Lenin isn’t Marxism. Stalin isn’t Marxism. Mao isn’t Marxism. Tankies aren’t Marxism. Marx would have thought nothing good of China and Russia. Marxist Leninists idolize Mao and Stalin. They think police states are the bees’ knees
Comment on Why does lemmy.ml use the "ML" country code for Mali?
Kaboom@reddthat.com 4 months agoMarx wasnt a communist? Ive heard a lot of “not true communism” takes, but thats a new one.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
NateNate60@lemmy.world 4 months ago
“socialism with Chinese characteristics” (the “Chinese characteristics” are capitalism)
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Tbf to your first example, if .ml “stands for” marxist-leninist, I’m not sure lenin is a prime example lol.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Marx also wasn’t Marxist; that distinction belonged to Engels & co.
ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I think the meaning is that the Lemmy.ml fascists aren’t actually communist.
Kaboom@reddthat.com 4 months ago
Oh, that makes much more sense. Thanks!
CyberTailor@lemmy.world 4 months ago
“What is certain is that if they are Marxists, then I myself am not a Marxist”
– Karl Marx
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Of course Marx wasn’t a communist. He was a Marxist. Duh.
ReeSilva@bolha.forum 4 months ago
How do you not know? He literally wrote a book about not to be a communist called The MaNOfest of the ComunNOst Party.
scarabic@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Communism is a form of government based on Marxist ideas about how economic power works. But the two are not one and the same thing. You could say that Naziism is specific movement that was based on racism. But we all know the two words have distinct meanings and are not entirely interchangeable, intimate though their relationship may be.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Probably because you haven’t read much on the subject. Marxist theory speculated on how societies and economies could transition into communism. He and others created the philosophy and Concepts involving it. But we’re not communist.
Engles, and Lenin mistakenly thought that by replacing the authority and power of the wealthy with their own people. That they themselves would not fall to the corruption of power. And eventually over time the authoritarian state would somehow magically wither and die. Leaving them with a classless stateless society. Keep that in mind that is important for understanding whether something is communist or not.
Was Russia classless or stateless? No Russia was a state. And they had plenty of different classes. ML never eliminated that. In fact all the current Russian oligarchs have direct ties back to the political Elite of Soviet russia. And instead of transitioning into a communist Society they’ve transitioned into fascism.
Now let’s look at china. Is China a state? Yes. Not communist then. Are there different classes of people in china? Yes not communist then. Their claim on even socialism is somewhat tenuous at best. But they are definitely not communist. And at this rate will never transition into communism. Xi Jinping has moved into the Emperor’s Palace and is all but Emperor and name only at this point. He and his wealthy friends will never relinquish power to transition to communism. They will stay as they are until he dies. And then there will be a power vacuum. There may be some in fighting but someone will replace him and China will continue on until there there is another Revolution to replace the failed Communist Revolution that put them in power. Are they transition into open fascism as well.
Kaboom@reddthat.com 4 months ago
I saw this explanation a long time ago on reddit, and Im stealing it.
There are two types of communism. The communism in theory and communism as practiced.
Most people talk about communism as practiced. Think the USSR, China, Argentina, Cuba, any “state capitalism” country. This is how any attempt at communism will end. This is due tobthe fact that there isnt a mechanism to go from the tyranny of the proles to true communism, so you get stuck in tyranny.
Youre talking about communism the theory. Communism the theory can not exist. Its fine to discuss it, but saying that communism the theory is the only true communism is just being obtuse and/or disingenuous.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 4 months ago
They talk about it like that because that is how the propaganda both Pro and against talk about it. The fact is Soviet Russia and China started out basically as forms of marxist leninism. They aspired to be communist but weren’t. But they loved the word. And used it a lot. It’s like Nazis having socialist in the name. It didn’t make them socialist.
Practicing communists? Look towards communes. They are the only groups actually practicing comment. Whether they were the hippie communes Bohemian communes etc. Those are what communism in general would look like. Not explicitly but overall. Each commune is its own group that governs itself but could cooperate with similar outside groups. Soviet Russia and China were never communist in any sense.
aasatru@kbin.earth 4 months ago
This is where people mess up when they judge the past in the eyes of the present. Communism in Marx' time had nothing to do with the Soviet Union, Mao or China.
jorp@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Around the first French Revolution there were only a few forms of democracy and all of them (including the French Revolution) reverted to monarchy.
Online edgelords at the time might have thought monarchy is the only system that can work and democracy only works in theory