April 13, 2022 By Stephen Gowans Some radical socialists practice a politics that carries over from the days when to be a revolutionary meant supporting the Soviet Union or China. With the Soviet U…
Russian imperialism is transformed into Soviet anti-imperialism and Chinese billionaires are turned into socialists with Chinese characteristics.
Wow I didn't know supporting other revolutions was imperialism, and that building socialism will never involve control of the bourgeosie*. Granted I feel that people absolutely should be critical of socialist states both historical and actually-existing, however I feel like this dude is proposing the broken "works in theory" version of socialism that must be frictionless, perfectly round, and equally balanced for it to be successful. Also, he's conflating skepticism of NATO's narrative re: Ukraine and willingness to take Russia's statements about the war in good faith (with an understanding that states are always going to be self-serving in their public statements) with some sense of USSR revivalism or that Russia is somehow not a thoroughly capitalist country now. While there are leftists that are entirely and irresponsibly uncritical of Russia's narratives, a shit-tonne of online leftist discourse is in service to NATO's narrative - is the pro-Russian side of the argument really the problem here?
* A society in which the bourgeosie can be punished by the state is better than one where the state is subordinated to the bourgeousie. Additionally, saying "China has billionaires and is thus not socialist" totally paves over the idea that building socialism should be approached from a wider historical perspective than mere decades and that you absolutely cannot bootstrap your way into socialism by control of the government alone; rather than you'd need an economically matured, industrialized society to attain something resembling Marx's descriptions of Communism in its lower forms.
To put the question of China's socialism in more immediate terms, if the role of the state is to resolve the contradictions inherent in its society and economy, is China resolving those contradictions to the benefit of the working class in China? I'd say yes in many cases, however the ability of the state to resolve these contradictions effectively on its own is fundamentally limited by economic and social circumstances. Because SwCC has its basis in Marxist theory there's an awareness of these contradictions and the Chinese state's role in resolving them,the CPC can in crisis choose to resolve these contradictions in favor of the working class. Does that mean the CPC will press the big red Communism button? Fuck if I know.
however I feel like this dude is proposing the broken “works in theory” version of socialism that must be frictionless, perfectly round, and equally balanced for it to be successful.
Not really, he says that the USSR and Mao's China were both socialist
While there are leftists that are entirely and irresponsibly uncritical of Russia’s narratives,
That's the type of leftist that this essay is criticizing
Wow I didn't know supporting other revolutions was imperialism, and that building socialism will never involve control of the bourgeosie*. Granted I feel that people absolutely should be critical of socialist states both historical and actually-existing, however I feel like this dude is proposing the broken "works in theory" version of socialism that must be frictionless, perfectly round, and equally balanced for it to be successful. Also, he's conflating skepticism of NATO's narrative re: Ukraine and willingness to take Russia's statements about the war in good faith (with an understanding that states are always going to be self-serving in their public statements) with some sense of USSR revivalism or that Russia is somehow not a thoroughly capitalist country now. While there are leftists that are entirely and irresponsibly uncritical of Russia's narratives, a shit-tonne of online leftist discourse is in service to NATO's narrative - is the pro-Russian side of the argument really the problem here?
* A society in which the bourgeosie can be punished by the state is better than one where the state is subordinated to the bourgeousie. Additionally, saying "China has billionaires and is thus not socialist" totally paves over the idea that building socialism should be approached from a wider historical perspective than mere decades and that you absolutely cannot bootstrap your way into socialism by control of the government alone; rather than you'd need an economically matured, industrialized society to attain something resembling Marx's descriptions of Communism in its lower forms.
To put the question of China's socialism in more immediate terms, if the role of the state is to resolve the contradictions inherent in its society and economy, is China resolving those contradictions to the benefit of the working class in China? I'd say yes in many cases, however the ability of the state to resolve these contradictions effectively on its own is fundamentally limited by economic and social circumstances. Because SwCC has its basis in Marxist theory there's an awareness of these contradictions and the Chinese state's role in resolving them,the CPC can in crisis choose to resolve these contradictions in favor of the working class. Does that mean the CPC will press the big red Communism button? Fuck if I know.
Not really, he says that the USSR and Mao's China were both socialist
That's the type of leftist that this essay is criticizing
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