109 KiB
109 KiB
Socialism FAQ
The Bullshit asymmetry principle, or Brandolini's law:
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
Contents
- Socialism FAQ
- Didn't communism fail? It works in theory but not in practice.
- What about human nature?
- Schools of thought
- Did economic planning work?
- Who would sweep the floors under communism?
- What about cooperatives?
- What about democracy?
- Pacifism and Violence
- What would X be like under communism?
- On Economics and Sociology
- On Nationalism and Internationalism
- On Women's Liberation
- On Race and Class
- On Guns / Firearms / Violence
- On Capitalism
- On Liberalism
- On Leninism
- On Trotskyism
- On the USSR
- On Mao, Maoism, and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and the PRC
- Democracy / State Capitalism?
- What about the Hong Kong protests?
- What about China spying on its own people?
- What's going on with the Uyghurs?
- What about the Tiananmen square massacre?
- Did Mao kill millions of people?
- Was the PRC a totalitarian dictatorship?
- What about the Falun Gong?
- Further reading
- On the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
- On Cuba
- On North Korea
- On Venezuela
- People
- Whats so bad about Elon Musk?
- Whats so bad about Bill Gates?
- What's so bad about George Orwell?
- John McCain
- What about the new atheists? (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens)
- Gandhi
- What's wrong with Bernie Sanders?
- What's wrong with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
- What's wrong with Elizabeth Warren?
- Kamala Harris
- Biden
- Greta Thunberg
- Others
- Other Topics
Socialism FAQ
Didn't communism fail? It works in theory but not in practice.
- Did Socialism work in the USSR, and didn't the fall of the USSR bring more prosperity to Russia?
- Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work?, audiobook
- Why, in your opinion, have most attempts to form countries based economically on communism and socialism (USSR, Cuba, China) fail?
- What about the authoritarian leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc?
- Why did the Soviet Union fail?
- What about the gulags? 2 3, 4
- Didn't the USSR kill millions of it citizens, with most people living in poverty and dying early?
- What about Stalin, the purges, the holodomor, etc? A revleft podcast.
- Was Stalin actually a good leader?
- Why are there no modern revolutions, in the past 40 years?
- Didn't Capitalism bring people out of poverty? The UN says poverty has halved in the last few years.
- Isn't worldwide global poverty decreasing?
What about human nature?
Schools of thought
- Glossary of Socialism Terms.
- What are the different forms of Marxism and what are their differences?
- What are the differences between Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, MLM, and Stalinism?
- Can someone give us a quick like-we're-five rundown of the distinctions between Trotskyism, Maoism, orthodox Marxism, and so on?
- What's the difference between anarchism and communism?
- What's the difference in economic structure ( production and distribution) of anarchism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and Marxist communism?
- What is the communist response to a lot of Anarchist criticisms? A Megathread.
- What are Mao's contributions to Marxism? (MLM)
- What is Stalinism?
- Looking for reference to types of communism.
- What was Engels Contribution to Marxism?
- Were the nazis socialist? What about national socialism, the national socialist movement (NSM), and the national front?, 2, 3, 4
- What is Fascism?
- Did Karl Marx use "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably?
- What is Luxemburgism?
- Is the revolutionary DotP a separate material stage apart from lower phased communism?
- Is socialism the lowest stage of communism or is it the transition to communism, in between capitalism and communism?
- What about Left Unity? Engels letter to Bebel.
Did economic planning work?
- Did Socialism work, in the USSR?
- Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? audiobook
- My economics teacher said that the planned economies communist countries had are proven failures. Is this true?
- Do planned economies have any elegant math behind them?
- Is there a surplus in socialist economies? How is it different from the surplus in capitalism and feudalism?
- How did early hunter gatherer and agricultural societies work? Were they egalitarian? How did private property come about? Why did women have a higher status? How did classes and inequality arise?
- How can economic planning solve the climate and food crisis?
- Towards a new socialism - Cockshott and Cottrell audiobook
- Why are communists against markets?
Who would sweep the floors under communism?
- How can people be expected to work hard if they don't get payed more FOR working harder? (I know nothing about communism)
- What prevents cultural, technological or scientific stagnation in a communist society? Also what motivation do people have to work at their Jobs?
- What about automation / robotics? Why do some communists say innovation has stopped?
- Would people innovate under Communism? Doesn't capitalism create innovation?
- How does communism deal with lazy people?
- How does communism/socialism deal with human laziness?
- What about people who refuse to work?
What about cooperatives?
- Can cooperatives bring about socialism?
- Couldn't small anarchist / anarcho-communist communes replace Capitalism?
What about democracy? Can't voting fix our problems?
- How do socialists feel about elections? What about democratic socialism?
- What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn't Sweden socialist?
- Why can't you acheive socialism through voting in our current democracies?
- Why not just vote leftists into office: what's wrong with democratic socialism?
- Can a one-party state really be a democracy?
- Why is Chinas one party system outperforming western democracies that have abysmal approval ratings?
Pacifism and Violence
- What about Pacifism / pacifist socialism? Is violence necessary to acheive socialism? What about Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi? audiobook
- Is a bloodless revolution possible?
- What is imperialism?
- Was the civil rights struggle in the US really nonviolent? Malcolm X - message to the grassroots.
- Engels - on authority.
- An Overview of Leninism, Lenin - State and Revolution , audiobook
- Luxemburg - Reform or Revolution, audiobook
- Trotsky - Fascism - What it is and how to fight it, audiobook
What would X be like under communism?
- What does housing look like in Communist countries?
- How would a record company/label work in a communist society?
- Music tours and traveling in a socialist state?
- How would airlines work for the workers and the customers in a communist world?
- How would a society without the family work?
- Record Collecting
- How would everyday life be different in a Marxist society?
- How would non-essential products their production be promoted in a traditional Marxist economy?
- How would media be handled in a Communist state?
- What is going to happen after the revolution?
- How would a communist economy really function in practice?
- How does communism deal with niches?
- How would residentials be fairly distributed under full communism?
- How do police / cops differ in socialism?
- What if some people don't wanna be communist?
On Economics and Sociology
- Can someone ELI 5 the Labor Theory of Value?
- Is the Labor theory of value (LTV) scientifically correct? What about academic economists and the subjective theory of value (STV)?
- Is human labor the source of value because human beings do not normally work for free?
- Value as a necessary product of labor?
- What is the right way to think about the relation between value and labor?
- Whats so bad about land ownership / renting / private property? Why do socialists want to abolish it? Don't landowners do work?
- I am in trouble understanding how exactly would a private property abolition work.
- Private property: Cause or result of alienation?
- In Marxian economics, is 'value' distinct from 'price'? What does 'value' indicate, exactly?
- can you explain the theory of alienation to me in a "explain like I'm five" manner?
- If private property is abolished, does this mean anyone can enter "one's home" (or where one lives) and cannot be expelled?
- Shouldn't capitalists be rewarded for Risk / Financial investment? Well shouldn't business owners be rewarded for their financial risk? Do Capitialists deserve profit? Is profit proportional to risk?
On Nationalism and Internationalism
- Nationalism and internationalism, where do leftists stand?
- Nationalism and Communism?
- Why is patriotism bad?
On Women's Liberation
- Is it necessary to be a feminist to be a communist?
- How would eliminating Capitalism help women's liberation? Why did the patriarchy develop as it did?
- What is intersectionality, and how is it related to Marxism?
- What real solutions does socialism have for women, LGBTQ, etc.?
- On Feminism
- What is proletarian/marxian feminism?
- Hello comrades! can anyone explain the idea of marxist-feminism?
- What about the history of Marxist Feminism?
- Thomas Sankara - Women’s liberation and African freedom struggle
- Clara Zetkin - Lenin and the Women's Question
- Witchcraft - Class struggle and women's liberation in the middle ages.
On Race and Class
- How is Race related to class / Marxism?
- How is racism related to capitalism?
- Was the US communist movement anti-racist?
- Is Racism human nature?
- Lenin on Anti-Semitism.
- What about identity politics / race and class?
- How would eliminating capitalism help marginalized groups such as women, gays, racial minorities, etc?
- What about black-on-black crime (Insert racist thing here)?
- What about Beyonce / Black Capitalism?
On Guns / Firearms / Violence
- What is the socialist stance on guns?
- Is it true that gun ownership correlates to increased murders and violence?
- Do Marxists oppose individual terrorism? (Trotsky)
- Where do socialists stand on gun violence and acts of terrorism?
- Will the revolution necessarily be violent?
- How can we justify owning firearms in the wake of mass shootings?
On Capitalism
On Liberalism
- Why do communists dislike liberals?, 2
- What is liberalism? (Olly from Philosophy Tube)
- What about free speech? What about Antifa / Anti-Fascism?
- Why do leftists think that FDR co-opted the left to "save" capitalism?
- What's wrong with democrats ( insert moderate party here ) ?
- Why not vote for the lesser of two evils (Lesser-evilism)?
- Can't we change the democrats from within?
- What about "moderates" like Jimmy Carter? Can't we push them to change?
- Can't we use voting to solve our problem? Is violence really necessary? What about Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi? audiobook
On Leninism
- An overview of Leninism.
- What is the vanguard party? Is one necessary?
- Why is a vanguard party necessary in Leninism?
- What is Vanguardism and Democratic Centralism?
- What is a vanguard party supposed to be like? What qualifies and doesn't qualify as a vanguard party?
- Difference between leninism and Marxist-leninism?
- Why does left communism reject national liberation movements?
- Is it true that Socialism has killed X million people, and how many has capitalism killed?
- What's the role of the state in the revolution, and what is a state?
- Why do many socialist attempts end up in an one-party state? Watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut, audiobook
- What did Lenin say about socialism in one country?
- Is Chomsky right about Marxist-Leninists being evil?
Further reading
- The Leninist Theory of Organisation by Ernest Mandel
- Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought by Georg Lukacs
- Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels
On Trotskyism
- Primarily to the trotskyists: Can you explain the theories of the degenerated workers state, the deformed workers state and state capitalism and can these theories co-exist in the same country?
- A critique of Trotsky?
- Regarding Trotsky's ‘‘Permanent revolution’’ and the two-stage theory
- How does Lenin's theory of revolution differ from Trotsky's?
- What are the main Marxist analyses of fascism? and a question regarding Trotsky's
- Did Stalin 'betray' the revolution? (repost of deleted question)
- Why was "Lenin's testament" suppressed by the Party after Lenin's death?
On the USSR
- Did socialism achieve anything in the USSR?
- Why do the majority of Russians regret the collapse of the USSR?
- What is Stalinism?
- What about Stalin? Didn't he kill millions? (Revleft podcast on Stalin)
- Was Stalin's USSR State Capitalist?
- Did Stalin really try to resign 4 times?
- Why were there prison labor camps in the USSR and were they justified?
- Did the USSR really make an alliance with the nazis? (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), 2, 3, 4, 5
- Did the USSR supply the Nazis with raw materials and weapons in the years before WW2?
- How many Jews escaped from Poland to the USSR in WW2?
- What about the Katyn Massacre?. 2
- What contributions did Stalin make to Marxism-Leninism?
- Opinions on Defense of Stalin and Mao
- Stalin's Purges
- Was Stalin anti-Semitic? What about the doctors plot?
- What are some legitimate criticisms of Stalin?
- I need clarification on myths/truths of the USSR/Soviet Union.
- I'm fascinated by the idea of communism...
- Was the Soviet Union democratic? If so to what extent?
- How necessary or productive were the torture, mass executions of captives, and labor camps of 20th-century socialist governments and revolutions?
- Why did Lenin abolish factory committees established by workers?
- How much of the USSR's "dark history" under Stalin can actually be attributed to Yezhov?
- Forced Deportation Under Stalin, 2
- Did the Soviet Union manufacture a famine in Ukraine? What about the Holodomor?, 2,3,4,5, A podcast on Stalin, Holodomor, and the purges.
- Did Stalin / the USSR intentionally wreck the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War / Revolutionary Catalonia? , 2
- Did the early USSR repress anarchists? What about Nestor Makhno and the Free territory of Ukraine?
- ELI5 of the Kronstadt Rebellion.
- Were the Soviet POWs returning from the front on WW2 treated as spies?
- Wasn't the fall of the Berlin Wall / East Germany a good thing?, 2, 3, 4
- Democracy, East Germany, and the Berlin Wall by Stephen Gowans
- Is it true that people in the USSR only worked 6 hours per day?
- Fraud, Famine, and Fascism by Douglas Tottle
- The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933 by Mark Tauger
- Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1933 by Mark Tauger
- The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933 by Davies and Wheatcroft
- Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union by Mario Sousa
Did the Soviet Union repress and kill millions of people?
- The Triumph of Evil by Austin Murphy
- Human Rights in the Soviet Union by Albert Syzmanski
- Another View of Stalin by Ludo Martens
- Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives by Getty and Manning
- Origins of the Great Purges by J. Arch Getty
- The Road to Terror by J. Arch Getty
- Other studies by historian by J. Arch Getty
- The Legacy of Stalinism by "brown-eggs"
- Khrushchev Lied by Grover Furr
- Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti
- Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder's 'Bloodlands' Is False by Grover Furr
Did the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact nations have functioning democracies?
- Soviet Communism: A New Civilization by Sydney and Beatrice Webb
- Is the Red Flag Flying? by Albert Syzmanski
- Socialism Betrayed by Keeran and Kenny
- Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934–1941 by Robert Thurston
- The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism by V.L. Allen
- The 1936 Soviet Constitution
- Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan
Was Soviet Socialism an economic failure?
- Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? by Stephen Gowans, Audiobook
- From Farm to Factory by Robert Allen
- The Rise of Socialism by William Foster
- We Lived Better Then by Stephen Gowans
- The Need for Planning by Joseph Ball
Did the citizens of the Soviet Union dislike their government?
- Homesick for a Dictatorship
- 60% of Russians Want Communism Back
- Former Soviet Countries See More Harm from Breakup
- Russians say Aug 1991 events are tragedy, not triumph of democracy
- Struggling Romanians Yearn for Communism
- Tajikistan Pines for Old Soviet Union Strength
- Referendum on the Preservation of the USSR
- Central Asia in Nostalgia for the Soviet Period
- Freest Under Czech Communism!
- Seven Myths about the USSR by Stephen Gowans
- An experiment in living socialism: Bulgaria then and now by F.S.
- Growing Up Under Communism Was The Happiest Time Of My Life by Zsuzsanna Clark
Further reading
- A collection of Soviet history books on Stalin and Stalinism.
- The Triumph of Evil, Chapter 1: The Documented Facts About Eastern Europe and Communism by A. Murphy
On Mao, Maoism, and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and the PRC
- What is Maoism?
- How many peopled really died during the Great Leap Forward?
- Did Mao really kill millions of people in the great leap forward?
- What about the mass killing of landlords? What about landlordism?
- What about the famines? Did Mao kill millions?
- Why did Mao launch the Cultural Revolution? What was he trying to achieve as distinct from the Revolution the Chinese Communists had already won? To what extent did he succeed? Does it have any continuing impact? (x-post from /r/AskHistorians)
- What was the cultural revolution? A Documentary series on it, called How yukong moved the mountains
- What are Mao's contributions to Marxism? (MLM)
- Where should I start with Mao?
- Debastardising Mao.
- What about Tibet? (95% of the population were slaves or feudal serfs before China invaded in 1959)
- Did China really try to save the GDR?
Democracy / State Capitalism?
Much credit to /u/bayarea415
- A China misinformation Megathread.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn't China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn't it liberalize its economy? Is China's drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CCP committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions.
- Are capitalists allowed in the communist party? No, pic
- What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
- Why do Chinese billionaires keep ending up in prison? Why are many billionaires and CEOs going missing?
- 50% of the economy is in the socialist public sector and directly follows the plan (40% if you ignore the agricultural sector). 20 to 30% is inside the state capitalist sector, which is the sector partially or totally owned by domestic capitalists but run by the CPC or by local workers councils. The rest is made up of the small bourgeois ownership like in the NEP.
- If China is imperialist, why are they funding development in Africa and writing off millions in debt?
- Is China a democracy?
- What kind of democracy does China have, and how is it different from the west?
- In contrast to low US political approval ratings, 96% of Chinese are satisfied with the national government (Edelmans 2016). World Values Surveys says that 83% think the country is run for their benefit rather than for the benefit of special groups. How is this possible in a one-party state? (TED talk by Eric X Li)
- How does China’s political system work?
- How are Chinese leaders elected / chosen? How meristocratic is the system? How do elections differ from those in western bourgeois democracies?
- Who runs China? Makeup of the national people's congress.
- Some stats
- The real wage (IE the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it's the most populous country on the planet. The US real wage by comparison is lower in 2019 than it was in 1973.
- US Life expectancy peaked in 2015, is on the decline, and is now lower than in China. 2
- Wages themselves are forced to rise in the private sector by the CPC (+16% every years, +400% since 1980) who force the capitalists to accept the presence of CPC chapters who represent the interest of the workers, increasing workers control even in the capitalist parts of the economy.
- The west views China as one big sweatshop, but the actual working hours aren't much more than anywhere else. The average for a migrant worker (most vulnerable to exploitation as they are traveling from the countryside) is 8.8 hours, little under an hour more than a typical working day. Labor strikes are rarely suppressed, and usually get the support of the PRC.
- The workplace safety standards of China are better than in the capitalist countries of the West like in Australia who have an higher rate of work related death despite having a GDP per capita 3-5 times higher.
- The US is losing to China: “Washington is actually far more corrupt than Beijing. If you want to get something done in Washington, you do what you do in Jakarta: just slip some money to the right people.”
- China 9 years ahead of schedule on meeting its Paris agreement climate change goals.
- A letter to the Trump Administration signed by over 100 US academics and ambassadors: China is not an enemy.
What about the Hong Kong protests?
- Megathread #1, #2
- The extradition bill came about when a man from Hong Kong killed his pregnant girlfriend while in holiday in Taiwan. 1 He fled back to Hong Kong. Taiwan asked for him to be extradited, but Hong Kong did not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan, so the administration in Hong Kong proposed a bill that would allow Taiwan, the PRC, and Macau to request extradition, which the judiciary in Hong Kong can then approve. There were 49 crimes that were to be included in the bill that would allow extradition requests. Some of these were financial crimes (Hong Kong is a popular tax haven for billionaires), and the Capitalists in Hong Kong shit themselves because they are often in breach of PRC law, but protected by Hong Kong's independence as a Special Administrative Region. This bill is completely reasonable, and any fears of the PRC taking over or of the extradition of 'political' criminals is unfounded. The US is encouraging the organizers to keep protesting in order to provoke the administration in Hong Kong to crack down on them, so that they can blame China and keep up their propaganda narrative that 'CHINA BAD!' More here.
- AntiConquista - the History of Hong Kong, and the nature of the protest movement, and who's funding it.
- The US has admitted that it’s funding the protests. Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor and HKCTU, along with 68 other Hong Kong “democratic right” organizations earn hundreds of thousands every year from State Department funded NGOs.
- American government officials caught ON CAMERA colluding with HK protest leaders.
- American Government NGOs fuel Hong Kong Protests.
- Joshua Wong, one of the leaders of the protests, travels to US, seeking US intervention. Meets with Marco Rubio, and other senators to garner support. Senators Rubio and Tom Cotton sponsored legislation that would punish Hong Kong or mainland officials who suppressed basic freedoms in the city.
- Hong Kong Billionaire publisher / media mogul Jimmy Lai, a large donor for the HK protests, meets with Pence, Pompeo, to discuss US intervention., 2
- An overview by isgoodrum.
- The protestors are beating up anyone from China (lots of anti-china racism from hkers) 2
- “Something else you won't see in imperialist msm: Hong Kongers organizing to show their support for extradition amendment. "Hong Kongers can't be at ease if fugitives are in the large".
- “Over 900,000 real name signatures in "Protecting justice & supporting extradition" petition. Reasons listed: HK criminal committed murder in TW; HK current extradition law has flaws & needs amendment asap; HK shouldn't be fugitive heaven, extradition amendment has many safeguards”.
- Hong Kong - British vs Chinese Perspective.
What about China spying on its own people?
- China’s Social Credit System, and how it isn't actually Black Mirror and how you should stop using facile pop cultural references to demonize countries you haven't bothered to understand.
- The complex truth about China’s Social Credit system
What's going on with the Uyghurs?
- What's going on with the Uyghurs / Xinjiang province?
- A Pakistani Diplomat given full access to “re-education camps” and this is what she found.
- XinJiang: Facts vs Fiction.
- A majority of Muslim countries support China's policies in XinJiang, and don't believe the western lies told about it. 2, 3 Supporters: Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, DR Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Kuwait, Laos, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, UAE, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.
- China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region lift 1.85 million people out of poverty from 2014-2017.
- US fuels terrorism in China: “1 million Uyghurs never verified”
- China’s Xinjiang Problem – Made in USA.
- No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims.
- Religious freedoms in China explained.
- Thousands of Muslims from the Uyghur province make Hajj Pilgrimage yearly.
- EU rejects China offer of Xinjiang tour.
- If China Is Anti-Islam, Why Are These Chinese Muslims Enjoying a Faith Revival?
- A New York Times "expose" of re-education centers in Xinjiang lied and mistranslated every claim.
- More sources debunking this here.
What about the Falun Gong?
- An investigation by the Refugee Review tribunal of Australia found the claims of organ harvesting, and prison camps, were provided by two unreliable witnesses, and can't be verified, by any of the major sources reporting it.
- The claims mainly come from a self-appointed, private organization called the China Tribunal, run by British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who unsurprisingly served as a prosecutor in a UN trial regarding the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, whose role was attempting to pin war crimes on Slobodan Milošević.
- The "sources" for the claims are a few international members of Falun Gong.
- Its a cult, outlawed in China, akin to Scientology. The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhiu, is racist, and homophobic. Li teaches that homosexuality is not the standard of being human, the priority of Gods will be to eliminate homosexuals and that gays are demonic in nature.
- What is Falun Gong, and why do they believe "Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the communist party."?
- CNN claims of organ harvesting are not credible.
- The hospital that supposedly holds 6000 falun gong prisoners, was visited by various US officials after the claims, and found to be just a regular hospital.
What about the Tiananmen square massacre?
- Tiananmen Square "Massacre", A Propaganda Hoax.
- It wasn't a massacre of peaceful students, but a skirmish between PLA soldiers and armed detachments from the pro-capitalist / free market reform movement. The protest movement, as evidenced by their own accounts, called for market liberalisation, and free market reforms, rallying around a replica of the statue of liberty. After the movement had been building in the square for seven weeks, unarmed soldiers were sent in to disperse the protesters, after which many soldiers were beaten to death, torched, and lynched. The New York Times death count went from 2600, to many thousands, to 8000, to tens of thousands. In reality only around ~200 (including soldiers) were killed or trampled, in smaller clashes outside the square. The on-scene New York Times reporter disavowed the article, especially about machine-gunning of protesters. A wikileaks cable from a US ambassador to the US state department, confirmed that no killings or machine-gunnings took place in the square.
- A British Lie.
- Deng XiaoPing was ill at the time, and the CIA had an inside man inside the party, Zhao Ziyang, dubbed China's Gorbachev, who promised to open the door to market liberalisation if the protest movement had succeeded, like those of Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Georgia, and the USSR.
- The protest movement followed the line of "color revolutions", in which the US tried to destabilize and create counter-revolutions in eastern Europe and Latin America after the fall of the USSR. The strategy was to stir division within and without, by inundating the media with news of massacres of "peaceful", pro-capitalist / market reformers.
- The defeat of a counter revolution in China.
Did Mao kill millions of people?
- Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball
- Monster or Liberator? by Carlos Martinez
- The Battle for China's Past by Mobo Gao
- Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday's "Mao: The Unknown Story" by Benton and Chun
- How did Mao manage to kill ~78 million people? by Godfree Roberts
Was the PRC a totalitarian dictatorship?
- The Rise of the Chinese People's Communes by Anna Louise Strong
- The Chinese Road to Socialism: Economics of the Cultural Revolution by E. L. Wheelwright
- Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village by William Hinton
- Shenfan: The Continuing Revolution in a Chinese Village by William Hinton
- Turning Point in China: An Essay on the Cultural Revolution by William Hinton
Further reading
On the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
On Cuba
- A Cuba and Fidel Megathread.
- Just how socialist was/is Cuba?
- Why, in your opinion, have most attempts to form countries based economically on communism and socialism (USSR, Cuba, China) fail?
- In defence of (and questions about) Cuba
- Did the cuban people like Fidel Castro?
- Multiple questions about Cuba
- Did the US really think Castro was a dictator? Answer: No.
- Why did people flee Cuba / Did Cuba have a famine in the 1990s?
- Did Fidel Castro persecute gay / LGBT people? What about the UMAP prisons?
- How are gay rights nowadays in Cuba?
Was Che a murderer and/or a racist?
- Che: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson
- Debunking the 'Che Guevara Was Racist!' Lie by Cuervo Rojo
Is Cuba a functioning democracy or a terrible place to live?
- 20 Reasons to Support Cuba
- Cuba: A Revolution in Motion by Isaac Saney
- Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion by Arnold August + http://www.democracyintheus.com/
- Cuban Democracy Fact Sheet
- All in This Together: Cuba's Participatory Democracy
- The Elected Delegate and the Dissident in Cuba's Municipal Elections by Arnold August
- 2002 Cuban Constitution
- Work and Democracy in Socialist Cuba by Linda Fuller
On North Korea
- Is north korea a totalitarian dictatorship? Are they all really required to get the same haircut? A short documentary.
- Are north korean defectors really paid to lie by the south? A short documentary.
- What is everyday life like? A conversation with a North Korean Citizen.
- Why do some communists support the DPRK?
- What exactly is Juche?
- Is the DPRK socialist?
- How do elections work in the DPRK?
- Human rights and the DPRK
- What evidence is there than DPRK is not engaged in gross violations of human rights?
- Can someone explain Songbun (Caste system) of the DPRK to me?
- What about Otto Warmbier?2
Do North Koreans believe in unicorns and think Kim Jong-Un is immortal?
- Do communists defend the nationalistic (juche) aspects of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of North Korea)? short answer: no.
- Western DPRK Propaganda: The Worst, Occasionally Hilarious, and Often Racist, Lies by Alyx Mayer
- Anti-DPRK Propaganda War – a Cavalcade of Comedy by Red Youth
- Tourist who took camera inside North Korea shocked by 'ordinary' lives of citizens
Is the DPRK a Fascist Monarchy?
- Korea Resilient! Socialism in Democratic Korea by Vince Sherman
- How to Think about Socialism in Korea
- Understanding North Korea by Stephen Gowans
- A Model of Democratic and Participatory Socialist Planning by MasCapital
- Constitution of the DPRK
- Socialist Korea: A Case Study in the Strategy of Economic Development by Brun and Hersch
- Interview: Understanding and Defending North Korea
- Democracy: US vs DPRK – Towards the Annihilation of a Narrative
- The secret genocide in South Korea you’ve probably never heard of
Further reading
On Venezuela
- What's going on with venezuela? Rebuttal to John Oliver's venezuela show, and overview of the situation in Venezeula. Censored youtube link.
- An ocean of lies about VZ.
- What about the US trying to send aid to VZ? The US has blocked the shipment of Insulin, Dialysis, and Malaria medicine.
- Who's crashing Venezuelas economy?
- Capitalist sabotage in Venezuela.
- What about the black markets?
- What's going on with the crisis in Venezuela?
- Are the people in venezeula really starving?
- Are the US after venezuela's oil reserves?
- Whats going on in Venezuela?
- Is venezuela moving towards communism?
- The U.S. Has Venezuela in Its Crosshairs
- The Venezuelan government invited the UN to send observers to monitor the 2018 elections, but the opposition opposed this move and directly petitioned the UN not to accept the invitation. Maduro's May 2018 Election were declared fair by over 1500 international observers.
- On the 2019 Venezeulan coup attempt. The Trump administration discussed Coup plans with the plotters shortly before.The US pushing regime change. Venezuelans march to oppose regime change. The hand-picked right wing successor, is a US puppet.
- A group of Venezuelan military deserters, who are based in Cúcuta (Colombia), are protesting to demand the payment of 250 thousand pesos that Colombian authorities.
People
Whats so bad about Elon Musk?
- Crushes unionization attempts at tesla factories, promising free frozen yogurt in return.
- Employees at Tesla suffer twice as many serious workplace injuries than the industry average.
- Forced to pay out ~$4 Million in a class action lawsuit to 4,100 SpaceX employees who say the company refused to allow them to take legally mandated breaks during the workday, as a consequence of how the company structured its shift patterns.
- Uses public money to fund private ventures, costing taxpayers $4.9B.
- Attracts new investors by hyping failed projects, leading many financial investigators to consider Tesla a ponzi scheme.
- Musk fires Tesla worker for testing positive for THC, then goes on the Joe Rogan show and smokes weed himself. In reality the worker was fired for her union organizing and supporting the United Autoworkers Union.
- Wants to privatize space travel, leaving colonization and exploration to to the richest few.
- Actively feeds his own cult of personality, as it raises his company's stock price. Criticism of Musk or Tesla is often met with toxic harrassment, especially against women. Reddit: Why is there such a big cult of personality around Musk? One such "Tony-Stark" from Rolling-Stone.
- Despite rumours of Musk being a self-made mad scientist genius, he was born into a wealthy white South African family, and his father owns Emerald mines. His wealth comes not from scientific discovery or innovation, but from his father funding his first business ventures, and from buying and selling companies such as PayPal, SolarCity, SpaceX, and Tesla.
- Musk takes advantage of international crises to raise Tesla's stock price. In one case, Musk promised to "fix" Puerto Rico's power grid after it was decimated by Hurricane Maria. He deploys solar panels to a hospital, dozens of news articles were written about the business-saviness of this decision, and the stock price soared. PR reps told Musk they don't want their power grid privatized by billionaries.
- Despite being hailed as a leader in the fight against climate change, he donates 7x more money to Republicans. “Is it any surprise that a union-busting capitalist donated heavily to the Republican Party? No,” said Sydney Ghazarian, of the Democratic Socialists of America’s environmental justice working group.
- Fired his assistance of 12 years for asking for a raise. Divorced his wife after telling her that his life "operated quite smoothly" in her absence.
- As a PR stunt, Musk promised to build a mini-submarine to rescue a boys soccer team that got trapped in a Thai cave in 2018. After receiving vitriol from the Thai and rescue community, Musk called one of the cave rescuers, a pedophile,2. After the rescuer sues Musk for defamation, Musk pays 50k to a private investigator (and former felon), to dig up dirt on the rescuer., and was told to use "aggressive tactics". Musk's team then told the investigator: “We would like you to immediately move forward with ‘leaking’ this information to the UK press. Obviously must be done very carefully.” Musk and his team even lobbied the Thai gov and prime minister to get a local official to reverse a statement saying the mini-submarine wasn't practical, before the children had been rescued.
- Goes after whistleblowers, including sending the police after Martin Tripp ( who reported on Tesla's fraudulent activities to the SEC ), who Musk claimed was an active shooter. Goes after several journalists who criticized him. A twitter thread of the Nov 2019 swatting police report, and those targeted by Musk.
- Rocket jesus broken promises #1, #2
Whats so bad about Bill Gates?
- He's a philanthro-capitalist imperialist: using the bill and melinda gates foundation charity as a bargaining chip to work in the interests of billionaire elites. Youtube Audiobook
- The Gates foundation tests pharmaceutical products on humans for profit, usually in poorer countries without regulatory bodies. One such mass test, on behalf of Merck and Pfizer, of a harmful HPV vaccine on 23,000 girls in india kills 7 girls, sterilizes hundreds more, and leads to public outrage.
- The Gates foundation helps big pharma find new markets for drugs deemed unfit for westerners, selling them in the global south. This includes harmful drugs such as Gardasil, Norplant, Cervarix. A South African newspaper declared: “We are guinea pigs for the drugmakers.” In the case of Gardasil, the drug-pushing was cloaked in the language of environmentalism, popular empowerment, and feminism. Melinda Gates evoked “choice” in support of her family planning initiatives, but in reality was not poor women, but a handful of the world’s wealthiest people who have presumed to choose which methods of contraception will be delivered, and to whom.
- Funnels hundreds of millions in grant money to corporations, such as Mastercard, Merck, Pfizer, ABC, NBC, Univision, Scholastic, and Pearson.
- Philanthro-capitalism undermines local communities, dismantling their democracy and autonomy in health care, by making them fully dependent on US billionaires, who are completely unnaccountable.
- Philanthrocapitalists are currently rushing to take power in a system of global health and population control. Bill Gates warned of “huge population growth in places where we don’t want it, like Yemen and Pakistan and parts of Africa.”, echoing overpopulation fears that have inspired eugenicists since the time of Malthus. Population control is a form of social control, directly targeting the bodies and dignity of poor people, conditioning them to believe that life’s most intimate decisions are outside of their competence and control.
- Elite charitable funds are a legal means of tax avoidance. Under US law, investments in charitable foundations are tax-free; moreover, investors are not required to sell their stock positions and may continue to vote their shares without restriction. By sheltering foundations, the US Treasury effectively co-finances the activities of Gates foundation and its investors.
- Used philanthropy as a front to generate profits for businesses in the agricultural and health sectors.
- Citations Needed - The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire - Bill Gates and Western Media.
- Post from a web developer about Microsoft's monopoly practices in the 1990s.
- Microsoft crimes masterpost.
- His charities promote corporate interests above health care.
- Book about the golden handcuffs of the philanthro-capitalism of Bill Gates.
- The Gates foundation has spent over $1B to break up public schools, in favor of private charter schools. 2, 3, 4
What's so bad about George Orwell?
- He's antisemitic, homophobic, and racist. Specifically, he snitched out Jews, Black people, Homosexuals, and communists to British Intelligence. His list includes him writing:
- 8 variations of “Jewish?” (Charlie Chaplin), “Polish Jew, (Tom Driberg)” “English Jew,” or “Jewess.”
- Paul Robeson - "ROBESON, Paul (US Negro) ...Very anti-white. [Henry] Wallace supporter."
- Paul Robeson wasn't anti-white, just look at the welsh coal miners for whom Robeson Campaigned.
- The testimony of Paul Robeson (one of the people Orwell snitched on), to HUAC (House of Unamerican activities committee) during the red scare.
- Stephen Spender - "Sentimental sympathiser... Tendency towards homosexuality"
- Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish nationalist poet, and anti-imperialist.
- George Padmore, Trinidadian journalist and anti-imperialist campaigner.
- His books Animal Farm and 1984 are used widely as anti-communist propaganda in schools in the US and UK. So much so that his animated animal farm film was funded by the CIA. There's a reason they teach George Orwell in schools and not Franz Fanon, Che, Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Lenin, CLR James, etc.
- Orwell, anti-communist: A criticism of Orwell and his Work - By Isaac Asimov.
- Orwell worked as a British imperial cop in Burma for 5 years. His short story, Shooting an Elephant, uses ethnic slurs and denigrates burmese people.
- A reddit thread on George Orwell, Thread #2.
John McCain
- War Criminal, who pushed for US military intervention in Syria, Libya, Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. Imperialism 2.
- Despite giving lip-service to progressive causes, never actually voted for any of them. The "maverick" label was a false construct.
- Voted against Martin Luther King day, and women's reproductive rights for his entire political career.
What about the new atheists? (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens)
- Hidden beneath a superficial rationalism, they provide a seemingly intellectual defense of imperialism, push islamophobia, and use it to create a smokescreen for the injustices of global capitalism. 2,3
Gandhi
- Was Gandhi really a racist? What about Gandhi's legacy? A great lecture by Arundati Roy.
- Gandhi - The jews should've killed themselves instead.
- Red Phoenix - Pacifism - How to do the enemy's job for them. Youtube Audiobook
What's wrong with Bernie Sanders?
- Supports US imperialism. 2
- Voted for US intervention in the following nations: Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Yugoslavia,2, Bosnia, Haiti, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, and Ukraine.
- Warmongers on the Bill O'Reilley show for the US to intervene against Russia, Syria, and China.
- Supports drone bombing: "They have, at times, been effective."
- Staunchly supports Israel in their displacement of Palestinians (while blaming hamas for the conflict). Says he will not move back the US embassy in Israel back from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, after Trump moved it the previous year.
- Supports GW Bush. Supported warmonger John McCain after his death.
- Claimed that the 2016 election of Maduro in Venezuela "wasn't free", and called for more "US Aid". Called Maduro a "vicious tyrant" in 2019 Democratic primary debate.
- Goes back on his 1985 semi-pro-cuba statements: "The Cuban economy is a disaster. No, I do not praise Fidel Castro."
- Praises the Hong Kong protestors, tells China to back off.
- Bernie is against open borders, believes in strong border and anti-immigration policies. 2
- When asked about the 2018 Migrant caravan, where Border agents tear gassed migrants, Bernie replied, "not all migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border have a credible claim. "You have to look at it case-by-case."
- Believes that Russians are to blame for the failure of US democracy. "Protecting american democracy from foreign invasion."
- Why Sanders is not a socialist - Anticonquista
- Shills for democrats, campaigned for Hillary Clinton.
- Equates socialism with US corporate bailouts.
- Thanked Jeff Bezos for deigning to raise amazon wages, Bezos responds with "you're welcome".
What's wrong with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
- She's a social democrat, not a socialist, fronting for the Democratic party.
- AOC asks all supporters to vote for democrats, including Andrew Cuomo.
- Calls for budget cuts for DHS, due to their child detention camps and family separations, then goes back on it by voting to fully fund them along with other democrats.
- She votes to keep the US in NATO, who's been responsible for countless atrocities in Europe and the Middle East.
- Going back on her promise to only back "progressive democrats" after her election to congress in 2018, she backs Nancy Pelosi for speaker of the house.
- Says her policies are more reminiscent of Norway than Caracas, repeating the right wing myth of socialism destroying Venezuela, and wrongly conflating nordic social democracy with socialism.
- Says its possible to be both a "democratic socialist" and a Capitalist.
- Thinks the US military is socialist. Thinks social services like schools and libraries are socialist.
- AOC selling "law and order" and "family values" and not being "weak on crime" as socialist values.
- AOC wants abolish ICE, only to replace it with a resurrected INS, yet another agency whose goal was breaking up families.
- Voted for Trump's 2020 War budget, allocating $738 Billion to military spending (a 3% increase over the previous year).
- She supports Israel, and its genocide of Palestineans.
- Goes along with democrats and Republicans in backing US puppet Juan Guaido over Maduro in Venezuela.
- After Trump fires John Bolton (who tried and failed at starting wars with North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran), she goes full neocon, angry that Trump isn't going to war with North Korea.
- Claims that socialist theory is only for priviledged few with college educated parents, and that working class people aren't capable of understanding theory. Is unaware of the Spanish-speaking socialist tradition.
What's wrong with Elizabeth Warren?
- She supports Capitalism.
- She was a republican most of her adult life, during the Vietnam and Reagan eras... until 1996. She does not talk about her republican past in her autobiography, or speeches. She became a democrat to support free markets: "I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. I think that is not true anymore" 2
- She claims she doesn't take PAC money, that democracy shouldn't be for sale, but much of her funding comes from wealthy donors, at a minumum of $10 Million.
- How Elizabeth Warren is courting the establishment democrats.
- Defends Israel's continued bombing of Gaza Hospitals and schools. Signs a letter in 2016 asking Obama to veto any UN resolution for Israeli settlement expansion.
- Supports US troops in South Korea. 2
- Wants a "green" US military.
- Copies Sanders program of full student debt cancelation, adds eligibility requirements.
- Marked herself as "American Indian" for 6 years during her professorship at Harvard Law school, makes unverified claims of Cherokee ancestry, despite her family tree consisting of those who dispossessed Cherokees, and growing up in a wealthy white household. Uses her "Cherokee heritage" as political points in campaign speeches and political ads, greatly angering native american groups. Called for the arrest of Greg Grey Cloud, a Crow Creek Sioux activist protesting the Keystone XL pipeline from the Senate gallery. 2, 3
Kamala Harris
- https://twitter.com/WillisJermane/status/1090261366789656578
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/31/kamala-harris-laughed-jailing-parents-truancy
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/kamala-harris-offices-fought-payments-to-wrongly-convicted
Biden
Greta Thunberg
Others
- What's so bad about Winston Churchill? , 2
- What about Jordan Peterson?
- Is Christianity / the Bible Communist?
- Was Mark Twain a socialist?
- What's so bad about Ronald Reagan?
- What's so bad about Barack Obama? Also this List of US Atrocities
- What about Tulsi Gabbard?,2
- What's going on with the finnish bolshevik being accused of a rape fantasy?
Other Topics
Why are socialists against bitcoin mining?
- A single bitcoin transaction wastes as much energy as your house uses in a week.
- Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity per year than all of Ireland.
Did atom bombs really end WW2?
- No, the entrance of the USSR into the war against Japan was the cause of Japan's surrender, which the US fully knew about since they were intercepting Japan's communications. The Atom bombing of Japanese civilians was in reality a display of military power against the USSR, and the first act of the cold war. Audiobook, Summary
What about overpopulation / unsustainability?
- Agricultural economist refutes overpopulation myths.
- Dissecting the overpopulation myths.
- Dont blame the babies, blame capitalism.
- Overpopulation isnt causing climate change. Blame capitalism.
Why don't socialists support a UBI / Universal Basic income?
- Would basic income fix our problems?
- A Marxist critique of Basic income.
- Why basic income is a bad idea - Paul Cockshott, 2, 3
- What would happen to workers in poorer countries?
- Could Basic income "save" Capitalism?
- Its supported by, and benefits, silicon valley billionaires.
- Its used to allay elite fears of revolution.
DSA
- https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1193767195031068673
- https://twitter.com/DemSocialists/status/1194298720780791810
Others
- What is Antifa? (Olly)
- Whats so bad about UBI (universal basic income)?,2,3
- Why are socialists against Israel / Zionism?
- Do most US troops come from poor neighborhoods? (Yes, debunking the heritage foundation debunkers)
- Why communists do not participate in anti-russia hysteria, pushed by the democrats., 2
- Is there any real evidence for Russian interference in US elections?
- Why don't communists call trump treasonous? Aren't Putin and Trump collaborating and meddling in US elections?
- Why doesn't X minority just lift themselves up by the bootstraps out of poverty? Response by MLK.
- To what extent is modern day Vietnam Socialist?
- How is socialism progressing in Bolivia?
- How does the US and British strategy of Balkanization work?