to be handled in second and first world countries, in particularly in my homeland Australia and the United States.

1. Differentiating between the two forms of Nationalism
2. Nationalism and National Liberation in Settler-Colonial States
3. The task of Australian Communists and the Australian National Revolution
4. Nationalism and National Liberation in the United States
5. The Question of National Self-Determination of various nations in the United States
6. Footnotes

I would refrain from using the word "Patriotic", seeing as that implies support for the existing social order - though "Nationalist Socialism" sounds... well, I don't need to explain why. For the purposes of this I will use the term Socialist/Communist Nationalism.

We know that a Communist can and must be at the same time be an Internationalist and a Nationalist - though Communist Nationalism is far different from Reactionary Nationalism. National Liberation - that is, the movement wherein one imperialised, colonised or otherwise oppressed nation or community seeks to liberate itself from a foreign overlord - is a core part of Marxism-Leninism; this I am sure we are all aware of and I have stressed in my previous post. However, in the past, there have been national-liberation movements across the world, some of which have taken on a Socialist Character. In fact, almost all major movements in the last one hundred or so years have. Yet, none of these have taken place in the settler colonies of the world, save for maybe Korea. Of all the historical settler-colonies that have existed, much of them have been liberated from their colonial overlords long ago. South and Central America are free from Spain and Portugal, Asia is free from Japan, the Balkans and Arabia are free from Turkey, Eurasia is largely free from Russia, South Africa overthrew its white minority leadership. Of the settler colonies that remain - The Commonwealths of Canada, Australia, New Zealand (Aotearoa) and the United States of America - only one of them is not still under the rule of a foreign leader de jure. It is also in these countries, as well as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, that the most amount of Capital is concentrated in the modern era - these states we refer to as the "Anglosphere", or, the "Imperial Core".

Revolution in the United Kingdom does not need to deal with the question of Colonialism, since it is an isle inhabited by its indigenous peoples. For this piece we will be focusing on settler-colonies.

Is it possible to be a Communist and a Nationalist in these states? Yes. But it is important to differentiate between Reactionary Nationalism and Socialist Nationalism.

1: Differentiating between the two forms of Nationalism

The main component of Nationalism is a deep love of one's country and a desire to see it do well and prosper, sometimes to the detriment of other countries - this we call National Chauvinism, and we reject wholeheartedly.

Nationalism can be used as a tool of subjugation or of Liberation - of this we are all aware. The difference between each can be easily identified, namely, in whether or not they uphold the social order of the day, and what that social order is. A key example of this is in Australia and the difference between Communist Nationalism and Reactionary Nationalism. Australia is a British Settler-Colony, and to this day a direct de jure puppet of the British Empire, de facto a puppet of the American^(1); thus making it a second-world country according to the three worlds theory. Do all Nationalists and "Patriots" in Australia seek to liberate Australia from its status as a second-class colony of foreign masters? Hardly!

Some of them do carry the Eureka Flag, but do they mourn the martyrs who died at that stockade? Do they celebrate the victory their martyrdom paid for? Do they celebrate Ned Kelly's^(2) legacy as our own Robin Hood, as our own Koba, are they outraged at our government that routinely sends our sons and daughters to bleed and die in foreign fields on the orders of uncaring masters? Do they see any of the vast beauty our motherland holds, do they tremble in anger at seeing it plundered by foreign capital? Are they outraged at the massacring of our native peoples, the first nations of this land, and their continued subjugation? No, they do not! These reactionaries do not celebrate Australia, they celebrate being white IN Australia!

Any challenging to the current conditions in Australia would threaten the social cohesion of our country, would challenge the doctrine of white supremacy that this country was founded on, which, to the reactionary, is wholly unacceptable. They wave our national flag, the one stained with the Union Jack, rather than our Eureka cross - quite literally adopting the iconography of white supremacy and colonialism. The same applies to reactionary Nationalists in America, Canada, and New Zealand, all of which are home to "Nationalist" groups who do not serve their countries, but rather, serve the interests of their national or International Bourgeoisie - upon which it can be called into question whether or not these "Patriots" are even Patriots at all, selling out the majority of their homelands to a gilded few. As Communists, it should be obvious to us that this is not Nationalism or Patriotism in the slightest, but National Chauvinism, reactionary nationalism, as they seek to uphold the current (or past) social order. On that note, we can say safely that it is not, in fact, reactionary to be a Nationalist in a Settler-Colonial state, provided one is a Socialist Nationalist.

2: Nationalism and National Liberation in Settler-Colonial States

Across Australia's history, never have the Australian people ever truly been in charge of it. We are still a colony, for all of our history we have been under either direct or indirect rule from London or Washington. Many egregious crimes have been committed in our past, but all of them, or a majority of them, were perpetrated by British Colonial authorities, or ordered by governments subservient as puppets to Britain or America. They, quite literally, happened under the Union Jack, which still stains our national flag today. A class analysis of Australia reveals that little has changed since 1788:

There are multiple phenomenon to be observed in this analysis of Australian classes and how they have changed the historic relations between them:

• 2.1: While Convicts were certainly settlers themselves, they were by no means eager to be in Australia. They themselves were victims of capital, often charged with petty crimes such as the theft of food or other vitals - while normally they would've been sentenced to death, Australia was thought of as hell on earth, and so they were sent here. Torn from their families and homelands, many Convicts outright defected to join indigenous resistance groups active in the country, particularly from 1788 to ~1815.
• 2.2: Class society was present in Australia from the founding of the first colony at Botany Bay - the Colonials, the Convicts, and the Indigenous Australians. The British Colonial Authorities and Richer Free Settlers often cooperated with each other at the expense of the Enslaved Convicts and the Indigenous Population - tensions that eventually boiled over into the 1854 Eureka Stockade and the formation of Australia's incredibly strong Union Culture. Poorer Free Settlers and Immigrants, which began to arrive around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, were also cast aside by the higher classes of Australian society as part of its growing Bourgeoisie.
• 2.3: Similarly, as the Australian proletariat began to form, it consistently sided with the aforementioned Coolies and Indigenous Resistance, as well as other immigrant labour. During the Eureka Stockade^(4), miners refused to allow British Colonial Authorities to divide the crowd by racial lines, insisting the Chinese labourers striking with them were one of them. This tradition of solidarity continued through the rest of the 19th century and the 20th to this day, and is especially strong with Unions.
• 2.4: In the modern day, this class arrangement has hardly changed. Poorer "settlers" and first, second or third generation immigrant labour make up an overwhelming majority of the Proletariat, whilst the ruling class is overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly backed by foreign capital, particularly that in the United States. This racial character of our wider Class Society is no doubt a remnant of the colonialism, and evidence of its continuing effects, particularly in the lower social-economic status of indigenous communities.

Basic knowledge of history tells us that the current colonial government of Australia is in direct combat with the very existence of indigenous people, and its continued existence is an existential threat to the survival of Indigenous Australians. However, this class analysis also reveals another thing: that for a majority of Australian Proletarians, indigenous or not - that is, the majority of society - the status of Australia as a Colonial State is also unsatisfactory. The class society of 1788 has by no means disappeared or even transformed in any significant way. In America and India, for instance, the petty Bourgeoisie in those countries were able to spearhead national liberation and ascend to becoming the Big Bourgeoisie - this has not happened in Australia. The Big Bourgeoisie in Australia is overwhelmingly composed of foreign, not domestic, Capital. Excluding banks (much of which are formerly state-owned enterprises) and joint anglo-australian mineral concerns - which export a majority from Australia as part of the movement of finance capital and raw material - the largest corporate groups in Australia are non-Australian. Even seemingly domestic Australian corporations, such as Macquarie Group, a Banking and Infrastructure Firm, began as a subsidiary of the British Hill Samuel & Co, Ltd. Foreign monopoly on Australia is so extensive that a majority of Australian raw resources is exported abroad - mostly Asia and Europe - and in the media, which is dominated by the American Murdoch Dynasty and the Australian Packer Dynasty.

This is not to say that domestic Capitalists and Bourgeois do not exist in this country, it is not difficult at all to follow the lives of 19th century Businessmen and how they became the absurdly rich billionaires today - all of them began as what we could consider "Rich Settlers", and made the natural progression through a colonial capitalist society to become the bourgeoisie and then the big bourgeoisie - though, ultimately, they serve the interests of Capital, which is in the interest of the major Bourgeoisie, the international masters of finance.

3: The task of Australian Communists and the Australian National Revolution

In summary, Australia is a second-world nation oppressed by foreign masters and has never ruled itself. It is an imperialised nation that is granted the privilege of being able to oppress some minor nations itself (Papua New Guinea, Timor and Nauru to be specific), and to partake in the subjugation of other, third world nations. Reactionary Nationalists in Australia are not and do not represent the interests of Australia as a whole, and are, therefore, the opposite of patriotic, of nationalist - they are National Chauvinists. It is therefore the task of the Australian Proletariat, black and white, indigenous and convict, to unite for the mutual interest of destroying colonial capitalism and taking control of their homeland. While White Australians may not be indigenous to this land, there is no doubt that the process of history has made them apart of it, though the former point is still valid, Australian workers must bear in mind that indigenous Australians have suffered substantially more than they have. I am technically an eighth-generation Immigrant from what is now Germany, but I bear no connection to Die Deutsches Vaterland. The liberation of a Colonial settler-state can only occur with the full participation of all members of its proletarian class, regardless of race or national origin. In a colonial state, the most revolutionary act one can embark on is its destruction. The Australian revolution must be a national one.

4: Nationalism and National Liberation in the United States

The United States is not like Australia. As such, a special analysis of both countries must be carried out.

In my original post I heavily criticised the policy of "Patriotic Socialism" as it was espoused by that of Haz in the video "Patriotic Socialism: America vs. America". I should like to make it clear that I do believe that Communist Nationalism is possible in the United States - just not as Haz believes it.

In the first post, u/Professional-Way1833 shared a criticism of my view that patriotism is 100% justified in the face of an external invader that seeks to economically and politically dominate one's country. They agreed with me, but went on to say that :

...to some extent, this is what the PS [Patriotic Socialist] people are saying. They are saying 'The American people ARE attacked by an outside force. They are attacked by the bourgeoise and government.'

The workers of America black or white, bear no responsibility for the government, because in the USA, the working masses have ZERO control over it. It oppresses the world, it oppresses the masses in it's own border. It oppresses POC, and also white workers. Sure, white workers are oppressed less, but they are still oppressed, and the imbalance of oppression is changing.

Whilst I cannot say that I completely know every argument those that espouse the doctrine of Patriotic Socialism are making (I was only responding to one video), this is an objectively correct assessment and I believe a key point to understanding the role of Communist Nationalism in the American Proletarian movement. In America, modern day American proletarians, white or not, bear no responsibility for the crimes of the past because they were not in control when they happened, they did not perpetrate them; they did not order them - this I have already said myself about Australia. Over time, countless peoples have made America their home. For a majority of American workers they, although not indigenous to the lands they inhabit, have become apart of them. This is the material reality that we find ourselves in. It is indeed a tragedy that countless indigenous nations, civilisations and peoples were systematically eradicated in the name of white settlement. The effects of such actions still linger, although the direct actions of genocide, ethnic cleansing, enslavement and so on have largely ceased. There is still displacement. There is still erasure. But such crimes cannot be undone, only healed from.

The fundamental error in "Patriotic Socialism" I find that I have not already addressed was brought up by comrade u/Mrfish31. He said:

No, honoring and respecting communists (eg the black panthers, workers movements) and abolitionists (eg John Brown) is not "patriotic", being proud of "the American tradition of rebellion". These people were literally the opposite of "tradition". They were enemies and traitors to the USA (A good thing!) and in many cases were executed by the USA. The "American tradition" is white supremacy and slavery. To be patriotic in such a country is to implicitly support it, no matter how much you insist that you "actually just support the right parts of it's history".

I elaborated upon this a bit further in my reply to u/Professional-Way1833, but essentially: "Patriotic Socialists" believe that organisations and individuals (such as the Black Panthers, for instance) made advancements because of the US, rather than in spite of it. John Brown's rebellion was crushed by the United States state apparatus, civil rights leaders, labour activists, unionists and Communists were actively persecuted by the United States Government. These people and movements should indeed be celebrated and honoured, but not because they were Americans, but because they were Communists, abolitionists, labour organisers, unionists and civil rights leaders. Geronimo fought against the United States. Eugene Debs did as well. Patriotic Socialism calls for the celebration of American tradition - rebellion, progress, Liberty and Democracy, etc - in spite of America's genocidal present, but fails to understand that such rebellion and progress happened in spite of the United States, engaging in direct conflict with the United States and what it stands for. Perhaps in ideas, yes, these individuals and organisations fought for something "American", but in concrete practice, they fought directly against everything that is American. This is something u/MrFish31 pointed out. In ideas, yes, the United States can be considered to be or have been a vanguard of democracy and liberty, freedom et. al, but in practice it is a vanguard of imperial colonialism and white supremacy.

So, what is to be done? as the two aforementioned users both correctly pointed out, white American workers are still oppressed. Not nearly as much as indigenous nations and african-american communities, but still oppressed regardless. The "Patriotic Socialists" assert that the Working class in the US is being oppressed by an "outside force", that being the Bourgeoisie. However, this take is close, but not completely correct. The Bourgeoisie of the United States, as the world's foremost Imperial power, are not oppressing American workers the same way they oppress the workers, of, say, Australia or Mexico. Capital is largely imported to the USA, not exported. The Bourgeoisie are only "outside" the working class, not the nation itself. Likewise, the workers out outside their government, which is not and never was intended to be representative of the workers, of course, it is merely the apparatus in which the Bourgeoisie conduct their operations. The answer to this, then, brings me to return to my analogy to the USSR: do as the Soviets did and build political power outside of the Government of the United States, until you are capable of directly challenging the American State for political dominance - upon which a revolution begins and the class war becomes a civil war. Again, I return to my old conclusion: the United States of America was founded as a Liberal-bourgeois republic and has existed as such for close to 250 years. It has run its course. The time has come for American proletarians to sweep it aside and replace the Bourgeois Republic with a Socialist one.

5: The Question of National Self-Determination of various nations in the United States

There are many nations and communities within the United States, many of which are vying for liberation, each of which have separate but similar grievances and demands. In Australia, most indigenous tribes and communities do not have a concept of statehood, and although the law of self-determination must be respected, it is unlikely that any new countries will emerge after an Australian revolution. In America, this is not the case, owing both to the national composition of America and its geographical components. The Indigenous peoples of Australia largely lived nomadic lives, viewing themselves as "caretakers" of the land rather than as owners. They maintained a complex system of crude "international relations" with their immediate neighbours, but that was about it^(5). Indigenous Americans, on the other hand, did form states and nations - the Iroqois Confederacy, iirc, was an inspiration for the United States Congress. Regardless, these nations were conquered by the United States. They fought bravely for their survival, but were ultimately defeated - and yet, they survive, still striving for liberation and survival today. In addition to this, there exists the question of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Alaska. Then there comes the racial question and the division of white from black working class comrades. What is to be done?

A Rainbow Coalition. I must confess, I had not heard of such a concept until I was writing this. But regardless, the concept is the most viable so far to achieve national and economic liberation in the United States.

The reason why such a concept is not suited for Australia is because our country, for better or worse, is overwhelmingly white - around 71.1 - 89% of the population, the remainder being a mix of indian and southeast asian, with around 2.8% (~750,000) being indigenous. In America, only 60.8% of the population is white, the remainder being a very diverse mix of african american, hispanic, asian, and so on - all of whom have a long history of being at varying levels of relations with the United States Government - seldom good. I remember reading a while ago, around the time of the George Floyd Riots, a theory work by u/theDashRendar about the dillemma of the ruling class at that time (link to a reading I did of it), and they made a great point about how never since the Russian Revolution had there been a revolution where the agents of the state may rebel against it. I believe this parrallel works here, too. The Russian empire was also filled with hundreds of ethnic groups, each desiring their own representation - and yet, they were organised into one, united, cohesive Union - not a New Russia, but a Union of Soviets. If American revolutionaries with to maintain the territorial integrity or borders of the current United States, so be it, but the socialist republic that emerges out of it must not in any way reflect the empire that preceded it. And, ultimately, the law of self-determination is ultimate. Unless they're trying to form a capitalist state, of course.

In America, the National Question is answered as follows: Workers of all Colours must unite to overthrow the bourgeosie in their country. But they will not do so by mimicking the current power structure, "traditions" and organisation of the preexisting state. They will do so by building a united front of all races and nations, as did the Bolsheviks, to overthrow the Bourgeoisie and build in its place not a Socialist version of the United States, but a Socialist State in America. That is the task of American Communists: Smash the Capitalist US, build a Socialist America.

Commissar

Sydney, Australia

2021

Footnotes:

1. Australia is still a British Commonwealth realm - our head of state is still Queen Elizabeth II. In 1975 the United States' CIA, in conjunction with the British Mi6, staged a "constitutional coup" to remove Prime Minister Gough Whitlam - officially over his minority government and use of power, unofficially over him ending Australian involvement in Vietnam, his desire to nationalise American-owned mines, to shut down the US spy base Pine Gap (which is still in operation to this day and serves as the largest American intelligence base in the Asia-Pacific Region), and to join the non-aligned movement. Luckily, we didn't share the same fate as Chile, and Whitlam was replaced with the opposition leader Malcolm Fraser who pulled significantly closer to the US out of fear they'd remove him too, famously saying: "We are allies with the United States to protect us from the United States".
2. Ned Kelly was an Irish-Australian "Bushranger", essentially an outlaw, known for leading a gang of criminals to rob banks and participate in other criminal acts involving livestock theft - however, they were very particular about it in that they wore distinct bulletproof plate armour fashioned from ploughshares, and only targeted state property, Squatters (Australian Kulaks, basically) and police officers. When they did hold up a particular site, they would destroy debt records and redistribute some of the spoils of the robbery to the people they'd inconvenienced by holding them hostage, and - and how Australian is this - they sometimes bought drinks for the men. Kelly was hanged in 1880, despite some 300,000 people (out of 850,000 in the Colony of Victoria at the time) signing a petition demanding he be set free. His last words were "Such is life", basically "Eh, fuck it." He is a controversial figure in contemporary Australia, though he and his image and what he stood for is held in high esteem by many working class Australians - even the Australian Communist Party uses his likeness. The bourgeois state apparatus condemns him as a criminal, but he is undoubtedly an Australian worker's hero.
3. "Coolie" is a colloquial term to refer to indentured labour that were essentially slaves captured from other British colonies in the indo-pacific area. Some were Chinese, though a majority were from India, Bengal, Myanmar and the Pacific Islands. Though not officially slaves, they were effectively slaves.
4. The Eureka Stockade was a labour rebellion in Ballarat, British Colony of Victoria (Now the Australian State) in December 1854 - January 1855. Striking miners staged an armed rebellion in the goldfields there (this was during the Australian Gold Rush), protesting low payments for mined gold, high mining taxes, no democratic representation, police brutality and discrimination. Though the original 5,000 at Eureka were defeated, the crown was forced to concede to all of the Miner's demands a month later in January 1855, when a crowd three times the size of the original rebellion rallied.
5. Indigenous Australians numbered around ~200 or so "nations" across the Australian continent, Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islands. Each one had its own customs, language, culture and so on; vague, loosely defined borders and a loosely similar set of policies regarding interacting with neighbouring tribes. Each tribe, for instance, had a "Totem", such as an animal they would not hunt - out of respect, neighbouring tribes would also not hunt such an animal. There were, of course, scuffles and conflicts between various tribes, but none that resulted in the outright conquest of one tribe by another. Though they lived largely nomadic lives, there is evidence they engaged in Farming, and had a basic understanding of ecology, as did Indigenous Americans.

u/Means-of-production - originally from r/GenZhou
Edit: part 2 here.

I left a comment on r/GenZedong regarding the question of "Patriotic Socialism", in particular, the decision by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) to exclude those that choose to parrot this particular talking point. Discussing the decision of the CPUSA is not worth conversation. But talking about the wider question of how Patriotism fits into the Socialist movement as a whole is. I am an Australian Communist, and consider myself to be something of a "Left-Nationalist".

First, a breakdown of the basic theory of "Patriotic Socialism":

In their video, "Socialist Patriotism: America vs. America", the webcast Infrared makes the following points:

• The tendency of some socialists to call for the destruction of America as a whole - the "Burn it all down" approach - is a non-Marxist one, and, in fact, serves the position of alienating the working class from Communism.
• The reason for this is that working class people are deeply patriotic and by denouncing something they hold dear they are in effect denouncing the working class.
• Patriotism has been apart of Socialist nations and movements since their inception - in particular, they cite the Warsaw pact and Lenin's "Revolutionary Defeatism" in the first world war to rally the working class to revolution.
• The United States of America began as a bold and just project as one of the first democracies in the world, and, carrying the legacy of the working class that built the USA, has deep and longstanding democratic and revolutionary proletarian national traditions that must be protected and encouraged.
• To denounce the US, therefore, and call for its destruction, is not only detrimental to the Communist movement in America, but it serves the forces of reaction and anti-communism as a liberal stance.

These positions somehow reach the conclusion that to be patriotic in the USA is to be revolutionary. This seems like a contradiction at face value, ^((because it is),) seeing as the USA is a bourgeois country, perhaps the most bourgeois and imperialist nation on earth. It oppresses the most people, it holds the most nations hostage, it brutalises and slaughters the most people. The individual points by themselves are not completely unsound, though the conclusion flies directly in the face of the historical and current material realities faced by the United States.

The main problem with this take is that it is dogmatic, it takes Marxist theory at face value and slaps it straight on to the USA and expects it to translate well - it does not.

1.

Their first point is that the "Burn it all down" approach is counter-revolutionary as it alienates the working class. This point is not entirely incorrect. To denounce nationalism completely is indeed counterrevolutionary and goes against why we fight for Communism in the first place - because we wish to see our communities, our families, friends and nation as a whole to succeed and prosper. We want our homelands to be free and enriched the fruits of its labour, we want to have a home to fight for and defend - be it the whole national population or even just our hometown. We are attached to these things naturally. To be detached from such things is to detach yourself from human society as a whole. Nationalism is a tool that can be used for oppression or liberation, we as Communists use it for the latter - the movements in China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos; Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia and many others carried a fundamentally Nationalist character. The Soviet Union encouraged socialist nationalism and pride in its country, during the great patriotic war nationalism was used as a rallying cry to unite the people against an external invader.

It is not worth speaking of the patriotism of the warsaw pact as mentioned in the video. Such tactics were used to unite the people in defending socialism that had already been established. The USA is not a socialist country. Therefore, attempting to apply warsaw pact-style patriotism to the USA is futile.

This is the first instance where Infrared discard Historical Materialism to make their theory fit to the USA. All examples I have listed used Patriotism as a rallying cry to unite the people in the face of an opposing invader, agents of foreign capital seeking to plunder nations and export capital from any such place. The Bolsheviks united the USSR in various ways, the most prominent method was destroying the people's will to fight the Germans and recognising the Tsar as their real enemy - this strategy of Revolutionary defeatism was incredibly specific to the material conditions at the time - a point we will return to later. Hoxha united Albania against the Italians and the Nazis, Tito united Yugoslavia against the Nazi invaders as well; in Bulgaria, the fatherland front - perhaps the most patriotic possible name for Communist organisation - was rallying against first the pro-Axis Tsar Boris III, seen as a weak figure who served Hitler rather than Bulgaria, and then the blatantly Axis-controlled government of Dobri Bozhilov, and the Chinese struggle against Japan and then the US-controlled Kuomintang, and the many anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and so on. Anti-Imperialism is a core part of the Marxist-Leninist struggle, as Imperialism is the highest stage of Capitalism, and as such Anti-Imperialism is the highest stage of class struggle. However, the United States is not subject to the whims of any foreign power, nor is it locked in a devastating and unpopular bourgeois war against a country similar to it - the USA is not fighting another liberal-bourgeois democratic republic, like France or the Russian Federation. There is no widescale hunger or extrajudicial law in place because of a war. The USA is decaying and collapsing as we speak due to its own internal contradictions and Capitalism itself, not because of imperialist or colonial subjugation. Material conditions in the USA and its position as a world imperialist power make this point of attempting to apply 20th century Revolutionary and Socialist Russian tactics to 21st century Capitalist America incoherent and wrong.

2.

Second, they make the point that denouncing the USA means alienating the workers, since a vast majority of the working class is not caught up in all the up-to-date goings on of breadtube and identity politics, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, and so on. This is partially correct, but again, erroneous in nature.

Infrared appears to forget that much of the people who denounce the US are people targeted by the US. Indigenous Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian-Americans, and the like; all of whom have been targeted and actively attacked by the United States of America and its institutions. Is it not correct for them to denounce the United States? Is it not justified for them to hate their oppressor? Not to mention the question of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, American territories in the pacific and Alaska as well, all of which are occupied territories the US has no business in being - and most blatantly of all, the question of Indigenous Americans, who are perhaps the first victims of US aggression and Imperialism. Are these individuals meant to simply roll over, betray the interests of their communities and groups, and simply accept the United States as their Government? According to Infrared, yes!

They justify their argument with this: that the cultural traditions and institutions of the United States, the traditions of the founding fathers laid out in the constitution of the United States, that of Liberty, Democracy and Freedom, justify this and place the United States as a head above all other nations as an exceptional nation with cultural traditions that go beyond racial and national boundaries. They also justify the occupation of indigenous land with the point that programs such as landback are not in the primary concern or interest of the indigenous populations of America, and that Communists should instead focus on Land Reform, and other such programs aimed at aiding the material needs of the Indigenous population.

This should reveal itself as nothing short of National Chauvinism. It asks imperialised groups and communities to forget the struggles they fought so hard to win, to ignore past atrocities and simply accept the United States and look to its glamorous side of Freedom and Democracy, arguing that the modern American worker has nothing to do with the struggles of the past, that no modern American worker is a coloniser, or segregationist, or the like. This take could not be any more tone deaf to the conditions of the present USA! It blatantly ignores the fact that racism, de facto segregation and colonialism are still very much alive and present in the USA today! More than that, the American Revolution, while indeed for a time a source of inspiration for revolutionaries around the world, and was indeed a democratic revolution, was nonetheless a Bourgeois revolution carried out by the Bourgeoisie for their own class interests, and has by no accounts any influence on modern American revolutionary politics. It was a liberal-bourgeois revolution. Any point made after this is nothing more than American exceptionalism and chauvinism. The United States is not any more special than states such as Italy, Britain, Spain, Mexico, France or any other nation for their "Democracy".

While it is true that the average American worker is by no means a coloniser, that does not discount the fact that colonialism happened and had disastrous and long-reaching effects on the United States and its indigenous peoples. These atrocious crimes cannot be swept under the rug because "it happened x amount of years ago," especially when it is still affecting indigenous communities today. This white-centric viewpoint is wholly un-Marxist and directly opposed to the principle of National self-determination, a principle we as upholders of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin hold dear! What revolution in a colonial state can be made without the participation of colonised peoples? Were they not the first architects of democracy on that continent? Did your sacred Benjamin Franklin not admit the idea for a congress was taken directly from Indigenous American confederation? The impudence!

3.

Finally, the crux of their argument appears to rest on the fact that working class people in the USA are deeply patriotic and to denounce the USA is to denounce them, and that the USA has been distorted into this evil empire rather than the good and wholesome republic it was meant to be.

^(Bitch your country was literally founded by slaveowner colonisers get the fuck outta here-)

This take, again, ignores historical materialism. The USA was not founded by good and wholly firm believers in democracy, it was founded by slaveowners. There is no other path of development it could have taken. It is built on stolen land and upon the blood of millions of murdered souls, at home and abroad. The USA is host to the most comprehensive propaganda and indoctrination apparatus in history, it is no wonder that millions of Americans blindly believe whatever history they are taught and fervently oppose and attempt to teach the truth. Opposition to Critical Race Theory is extremely telling, that the United States has a history so pathologically evil that its' leaders attempt to ban its teaching. There is no easy way around this, and Infrared's refusal to acknowledge the full scope of US imperialism and genocide, refusal to associate the US's criminality with the US itself speaks of either ignorance, apathy for the international proletariat, or a defeatism in their refusal to confront these crimes. Rather than reveal the truth, they would rather continue to peddle a dead lie not even the workers themselves believe in anymore. There is no American Dream. There was never Liberty or Democracy, nor freedom and justice for all. Of course, there will always be hardliners who follow such fantastic tales to the end, but the fundamental error of Infrared's theory that denouncing the US will alienate the workers brainwashed by the US propaganda machine is their inability to detach the United States from America.

When the Russian empire was retreating on all fronts in a bloody Bourgeois war that was wholly unpopular with the people, Lenin offered an alternative, a new "Russia" that served the workers - but, importantly, as we Communists should note - a "Russia" that wasn't even Russia!

Was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at all comparable to the Russian Empire? not in the slightest! We have a tendency to view the USSR as "Soviet Russia," but this is incorrect. Russia composed only one part of the Soviet Union. It was fifteen seperate republics and countless oblasts and autonomous regions that gave voice to the hundreds, thousands of different cultures within the former Russian empire. Its most famous leader was not even Russian!

This is an incredibly important fact that Infrared seems to completely disregard. The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union were not the same, in more ways than just economically. The USSR gave for the first time self-governance for the people of Belarus and the Caucasus, Central Asia and the far-east, which for centuries had been oppressed under the jackboot of the Tsardom in Moscow. Now, they had a say in not only how their lands were governed, but in how the entire Union was run, too! The entire system and institutions of the old Russian Empire were bulldozed and cast into the fire, the state machinery seized and converted for proletarian use. From the outside, it appeared only the flag and the Tsar had changed, but this could not be farther from the truth.

When a revolution occurs in America, it must take on this character. Lenin did not salute the soldiers of the Imperial Russian Army, he did not acknowledge Peter the Great or Alexander I as grand Russian heroes to be emulated. He educated workers to denounce the Tsar themselves, and to dream and fight for a new and equal society in Russia, not a new form of Russia itself!

American communists must now understand that the United States of America, as a grand project in Bourgeois democracy, has run its course, and must be swept aside to make way for a Socialist replacement. They must think beyond the USA and think back to the core of America, to its people, and to its land. Nations rise and fall but land remains, and so does history. Honour blair mountain and mourn the trail of tears, but denounce the bastards that did it. I do not believe that the United States of America would ever survive a Communist revolution - the national question, asked and answered by our great Comrade Stalin, forbids it. Too much has been done to ever redeem the cult of washington. It is another phase in history, and American Communists must think beyond the United States and aim to create a new Socialist land in North America. The Confederates were capable of creating a nation in America that was not the USA. Communists should be able to do better than that. It is pointless to hypothesise about what a socialist America would look like, whether it would hold the same territorial reach as the current USA, or be split into different pieces. That question depends entirely on the revolutionary situation that occurs when the class war takes on a civil character.

In Summary:

Infrared is wrong because they ignore the historical materialist conditions of America's past and present, and frequently ignore or brush over the struggles of the oppressed peoples within its borders that have been directly oppressed and persecuted by Washington. They are chauvinistic in this belief that those who have been oppressed by Washington should betray the interests of themselves and their people in favour of some long-dead American Dream.

They refuse to attempt to educate the working class of the potential for a newer, better America beyond the USA. They would rather roll over and play along with the current bourgeois beliefs of the working class.

While Nationalism is an important part in the Communist revolution, even in colonial states, "Socialist Patriotism" is nothing but national chauvinism and American exceptionalism disguised as the patriotism of the old.

Commissar

Sydney, Australia, 2021

u/jmattchew - originally from r/GenZhou
I always see people saying that "anarchism is a meme", does anyone have some brief examples of why, or some resources I can go to that will teach me why it's a joke? Is it because society needs some sort of structures to succeed, and anarchism is basically "fuck all the rules"?

u/Revolutionary830 - originally from r/GenZhou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz9ICFDk8Js

Is there a debunk to this video?

Edit: I am specifically referring to the part where he describes how it is written in the law to "make the Uyghurs more Chinese", and the camp tours, which he denounced as staged.

u/ddrepublik - originally from r/GenZhou
We are doing presentations in school on topics that interest us. I eventually decided to make a presentation on Cuba or more specifically on the revolution and contemporary Cuba. I've already read a lot about Cuba's achievements in various documents and studies, but I definitely need more information. I would highly appreciate if any of you could lend me a hand and recommend or redirect me to any books, documentaries, studies etc. on the Cuban revolution, the effects of the brutal sanctions imposed by the USA and the achievements of contemporary Cuba. Thank you so much comrades!

[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
[removed]

u/LeftConnoisseur - originally from r/GenZhou
Subreddit r/antiwork has been pretty based recently, however I have seen some takes are genuinely appalling. I saw a thread where someone said he wouldn't want to live in USSR because you were forced to have a job.

u/LeftConnoisseur - originally from r/GenZhou
Grover Furr's dull propaganda is not even Bad History, it's no history at all. : badhistory (reddit.com)

"Grover Furr is a neo-Stalinist professor who has published quite a few articled defending Stalin and denying his crimes.

His usual m. o. #1:

1. Skim through some marginal Stalinist source in Russian and absorb its main talking points.
2. Without however paying attention to detail.
3. Don't do the actual research, even about the basics.
4. Reproduce the resulting jumble for "Western" consumption.

Example: from "The “Official” Version of the Katyn Massacre Disproven? Discoveries at a German Mass Murder Site in Ukraine", Socialism and Democracy, 2013, vol. 27, issue 2, pp. 96-129:

The 1943 German report on Katyn states that the following item was found in one of the mass graves:
eine ovale Blechmarke unter den Asservaten vor, die folgende Angaben enthält T. K. UNKWD K. O. 9424 Stadt Ostaschkow
[...] probable English translation would be: Prison Kitchen, NKVD Directorate, Kalinin Oblast’ [prisoner, or cell, or badge number] 9 4 2 4 town of Ostashkov
None of the “transport lists” from the camp at Ostashkov were for transport to Katyn or anywhere near Smolensk. All these lists state that the Polish prisoners were sent to Kalinin. Therefore the person buried at Katyn who had this badge in his possession had been shipped to Kalinin. But, obviously, he was not shot there. The badge was unearthed at Katyn. Therefore, the owner of this badge was also shot at Katyn, or nearby

The "prison kitchen" thing comes straight from the Russian denial literature (actually T. K. means trudovaya koloniya, work colony), which is how we know where Furr got this "argument". Needless to say, Furr is deeply ignorant of the fact that POWs were sent from camp to camp, like the 112 people transferred from Ostashkov to Kozielsk on 19.11.1939. So literally none of Furr's conclusions follow.

His usual m. o. #2: if the evidence seems to support Stalin, just jump to conclusion without sufficient data or research.

The example above also belongs here, but here is another one, which is the thrust of the above article:

In 2011 and 2012 a joint Polish-Ukrainian archeological team partially excavated a mass execution site at the town of Volodymyr Volyns’kiy, Ukraine. Shell cases found in the burial pit prove that the executions there took place no earlier than 1941. In the burial pit were found the badges of two Polish policemen previously thought to have been murdered hundreds of miles away by the Soviets in April–May 1940. These discoveries cast serious doubt on the canonical, or “official,” version of the events known to history as the Katyn Massacre.

He then goes on and on about how these finds allegedly disprove the Soviet guilt for Katyn. Except... they don't. The badges were found not on the corpses but in the bulk layer with rubbish (household items etc.) above the corpses. The archival research showed that at least one of the policemen was detained in Volodymyr Volynski for weeks in 1939. Which means that his badge (and probably that of the other policeman, about whom less is known) was taken from him then, and when the Germans overtook the prison they eventually disposed of the useless inmates' belongings (still kept in the prison) in the burial area (Ubity v Kalinine, zakhoroneny v Mednom, 2019, vol. 1, pp. 79-81).

His usual m. o. #3: simply accept the Stalinist claims at face value while ignoring the documents undermining them.

E. g. he notoriously accepts the coerced testimonies for the Moscow show trials. The problem? He doesn't deal with most of the veritable mountain of evidence that these testimonies and the trials were staged.

Or, to continue with his Katyn article, he simply accepts the authenticity of the documents alleged to have been found by the Soviets in the graves, without addressing the fact that the "key" ones must be fake, to wit: the allegedly exhumed "documents" of Araszkiewicz and Lewandowski mention absolutely non-existent "ON" POW camps and the Poles in question as POWs later than the spring of 1940, yet we know that these camps never existed not only because there is not a single trace of them in the GUPVI archive (or any trace in real life), but because we have summary documents from the period in question listing all the groups of Polish POWs and the camps where they reside. No "ON" camps are mentioned, and the "missing" Polish POWs in question are listed as transferred to UNKVD in April-May 1940. So whatever happened to them, they were no longer POWs at the time these reports were filed, so the "found" "documents" cannot be authentic. And so, once again, nothing that Furr claims follows from these "documents" actually follows.

This is not history. Not even "bad history" per se. It's basically pure propaganda.

For more on Furr see my articles:

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/01/looking-for-katyn-lighthouses.html

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2007/03/and-now-for-something-not-completely.html

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/08/again-about-stalinist-deniers-yes.html "

u/zhiurovas - originally from r/GenZhou
Marxist-Leninists only please

u/LeftConnoisseur - originally from r/GenZhou