i go out of my way to experience different cultures and it seems like the immigrant communities in the united states originating from communist countries tend to be some of the chuddiest people imaginable. chinese, russian, cuban, vietnamese. literally every person who i ever talked to that has lived in a communist country and then moved to the united states, or is like second or third generation from that, tends to be incredibly reactionary and anti communist. i feel like i am a more well versed communist when talking to people that lived in a communist country.
its like that everyone that comes to the united states from a communist country forgets the values of marxism, socialism, and communism. i have been too polite to ask what really made these people move to this fucking shithole and if i had to guess they have something severely wrong with them and they want to participate in some small business tyrany and become capitalists. like all these assholes be chasing the dollar and they bring great shame on their own nationality even being here.
i have had much better discussions with people from countries that are still being exploited by capitalists since they already have an understanding of what colonialism and capitalism even is and they arent here to try to become small business owners or worse. people from puerto rico dont got the brain worms that cuban expats do for example.
and i should mention, they all state, they love their country but they blame everything bad with their country on communists. It infuriates me hearing these people, who were born in a nation with socialized healthcare, state controlled industry, basic welfare for citizens, just trash talk the system that make them so successful in the first place and gave them the resources they probably didn't deserve to open up a shitty restaurant selling borscht. they would know exactly why these social programs cant meet demand if they just took the blindfold off and realized that america, the great fucking satan, is the reason why the global economy is so unequal ITS ALL BECAUSE OF FUCKING AMERICA NOT COMMUNISM YOU STUPID FUCK!
ive been told not to view myself as more communist than others, but i fucking am around these parts with expats who are not communist whatsoever, that makes me more communist than them. if i was to draw a hundred mile radius around myself odds are there probably wouldnt be someone more communist than me. nobody in my life reads theory, every fucking time i tried reaching out with dsa or the bernie shit i have only met shitlibs, i have found no comrades in bipoc communities, the lgbt, religion, or labor. just having someone say to me face to face they are a communist would help me anchor my belief system to something real and not entirely made up and on the internet.
idk, communism is basically what i use to fill my god hole and its fucking hard to find communists irl and its real shitty that people from communist countries arent oftentimes communists. i just want some validation in my belief in communism by someone who is fucking real.
My conclusion is that just because you lived in a socialist country doesnt mean youre smart or understand socialism or geopolitics. Im friends with a lot of Venezuelans none of them know what the sanctions on their country entail. I dont believe Maduro is perfect either but it sure is a one sided argument on their end. One of them is a full blown pro-usa boomer style chud. They are stupid shitheads when the socialist take over and they continue to be after the fact. Theres no magical socialism button that makes people less stupid.
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yeah you don't do a revolution and suddenly all the problems go away. That's step one
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We live in a world with new tools, but not a new system. Capitalism is still the exact same as it was in their day. Material conditions don't lie, no matter how much people's preferred propaganda source says that everything is great under capitalism, their own personal oppression under the system will say otherwise. Anyone who says that Lenin or Mao are "outdated" because they are "old" hasn't actually read and understood them. The internet is largely used by capitalists the same way radio, television and newspapers were beforehand, they haven't "reforged" anything, they've just used it in the same way they use every other tool. The real re-forging will happen in post revolutionary states, who can use the internet the way it was originally intended, instead of as a platform for control and profit.
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I think we might be talking past each other a bit. I'm not arguing for dogmatic and blind worship of these figures, just understanding of the conditions they faced and how that can potentially apply today. Both Mao and Lenin argued heavily for the idea that each individual revolutionary movement would have its own unique material conditions and issues to face. There is no "one size fits all" revolution.
Though you sound very much like an "end of history" liberal when you insist that things have "changed" and imply that capitalism has now "won" and will never end because conditions are different to how they were 70 years ago. The contradictions are still the same, even if it means that people outside of the west (where places are still capable of self-sufficiency) are the only ones capable of revolution. The imperial core has never been and never will be the main center of revolution. That hasn't changed since Lenin or Mao's day either.
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I agree
People talk out of their ass all the time about everything. Living under a certain government does not make one an expert on that government any more than watching an MLB game makes one an expert on baseball. Tons of people who don't know shit about either will loudly share their opinions and throw a fit if you disagree.
Thr question isn't "have they seen it firsthand;" it's "do they understand the events around them and the associated context"?
plenty of people now live under capitalism and could not explain capitalism if they tried
People in the US get mad at their government when gas prices go up when it’s the result of some OPEC or Saudi decision lol. People have no clue what the causes are of the things that they experience most of the time.
It’s the same in socialist/communist countries: then those dumbasses get convinced to go to the US by all of its propaganda and they continue to believe that propaganda when they live there.
my belief is that there are subsections of society which are more prone to radicalism against the establishment and subsections which are pro establishment and these subsections don't really care what the establishment is. People with comfortable settled lives will like the establisment no matter what it is the same type of person in England that loves the king would probably have loved Stalin if they had been Russian at a certain point in time and inversely some people who are anti-capitalist because they don't like the establishment and it's all too much red tape and bureacratic bullshit would probably be anti-communist in a communist society. Of course people can move between these subsections of society and a successful revolution for example will see people go from one to the other with no change in beliefs. But you've only really made it when civil servants are part of your base
East Germany essentially concluded that no matter what they do to try and provide everyone with housing education etc roughly 10% of the population just want to drink smoke fight screw around and rebel against the man.
the vast majority of defectors to the west came from this 10% and of these defectors who risked their life going to west Germany a full third came back because the people who were sitting in front of the tv in east germany thinking that in the west they would have a sports car, penthouse and be married to a model found in the west that their lack of highly in demand skills in the east translated to the west and capitalism doesn't look after people with no money or marketable skills as well as they had hoped
True stuff
The only time that I have ever been stopped on the streets to be told that comunism sucks was by a Venezuelan
Somebody who probably had no clue that US sanctions were making life in venezuela hard and not socialist policies.
I've been trying to read up on the history of Venezuela (and modern-current day), but don't know where to find a book that wasn't written by someone with let's say... vested economic interests.
I know it's a punt, but would you happen to have any recommendations?