I was mostly wanting to let you know that I’m shouting it out for the sake of patting you on the back for what I consider to be an amazing project and all your hard work on it, and give others a way to reach out if they had questions. But thanks, I’ll keep that in mind! I had thought the new account was your new main, but instead I think I’ll refer to it on Hexbear, your .ml account on .ml, and your grad account on here, unless you have other preferences.

Thanks!

Oh gotcha! Sorry! Thought it was your new main account.

No problem! Part of why I don’t put history in my theory lists is because I consider history to be too important to weave into a theory list meant to be as concise and welcoming to liberals as possible. If I were to make a full curriculum, I’d need to read far more than I have and truth be told, my history is rather weak beyond the commonly discussed “gotchas” against the Soviet Union and other socialist states. I also like using Prolewiki when learning about a new topic and finding new places to read.

There are a lot of good resources on Comrade’s Library, managed by comrade @[email protected] . I also really like Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend from what I’ve read so far, as it deals with the mythology around Stalin and touches on the Stalin/Trotsky conflict as well. I haven’t read the whole book, and it’s certainly aimed more at dispelling myths than giving a historical account, but Losurdo is very adept at applying philosophy in a practical way.

As Weng Weiguang wrote, The Evaluation of Stalin is Essentially an Ideological Struggle. Repudiating Stalin is less about the historical figure and more about what was accomplished during his service. Demonizing Stalin demonizes the soviet union during its major industrialization, and therefore demonizes the most critical era for socialism in advancing on what came before.

In clearing Stalin’s name, we clear the record of socialism historically, proving it can, did, and does work definitively. This isn’t wasted effort, but is absolutely critical, especially as the demonized visage of Stalin is used as a club to beat Marxists and anti-imperialists in general (even non-Marxists!).

To be clear, “pure” socialism is largely a western conception. China has a socialist market economy, and is gradually developing and progressing along that road. Socialism is a process more than it is a “thing.”

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.

• V. I. Lenin

🥳

There’s a good deal of writing on Maoism and Sison on Prolewiki and here. Problems with Maoism is a good primer, as is the article on Sison himself.

My accounts are being downvote-botted, this happens mostly on Lemmy.ml but sometimes happens elsewhere. That might be it.

I agree that Maoism is incorrect, and that Mao Zedong Thought is not universal. I agree that some aspects can be used in certain conditions, which is the ML line. The Sisonists have generally softened their views on universality (though not totally), such as modifying PPW for urban settings into the general process of preparing for revolution, which MLs agree with by other terms.

Usually it’s when they actually take Lenin’s theories of imperialism seriously enough and come around on AES in a roundabout way. They may have initially believed a good deal of the propaganda but Marxism-Leninism is still correct, so they wrap back around to supporting AES.

For the same reasons some Trotskyist orgs wrap back around to supporting AES, like WWP.

Maoists usually don’t support modern AES, though some of the Sison school do. As for Juche, it’s also because Juche doesn’t add anything to Marxism-Leninism that stands against AES.

Kind of. One key difference is that juche socialists tend to support other AES just like Marxist-Leninists, while Maoists tend not to.

Juche socialists believe the juche idea to be a universal advancement on Marxism-Leninism, even if they accept Marxism-Leninism as correct.

I am a Marxist-Leninist, because Marxism-Leninism has proven itself in theory and in practice. I don’t think it makes much sense to see which country “best represents Marxism-Leninism,” and instead makes more sense to see what countries use Marxism-Leninism in struggling against imperialism, settler-colonialism, and neocolonialism, and in establishing and building socialism, as well as how Marxism-Leninism helps them.

Of course! I just wanted to add an addendum from a Statesian perspective, as that’s a problem many orgs run into here.

Just adding on to the red lines, any ML org in the US Empire in particular needs a solid and principled analysis of settler-colonialism and decolonization. This is an additional hurdle to socialist organizing in the settler-colonies that can often give rise to patsocs if not addressed.

No problem!

Marx and Engels especially tied dialectics to science. See Dialectics of Nature.