Communism

Deng: [He laughs.] Listen, they can call me anything they like in the West, but I know Khrushchev well; I dealt with him personally for ten years, and I can assure you that comparing me to Khrushchev is insulting.

This is partly why I say I love Deng so much. It makes western 'marxists' seethe and look at that, he even calls them out for being ineffective and irrelevant.

In truth Deng continued a lot of what Mao had started or planned to start.

waow he's so based

so bit of a tangent, i have been able to get through to my dad on socialism, and mao zedong, and deng. because he grew up in the time of "end of history" where deng was written off by the west as a capitalist roader, his beliefs have always been "CPC bad, mao bad, deng turned it around economically and turned to capitalism but kept being repressive", whatever, and while he's never felt angry or hateful per se towards china, he just didn't see it as a socialist country and he didn't really see it as admirable (well, that diminished a bit coming into the 2020s, where china has started to make great bounds forward at a rate previously unthinkable, and it's also very visible through news/social media)

but in watching documentaries with him this past yr about mao, that have to address just how massively he turned formerly backwards feudal china into a real contender on an international stage, and then bridging that gap to now by sending him literally this article (and the ever-so-popular China Has Billionaires) i have been able to bring him around to china massively. he is now somewhat of a supporter and wants to go with me to china, and at least participates in discussion with me about it and can definitely recognize it's a better option than the west.

critically however i've also gotten him to reevaluate the position that socialism failed in china, through each stage: the mao-era as the most 'classical' iteration of socialism in his eyes (through him what happened during that period and what came after mao's ascendance, especially compared to the alternative of the GMD or god forbid languishing as a feudal fractured region. it's a strong argument for socialism, even if you cut off the next eras of deng and xi as not legitimate socialism, once you present with data of the straits china was in before mao and after, where there's an undeniable quantitative improvement).

then i was able to reevaluate deng with him (and my dad is a capitalist/the sort of guy who thinks it's the only feasible option, and so admires material wealth and improving material conditions within a country, but by trying to tell him about deng's constant reiteration of socialism as the only viable path, and show him continuity with mao-era [the foundations for industrialization and continued success, whether or not they went full capitalist or not, relied on the building up of china mao embarked upon], it's been like planting seeds)

and now xi (the most reasonable looking guy on an international scale, and no amount of western narratives can negate that the PRC have been the most 'dependable' or steady [or just mundane, you can criticize plenty about PRC carrying on as usual given circumstances like "israel's" accelerating genocide, but that's the stuff you get to after you explain to your father Why everything is the way it is.] point is it's been 10 yrs of propaganda and china hasn't actually done anything and i'm starting to think people are catching on it's just the boy who cried wolf)

granted, it's been easier since we're about to go into the actual chinese century, and i don't doubt that it would have been harder in the past, but it's 2026. guys, please never undervalue the soft power china now has, all you need to do is just contextualize its successes. the propaganda is already decaying and the success of their system has become more evident just as you can also argue xi jinping and the party have showed renewed vigor in bringing socialism, and credit socialism with bringing about their current prosperity. at the least it plants the seed that socialism is in fact the pragmatic choice, when before the generalization that it was 'morally correct but simply infeasible' seemed to dominate

we now have a new example, the currently thriving china, and while it also was maligned and propagandized against, it's somewhat easier to break through to most people than stalin (i know that it's almost impossible with some sinophobes in the west, but i genuinely do think in some cases trying to even suggest stalin is not satan will get you murked). i cannot stress enough how surprising it was to me i was able to get my dad to realize that mao was genuinely beneficial for china in the long run, even apart from actually trying to defend AES and china nowadays, that is probably the most foundational thing that you could do, because then you can advance to stalin if you want, and smarter people than me in this thread have explained perfectly why that is so vital.

PLEASE GUYS TRY GETTING SOMEONE CHINAPILLED TODAY!!! MAYBE EVEN YOUR DAD!!!

What an incredible source! Thank you for sharing.

Thank you! Many waters!