Nice, I do follow them but wasn’t aware of this. Thanks comrade.

I have learned over the past 3 years to not argue about stuff like that anymore. It’s tiring for me, it strains my relationships, and frankly I’m more and more convinced that it undermines actual present organising. I read a couple of articles and listened to some podcasts on climate change and leninism (i.e. socialist revolution; professor Kai Heron) and their argument is convincing enough. We have bigger fish to fry than internally fighting over who was better 70 years ago. Like waaaay bigger fish: climate change and neo-fascism. Let’s fry those first and then we can discuss Stalin and Trotsky and Chinese reforms and what have you.

An example from my hometowm. Almost every dedicated Marxist grouping here is Trotskyist. It refrains me from joining them but I also haven’t asked them WHY they’re Trotskyist. And also our dedicated communist party renounced its founder because they defended Stalin. Maybe it’s the classic falsehood of “Stalin bad, Trotsky would have been better” or maybe they actually engage with Trotsky’s ideas of permanent revolution and find them more helpful in the 21st century. I don’t know. But this also means that I am left without a serious means of organising in my home city as I don’t have time nor energy to start my own organisation and even so, the zeitgeist here is not one of pro-Stalin. So I don’t argue it and just look at axtual actions on the ground and while Trotskyist, these are the people organising, fighting, getting out etc. So it’s a dilemma.

I would say unless your GF is a fascist or right-winger, don’t bother straining your relationship with this. Just inform yourself and that’s good. (Unless you want to strain your relationship in which case, have at it.).

In the US, you,ll end up dead.

I have no real input in this discussion other than reading it and being fascinated. I just wanted to say that I love the phrase: the sun at eight or nine in the morning.

There is more and more proof that one of our extreme right politicians worked in service of the CCP. I’m extremely disappointed in this.

I’m about halfway through and when I kind of lost interest. I should get back into it.

What’s the commie bookstore in your city? Name??

I’ll look for it. I saw it in a newsarticle from my country’s region, which is pro-western, anti-israel.in theory but sending weapons nonetheless in practice kind of country.

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/03/05/israel-gaza-hamas-seksueel-geweld-vrouw-vn-rapport/

Ok so this is the full link (in Dutch).

The last sentence of this screenshot literally translates to: researchers spoke to Israeli institutions but were not able to speak to victims directly.

That’s a semantic justification of what is, in practice, imperialism or at least, imperialism light.

The Israeli authorities didn’t let the researchers talk to any of the alleged victims personally so, yeah, there’s that.

Israeli state: “These people have been raped and coerced by Hamas!” Investigators: “can we talk to them directly?” Israeli stats: “no.”

This is a justification but still not an explanation for why China allows (or should allow) billionaires. If you take all the money above 1B Yen and transfer it to the state you also have a build up of capital to be used by the state to help the people.

Yes I understand the development of state capitalistism to build up production forces on the road to socialism. It’s still not an answer qs to why billionaires should exist.

Just because they seem willing to do more than us, ans I don’t argue that thet do because they do, I can still criticize them for not taking that decision. Billionaires have no need of existing.

What I don’t like about the PRC is that it didn’t make into law that there can’t be billionaires. Whatever you think of China, whether it’s socialist, or state-capitalist, or capitalist in economy with socialist social relations run by a communist party, the fact that there are billionaires, even when they are kept in check by the government and do not control the state apparatus, I think it would have been an amazing precedent to say that billionaires should not exist. Every penny above 1 999.999.999 yen or dollar or euro (already a ridiculous amount but ok) should flow back to the people. It undermines the socialist project that I want to believe China is still building.

I know this has nothing to do with the article. I just wanted to say this.

I agree that the theory is not obsolete nor has the danger passed. I am not dismissing it because it was written 100 years ago. But I’m specifically commenting on your saying that we shouldn’t align with those groups and that is true, but we should also recognise the material conditions as they are today and not in 1918: vehemently anti-communist, with social media as an important stepping stone (both fascist and socialist), and an interconnectrd world that seems more complex than ever before (I’ not saying it is, the world has always been comex, but it seems that way because we get i formation from all over). So the theory should also adapt.

We don’t necessarily want support from social democratic groups who have demonstrated fickleness in historical periods like the 1918 German revolution.

We won’t, because those peoplw have all died. This comment shows one of my main criticisms with ML’s in that it’s like we’re trapped 100 years ago when the USSR just started. We have to make material analyses now, for people living now - people that have experienced socdem positives (in the west), are inundated with propaganda and are made to be afraid. So while his videos are not above critique, I think he makes good starting points for people to understand the basis of communism. Even though I never watch them and prefer to read.

DDR one rules.

I somehow missed this. Thanks.

Revleftradio is incredibly informative on all marxist subjects. He also hosts Guerilla radio and another podcast Red Menace. All are madsive sources of information. He once did a 3hour podcast on Stalin from an ML perspective. It’s still the most informative thing on Stalin I’ve ever heard.