this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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@[email protected] i feel like you're dancing around the issue of authoritarian abuse and centralization of power.
you can't seriously defend the DPRK Il regime as being good for the workers.
do you think it's good that Xi has made himself president for life? Is that the mark of a functioning democratic system of the people?
my biggest issue with Leftists is their seeming need to defend totalitarians instead of just writing them off and admitting, "ok, yeah, they suck, but communism could still work!"
It’s not really about defending the bad stuff. It’s about trying to get some more nuance on perhaps the most propagandized topic of the 20th century.
There are all sorts of interesting discussions to have about the various failings of these countries amongst other leftists who have the relevant context as a starting point for a reasonable discussion.
But when talking to libs/conservatives, they’re coming into the conversation with an already extremely warped, un-nuanced perspective. “These are all evil dictatorships that were also super incompetent and that shows why communism is bad.”
Some of the stuff they base this on is either exaggerated or just straight up wrong. Some of it is completely valid criticism, but without the context to understand the issue or provide a useful critique.
How do you have any meaningful conversation about these countries without acknowledging things like:
We don’t have the counterfactual where we see what these countries would have turned out like without these challenges, but it’s an incomplete analysis to not at least consider the ways which they impacted both their economic success and their political developments. Maybe you could argue there were better ways to respond to all of this, but hindsight is 20-20.
No actual leftists want to have to argue “authoritarianism was good actually.” But it’s hard for the conversation not to appear that way when we’re arguing with people who’ve been conditioned to think they’re somehow as bad or worse than Nazis and ending the thought there.
communism isn't bad, it just doesn't scale up. after awhile someone wants everyone else's stuff. When enough people gather together then anonymity becomes a thing. then those people start taking everyone else's stuff and we end up with Russia.
I think what they think is that citizens have bad judgement, so it ends in Maoist policies that sound good but ignore negative externalities. The tragedy of the commons is inevitable is their view.
i hear what you're saying.
what i'm saying is, for myself, and at least a few "Left-curious" neo/libs/progs, we don't want to trade one shit tyranny for another. and it's obvious, documented history of some pretty glaring failures in AES. if you like, think of ppl like us as trauma victims. it's probably true anyway.
it can go a long way to offer the olive branch and reassurance that, yes, you don't want to just "red-wash" that all away, or that you aren't just enamoured with Red aesthetic and lip-service while being YET ANOTHER group of mastubatory elitists who will trample the out-group-du-jour given the opportunity.
The problem typically arises from the necessity for confrontation of anticommunist myths about AES. Anyone growing up in the West is bombarded with Anticommunism, and simply being aware that that process exists doesn't actually make you immune to it. Confronting the myths surrounding Communism is an important first step. "Red-washing" is a much, much smaller problem than you likely realize.
cool bro. you do you. you're just not the guy i'm looking for, i guess. maybe the next one.
What would the person you're looking for, so to speak, do that I'm not?
they would be able to engage me, the human in front of them, without all the baggage of the movement establishing preconceptions.
In an ideal world, the Red Scare would not have existed, and we could discuss the genuine merits and struggles faced internally and externally in AES without that clouding discussion. Its why I prefer talking with comrades about the shortcomings in AES, as I know they aren't doing it to undermine the achievements but to legitimately identify problems to solve.
I think, despite all of the struggles, that I do an okay job with engaging people open to listening.
well, you didn't here.
I don't see how that's the case, but okay!
yep.
be an an anti-communist.
Seems like it, sadly.
This is going to sound incredibly facetious, but I've had multiple dozens of people directly thank me for reaching them. I can't reach everyone, of course, but I know for a fact that I do reach many people, so your assertion that because I can't seem to reach you that I must not be able to reach anyone is just not true.
I could absolutely be better at reaching people, of course I could, but I also know that different strategies work for different people, and some people simply don't want to be reached to begin with.
how nice for you and "the cause." you can stop replying to me now.
If you want to disengage with someone, the polite way is to just write "disengage," not to try to throw in a last second snide remark.
Rude.
I really don't think I do deserve it, honestly. Despite your repeated insults, from the very beginning, no less, I replied patiently and honestly to everything and ignored the insults on the off-chance you turned your attitude around. Nevertheless, your insults still end up helping me rhetorically, as it's useful for onlookers to see. Oh well.
Great comment! You hit the nail on the head, proper conversation requires a factual starting point, and just conceding to conservatives and other anticommunists off the bat just so they are less hostile to you just hands them free rhetorical wins on that very basis.
you need to know who you are talking to. you're already assuming a position of hostility and conflict at base.
I did not call you a conservative, if that's what you're implying. My point aligns with theirs, in that demonization of AES is usually a result of accepting bourgeois narratives uncritically. To be truly critical in an honest manner (which Marxists are, all the time, among ourselves), we need to dispell the thick layers of Red Scare fearmongering first.
Dispelling myths and finding the hard truth is where we can look at what went right and what went wrong, not just agreeing that Socialism is when everyone starves or other such nonsense. Why support an ideology that truly is as bad in practice as anticommunists say it is, after all?
no, i'm not implying that. it would also be fine if you did. depends on the day and topic.
"To be truly critical in an honest manner (which Marxists are, all the time, among ourselves)"
lol XD it's saying shit like this that tells me you're not connected to reality.
even so, i hear what you're saying. my feedback, as an outsider, is you're overcompensating. imo, it would go a long way to start with presenting a fair view of a couple pros and cons, acknowledging the concern of your interlocutor. what i see instead, almost universally, is kneejerk defense of AES and leaders, and just telling non-Leftists that they're wrong, stupid, propagandized.
You'll find me critical of AES all the time, but I won't cede ground for what I know to be false just for optics. I take a rigorous approach to rhetoric, I cede no ground that isn't rooted in fact, and I do my best to encourage accurate critique. When you see me defending AES and seemingly not critiquing them as much, it's usually in the context of someone repeating the same bog-standard state department anticommunist mythos that have existed for decades, and thus should be treated as such.
Go ahead and ask me for critiques of AES, and I can do so, but I won't lie about them either.
that's good. don't lie, have standards.
i wouldn't say it's for "optics," but you have to know your interlocutor. if the person is nervous about legitimate abuses in AES, acknowledging failures openly is more honest and real than dancing about to make excuses for them. owning failings is human, and would be a distinct departure from capitalism, that's for sure.
but i get you, capitalism as a system is unironically constantly using force to extinguish you. i get it. it's not an enviable position.
If the person is nervous about legitimate abuses in AES, then I do my best to make sure those abuses are accurately highlighted. Here's an example of me doing just that. I'm not going to pivot the conversation to a different area just to highlight unrelated flaws, though, that's off-topic and rhetorically bad. Surely you can see that, right?
Like, yes, Stalin outlawing gay marriage was bad, indisputably. Bolsheviks that were pro-gay marriage like Kollontai should have been listened to. I don't need to insert that or other critiques into every comment, though.
I'm not dancing around anything, if you want to discuss, then please, do so.
The DPRK is far from a paradise, but at the same time, much of its issues are externally driven.
Xi is not president for life. Term limits are removed, but he can also be removed. He's overwhelmingly popular among the party and people.
For your last point, I recommend you read Marketing Socialism. I defend what is misrepresented or demonized unjustly, because these are problems every Socialist project recieves, to varying degrees.
i read your Marketing Socialism post. It just seems beside the point and is looking for a way to justify itself when all you have to do is admit that tyranny and gulags bad. It's not a big ask. The fact that it is TAKEN to be a big ask, is a massive, if you will, red flag. XD
The problem arises when people distort quantity or quality of struggles in AES states that would logically exist in any Socialist state. Ie, all Socialist states will have prisons, and all Capitalist countries are going to do their best to portray them in as negative a light as possible, no matter what they look like in reality.
i get, but it's not a NECESSARY component of communism. the DPRK is shit for a lot of reasons, mostly due to the consolidation of power in the hands single insane family. trying to rehabilitate their image or reclaim them is fucking insane. XD and just not helpful to the cause, imo. i certainly makes me care less about everything you're trying to say, and i'm really giving you the benefit of the doubt here.
What, specifically, is not a necessary component of Communism? The version of AES that exists in your mind, full of anticommunist prejudice and red scare mythos clouding your judgement, or the version that exists in real life, with far more nuanced issues applicable to all of Socialism, past, present, and future alike?
Further, the Kim family does not have all of the power in the DPRK. A critical examination of the structure and history of the DPRK proves that isn't true. That's like saying the Bush and Kennedy familys have all of the power in the US.
Authoritarianism and imperialism, concentration of power are the root cause, money is just a symbol of power, under stalinist russia this nefarious corrupting power had another symbol, shape but this society was just as helpless toward this tendency of power, you can see the end point of passive demobilisation and assassination of the few how dare oppose it today in Russia.
I think there needs to be constant pressure of deterritoroalisation, of putting decision and responsibility in the hands of the people, always at the smallest scale that it can be realistically pushed down.
And that's not the individual if that's not an individual matter. The level at which decisionnal responsibility is dependant on the context of tgat decision rather than agglomerated bodies of decision when power naturallies tries to concentrate.
It should always be easy for lower echelons of power and locality to repatriate a delegated aspect of their life.
(Then I stuffed this line of thinking into chatgpt to take it further)
https://chatgpt.com/share/6803f4ba-eebc-8005-919f-3b896dce2e0f
I don't think you've actually backed up your thesis, just asserted it. There's no evidence to the notion that "power corrupts," there's evidence that systems like Capitalism reward corruption.
I think the concept of positive/negative externalities could serve as a north star in deciding the all important question of the appropriate scalevat which a discussion is taken.
While I think we shoild try to empower and give autonomy to the local they always are within a larger community of externalities. The local should also no to inform and defer to a higher scale when their decision is "larger then them".
The local is not thought as isolated or unaccountable, but it is given preference as a scale. We want the local to choose how to live in harmony with the whole and their neighbours.
All this is well but it would be really easy to fall back into the grooves of individualist isolationnist and collectivist absolutist.
I don't think the ideal exist at the middle of these extremes but rather toward tge lower scale without bottoming out
"Far from paradise" seems pretty generous for what i perceive as a dystopian nightmare state. they are cut off from outside information. there is retribution on families if ppl try to leave. also, you can't leave. this is insanity. outside forces don't make them behave that way.
Xi: whether that popularity is real or not is a question, though, when he can push for the suppression of dissent or critique in the social sphere. one CAN'T challenge him. that doesn't seem legitimately representative.
i'm looking over your reading list. we can add that to the list. but there's a reason i block hexbear and lemmygrad but not .ml. tankies fucking suck and i Socialism will never be taken seriously as long as it's important to ppl to defend fucking Stalin.
See, the problem is that you're generally wrong, factually, which is why you have such knee-jerk reactions to people saying that maybe AES states aren't hellholes, actually. As an example, it's mostly western sanctions that limit freedom of movement from DPRK residents, and the myths about collective family punishment are largely unsubstantiated. Repeating Red Scare myths uncritically is a huge problem.
People can challenge Xi, what they cannot do is use large private media apparatus to push anti-government propaganda.
Regarding your last point, you're generally wrong. Socialism is increasing in popularity globally, including Marxism-Leninism. Funny enough, Nia Frome, the author of "Marketing Socialism," has another quick article called "Tankies" that would be perfect for you to read, IMO.
mate, i know ppl who literally risked their lives to flee from the USSR. your talking points are just academic. the reality is otherwise. trying to paint legitimate observation of tyranny in AES as some kind of capitalist conspiracy only makes you look more insane offputting.
i'm literally TRYING to reach you, and all Leftists can do is bend over backward to defend tyrants.
The vast majority of post-Soviet citizens believe they are worse off now than under Socialism, which makes sense because the reintroduction of Capitalism resulted in skyrocketing rates of poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, homelessness, and an estimated 7 million excess deaths around the world.
AES states are not perfect, I don't paint all critique as Capitalist conspiracy, only what I know is in fact a myth based on the sources I have provided. You uncritically accept the bourgeois narrative despite mountains of evidence to a more nuanced position than "every Communist leader ate spoonfuls of babies for breakfast" or other nonsense.
I'm hoping I reach you too.
"You uncritically accept the bourgeois narrative"
you don't know anything about me to make such claims.
citizenry can feel nostalgia for lots of reasons, and i'm not defending capitalism here. but that doesn't erase the real lived trauma of the ppl in my life who have fled both the USSR and Venezuela.
I know that based on the hard data I've seen, the people I have spoken to, the history and critique I have read, that a good amount of what you have said is disconnected from reality, and closer to what the US State Department claims is the truth. I understand that you may have anecdotal experiences shaping your opinions, but I also know that it isn't simple nostalgia like the Wikipedia entry suggests, but coincides with the massive increase in poverty and the difficulty of life in a Capitalist world after the dissolution of Socialism.
ok buddy. good luck with that.
Thanks! 🫡