In debate with a fervently liberal friend, the concept of sources will inevitably come up. I haven't had the displeasure of having to argue about China being socialist or the USSR not being literal Hell on earth with my friends yet, but I can tell that things are getting to a boiling point where their takes will inevitably come into conflict with mine. He is already made claims about 'China colonizing Africa' and that 'Mongolia should be in NATO because it is afraid of China' and of course Xinjiang and Tiananmen Square propaganda.

Of course, when the liberal says 'sources,' they don't mean theory or logic or any of that nonsense. The liberal doesn't need those things on account of their politics being based on vibes. No, the liberal wants trustworthy, unbiased sources. If I link China Daily News, it's of course gonna be a propaganda outlet with no actual evidence behind it. If I link AP, Reuters, or ABC, it's of course unbiased reporting that may have fell through once or twice, but is generally trustworthy. Their journalists are bought, paid for, natural liars, whereas our journalists are upstanding pillars of truth. The CIA may buy a few here and there, and even admit to it (Operation Mockingbird) but of course not all of them are lying, that'd be ridiculous!

Essentially, I'm asking for sources that support the Marxist-Leninist outlook of the world that would look good for a liberal, someone who normally looks for Amnesty International, or the UN, or NATO for citations. They don't have to be explicitly ML, and honestly it's better if they aren't, but I'd just need some trustworthy sources on something like disproving the Uyghur Genocide myth or something showing that Stalin wasn't Hitler².

To give you an idea of how bad he is, I mentioned to him that the CIA released a document claiming they found no evidence of voter fraud in Maduro's election and he:

1. Laughed and said: "Yeah there was no election fraud, like there's no election fraud in North Korea." Implying that the people were somehow too scared to vote against Maduro but weren't otherwise coerced or frauded, and no evidence of that was found.
2. Immediately started huffing the largest cloud of copium he could find by blaming it on the token American liberal scapegoat: "Wait, who made that claim? Was it Trump? I thought the US has hated Maduro for a long time."

Of course I understand that predominant Western propaganda outlets will not have pro-China or pro-USSR information on them. I'm not expecting Reuters to have published an article on why China is socialist and there is no Uyghur genocide, I just need something that would pass the smell test to a liberal. It can be number data on Africa-China economic relations, global poverty data, climate data, or reported information about certain events that appear to counter the Western narrative. A good example of this is Fitzpatrick's The Shortest History of the Soviet Union, as she is a liberal historian but delivers a predominantly unbiased history of the USSR in the perspective of the time. Thank you all in advance!

I am a bit of a newer communist, albeit I've read my fair bit of theory. I like to think of myself as still quite radical and do identify as a Marxist-Leninist. My radicalization as a whole took about six months to through the ideology gauntlet socdem for months - > like two weeks of western anti-authoritarian socialism - > critical support to state capitalist China - > staunchly pro-AES Marxist-Leninist, who actually read a god damn book for once. To go from liberalism to socdem took years, and maybe this is what causes friction with my perspective on Great Man Theory vs historical materialism.

Obviously historical materialism is the correct way to define nature, as it is the only system that is able to accurately explain historical events and even predict modern ones when applied correctly. Men alone do not push history forwards, history would move along without them. 'Great Men,' so to speak, are products of their material conditions at their point in history. This all makes sense to me, however I find issues rationalizing how exactly great man theory is completely eliminated.

For example the material conditions in the WWII Soviet Union were those of a constant state of war that necessitated industrialization. It is commonly said, even by Molotov himself, that Stalin was aware of the threat that Nazi Germany posed to the Soviet people, and thus called on the Soviets to industrialize. I'm sure the reality is not as cleanly cut as 'this was all Stalin's idea' but nonetheless, industrialization saved the Soviet Union later down the line. My question, I suppose being, that if Stalin had never became the Secretary-General for whatever reason, would the material conditions necessitate whoever was the lead the Union in his stead do the same? What if that leader did not see the Germans as such an existential threat?

For whatever reason, after putting my question to figurative paper, I find myself unsatisfied with the articulation of it, so allow me to give another, more generalized example:

Are revolutions themselves not somewhat examples of this? Had revolutionary organizations not been filled with the leaders they did have, would their revolutions have won? Even if they did win, would the systems not look at least somewhat different on account of being led by different people? How much does this effect the arc of history? If Deng was never part of the CPC, does China collapse due to not opening up its markets? If Lenin never made it to become the firebrand revolutionary leader that he was, does the Russian revolution look completely different? Are the Bolsheviks as well organized or do they kowtow to the Mensheviks? Many principled Bolshevik leaders at the time almost did.

We can even extend this idea beyond that of revolutions and politics. If Alan Turing is never born, how much longer does it take us to invent modern computers? What about if Charles Babbage never builds the analytical engine? If those oil CEOs never silence the early studies on climate change? How much does this effect the flow of history?

If we are to say that nothing changes, that these systems still rise and fall the exact way that they did in our past, why does this make great leaders like Kim Il Sung, Lenin, Stalin, Deng, and Mao even important in the arc of history? Why should we even celebrate their achievements or contribute certain ideas to them if it was all really other people or other things? Could we not say then that the USSR's collapse was set in stone the moment it was formed?

This can also work the opposite way. If Zelenskyy, and essentially every other political leader are truly powerless to stop the crimes against humanity in Ukraine in the face of materialism, who is responsible for them? Was the Holocaust inevitable? Was every genocide to ever occur inevitable? Is there no detectable pattern to tell us if these things are set in stone before they happen? Has history already been decided? It seems ridiculous to me, so I imagine it must be my own failings in applying theory.

In closing I suppose I could boil my question down to: do decisions that have cascading effects made by historically important figures present as an example of great man theory, or am I misunderstanding what great man theory is in comparison to historical materialism? Excuse my potentially awful application of theory here, it's been a definite blind spot for me and I would like to hear more about it. Thank you.

My dad loves his 'right' to say racial slurs so much, especially the n-word because he feels like growing up in a black community and being friends with black people when he was younger gives him a lifetime n-word pass or something. He's gotten even worse since he got on social media—back to the point of 12 years old levels of edgy racism 'humor' and laughing at calling people slurs. I swear he drops the hard r every ten seconds. Similar with my mom although she draws the line at the hard r I guess.

Its funny that my parents wanna be black so bad without acknowledging more than what is blatantly obvious about the black struggle in this country. They're listening to Tupac songs and worshipping him as the best rapper to ever live without acknowledging who he actually was at all because communism doesn't fit their worldview. All while claiming the right to say racial slurs and giggle like schoolchildren whenever they find it funny.

Even my cousins can't stop saying slurs man, I'm so tired of it. Somehow I'm the weird one when I ask them to stop.

Florida is such a shithole, man

Just got on xiaohongshu the other day and am wondering why the homepage is full of such weird posts. A lot of posts asking foreigners if they are attractive and some strangely pro-US stuff everywhere, even asking if Trump actually secretly means well and has a heart of gold or something. The comments are even worse at times being outright racist, and it's not super uncommon. Not common but not very rare either, maybe once every 10-15 posts. What's up with that? Is it cuz my public IP is US-Based?

My parents are super anticommunist but basically historically illiterate. As long as it's not super obviously communist, a photo of the hammer and sickle, Stalin, Marx, Che, or Fidel they probably won't recognize it. That said, any of you comrades have some good, ideally high quality, phone wallpapers? All the ones I've found online are kinda mid lol.

Just kind of a random question I've had floating around in my head: should we be working out?

Like, naturally comrades who are disabled/food insecure/otherwise not able to consistently exercise shouldn't feel required to do so, and should instead only do so if it is healthy for them and plausible for their current situation. However, those of us who are largely capable of undertaking consistent diet and exercise, I kind of have the question of whether we should be obligated to? The day the revolution comes, there will be many fascists who are in prime physical condition to actually fight a war due to the pervasive nature of gym culture and machismo patriarchy. Should we not do what we can to prepare in kind?

I understand that this isn't Vietnam anymore, and most warfare (at least on the side of the bourgeoisie) will likely be done with drones against human targets. See NATO v. Russia in Ukraine and the genocide in Palestine to understand more of what modern warfare will look like, but I digress. When it comes time for us to pick up arms and storm capital buildings, how will our fighting force survive if the many of us aren't physically capable of sprinting more than a short distance, dropping and rolling quickly, digging ditches, or scaling fences or walls?

This question may be more pointed to certain 'comfortable' demographics of the West, because many proletarians do not have the luxury of working soft jobs that do not harden their bodies; or they otherwise require some of these skills to survive. Then I suppose you can even extend the question to: should we start learning survivalist methods like foraging and fireplace building and such? Most of this warfare that will take place will be guerrilla warfare, and historically those have taken place in dense forests and mountains. I suppose there will also be urban warfare to an extent, but regardless clandestine operations of the vanguard party leadership will take place in secret places stored away from society. Even then, urban warfare will require its own host of resources and methods to survive. Is this supposed to be an issue that the vanguard party will solve during organization of the working class?

I recently decided to pick up Blackshirts & Reds and haven't been able to put it down. Throughout the book though, I notice Parenti can be quite scathing (for an ML) in his critiques about Stalin, he even throws a little shade at Lenin a few times. As someone who's not the most well versed in the weeds of Soviet history (Fitzpatrick's book is on my list), this caught me a bit off guard. B&R is unapologetically pro-Socialism but some of these critiques seem to be alternative to what I have heard about the the USSR. Forgive me for any historical ignorance, but Parenti's critique of 'war communism' and description of Stalin's USSR being under a "commandist, autocratic party leadership" are confusing to me to say the least. I was under the impression that the Soviet Union was actually quite democratic, even in Stalin's time. He also presents Lenin's desire to remove opposition from the party as a somewhat dramatic shift due to "[Bolshevik] siege psychology," going as far as to juxtapose it with when Lenin argued against Trotsky to give unions more autonomy. To me, this feels more like a criticism, or an attack on Lenin's methods. In returning to Stalin, he is presented as having to make a decision between autocracy or liberalization, the latter of the two, in his view, "would have produced a more comfortable, more humane and serviceable society" which may in fact be true, to me however this can almost read as a slight to the Soviet society of the future, but I digress from that topic as perhaps I truly am looking at Soviet society through rose tinted glasses. He continues to describe Stalin as a "supreme leader [with a personality cult] who claimed every revolutionary gain as his own achievement" and who "[suppressed the] party political life through terror."

Now I am certainly not saying these two are beyond criticism, far from it. Stalin and, yes, even Lenin should be ruthlessly criticized for their failings in order to maintain the ideological purity of Marxism-Leninism and to avoid deifying these two men. They are no doubt heroic comrades who fathered and grandfathered the ideology of Marxism-Leninism respectively, and played massive roles in the establishment of the first real Socialist experiment in the USSR. However, they are not some 'great men' who pushed forward history and thus can do no wrong.

With that aside, though, Parenti's perspective on Stalin in particular seems to be at odds with what I have heard. To my current knowledge, Stalin had times were he could be heavy handed, and no doubt he did make mistakes, sometimes quite egregious ones, but at the end of the day the material conditions surrounding the then one-of-a-kind society that was the USSR, and the nature of its constant besiegement by capitalist powers, justified the majority of his actions in the end. The man was a great leader, comrade, and pragmatist, but at the end of the day he was human, and imperfect. I was (and still am, until I am presented with valid alternative evidence) under the impression Stalin himself wasn't the power hungry, autocratic dictator he is often made out to be, and Parenti's interpretations to me read as though he believes Stalin was more of an autocrat than I once believed he was. If anyone could give me some more insight please let me know if I am missing something about Parenti's perspective, if he was truly more of an 'anti-Stalinist' type of socialist, or if I am simply mistaken on my interpretation of Parenti's words.

I've been getting a lot of crushing anxiety as of late over mass surveillance in the US. Just really wacky paranoia all around (probably due to the way my parents raised me). I'm doing an electrical engineering degree right now and have no debt on account of landing a full-tuition scholarship out of highschool. I have enough saved up that next year when I start my master's degree I will still be pretty free of debt. Overall I am pretty privileged; I want to get more involved in organizing and other leftist actions because I feel culpable in the current system. My anxiety keeps me from taking any real action though because I feel like joining any organization would put my family on a list to be put in Palantir-sponsored Abu Ghraib. I've been considering going to therapy and trying to get medicated—although my parents won't like it (I still live with them)—in order to try and organize as best I can without getting kicked out (I'm 19 lol idk if I can survive on my own).

I realized that my research interests/degree concentrations (quantum computing, chip technology, and robotics) align really heavily with what China considers national priorities. On a whim (and because I like learning new languages) started studying Mandarin and fell in love with it. I also know that Chinese colleges are relatively friendly to foreign applications and was considering doing a PhD over there when all is said and done here. I know it's significantly, significantly easier said than done and I don't expect it to be a walk in the park at all. I was just wondering if anyone here could shed some light on my idea, I guess? It would also help to be from a more 'pro-China' perspective, as I asked a similar question on feddit and they basically hit me with an 'Oh the horrors..." about China and how it was actually terrible and impossible for me to emigrate over there.

Again I know it won't be easy at all, and I know there's not exactly a shortage of engineers in China, but I would really appreciate any input on this past the token shitlib "actually China is literally evil 1984 jojorwell" stuff. Thanks in advance.

Fair warning, this post may be a bit long-winded and scatterbrained.

I am an 18 year old Cuban-American boy living in the United States, in Florida. The world feels so... decayed now.

Over the course of the last two years I was politically awoken, and in the I've gone from 'centrist' gusano, to libbed up, to socdem, to demsoc, to ML. In the last few months in particular I have become radicalized as I witness the vile sickness Capitalism has wrought unfold before me. I cannot stand it any longer.

I come from a family of reactionary gusanos—a mix of former Cuban bourgeois farm owners and petty bourgeois Cuban diaspora. Eventually, my family fell from their petty bourgeois status, my uneducated father who is just barely to the left of MAGA becoming a blue collar worker, and my mother becoming a labor aristocrat working at a college. I have witnessed them be shredded to bits by the capitalist machine. My father's body ground to a pulp and my mother's eyes buried in their sockets, sleepless nights and restless weekends. And yet I still see them pay lip service to atrocities of bombing cities and mowing down protesters that Capital so enjoys.

I have witnessed Capital organize wars and butcher millions for the interests of a few powerful men. I have witnessed capitalists be exposed for the organized rape and murder of thousands of women and children—meat to the capitalists all the same—and the supposedly just liberal democracy be impotent to stop them.

I have walked around stores here in Florida, by my very home, as ash rained from the sky and smoke blotted out the sun. The Everglades is burning again. Charred leaves fall in my hand as thick black smog causes me to cough—the poison in the air pervades my lungs. The failures of Capitalism literally rain down around me and fill my chest as I breathe, and no one around me but a select few seem to care.

I am a year out from finishing my college degree in Electrical Engineering, I am lucky enough to have gotten a full ride scholarship. Many of my peers weren't. Many of my peers do not care. Many of my peers gather around Lockheed Martin recruiters at career fairs. Many of my peers and of the generation to follow me shamble like mindless zombies, only interested in the next cheap and easy dopamine hit. How can one who doesn't understand the true nature of capitalism do anything but despair when looking at the state of the world from within the Imperial Core? We stand upon a mountain of skulls. Not one person seems to care enough to look down. We have become dependent on our first world addictions of cheap food, entertainment, and comfort, and I do not absolve myself of such a sin.

The mass surveillance crushes me with existential dread, and it is fruitless to attempt to escape it. I have replaced many things with more private alternatives, but the further down the line I move the more I realize everything I do is traceable back to me. Even if I was able to eliminate it the less of a footprint I leave, and the harder it becomes to communicate with others. I plan to have a family in the future. I feel as though I am being watched right now. What will Capital do to them when there comes time for a new Red Scare? Is there any hope for me to have a family here? How can I escape this place? With what money? Will they have sealed off these borders when I am well off enough to move away? Will the dollar be worth anything or will I be rotting in a jail cell? I do not care if I die in what is to come. If I died for the cause, it was worth it. I cannot say with the same certainty that I would be okay with my future children or wife being forced into this violence, though my rational mind understands they already are.

I would love to organize, to meet comrades in real life and speak of the cause with them. I already have in some respects. Me and a friend crept to the left and ended up radicalizing each other, together! My sister is theoryless and a bit of a screenager, but is sympathetic to MLs. I have radicalized my partner of four years and introduced her to some basic theory. I am working on opening other people's eyes as best I can, but I can only do so much when my parents have my constant GPS location from my car. How am I supposed to help organize unions late into the night when my sleep deprived mother will refuse to go to bed because I haven't come home yet? When my parents may very well kick me out if they found out I was a communist?

I look back on these choices I make and even more I feel some creeping inkling of guilt. Those in the Global South do not have a luxury of such a choice. Regardless, I want to leave. I somehow want to escape the West. God, I wish I could just pick up and flee to China.

I understand I have had quite the comfortable and ignorant life up to now, and I find it hard to shake the effects of that reality. Those effects seem to have softened me. To make me afraid. To make me self-pity. So I ask to you, my comrades: how do you cope with thoughts and struggles like these? Thank you for any input you may have.