After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.
I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.
Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?
EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)
Many people have objected to my point.
But you’re all saying Marx said violence would occur at times as part of the transition from pre-Communism to Communism. I agree.
What I said is that Marx and his allies didn’t believe that it was possible to FORCE Communism into place - especially from a place of contented “capitalism” (not that anyone in Earth is actually doing capitalism either) - by violence.
And we’ve seen it everywhere every time people claiming to be Marxist and claiming they want to establish a Communist society who pick up arms and start murdering their way through the proletariat on their way to the bourgeoisie to hopefully get to the owners.
The end state is not a stateless classless moneyless etc. society. It’s a bunch of traumatized workers & middle class subject to a new group of owners surrounded by toadies ready to have their breaks wet.
BECAUSE the circumstances for the violent worker uprising against the owners (and maybe their bourgie servants) MUST come around naturally. Those circumstances are a natural outcome of capitalism run amok. They cannot be forced to occur, certainly not by violence.
If that’s what you meant, then yes, that’s more-or-less correct. You can try to steer a ship, but you can’t make it do the impossible.
I’d rather not see what’s under this log, so I’ll leave it be.
While partially correct, that isn’t what Marxists have tried to do, except for “Marxists” like the Shining Path that see no success. Further, the majority of the planet is still capitalist, absolutely, and Marx would agree. It doesn’t look the same as it did in Marx’s time, but that was Marx’s entire philsophy, one of permanent change propelled by contradictions - dialectical materialism.
The problem with this paragraph is that it isn’t true. Outside of fringe movements like the Gonzaloite Shining Path of Peru, communists have never done this kind of “grind through the proletariat to eventually get to the bourgeoisie” schtick you claim they have. Not in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Korea, or even Venezuela and Nicaragua. You’ve invented this.
More fanfiction. Socialist states aren’t “end states,” merely the solidified socialist state building towards communism. Not only have they brought dramatic uplifting of the working classes and democratization of their economies (ie, not at all what you describe), but these are part of an ever-changing process of resolving contradictions that continues even into communism. Your inclusion of the “middle class,” ie petite bourgeoisie, as something to uphold is also distinctly anti-Marxist, calling into question the validity of your understanding of Marx.
They did, in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, etc. Whether it be from capitalism internally, or from being colonized or imperialized externally, revolution hasn’t been forced by communists. Communists have steered real movements towards definite, organized directions, yes, which is fully in line with Marxism. You’re painting a picture of a vibes-based spontaneous adoption of socialism, which is anti-Marxist.
Dude, Marx literally supported the Paris Commune which was established by force. It happened contemporaneously to him. You can just say you don’t like Marx, you don’t have to distort him into the guy you wish he was.