this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Sorry, I liked your comment and wanted to reply. But forgot to.
Communism (or more specifically Marxist-Leninism) is entirely built on the self interest you're trying to recredit as the cause though. Its built on the collective interest of the working class against the ruling class.
My comment was not about failures or mistakes of socialist experiments after revolution or resistance. Vietnam is a good example. It has all but entirely lost its working class dictatorship since it's revolution.
My comment was about how people ignore what militant communist factions are most successful at doing. They never attribute the Marxist-Leninist means of resistance as "communism" and only attribute to "communism" failures or criticism after revolution is obtained. Which is what you just did. Pointing to failures that Marxist-Leninist would also criticize and critique.
Imperialism of today (and of recent vietnamese history) is the subjugation of a nation of people under capitalist exploitation and occupation.
There is no "goal of communism" that is not fundamentally about overcoming that class struggle first and foremost.
And saying "of course they'll fight against Imperialism" is niave. The ruling class of Vietnam worked with the Imperialist in order to maintain their privileged positions. And country after country without large ML resistance factions have failed to or have been unable to resist. Its is why Imperialist side with existing right wing factions within the nations they exploit. They share the same class interest.
You're attempting to (or more likely unknowingly) remove class analysis so as not to credit the very means that give resistance groups the historical and militant resistance measures to overcome Imperialism. And there is no "second place" in that contest. It's Marxist-Leninist factions in first place and there is no second place.
You can absolutely be critical of the different systems of governance that come after that battle is won. And a fundamental part of Marxist-Leninism is about criticizing those failures and learning from them in order to maintain a working class dictatorship under constant Imperialist threat (see Cuba).
And countless ML literature and has been written critizing the very things you brought up as failures. But that's not really this conversation. Though I'm willing to have it.
The point is that Marxist-Leninist means of Imperialist resistance are THE means in which nations like Vietnam overcome Imperialist occupation. Not attributing that resistance to 'communist' is just ignoring the history of the last century. It is what communist (Marxist-Leninist) factions do.
If you define "imperialism" as something only capitalists can do, of course you're going to find that imperialism is a capitalist evil.
If, instead, you use the actual accepted definition of imperialism, which is closer to "the subjugation of a nation of people under another people's occupation" (i.e., regardless of the reason for the subjugation), then China is, and the USSR was, every bit as guilty of it as America today.
A little disappointing you ignored the thesis of my comment again and diverted to "but some socialist experiments had XYZ problem".
Again, I'd have that conversation but thats not at all what my initial comment is talking about or what the last one was talking about. I made that very clear. I'm specifically talking about successful measures of resistance and revolution. I'd like some discourse on that but you keep trying to change the subject.
Your first comment said "This is what communist do my friend." Referring to Vietnam kicking out imperialists. That is the core of the discussion and that's what I want to concentrate on here, rather than get bogged down in off-topic stuff, which is what I specifically avoided replying to above.
My take is that no, anti-imperialism is not core to what actual existing communists states have been. Instead, imperialism is a trait of power incentives and that any non-anarchical society (and I use anarchy here in the sense that actual anarchists mean it, as a type of non-Marxist socialism, not in the way the general public understands it) can potentially aspire to empire. There are communist countries that do it. There are capitalist countries that do it. There were empires as far back as the bronze age in societies that could not be described with either of those labels.
You're response tells me that you don't actually understand what I'm referring to or are just purposely avoiding it. My entire comment about Marxist-Leninist was literally about resistance to Imperialism. Which is what you literally just said your focus was on in this discussion. Maybe I confused you using "communist" and Marxist-Leninist interchangeably? But I would hope anyone willing to talk about this understands that.
I think maybe you should do some reading or reread my comment. Because you were the one diverting the conversation to post revolutionary criticism. And you are now pointing to pre capitalist Imperialism to try to make a false comparison in a completely different class structure.
You seem to want to talk about anything other than the massive success of ML movements in resisting capitalist Imperialism in the 20-21st century. And keep trying to remove class analysis by making false comparisons. Now we're going back to the Bronze age? Do better.
Yes, I know. My point is that that's a load of bullshit, as demonstrated by the actual countries that claimed to inherit ML ideology.
[edit: To be clear: maybe one could argue that the USSR and China aren't/weren't "true communism", and that true communism would be anti-imperial. My experience on Lemmy has been that people on the tanky instances tend to reject that argument, preferring to praise them as maybe imperfect but fundamentally very good. I hinted at this by referring to "actual existing communist states" in my previous comment, by way of analogy to the term 'AES' I know tankies like to use. But unless someone is willing to acknowledge explicitly that the USSR and China are just as bad when it comes to imperialism as many liberal western democracies, and put forward a claim that "true communism" wouldn't do that (and therefore that the USSR and China have never been truly communist), their arguments are obviously a load of bunk.]
No, I'm pointing that imperialism exists in capitalism, communism, and even in fundamentally incomparable societies. That imperialism is effectively on an entire separate axis from communism-capitalism, if it can even be said to be on the same graph. I feel I've been very clear about this, and your continued refusal to understand it strikes me as trolling. Unless you can come to the table and discuss in an intelligent and civilised manner, I'm ending it here.