It’s like China is just that one country (aside from the Khmer Rouge) that every ML (aside from Dengists like us) agrees to hate on.

Fellow Traveler and leftypol uploaded videos criticizing them, the Shining Path hung up literal dogs to protest them, Maoists go all insane saying that it’s some red fash social-imperialist nation because (insert nato propaganda here). And Hoxhaists claim that China was never socialist and that the only socialist nation ever was USSR before Khrushchev and almighty holy Albania.

What is it that makes China so controversial even among MLs? I get that it’s not perfect and every AES state has their Ls, but jesus.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
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    8 months ago

    A lot of people have a fairly superficial understanding of ML theory, so they see China having capitalism as a betrayal of the core principles. Effectively this shows lack of class analysis on their part. My reply to this point is that if China allowing a limited form of capitalism makes it capitalist, then Canada must be communist because we have some social services like free healthcare. It’s an absurd line of argument to make, yet it’s the level of understanding a lot of people are stuck at.

    Once people internalize the idea that China is communist only nominally, then other stuff easily builds on top of that. For example, the atrocity propaganda becomes easy to swallow because obviously capitalists would exploit minorities, we see them do it in our own countries and everywhere around the globe.

    I suspect another big aspect is chauvinism. People just don’t want to accept that China managed to succeed where their society failed. It’s much more comfortable to believe that China is just a different branding of the same system they live under. Acknowledging that China is a successful socialist society run by a principled Communist party means also having to grapple with the failure of western left.

    • The_Walkening [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Marx: “Societies develop their economies in stages and industrialization is necessary to achieve socialism.”

      China: Develops the economy through industrialization, which means a controlled capitalist economy run by socialists

      Western Leftists: “kitty-cri-screm No not like that socialism is supposed to happen through some spontaneous magic!”