Communism Thread

spongebob 🪼

Mar 15, 2022

Mango

Mar 15, 2022

2 replies

Scratchin Mamba

I can respect anarchists who are anarchists because they think that for whatever that a revolution that doesn't abolish the state right away will ultimately fail, even if I disagree. But for a lot of em they just found an ideology for their feeling of NO YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

My revolutionary ideology is to leave a gaping power vacuum for whoever wants to fill the void

Scratchin Mamba ⚒️

Mar 15, 2022

Mango

My revolutionary ideology is to leave a gaping power vacuum for whoever wants to fill the void

Powerful

space0cadet

Mar 15, 2022

2 replies

Saw a tweet that said "Nato is Pan-Europeanism"

ASAKI

Mar 16, 2022

Scratchin Mamba

I mean, I love anarchist theory and sentiments. I just don't think it's viable for humanity, at least in our current scope of what it means to be a family, a community, a society, a nation, etc.

A worldwide socialist revolution is already a massive, if not close to impossible task right now. I don't think anarchism has much to stand on other than... Rojava lol.

Donahuekirb

Mar 16, 2022

fire
open.spotify.com/episode/2iM1s39v8TszkRQbD0qCYe?si=0a2b4c4654854d07

Changeofheart

Mar 16, 2022

edited

1 reply

ARCADE GOON

Juche is a more idealist variant of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism is more materialist (meaning less concerned with abstract concepts like patriotism, nationhood, the Korean race, destiny, stuff like that). Juche is definitely a variant of socialism, but it is more like a nephew of Marxism-Leninism than a son of it.

BTW the idea that DPR Korea completely repudiated Marxism-Leninism is completely false, but I still see people throw it around all the time online. They still teach Marx and Lenin and have their books everywhere.

Thanks for the insightful replies, I’ve been reading a lot about North Korea lately and it changed my perspective on the country. It’s just interesting that socialists generally have negative views of NK and communists have more positive views and seem more well informed

Changeofheart

Mar 16, 2022

Scratchin Mamba

This might be one of the very few things you and me disagree on

If you view socialism in a purely economic way, as in who owns the MoP, and to what end it's used, I guess you could argue that it's a very flawed version of socialism. But if we look further than that, and question whether it's communist in the sense that it's the "real movement to abolish the present state of things", and that abolishing of the present state of things is understood as the liberation of the proletariat, I find it hard to see how we can call DPRK communist.

Of course, a***yzing their economy gives us the easiest and quickest answers, and they're not unimportant at all, but it has to be seen in context of their material conditions, and of course their ideology matters too if we want to see what broader course they're trying taking, and their official ideology Juche doesn't even claim to be Marxist anymore and the amount of references made to communism and Marx and Lenin varies a lot on the times that they're in.

In "On the Juche Idea", Kim Jong-il said that Juche is not a creative application of Marxism–Leninism, but rather "a new era in the development of human history". And something else that's pretty interesting:

"In his early years of revolutionary activities, the leader Kim Il-sung was well versed in Marxism-Leninism. But he did not confine himself to applying Marxism-Leninism to the Korean revolution but pioneered a new phase of revolutionary theory from a steadfast Juche-based standpoint and resolved the problems arising in the revolutionary practice from a unique angle."

Does it mean Juche is an actual theoretical contribution to Marxism in the way that Maoism was to Marxism-Leninism? I don't think so. The idea really doesn't go much deeper than unironic full isolationism, self-reliance at all cost, even if that means spending a ridiculous high amount on the military even during peacetime (#1 worldwide in terms of percentage of GDP). A centrally planned economy sure is helpful to attain those goals, but are they using it to bring about the liberation of the proletariat? I personally don't see how they are

I would even argue that if we were to see the end of the conditions that lead them to be so isolated and compelled to spend so much on their military, would see their economy have a much fewer characteristics that we would call "socialist".

Tldr: are they socialist? Depending on your definition, it's a deeply flawed version of socialism. Is it Marxist? Imo no, they barely even claim to be Marxist themselves.

In terms of their military their spending makes sense, they spend a lot to develop their nukes as a deterrent, and have scaled back other parts of their military. Historically when a country gives up their nukes, they are then invaded by the US, its understandable that NK fears this could happen to them when there are US based in South Korea and Japan

ARCADE GOON

Mar 16, 2022

1 reply

Changeofheart

The amount of propaganda surrounding North Korea is insane (and also racist tbh). Also Juche comes from a Japanese translation of a philosophical word Marx uses (Subjekt).

East Asian languages are way more "flowery" than English. South Koreans sound just as crazy if you translate what they're saying directly into English, Angloid MSM makes an effort to "humanize" their speech, ie not just directly translate but translate in such a way that seems sensible in English while deliberately directly translating Korean when spoken by Northerners to make them sound insane.

Same is true of Japanese and Mandarin too. Go to an Asian grocery and look at some of the crazy names they have for products. IE "Supreme soy sauce" or whatever. I once heard that the mandarin term for a ship based cruise missile is "Fire breathing dragon deployed over water" although I'm not sure if that is actually correct or somebody is just making the mistake of directly translating individual Chinese characters which isn't how words are actually spoken there.

This has been a long, weird standing tradition in Western Propaganda. In the past it was a little cruder and more overt, ie inventing the name "Viet Cong" because it sounds scarier than "Viet Minh". Now days they've learned to be more subtle, half truths are more effective than lies in manufacturing consent.

The problem is when western leftists don't understand this and start speaking in weird robotic wizard sounding English mao-speak which just makes you sound like a full blown autist to anybody whose native language is English. This kind of speak can be good for reinforcing a tight knit high control culture within some kind of political/narcissistic cult, both warping speech to create an insular culture & through trauma bonding as cadre are unable to communicate with outsiders, but it's bad for actually achieving anything like winning over anybody who isn't a weirdo.

The DPRK itself does play into this sometimes though and use it to it's own advantage. Notice how in official DPRK communiques they will translate roughly all political terminology, ie Songun = Military first system. But they never, ever directly translate the word "Juche", which is funny because "Juche" originates not as some indigenous Korean word or a word which Kim Il Sung made up, but as a translation of a fairly "common" word which existed first in English and German but which most people would probably not be able to correctly define in political/philosophical context.