Resistance to genocidal settler-colonialism and genocidal settler-colonialism are a unity of opposites, and are negated when the resistance succeeds in freeing Palestine.

The DPRK is a socialist country, that more than any other has been the subject of constant misinformation and mythologizing in the west. It’s the single most misunderstood state on the planet. No, it isn’t some utopia, but it instead is a real country with real people living their lives. It isn’t Mordor.

The Black Panther Party famously supported the DPRK, as do many African countries for the DPRK’s role in African liberation movements in the 20th century. Cuba maintains friendly ties. More than anything, it’s been mythologized about to the point of absurdity.

The problem with reporting on the DPRK is that information is extremely limited on what is actually going on there, at least in the English language (much can be read in Korean, Mandarin, Russian, and even Spanish). Most reports come from defectors, and said defectors are notoriously dubious in their accounts, something the WikiPedia page on Media Coverage of North Korea spells out quite clearly. These defectors are also held in confined cells for around 6 months before being released to the public in the ROK, in… unkind conditions, and pressured into divulging information. Additionally, defectors are paid for giving testemonials, and these testimonials are paid more the more severe they are. From the Wiki page:

Felix Abt, a Swiss businessman who lived in the DPRK, argues that defectors are inherently biased. He says that 70 percent of defectors in South Korea are unemployed, and selling sensationalist stories is a way for them to make a living.

Side note: there is a great documentary on the treatment of DPRK defectors titled Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul, which interviews DPRK defectors and laywers legally defending them, if you’re curious. I also recommend My Brothers and Sisters in the North, a documentary made by a journalist from the Republic of Korea that was stripped of her citizenship for making this documentary humanizing the people in the DPRK.

Because of these issues, there is a long history of what we consider legitimate news sources of reporting and then walking back stories. Even the famous “120 dogs” execution ended up to have been a fabrication originating in a Chinese satirical column, reported entirely seriously and later walked back by some news outlets. The famous “unicorn lair” story ended up being a misunderstanding:

In fact, the report is a propaganda piece likely geared at shoring up the rule of Kim Jong Eun, North Korea’s young and relatively new leader, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Most likely, North Koreans don’t take the report literally, Lee told LiveScience.

“It’s more symbolic,” Lee said, adding, “My take is North Koreans don’t believe all of that, but they bring certain symbolic value to celebrating your own identify, maybe even notions of cultural exceptionalism and superiority. It boosts morale.”

These aren’t tabloids, these are mainstream news sources. NBC News reported the 120 dogs story. Same with USA Today. The frequently reported concept of “state-mandated haircut styles”, as an example, also ended up being bogus sensationalism. People have made entire videos going over this long-running sensationalist misinformation, why it exists, and debunking some of the more absurd articles. As for Radio Free Asia, it is US-government founded and funded. There is good reason to be skeptical of reports sourced entirely from RFA about geopolitical enemies of the US Empire.

Sadly, some people end up using outlandish media stories as an “acceptable outlet” for racism. By accepting uncritically narratives about “barbaric Koreans” pushing trains, eating rats, etc, it serves as a “get out of jail free” card for racists to freely agree with narratives devoid of real evidence.

It’s important to recognize that a large part of why the DPRK appears to be insular is because of UN-imposed sanctions, helmed by the US Empire. It is difficult to get accurate information on the DPRK, but not impossible; Russia, China, and Cuba all have frequent interactions and student exchanges, trade such as in the Rason special economic zone, etc, and there are videos released onto the broader internet from this.

In fact, many citizens who flee the DPRK actually seek to return, and are denied by the ROK. Even BBC is reporting on a high-profile case where a 95 year old veteran wishes to be buried in his homeland, sparking protests by pro-reunification activists in the ROK to help him go home in his final years.

Finally, it’s more unlikely than ever that the DPRK will collapse. The economy was estimated by the Bank of Korea (an ROK bank) to have grown by 3.7% in 2024, thanks to increased trade with Russia. The harshest period for the DPRK, the Arduous March, was in the 90s, and the government did not collapse then. That was the era of mass statvation thanks to the dissolution of the USSR and horrible weather disaster that made the already difficult agricultural climate of northern Korea even worse. Nowadays food is far more stable and the economy is growing, collapse is highly unlikely.

What I think is more likely is that these trends will continue. As the US Empire’s influence wanes, the DPRK will increase trade and interaction with the world, increasing accurate information and helping grow their economy, perhaps even enabling some form of reunification with the ROK. The US Empire leaving the peninsula is the number 1 most important task for reunification, so this is increasingly likely as the US Empire becomes untenable.

Nodutdol, an anti-imperialist group of Korean expats, released a toolkit on better understanding the situation in Korea. This is more like homework, though. I also recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance for learning about the DPRK’s democratic structure.

Not accepting slander is not the same as sanctifying it, it just means protecting it from misinformation.

The reason why the proletariat is the class that will actually end class struggle, is because this time it will be the working classes that are on top, not another ruling class like with bourgeois revolutions. The mechanisms for the existence of class are in the mode of production and distribution, we erase class by collectivizing production and distribution, which erases the basis of class struggle and therefore the state.

It isn’t at all because I lack political imagination. If you have class, you have a state. The only way to get rid of class overnight is nuclear apocalypse or similar disaster bringing about early tribal cooperative formations, but this only sets the clock back. After revolution, the bourgeoisie will still exist, and proletarians still working for them, which necessitates the use of a proletarian state.

You’re taking a really complex problem that has plagued us for thousands of years and claiming that the only solutions are either (a) undo all of civilization, or (b) do what this German guy suggested a century ago. That is a lack of political imagination.

It isn’t a lack of imagination. Since we cannot skip to communism, the only way to immediately achieve classless society is to nuke it all. You cannot both have class and classlessness.

Even after centuries of revolutions of various kinds, all with the goal of leveling inequalities and boosting the position of the subjugated, we still have this same state of affairs

Incorrect, though. Previous revolutions have been aristocratic or bourgeois revolutions, with the exception of socialist revolutions in the 20th and 21st centuries. These socialist revolutions are building socialism in real life, and moved beyond the “present state of affairs” in capitalist countries, but must constantly be vigilant or else face backsliding like the USSR.

just with a rotating class of subjugators

Proletarians as the ruling class, ie working class leadership, are not an exploiting class. This is the prime distinction between previous states. Socialist countries do not have leadership of exploiters.

How’s this one going to be different? Because this time the subjugated are using dialectics? Because we want to eliminate class?

Because the rule by a working class that can only achieve liberation by collectivizing production and distribution for all is the basis of ending class society.

The only way we’re ever going to eliminate class and other categories of subjugation is by eliminating the mechanisms by which they exist.

Sure, which requires collectivizing all of production and distribution, which requires a proletarian-run state. This abolishes class struggle and therefore the basis of the state.

The fact that you can’t think of any way to do this that isn’t reverting to anarcho-primitivism is not a valid reason to reject the premise.

You have not given an explanation for how class can exist without the state, while also agreeing that we cannot abolish class overnight. If you can disprove class struggle as the basis of the state, or otherwise prove how to instantly collectivize all of production and distribution, then we might have somewhere to take this, but for now it seems you don’t have an answer, you just don’t like the existing answer.

The only people saying that are the clueless Americans. Everybody in Europe understands that the war started in 2014 when russia invaded Donbas, Luhansk, and Crimea.

But this is wrong, still. Crimea joined the Russian Federation, and Donetsk and Luhansk seceded, in response to the far-right Banderite coup.

Ukraine has as much of a Nazi problem as the US, France, Germany, Poland, or any other country on the planet. Sure, there definitely are Neo-Nazis there - like everywhere else. But the narrative was that the government was “overrun” by them, where in fact the most right-wing party received 6% in 2014 and less than 2% in 2019. Meaning, as of right now, there no fundamentalist right-wingers in the parliament, much less so in the government.

The Banderites were the ones that overthrew Yanukovych, and as a consequence have been emboldened by the state. The far-right governs Ukraine.

Define “western interference”.

People sending food and blankets to the protesters? Yeah, there was that.

Western governments silently supporting whoever opposed Yanukovych? Possibly, maybe. But those people weren’t really doing much.

CIA/Mossad inciting the streets to rebel against the government in an attempt to coup Yanukovych and install a pro-western ruler? Yeah, that one’s lunacy. Yanukovych got in power because he promised a more pro-western route in politics, the people wanted to be a part of the EU and NATO since 2001. Then, in 2013 things were starting to look really promising for Ukraine, and exactly then Putin ordered Yanukovych to reverse course, because he was afraid about his oil contracts. When Yanukovych did that, people went to the streets.

From @[email protected]

• Reuters, 2014: Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA151VA/
• Leaked recording between Nuland and Pyatt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoW75J5bnnE | transcript
• Counterpunch, 2014: US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/10/us-imperialism-and-the-ukraine-coup/
• Consortium News, 2015: The Mess That Nuland Made https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/
• Monthly Review Online, 2021: The Maidan massacre in Ukraine: revelations from trials and investigations https://mronline.org/2021/12/11/the-maidan-massacre-in-ukraine/
• Maidan coup thread https://archive.ph/BAxYc
• Coup details https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/29/evidence-of-us-backed-coup-in-kiev/
• Don’t Get it Wrong: Ukraine and “Israel” are Both Tools of US-EU Imperialism
• An article from August 2021 advocating inflicting a military defeat on Russia in Ukraine to subjugate it and draw it away from China https://nationalinterest.org/feature/strategy-avoiding-two-front-war-192137
• An important piece that reveals Washington, via CIA paramilitaries, has been fighting a proxy war against Russia in the Donbas since, it’s implied, 2014. https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html
• NYT coup coverage with CIA involvement https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html
• Nordstream US involvement evidence https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/27/evidence-nord-stream-underwater-expedition/
• The US harvesting Ukraine for minerals https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-us-rare-earth-minerals-deal-8566241ea0e121a30437d845357055d8

None of the to-date released documents mention him as a guest or client of Epstein, so I don’t even know where is this coming from.

Kiev is a gangster state with immense corruption. I haven’t seen any direct Epstein ties, but it would be unsurprising.

The “secession” was made by russian troops illegally entering the sovereign territory of Ukraine. The “referendums” were made under threat of violence from armed russian soldiers.

The reality is that the war started because Ukrainians wanted to join the West, found oil and gas reserves and already had contracts with BP and Shell for extraction, all the while Moscow’s contracts were expiring in 2023.

Nah, this is bullshit. Yanukovych was very popular in the regions that seceded:

The Banderites wanted to move towards the imperialist west, but Yanukovych wanted to go with the Russian loan that didn’t require austerity politics and impoverishing Ukrainians even further. That’s why the west supported the coup.

That’s one of the most hilarious things I’ve read in a while :D

Laughter instead of responding isn’t a point.

States are far older than the bourgeoisie, states arose when class first arose in early slave-based modes of production. Class struggle, the existence of classes, is what gives rise to the state. The state cannot exist when there is no class, but we cannot negate class without collectivizing all production and distribution globally. Since this will be a gradual process, we must create a proletarian state that will strip the bourgeoisie of its property. As it does so, the state itself withers with respect to how far class struggle has erased.

When you say we tear down the mechanisms by which anyone can wield a monopoly on violence, you either are saying you wish to reset all of human progress to anarcho-primitivism, before class struggle arose, or are agreeing with me that we must finally abolish the basis of the state by gradually collectivizing production and distribution, which requires a proletarian state. There is no third option.

Both. The state is a necessary product of class struggle, and exists until class struggle is negated.

As long as class struggle exists, there will exist a state that serves as the monopoly on violence in the hands of a given class. If the proletariat does not take hold of the bourgeois state, smash it, and replace it with a proletarian one, then the bourgeois state will prevent the establishment of socialism. Either the proletariat is subjugated by the bourgeoisie, or the bourgeoisie is subjugated by the proletariat. The purpose of maintaining a monopoly on violence over the bourgeoisie is so that you can gradually collectivize production and distribution, negating the proletariat and bourgeoisie as classes.

This is still a state, though. Existing socialist states are run by the many, and rooted in the will of the people. Further, your example assumes 100% alignment, and the second one goes against the grain it is de jure dissolved, but de facto has no actual mechanism for doing so.

China has been socialist since 1949. Public ownership has been the principle aspect of their economy since then, as well as fact that the working classes control the state.

I disagree with the notion that people haven’t spent a ton of time thinking of alternative structures. This, however, is ultimately quite similar to utopianism. I fail to see how you can end class struggle without going through a period where the proletariat dominates the bourgeoisie, unless you mean to change the name of this structure from a state without changing the structure itself. How does the proletariat dominate the bourgeoisie while both exist, without a state?

To clarify, I’m an anarchist. I don’t think the state should exist, period, and I think it’s self-defeating to try to impose communism via the state.

Communism can only be established via the state. You cannot go from capitalism straight to a fully collectivized system of production and distribution, class struggle does not disappear overnight. Anarchists tend to propose something entirely different, something more communalist in nature, but this is not the same as communism from a Marxist perspective.

But more to the point, my original comment was in response to your analysis of OP’s questioning of China’s alleged human rights abuses. I was interested in your dialectical thinking because I hadn’t seen it applied so clearly before and I wanted to use it as a learning opportunity. I’m coming away feeling more educated, which I’m grateful for. But I’m also not convinced your analysis allays worries about potential abuses mentioned in the OP, and I wanted to say as much.

Understood.

So ultimately, I’m not really arguing for anything specific, mainly because I don’t pretend to have concrete answers. If anything, I’m arguing for greater political imagination. Liberal democracy is obviously not the answer, but I’m not convinced an authoritarian socialist state is either. So how could we build on the works of Marx and other communist thinkers to come up with a way to implement communism that avoids the pitfalls you yourself have admitted are potential problems with a communist-party-controlled state?

I want to clarify something: contradictions are not avoidable. All change proceeds through a resolution of contradictions. It is not feasible to totally avoid any and all problems encountered in the building of socialism and communism in real life. As I said earlier, class struggle itself continues into socialism. The process of building communism itself is a gradual, protracted process of resolving contradictions.

If you have a proposed alternative to existing socialist democracy, then we can discuss that, but you will not be able to avoid the problem of class struggle.

The important factor is that the driver of revolution is the revolutionary class, and in the US Empire that will be the working classes, along with resolving the question of settler-colonialism. Decolonization and socialism are both necessities, driven by imperialist decay.

Ultimately, what the US Empire needs is revolution. The west isn’t doing what it’s doing out of a lack of intelligence, but instead a rational following of a fundamentally unsustainable economic system. Capital is what drives the Empire.

Gotcha! I’ll try to respond to your comment here.

I do feel like you’re missing how a one-party socialist state is still inherently an instance of unjustified power, even if it’s “self-correcting” like China seems to be. Institutional power gives default material, ideological, and epistemological authority to whoever occupies that institution.

Minor technical correction, the PRC has 8 political parties in addition to the CPC that collaborate and advise the CPC in special interest areas. More to the point, however, the idea that a multi-party system is necessary for socialism is born from liberal conceptions of democracy. The PRC is a socialist economy, run collaboratively. The state in any given society is representative of a single class above all else, and in the PRC that class is the proletariat. Liberal democracy that focuses on competition over collaboration is poor at achieving long-term progress, while not adding democracy.

That authority can be good if it’s truly the will of the proletariat, but the paradox is that because there is default authority given to certain ways of thinking about the world, the peoples’ ability to know whether it is indeed the will of the proletariat is distorted. If, for example, party leadership were to come out and say “accumulation of capital is compatible with socialism, actually”, then even though there would be mechanisms for people to come in and be like “no the fuck it isn’t”, because party leadership occupies a platform of default authority, their statement would be taken as true until challenged otherwise. That is unjustified power.

It’s possible thst revisionism and liberalism can infect communist parties, but the possibility of this does not translate to them being unjustifiable, which is more of a moral argument than a materialist one.

Epistemologically the only thing we can be sure of with any authoritarian socialist state is that (a) the party occupying the institutional power structure is claiming to represent the will of the proletariat, and (b) there are mechanisms for people to “correct” the institution to better represent the proletariat.

All states are authoritarian, in that all states are mechanisms by which one class wields a monopoly on violence to forward their own class interests. The idea that there is a “non-authoritarian state” is itself flawed. Either way, the PRC’s electoral structure has room for recall elections, and candidates are elected locally and ladder upward indirectly. There is thus a connection from the top to the bottom.

Neither of these things are enough to justify the general default authority given to an authoritarian state, imo. Power needs to always be exercised from a place of epistemological humility and with the understanding that you or your organization could very well not be fit to wield it. Institutional power structures are fundamentally just not compatible with this.

I’m not sure what you’re actually arguing for. A multiparty, liberal form of democracy? That isn’t what the people of China want. Mechanisms for overturning communist rule? Historically very easy to take advantage of by foreign powers. The CPC maintains direct connection to the people via the Mass Line, and conducts constant polling.

I understand how the PRC is playing the west, but this is a good thing for China, and a sign of socialism. Air pollution is going down dramatically as they invest in solar and nuclear, the working classes have seen steady large real wage increases, and the west hollowed out their own industry to their own detriment.

Which part of QinShiHuangsSchlong’s comment was misinformation? Can you articulate how and why? Further, the war started as a consequence of Donetsk and Luhansk seceding from Kiev into the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, following the far-right western-backed coup of Yanukovych. Once the Banderites took power and started oppressing ethnic Russians, the DPR and LPR seceded.

Are you saying the PRC isn’t socialist because it allows foreign investment in secondary and small-medium industries? These international investment deals are done for knowledge and technology transfer, as well as to expedite development of underdeveloped industry. The basis of socialized production is in large-scale, mass industry, so socializing production through market mechanisms is done in a controlled manner, where the CPC gradually folds these industries into the public sector as they grow.

Public ownership usually works better with higher levels of development, private at lower levels. Keeping the large firms and key industries in the public sector while allowing private capital in a controlled manner to help develop the productive forces is the secret to the PRC’s skyrocketing development. This development is why they have far surpassed the west in production of solar, high speed rail, infrastructural development, poverty alleviation, etc, without this form of economy they would not be as developed as they are today.

Cool, I don’t see how that applies here. I’m plenty critical of China for valid reasons, such as their presently poor LGBTQIA+ legislation (though it has been gradually improving) or their backing of Cambodia over Vietnam back during the time of Pol Pot. Your “criticisms,” more often than not, aren’t logically justified.

China owns a factory in Israel, sure. Is your argument that they are imperializing Israeli proletarians? Is it imperialist to own factories in other countries, regardless of the nature of the relations themselves? I can absolutely accept valid criticism of the PRC, you’ll notice I’m not really pushing back against those disappointed with how long China is taking to sever economic ties with Israel. However, critique doesn’t have merit purely for existing.

Not sure what you mean by “jeopardizing that paycheck,” if you’re insinuating I get paid to be a communist then I can only say that I wish that were the case. Instead, I pay dues out of my own actual paycheck from the job I work.