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Do left-wingers in Europe and America really like anti-American nationalist countries (Russia, Iran) so much? Actually, orthodox Marxists on the Chinese internet do not like Russia and Iran (thelemmy.club)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/china@lemmygrad.ml
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I am a Marxist in China

Orthodox Marxists in the Chinese internet community often view Russia and Iran as weak links in imperialism, rather than as anti-imperialist forces .However, in the view of Chinese Marxists, opposing the global hegemony of the United States takes precedence over opposing secondary imperialisms (Iran, Russia).

The person in the picture is Yang Heping, a US citizen with a Chinese green card, and he is the most popular orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Maoist self-media figure on the Chinese internet (with 3 million followers on Tiktok and 800,000 on Bilibili). Yang Heping advocates that whether it's Ukraine, Russia, or Iran, "the truth is on the side of the proletariat, not on the side of any government or capitalist."

In China, those who unconditionally support Iran and Russia are usually nationalists or national leftists.

I wonder if the differences between the left-wing in Europe and America and the left-wing in China are really that significant?

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[–] 49 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (12 children)

We critically support nationalist movements that undermine imperialism and neocolonialism, and in that respect both Iran and Russia play a progressive role in opposing imperialism. We do not support their economic systems, and desire socialism in these countries, which would be preferable to their current status. We do not consider Russia or Iran to themselves be imperialist, due to not being dominated by a financial oligarchy in particular, and therefore not actually running their economies on export of capital as their basis and not reaching the imperialist stage of capitalism (even if they could eventually become as such without socialist revolution).

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 3 months ago (11 children)

    I also support those nationalist movements aimed at undermining imperialism and neocolonialism.

    However, as far as I understand, the majority of the Chinese Left holds a rather pessimistic view regarding whether these countries will evolve into genuine socialist regimes; the global Left is still living in the shadow of the massive, lingering trauma left by the failures of the 20th century.

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  • [–] 39 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    We don't generally believe these countries will reform their way to socialism. Revolutionary means by which socialism is established will still likely be required, even in a state like Russia where the KPRF occupies seats in the Duma.

    I believe the easiest way to connect your perspective with ours is in tying your stated concept of "support for utility" with the English term "critical support." The "critical" refers to, essentially, the fact that we do not support their actual systems in the long term, merely their actions in relation to imperialism and neocolonialism. This is a strategic form of support.

    With respect to "Actually Existing Socialism," such as the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, former USSR, and Cuba, we simply state that we support them. This does not mean we believe any of these are perfect and don't critique them, but instead that support is more broad, general, and aligned with the actual mode of production and distribution.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    呃。。。。。。第二段我看不懂，显然是某些术语我用机翻翻译不出来了

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  • [–] 28 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I apologize, comrade. I will try to speak in a way that is easier and simpler to translate. The purpose of my second paragraph was to identify the source of confusion. It is my belief that the source of confusion is language differences. I will make this statement simple for easier machine translation.

    We support Russia and Iran only with respect to their anti imperialism. We do not support Russia and Iran's economy. We support socialism, which we believe will likely require revolution even in Russia and Iran. Support is conditional and selective.

    I hope that better conveys my meaning!

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

    It wasn't long ago that I was reading news out of China about popular support in China for Iran's fight against US Imperialism, they (people, not the state) were trying to send financial aid to help the Iranian's against the US that has been bombing them, 1.4 Billion people is a lot of people, there are going to be liberals, there are going to be all kinds of socialists full of all kinds of errors, making all kinds of mistakes, that does not however mean they are a majority. Also important, it is not a popularity contest, something is not true or not based on popularity, unless that something is "is this thing popular?", that applies to the non-imperialist status of Iran and Russia, even if there are wrong ideas out there that say otherwise, as also that is applies to the Science of Socialism, which is not determined by popularity on whether or not it is true, unless the question itself is of if this thing is popular.

    Edit: Seems Cowbee is probably right with it being a translation issue, as “the truth is on the side of the proletariat, not on the side of any government or capitalist.” doesn't seems to go against what we are saying, or the concept of critical support.

    “the truth is on the side of the proletariat, not on the side of any government or capitalist.”

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    我没看懂你在说什么

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I ran this through google translate and got "I'm looking forward to seeing you there", but I don't understand what that means in the context of my comment that this is a reply too, is maybe google translate a bad option for translation? I'm not sure what a better translator is and I'm open to a better one if I can get a link for it.

    我用谷歌翻译试了一下，结果显示是“我很期待在那里见到你”，但我不太明白这句话放在我原本那条评论的语境下是什么意思——难道谷歌翻译不太好用吗？我也不清楚哪个翻译工具更好，如果能提供链接的话，我很乐意尝试一下更好的工具。

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 months ago

    What I actually said was "I didn't understand what you were saying," but somehow Google managed to translate it as "I'm looking forward to seeing you there." I used to rely heavily on AI tools (Baidu AI, Google Translate, Gemini, DeepL, and DeepSeek) to translate and polish my words. Usually, I’d have one software translate my Chinese into English, and then use another to translate it back to check for errors. However, some people started claiming that I don't sound human, or that I sound like a liberal trying to use AI to pass off as Chinese. It made me feel like I was just being overly affectionate and wasting my time trying to please a group of people who look down on me anyway. So now, I only write in casual, colloquial Chinese—even if machine translation might struggle to understand it. (The paragraph above was translated by AI).

    我说的是“我没看懂你在说什么”（I didn't understand what you were saying.），不知道谷歌怎么做到翻译为"I'm looking forward to seeing you there"。我之前一直在用AI翻译润色（百度AI、谷歌翻译、gemini、deepl、deepseek），通常一个软件翻译汉语为英文之后，再用另一个软件翻译回中文看看是否无误，但是有介于某些人认为我说话没人味、我像自由派用AI装中国人，我觉得我在自作多情、浪费时间讨好一群人根本看不起我的人，我现在只用中文的口语化表达，机翻可能无法理解（以上这段话是AI翻译）

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