Thanks! I first came across it on Prolewiki, but it's originally from Cheng Enfu's On the Three Stages in the Development of Socialism. I've been reading more of his work to understand contemporary Chinese Marxist thought.

Republicans* in a nutshell.

No? The transitional argument is that communism requires both highly developed productive forces, and collectivization of all of these highly developed productive forces. The socialist transitional period requires intense development of underdeveloped production, as well as building the necessary administration for planned economy, both of which take time.

The idea of "bigdaddy" is nonsense, and isn't found in either Marxism-Leninism in theory or in practice. There has not been a ceding of control to socialist leadership, but instead an expansion of democratization to the working classes, historically. The idea that MLs want a big strongman to push a button and delete all administration is a farce of both socialist construction and what communism looks like, as communism retains administration.

Utopia is also not promised, Marxists rail against utopianism.

Please be serious here, throughout your comments here you've done nothing but demonstrate a lack of care for the subject matter and wax poetic about lottery-voting while ignoring the crux of the argument.

You say that like acting normal but dissenting won't get you banned for "imperialist apologia."

You're doing the thing. You're opening the interaction pre-aggrieved and from a self-imposed prone position, awaiting the boot. Just relax, man. Most groups of people, anywhere in the world, are very chill if you don't approach them aggressively, or in this case passive-aggresively.

This

It's not your average user's fault for not knowing, but some moderators definitely over-reach with removing and banning.

Last week I caught a ban for being a "troll" from the Memes community here for saying that liberals generally like Khrushchevkas (AKA Soviet Bloc apartments) and cite them as one of the things the USSR did right.

You don't see the bans and removals because the people and their posts are gone.

If you'd been spanked every time you've been polite in/around/to a community, you'd start to grow a chip on your shoulder too.

your'e the one saying 'power is not class' I disagree, I say dividing people by the power they have inherently creates classes, which is why I suggest a lottery to divide that power equally among the demographic makeup of a nation.
how are plumbers not a class if they control the means that create and maintain the plumbing industry? its all still a class.
I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc. the

government should be made up of people.
I reject the idea that certain groups of people among us are more fit to govern, particularly when that system removes demographics of largely under-represented groups and replaces it with more affluent individuals.

revolutions are a last resort, the people deserve a means to change their government without violence.

there is no generic state? only socialist and capitalist? have you heard of mixed economies?

"A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs,"

• who decides who is the best among you? the party leaders already in power according to single party rule. that is why I propose a ranked choice vote of those individuals selected from the lottery based on their policy proposals.

"You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based"

• no, I am explicitly rejecting the idea that the party in power is selecting the most competent. rather they are picking their friends and family or who ever can pay more in money or quid pro quo.

my electoral process removes money and nepotism from the equation by selecting individuals first from the general population, then allowing them to come up with policy proposals then allowing their constituents to elect them in a ranked choice vote. no campaigns means no campaign finance, no special interested counter funding candidates, no political parties platforming their insiders.

persons selected from the lottery will post their policy proposals on the same election website as every other candidate, debates will be organized by the election office and all candidates would be present.

" This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class."

• who decides who is the most politically developed of the working class? the party, thus nepotism, not a mandate of the masses

I don't think it's a fallacy, Lenin did not carry out with a communist state and they got Stalin.

Always love knowing I can drop a comment with minimal context and I got shooters out here that will pick up on the context for others. I couldn’t have explained this better myself, though I didn’t expect the pol pot one to be the bait. I should have put Che / Cuba or Sankara / Burkina Faso but the intention of my comment remains the same. You are absolutely correct.

I simply argue that a single party with unilateral control creates a totalitarian dictatorial state. and totalitarian states lead to accelerated suffering.

I also argue this is true for two party systems. and proposes a system based on demographic representation with a safe guard to remove bad actors from political power.
under my proposal, the state could choose to take control over the means of production if enough people chose. I welcome new forms of political ideas, not single minded adherence to party dogma.

and 'waxing poetic' would require me to be much less specific than I have been.

you are waxing poetic with these strange, shifting and amorphous ideas of "class", and "transitional periods" while providing no concrete roadmap for how unilateral single party control of a state elevates the workers to control over the means of production.

in reality it simply shifts control over the means of production to cronyism.
single-party rule creates a party-class and a working class, and the party-class is in no way beholden to the working class.

The reason I am telling you that classes are not simply any way we can categorize people but instead have specific relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution is because I am explicitly agreeing with Marx that the history of class society is the history of successive societies of 2 broad classes in conflict, defined by their relationship to ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Plumbers are not a class. Managers are not a class. Both are workers, and share the same relation to ownership of the means of production. Power is not the enemy, the system that divides us based on ownership is.

The rest of your comment is a ridiculous strawman of a party that is unaccountable and that dominates all. Nowhere in socialist history has this happened in practice or in theory. The working class as a whole decides who should be in the party and government. The party is a subset of the working class, with the same social relations to the means of production and distribution. You are arguing against a caricature.

As for revolution, it's the only way to change a state historically.

As for "mixed economies," all economies are "mixed" today. What separates them is their principal aspect, and the class in control of the state.

Thanks, and happy to help!

"China is authoritarian because they speak Chinese instead of English," you can't make this shit up.

My wife grew up in a post-communist Eastern Europe. I’ll tell you who hates communism more than Republicans, people who lived under it.

yeah people who were born and lived in a country without communism and going through capitalist plunder sure do think it's communism's fault.

you make the same mistake again, creating a single party where the party leaders get to decide who is in the party simply creates a new ruling class. they control all the means of production, and if the party leaders are not beholden to the workers, that is totalitarianism. this same issue exists largely in the united states but we have two parties instead of one, and the wealthy largely control who is in power, this is equally as bad as a single party.

I dont care to what level the state controls private property, I only care that if the state begins to abuse that power, the workers can intervene and stop them.

Nobody is arguing for a party to have unilateral and unaccountable power. You are deeply confusing how unitary socialist democracy works by alienating the party from the rest of the people, and drawing a hard line between democratic participation in society and the party itself.

Class is not shifting or amorphous. Class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production.

1. Capitalists own the means of production individually.

2. Workers sell their labor power.

In socialism, workers jointly own the means of production.

You are confusing the type of labor with class itself, which makes it amorphous.

Transition is also not shifting or amorphous. Between capitalism, where there is privatized means of production, and communism, where all production is planned and socially owned, is a period where the means of production need to be advanced enough to accommodate social planning, and administration needs to be advanced enough to facilitate it.

You keep separating the party from the people by erasing their shared relations to ownership of the means of production. The party is of, by, and for the working class, and is accountable to the rest of the working class.

No, this does not create "a new ruling class," nor do party leaders have sole discretion over who is in the party. Administration is labor, and creating an organization for such a task and the ideological components of socialism is not sufficient to create a ruling class. Administrators in socialism own just as much of the means of production and distribution as the rest of the working class, capitalists in capitalism directly own the means of production, even if managerial workers below them operate and control them.

This is why your analysis falls apart, you have an idealist analysis of power that divorces itself from the material.

The majority of those who lived in socialism regret its fall. Cool anecdote, but it disagrees with consistent polling from those who actually lived in it. Looking at countries like China, socialism clearly does work today, hence why it is increasingly relevant.

The transitional argument is that communism requires both highly developed productive forces, and collectivization of all of these highly developed productive forces. The socialist transitional period requires intense development of underdeveloped production, as well as building the necessary administration for planned economy, both of which take time.

The idea of “bigdaddy” is nonsense, and isn’t found in either Marxism-Leninism in theory or in practice. There has not been a ceding of control to socialist leadership, but instead an expansion of democratization to the working classes, historically. The idea that MLs want a big strongman to push a button and delete all administration is a farce of both socialist construction and what communism looks like, as communism retains administration.

Lenin established a socialist state, and Stalin was the second head of state in said socialist state. They did not reach communism, as communism must be global and fully collectivized, but they did reach socialism as a transitional state between capitalism and communism.

Most people misunderstand Communism like how people misunderstand Cognitive Dissonance. They know how to act towards it and around it, without understanding that they're very mistaken.

Your CIA anti-communist playbook is really easy to see through.

"advanced enough to accommodate social planning, and administration needs to be advanced enough to facilitate it."
-what qualifies as advanced enough? that is amorphous.
"You keep separating the party from the people by erasing their shared relations to ownership of the means of production. The party is of, by, and for the working class, and is accountable to the rest of the working class."
-no the party is separating the party from the people by removing any means of peaceful transition of power except through mandatory, open poll, party controlled elections of exclusively party members and through strict control of party membership.

For the love of god China is not socialist

Regarding how advanced production needs to be for social planning, it must not be an impedement for production. Essentially, by the point that decentralized production has transitioned to monopoly, markets have played their role. That's why in a socialist country like China, the commanding heights are socially owned, while for developing industries these are privately owned to a large degree. At the monopoly level, privatization impedes progress.

As for your bit on political parties, you're continuing to argue against a caricature you invented in your head. Nobody has stated that elections must be controlled or exclusively of party membership. You have to argue against a strawman, because your point collapses when confronted with reality.

Please be serious.

Why would it not be? Social ownership is the principal aspect of its economy, and the working class controls the state. In Marxist terms, it's pretty clearly socialist.

State ownership isn't socialism (Engels explicitly pointed out that nationalized industry under a capitalist mode of production just turns the state into a collective capitalist). China's economy still runs on wage labor, commodity production, capital accumulation, and a massive billionaire class extracting surplus value from workers. Plus, you can't claim the working class controls the state when independent unions are banned, strikes are suppressed, and private CEOs literally sit in the national legislature. It's state capitalism.

Also, obligatory, I’m calling my sandwich I’m about to eat Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, so it must be a socialist sandwich. Can’t refute that.

it completely creates a ruling class. the administrators hold the levers of government, irrefutably. and party administrators approved their candidates for elections. thus the ruling class chooses their members. that is a ruling class, even worse it is a ruling class with unilaterally controls over who in the nation can wield the levers of government.

your idealist analysis of power divorces itself from the will the people.

I argue that class is inevitable under any form of administrative government. the goal is to tie ultimate power to the will of the people.

Lmao

State ownership under a capitalist state is not socialism, correct. Private ownership under a socialist state is not capitalism either. You are entirely missing the point of Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Socialism is a transitional mode of production and distribution between capitalism and communism, characterized by social ownership as the principal aspect, ie rising and dominant, aspect of the economy and the working class as in control of the state. Both apply to China right now. The path of socialist construction in China utilizes a Marxist understanding of economics that sees the material basis of markets as decentralized and underdeveloped production, and the material basis of planned economy as highly developed and centralized production.

China maintains social ownership of the commanding heights of the economy which have already reached monopoly scale, and employs controlled marketization to accelerate the development of underdeveloped industry to create the basis for social ownership through development. The CPC stands at the top, a working class party with a strong basis in Marxism-Leninism with Xi Jinping Thought, and uses this dominance of the state to restrict the capitalists from forming a politically unified and coherent class that could undermine this socialist construction and derail it.

Here's a diagram of that "stages of socialism:"

They are currently developing towards the intermediate stage, with plans to reach it by 2049. That means they are already socialist, just developing towards higher stages of socialism.

As for independent unions, why is the independence of a union from the socialist system a good thing? There is already a massive federation of trade unions, independence from this creates a fulcrum by which the capitalists could leverage against the system. You have a liberal idea of socialism that envisions it as just as disunified and disorganized as capitalism, but socialism is a process of collectivizing. Capitalists are barred from the highest levels of the CPC, and are prevented from ever having a large presence in it.

"As for your bit on political parties, you’re continuing to argue against a caricature you invented in your head. Nobody has stated that elections must be controlled or exclusively of party membership. You have to argue against a strawman, because your point collapses when confronted with reality."

• then please enlighten me how communist elections should work, because in China and the Soviet union candidates must be approved by the communist party.

"Please be serious." you do not need to deride me just because we disagree. it shows a lack of maturity.

Your Wikipedia article does not support your point. Give it a read.

I'm not so much against socialism, as it's commonly understood in the US, as I am communism or unfettered capitalism.

I think it's capitalisms fault, and I said as much. 🤷‍♂️

Class is not "holding levers." I have established this over and over again. Shutting your eyes and ears and erasing the central role of ownership of the means of production and distribution does not make this fact go away. Administrators share the same class interest with other workers: collectivization of the means of production and distribution.

You have invented the idea of unilateral control, and have invented the idea that the working classes as a whole do not participate in mass democratization of society in unitary socialist democracies. You have no coherent goal, nor plan to get there, all you have done is refuse to engage with the Marxist position on class.

It does support it, check the "polling history" section. With few exceptions like Estonia, those with living memory of socialism support it. Socialism as it exists in the real world is a transitional system towards communism, the USSR was socialist, and did not reach communism as communism is a global system.

Wrong.

Is China State Capitalist?

• The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
• Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
• 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 CPC committed to communism?
• The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
• The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
• Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
• Isn't China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn't it fully planned like the USSR was?
• Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
• Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
• What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
• How is SWCC not revisionist? How is it any different from Gorbachev's market reforms?, 2
• Domenico Losurdo - is China state capitalist?, 2
• Did Lenin say anything about Market Socialism, or productivism?
• Vijay Prashad - Is China capitalist?
• Why do Chinese billionaires keep ending up in prison? Why are many billionaires and CEOs going missing? China sentences Ex-Chairman of a major bank, guilty of embezzling ~$100M USD, to death in 2019.
• China cracks down on billionaires - Ben Norton interviews Ian Goodrum
• Do capitalists control the communist party? No, pic
• How the State runs business in China.
• 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.
• China pushing forward Marxist training in colleges, attracts 1M students.
• China tells the US that it has no plans to weaken the role of its State-Owned-Enterprises, one of the US's main demands in the trade war. "Beijing plans to make the state economy stronger, bigger, and better."

There is very big difference between socialism and communism. Communism is an idea and pretty idea but in this world it don't work because people are "not always good" and socialism is bad try to make communism.

You can read Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance if you want to understand how socialist democracy actually works in real life. Recall elections are common protections, and candidates usually do not need to be approved by the communist party to be elected. This has varied throughout history, but in any case you are deeply misinformed, this isn't simple disagreement.

widely condemed by both China and the Soviet Union as a fascist masquerading as a comunist

I don't think China did that, the MFA usually has a strict "non-interference in internal affairs" as per the five principles of peaceful coexistence. Deng met with Pol Pot multiple times in the 80s. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in Dec 1978, China did a retaliatory 28 day invasion of Vietnam in Feb 1979. Kim Il Sung even had the Changsuwon palace ready for Prince Sihanouk to stay in during the coalition government insurgency against Vietnam.

To my knowledge: China, Korea, and most of ASEAN at the time supported Pol Pot and the coalition government, while the the Warsaw pact countries (except Romania), Albania, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and the current Hun Sen government condemed Pol Pot. Romania and Yugoslavia stayed neutral. It was a fairly even split on the issue for communist countries.

then capitalists holding the levers of production doesn't necessarily make capitalists a class. you're deluding your own definitions.

"Administrators share the same class interest with other workers: collectivization of the means of production and distribution."

• removing the ability for the people to hold the administrators accountable is divorcing the workers from ownership over the means of production.

"You have invented the idea of unilateral control, and have invented the idea that the working classes as a whole do not participate in mass democratization of society in unitary socialist democracies."

• you have no adequately demonstrated how the vector of power points from the workers down to the administrators in unitary socialist democracies.

I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc.

How do elections work in Vietnam?

What you describe of people from every profession being involved in government is essentially how the Vietnam Fatherland Front works. It's composed of 44 member organizations, primarily unions, a broad cross section of society that anyone can easily be a part of, and they conduct oversight over Vietnam's elections. The actual administration of the government is done by elected officials, who do not have to be members of the Communist Party, or the Fatherland Front. It's similar to what you proposed, except more democratic, since the cross section of society that makes up the Fatherland Front only oversees the elections, while policy is decided through the elections themselves. Even if you claim that the Fatherland Front secretly manipulates the outcomes, the system you're proposing seems to be one where something like the Fatherland Front would rule outright. The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who's views don't represent what the people want getting into power.

Capitalists do not merely "hold the levers of production," they outright own it. My entire point is that control and ownership are different. I am not contradicting myself in any way, it is your point that any grouping of people whatsoever is a class.

Socialist democracy does not remove the ability for people to hold administrators accountable. You invented this.

Administrators are a type of worker, not a class. Power is held by the working class as a whole, not merely administrators. Administrators serve a specific function in large organizations of people, not a class in and of themselves. Socialist democracy begins from the people, not the party. The role of the party is in guiding the working classes as fellow workers, not as commanding the working classes from above.

Fine. I'll do it for you. From your source. Checks support your assertion, Xs do not.

✅A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 66% of Armenians thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, the highest of any country surveyed

❌A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 31% of Azerbaijanis thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 44% who thought it was beneficial.

✅Belarus is complicated but currently leans your way

❌In a 2017 survey, 75% of Estonians said the dissolution of the USSR was a good thing, compared to only 15% who said it was a bad thing

❌A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 33% of Georgians thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 37% who thought it was good.... Other polls mentioned, same results

🟰2013 Gallup survey showed that 25% of Kazakhs thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 45% who thought it In a 2016 survey, around 60% of Kazakhs above the age of 35 believed life was better under the USSR.

✅2013 Gallup survey showed that 61% of Kyrgyz thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 16% who thought it was beneficial.

❌ In a 2017 Pew survey, 30% of Latvians said the dissolution of the USSR was a bad thing, while 53% said it was a good thing.

❌In 2017, Pew survey showed that 62% of Lithuanians believed the dissolution of the USSR was a good thing, compared to 23% who said it was a bad thing.

✅ A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 42% of thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 26% who thought it was beneficial.

✅ A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 52% of Tajiks thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 27% who thought it was beneficial.

❌ A 2013 Gallup survey showed that only 8% of Turkmen thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, the lowest of any country surveyed, compared to 62% who thought it was beneficial.

❌ A September–October 2022 poll by the Razumkov Center found that nearly 90% of Ukrainians did not want to restore the USSR.

❌ However, in 2016, only 4% of Uzbeks believed life was better under the USSR.

✅ And Russians do in fact want their empire back.

I argue that class is inevitable under any form of administrative government. the goal is to tie ultimate power to the will of the people.

Then you're disagreeing with the way all Marxists and even liberal academics define class: which is relation to production, and you're also completely wrong that power is divorced from production, or surplus value.

The differerence between capitalist and socialist countries is the control over this surplus. US capitalists control production, the surplus, and have a puppet government enact their interests against those of its workers. Its members unilaterally decide how to use that surplus.

The PRC has the major key industries nationalized, and in that sector surplus can only be controlled by democratic decision-making, not the whims of private capital. No member of the NPC can unilaterally decide how to use that surplus in the same way a private capitalist in the US can.

A limited, restricted private sector of capitalists also exists, but they do not stand above political power, have no enshrined rights, and must follow the dictates of the worker state.

Cool, now break it down by population totals rather than pretending each country has an equal population. Further, it's important to separate those raised before and after the dissolution of socialism, not just looking at population totals, where later polls have more people born after the dissolution and more people who lived in it dead and no longer able to answer.

The USSR was not a "Russian Empire," lmao.

Socialism is a transition between capitalism and communism where social ownership is the rising aspect of society and the working class runs the state. Communism is a fully collectivized global economy. Neither socialism or communism require everyone to be "good."

How about you do it this time 🤣.

You set the terms, you delivered the source, I just parsed it in exactly the way you originally started it should be. Move your own goalposts and do your own math.