I’m not Chinese, and it’s easy enough for Chinese citizens to get VPNs. You aren’t going to convince anyone with this level of argumentation, paid or not.

Why the hell are you jumping to racism and purity tests?

The DPRK actually does have direct elections at all levels for government positions, but regardless, democracy is not “has direct elections,” it’s rule by the majority.

As for “workers” owning capital, this makes them petite bourgeoisie, in essence petty capitalists. The US Empire is an imperialist country, and so is able to bribe the working classes into siding with capital using the spoils from the global south. Having a business and paying others to work for you, without needing to labor yourself, is being a capitalist, not a worker.

As for the US, going to the store does not make you a capitalist, it makes you a consumer. The people do not decide the price, what decides the price of commodities is the socially necessary labor time going into the commodity, as well as factors like rent, supply and demand, and more that cause price to fluctuate around their values. People do not just think “I will pay 1 dollar for a car” and get it, cost of production is what has the biggest impact on price.

As for leasing land in China, this is why 90% of people own their home there.

All socialist systems thus far have been democratic.

Regarding capitalism, you’re referring to an idyllic, fantasy version of capitalism. In the real world, capitalists already control the means of production and distribution, so workers sell the only commodity they can: their labor-power. Since the capitalists hold all of the cards, the price of labor-power is pressed downward towards the customary social price of reproduction, ie as little as possible to prevent revolt while still taking up a full day of labor most days a week to survive.

As for socialism, central planning involves local planning as well. The idea of a single planner hand-planning an entire economy is a farce designed to strawman socialism. In reality, economic planning is already heavily employed in businesses like Amazon, who predict demand and plan production accordingly. Central planning isn’t some pie in the sky idea, it worked in the USSR very well, and continues to work in socialist countries today.

This is a bit silly. The famine in China was largely a result of natural disasters, the communists ended famine in a region that had them historically. Further, socialist systems are comprehensively democratic, and cannot be led by a single person unilaterally. Even with party leaders and whatnot, socialist governance is collective.

I understand, it’s all a part of what we have to deal with in the battle of linguistics to make our ideas clear.

Early hunter/gatherers lived lives without the state, class, or money. This was referred to by Marx and Engels as “primitive communism,” though I prefer the term “early communism” or “ancient communism.”

Do you think it’s particularly difficult to shut off all incoming traffic in the DPRK?

From NIRA data.

So, free and fair elections. Well, now we’re back to square one, and pretty much describing how Western democracies work.

Nope. You’re making a metaphysical error, focusing on similar structures while ignoring the entirely different context, the class character of the state. The mechanisms of elections exist within a definite social context, and in the case of capitalism, capitalists definitionally hold power over the media, production itself, and more to gain what they want. The state exists to serve the ruling class.

Ah, yes, the soviet Union, definitely not imperialist. Sarcasm aside, they literally did not allow their population to leave. They killed people who dared to leave. That’s not a sign of things going well, to mention just one.

The Soviet Union was not imperialist, correct.

The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.

Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.

The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.

When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.

The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.

Death rates spiked:

And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:

Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and this is why the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries. A lot of Eastern European countries were swarmed with western capital during the destruction of socialism, which is what temporarily caused the rise of the far-right in these countries, but in time their problems will no longer be able to be ignored.

Just because you repeat it a hundred times doesn’t make it true. The very mechanisms you described are used (with varying degrees of success depending on how well the democracy functions) to keep the state accountable to the people.

This isn’t true, though. Concessions come from organized resistance, at the consent of the ruling class. Capitalists do not fear the state, the state serves them. What the people actually want is not what the state does, what happens is the state fulfills the will of the ruling classes and tosses the crumbs they deem necessary to keep the populace from outright revolting. This is why organization gains concessions, not the bourgeois democratic structure.

That’s a very, very broad interpretation that many historians would disagree with. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it’s the case. How do these capitalist structures decay into imperialism then?

I believe you mean fascism, not imperialism, so correct me if I’m answering the wrong question. The decay into fascism generally happens when the state begins nakedly applying colonial methods to the domestic population. In the US, for example, this involves mass incarceration of ethnic minorities, attacks on queer people, mass deportations, and the attack on left wing organizations. In Germany, it involved the brown shirts killing communists, and rounding up Jews, Slavs, queer people, disabled people, and mass murdering them.

Voting doesn’t stop this. Hitler was handed power, and the US has been fascist no matter which party is in control. Capitalists deem it necessary due to drops in imperialist extraction, and a need to respond to crisis that stands to upset their rule. It’s like a fever that kills off anything risking the system.

Regarding Poland, again, this was territory Poland had conquered previously that historically belonged to countries in the Soviet Union. This was a return of territory. By no means did it come without bloodshed, but nevertheless the soviets were not nearly the butchers the Nazis were.

As for the west conspiring to kill of the Soviet Union, and letting Germany do so, again, I gave naked testimony that this was the case. The Soviet Union wanted above all else to survive, the Nazis wanted new colonial territories, and the west wanted to not get colonized by the Nazis while also wanting the Soviets to stop being socialist.

Do you have a source on a British warning to Germany?

Wolkow W. K. (2003), Stalin wollte ein anderes Europa. Moskaus Außenpolitik 1940 bis 1968 und die Folgen, Edition Ost, Berlin, p. 110.

The British warnings to the USSR were sadly ignored; Stalin did not order the Red Army to get ready for an invasion, which was partially why the first few months of the war went so disastrously poorly for the Soviets.

I already explained this earlier. There was a massivedisinformation campaign, with feints from both Germany and the western powers. The first few weeks went as everyone expected, the Nazis advanced quickly over largely open land until running face to face with the full industrialized might of the Red Army. Goebbels’ diary is quite telling of the change in attitude. On the 22nd-23rd of June, the Nazis attacked confidently. On July 2nd, Goebbels wrote the following:

Overall, the fighting is hard and stubborn. We can in no way speak of a walk in the park. The red regime has mobilized the people.

July 24th:

We can have no doubt whatsoever about the fact that the Bolshevik regime, which has existed for nearly a quarter of a century, has left a deep mark on the peoples of the Soviet Union […]. It would be right, therefore, if we clearly informed the German people about the harshness of the struggle taking place in the East. The nation must be told that this operation is very difficult, but that we can and will survive it.

August 1st:

At the Führer’s headquarters […] they also openly admit that they were somewhat mistaken in their assessment of Soviet fighting power. The Bolsheviks are showing stronger resistance than we expected, and above all the material means at their disposal are greater than we had anticipated.

August 9th:

Privately, the Führer is very displeased for having allowed himself to be so deceived about the potential of the Bolsheviks by the reports [sent by German agents] coming from the Soviet Union. In particular, the underestimation of the enemy’s tanks and aircraft caused a great deal of trouble for our military operations. He suffers a lot because of this. We’re dealing with a serious crisis […]. The previous campaigns were a walk in the park by comparison […]. The Führer is not worried about the West […]. In our German thoroughness and objectivity we have always overestimated the enemy, except, in this case, the Bolsheviks.

September 16th:

We have totally underestimated the strength of the Bolsheviks.

This was not a walk in the park for the Nazis, because the Soviets planned for it. Modern historiography makes it quite clear that the Nazis and Soviets were never allies in any capacity, for any length of time, and were always conspiring against each other with no expectation of actual peace, just biding their time before what they desired to be a favorable start to war.

Sort of. Marx had the same concept of authority and dictatorship, in that they belong to classes, and therefore should belong to the working classes. The anarchist critique of authority presented by Anark doesn’t make it seem bad at all.

This is what we tend to mean by sinophobia. There’s a difference between knowledgeable and nuanced critique of the CPC and PRC in general, and repeating the most bog-standard confidently incorrect bullshit you can find. This utter chauvanism is spoken the same way European colonizers spoke about Africans back in the height of colonialism, and still today in some cases.

Or if not, look at 996

Illegal, limited largely to the 40 companies in Beijing and Shanghai. The average working hours in China is 46 per week.

the mere fact that anyone can barely mention Winnie the Pooh inside China or they’ll go to a “reeducation camp"

Also bullshit, Winnie the Pooh is legal and fairly popular.

the fact that they repress violently every single protest or criticism to the Party-State

Again, bullshit. Criticism is popular and constructive in China, and protests do happen infrequently. Most people support the government though so it doesn’t come to that.

or the fact that they have the biggest data fusion and surveillance network of the world

Incorrect, Five Eyes countries do. This is projection from the west.

just to control what can be said, thought, looked at, searched or done

Incorrect, brainwashing does not exist.

not to mention the Great China’s Firewall.

Which is done to help develop a Chinese sovereign internet free of foreign influence, such as from western tech giants.

or is it that for you, all that independently-checked and blindly peer-reviewed facts are just a “USA propaganda”.

None of what you said is peer-reviewed.

No, it was not. Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:

[data] indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the ‘revolution from above,’ rather than of a ‘successful’ nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.

Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:

From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.

Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.

The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.

Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN

Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.

There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].

Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.

Comrade Kosior!

You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation in villages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?

Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.

Sincerely, J. Stalin

Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that’s why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.

Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism.

Further, the Ukrainian nation was supported by the soviets, to the point that they were often accused of being biased! There was no Russification, instead the soviets promoted a Soviet identity alongside national identities, to protect the identities of the nations while also unifying them.

Returning to the 1930s famine, as I showed above the Central Committee was kept in the dark by the Ukrainian communists as to the famine. They tried to save face by telling the Central Committee that everything was fine and under control, but this was not the case. Drought, flooding, and kulaks burning their crops and killing their livestock as protest against collectivization had destroyed output, and the soviets were still exporting grain in order to trade for industrial equipment with the west (which is what the west wanted in exchange for industrial equipment).

Upon learning the truth of how bad it was getting, the Central Committee was furious. The officials responsible in Ukraine were held accountable, hundreds of tractors and other farming equipment was directed to Ukraine, as well as ~17 million poods (~14ish kg/pood) of grain were redirected towards Ukraine. The Central Committee had been deciding policy based on the reports they were recieving, and these reports were falsified to protect the Ukrainian communist party leadership.

Had famine been the goal, no aid would have been given at all, or perhaps token aid. Sending hundreds of millions of kg of grain to Ukraine is no petty tribute, and punishing Ukrainian party leaders that lied and facilitated famine was the correct course of action for such treason. Counter-revolutionary is correct! They had put their own skin above the peasantry.

In all of this, there was absolutely no reason to have intentionally created a famine. The USSR needed grain for industrial equipment and to feed its people, it would not have sabotaged output deliberately. On top of this, there was existing accusations of the soviets overly supporting Ukrainian national identity, Lenin had given them the Donbass region and in an effort to overturn the Tsar’s oppression the soviets highly valued national identity and self-determination.

There is no real evidence of deliberate starvation or creation of famine. All that exists is evidence of tragedy, weather adversity, class conflict between kulaks and the peasantry, and mismanagement in part by the Ukrainian communists and in part caused by disinformation fed to the Central Committee, which changed how they treated Ukraine. Again, they needed grain for industrialization, which they saw as necessary for defense (and this was proven correct as the rapid industrialization in the 20s and 30s is what enabled soviet victory over the Nazis in the 40s).

Based on this, Anark makes it seem like authoritarianism is both good and necessary as long as it’s the working classes holding the authority. Same with whatever degree of domination is minimally required to prevent capitalists and fascists from overturning this. I don’t really think it’s “propaganda” so much as the words “authoritarianism” and “domination” are deliberately picked to sound scary.

Edit, responding to your edit: What’s with that response? Why brag about blocking me? That’s very silly behavior. I don’t think I’ve misunderstood anything, and it’s certainly not deliberate. The proletariat monopolizing control is a good thing.

The 1930s famine wasn’t a genocide, but yes, this was the last major famine outside of war time in a region where famine was common. Collectivizing agriculture and advancing in industrialization ended food insecurity.

It’s not “intellectually inaccurate,” it’s the Marxist understanding of class. The vanguard do not form a second class, they are of the proletariat (and peasantry, if applicable). Administration is not a class, but a type of labor that is necessary for production and distribution. The leaders of the Cuban, Korean, Russian, Chinese, etc. were proletarian intellectuals. Intellectuals are not a class of their own, they are a subcategory of every class, and the job of the political party is to create intellectuals and bring that class up to the level of the intellectuals in terms of thought.

Further, the masses are not stupid. Blaming individuals for systemic exploitation is extremely classist. The idea that there is no wisdom in the people, and that they instead are helpless to fall for whoever speaks to them most convincingly is absurd and ahistorical. Political parties do not command the people, the people command the parties, and the parties are there to guide the people. All legitimacy for the vanguard comes from its direct connection with the masses.

Communism led to the elimination of famine in areas where famine was historically common.

No problem!

Communism is good, and necessary.