I've been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to "voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism" and "the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic" and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they're replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling -- in retrospect I'm pretty sure I could've built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that's what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) -- and the only reason I'm not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
Marxists are not opposed to incremental change. They do not believe incremental change is a bad thing, and do not move against it. Incremental change is a nice-to-have, when revolutionary change is seen as necessary.
Marxists are not opposed to reform. If it is shown to be legitimately possible to reform a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, ie a Capitalist State, into a Socialist one, Marxists would be first in line. However, history has shown this to be extraordinarily difficult to outright impossible, akin to politely asking a bear to stop mauling you, so Marxists seek other methods. Marxists are Materialists, not Idealists.
Hope that helps!
Successful reform of capitalist countries to socialist: 3 - 10 ish depending on how you define it
Successful communist revolutions: ZERO
Curious how Marxists have not adjusted their beliefs when confronted with these statistics
Wrong, actually.
Successful reform of Capitalist countries to Socialist: 0.
Successful Communist Revolutions: 5-10.
Curious how Cryophilia thinks they are making coherent points when they just redefine established terms until it looks like they have a point.
Where are these 5-10 nations?
The USSR disbanded, same with Anarchist Catalonia and Burkina Faso, but China, Cuba, Chiapas, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea are all examples of states that all managed to establish a Socialist government via revolutionary means. I don't consider the Paris Commune to be successful either, it was extremely short lived.
The overall success of these states is definitely arguable, obviously, but it is inarguable that they managed to establish a Socialist state via revolution.
It's also worth mentioning that I am not endorsing these countries, just pointing out some examples of revolutions successfully changing economic systems.
I am sorry but China and North Korea are not socialist states. You are going to have to try harder than that.
That's what the 5-10 bit was for, if you want to play the purity game and claim China and North Korea aren't pure Socialism, that's fine. There are still other examples, which I already gave.
Are any of your examples actually socialist nations though? From what I understand modern Vietnam is fairly capitalist to the point the US has opened trading with them. Cuba still seem to follow socialist principles to some extent but they also aren't exactly the most democratic.
It's also not a purity issue to talk about China not being socialist, that's just a fact at this point. Ditto for North Korea. A dictatorship cannot be socialist, and neither can a state dominated by large corporations.
Yes, I disagree with much of your analysis, but that would take a long time. However, even flawed implementations of Socialism are still Socialism, and revolution did absolutely change the mode of production.
For a revolution to be successful it needs to produce something better than what was there before. If all we get are failed states it's kind of pointless. It seems only 1 or 2 have actually come close to succeeding like Cuba. Maybe we need to try a different revolutionary ideology.
You're shifting the goal posts, the question was whether or not Revolution has successfully changed the Mode of Production.
Additionaly, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and China are definitely better off than before, Chiapas is enjoying their cooperative independence, and none of these can be considered failed states.
I really don't think you're trying to honestly engage with the current question, and are trying to make an entirely different point, like you allude to at the end. It seems less like you're concerned with whether or not Revolution manages to change Mode of Production and instead you wish to talk about your new revolutionary ideology. That's fine, go for it, but you don't have to constantly move goal posts to get there.
You're the one shifting goals here. The guy originally said "successful communist revolutions" not "successfully changed the Mode of Production" or whatever arbitrary line you decided to draw. You came out with that phrase, and are moving the goalposts by presuming what someone else meant.
I don't think you are being honest at all.
Yes because that's not the only issue I care about. The question was about a successful revolution, not only about the "Mode of Production". Stop moving goalposts and then having the absolute gall to accuse the other person of doing that
I suspect you might be right about some of these, though without more research I can't definitively say. I would be careful about China though given what they are doing with certain minorities in their country as well as protesters.
No, you're moving the goal posts, lol, and trying to deflect blame is pointless here. "Successful Communist Revolutions" was vague in the first place, and the original point was that reform is extremely difficult to outright impossible, while Revolutions have succeeded.
If you can go back in time and redefine the original question, go for it.
China is indisputably better off than it was under the fascist Kuomintang. This isn't even a point to argue, China under Mao doubled their life expectency, then under Deng managed to become the industrial hub of the world, and now under Xi has taken China finally to the level of superpower.
China absolutely has numerous issues to this very day. Corruption is high, treatment of minorities is at minimum suspicious, and protesting gets met harshly. However, if you compare China under the KMT to China today, it isn't even a question.
So yes, you may need to take a look at what these countries were actually like before Revolution and compare with post.
"Nuh UH!" is: a. Childish, b. Not an argument, and c. Not going to change the facts.
But, you know. Enjoy your hot wheels or whatever.
Tell me, what countries have democratically decided to change from Capitalism to Socialism via electoral means? You offered exactly 0 explanation for your answer and ignored pretty much all of the last 150 or so years.
Let's just skip the part where I provide a researched answer and go straight to you saying "nuh uh! That's not REAL socialism!"
I mean, if you're just talking about an expansion of the welfare state, then you aren't talking about Socialism. We have had this convo before, you just prefer to use established terms in a manner that right-wingers use them, basically, so the convo just becomes arguing over correct use of terms and not an actual discussion of the topic at hand.
The irony here is that you define "right wing" more arbitrarily than I define "socialism".
But yeah, that's fair. However I think it's also fair to point out that even though you've defined the countries I consider socialist as not-socialist, there's still never been an effective socialist/communist revolution.
There have been, is "effective" just a vibe? What on Earth happened in the last hundred or so years?
Additionally, Right Wing just means you support Capitalism as the dominant Mode of Production, which you certainly do.
See? Arbitrary. You're defining the majority of the world as right wing, which is nonsensical.
Name effective revolutions. We could debate Cuba, but I'll give you that one for now. Other than Cuba, what socialist revolution led to a stable socialist country?
It is absolutely not arbitrary, it's entirely clear. Yes, the majority of the world is right wing, why does that make the definition of right wing more arbitrary?
Cuba, Chiapas, USSR, China, Vietnam, Laos, and more have successfully transformed their Mode of Production to Socialism.
One thing I won't let you sneak in: you clearly added "stable" as a pure vibe, moving the goalposts entirely. Again, the original argument is that Socialism has never been achieved electorally, the closest is Bolivia and Chile, Chile was couped and Bolivia isn't Socialist yet. Instead, there have been Revolutions that successfully shifted Mode of Production to Socialism, and now you wish to debate even Cuba about "success" based on nothing but vibe.
Lol nope
And yeah, who gives a fuck about a successful revolution if it falls apart almost immediately. Revolution is not the end goal. A stable, functioning socialist society is the end goal, and with the possible exception of Cuba that just has not happened.
Ah, yes, "lol nope" is about what I expected from you. Every time you're presented with an argument, you duck and run.
Those are all Socialist examples, the USSR is the only one of those examples that is no longer here, and that took a century. You can't actually argue against them being Socialist, so you try to redefine what words mean, or just say "lol nope" and refuse to answer.
Typical right-winger, refusing to actually engage meaningfully.
I don't need to argue against China being socialist, I just need to laugh every time you suggest such a ridiculous thing.
70% of China's top 500 companies are state-owned, they have democratic measures in place in the workplace, and have maintained strong state influence over their Bourgeois class, not the other way around. It cannot be considered pure Socialism just like nothing can be considered pure Capitalism, so trends must be observed and recorded. You claimed Cuba to be Socialist, or at least arguably so, correct? Here is a conversation where Castro argues that China is indeed Socialist.
If all you do is laugh, you'll be left behind, having contributed nothing.
Lol
Point me to socialist country that got there through reform.
In case you try to claim these the UK/Sweden/Norway is not a socialist country. They are hybrid economies. Hybrid economies are not socialist.
No true Scotsman