When you both sides the imperial hegemon slaughtering thousands and the resistance movement born from the slaughter you are doing imperialist propaganda.

That's an incredibly poignant post that deserves it's own thread.

every time

You have to be careful of the memes you consume. The entire point of this meme lies in disputing the existence of nuance, relying on the latter half of the meme to hook people who know not to trust the statements of a fascist/imperialist regime and pit them against the strawman being depicted. It's like an infection vector for radicalization.

🤡

State capitalism is not socialism, and it is not a friend of the working class.

Nuance is when you ride the fence so hard you get pregnant with a 2×4

You talk about black and white thinking in the same breath you talk about good and evil, which is some shit that isn't real. It's leftover christian DNA in our psychology, it's the long shadow of the church looming over our thoughts. There's no grand referee, there's no universal morality. There's just a bunch of animals trying to survive, and we make our own moral code, and we do so in the understanding that it's not about pleasing some absentee god but about living with ourselves.

Ironically, it's you who is thinking in black and white right now, in binary "good or bad, saints or sinners". You are, without meaning to do so I think, pulling a "he was no angel" about the country of Iran. We have to think relatively, not ideally, because there is no fixed good or evil: it's all defined by what's around it. Comparative analysis is all we have. In this context, between the US zionist axis of empire and Iran, Iran is indeed the "good guys".

"State capitalism" is not a thing

Sure buddy, sure.

Take it this way, then:

Socialism is when the workers are in control of the means of production. Supposedly, socialist countries accomplish this by the state being in control of the means of production and the workers supposedly in control of the state. But in reality, the workers are not in control of the state, so the workers are not in control of the means of production, and it's not socialism.

Out of curiosity who do you think controls the state in China? Do you know how the Chinese state is structured? Do you know how Chinese democracy and political involvement works? What sources did you use to study China, the Chinese government and China's democratic methods?

Out of curiosity who do you think controls the state in China?

Not the workers.

Respond the other questions, give us data, sources, speak with substance if you have any, unless you're just repeating propaganda, and you wouldn't do that, right?

So you're a troll? You are just saying things, you haven't investigated at all?

Get libs to stop reading The Atlantic
challenge: impossible

A contradiction to what? You can't just say something is a contradiction unless it's contradicting something else.

There's this one neat trick: Just call the communists fascist!

Now you can support foreign invasion and regime change as a proud member of anti-fa!

...Still won't oppose capitalism though.

Not so the problem of US imperialism if the leader of the other countries not wearing always this

The workers disagree with you

the contradiction is between the imperialists and their subjects. That's what they meant by the primary contradiction. It's a term from dialectics.

"On contradiction" by mao zedong is a good introduction to the concept

Well if you think that it's capitalism you think the primary contradiction in china is between the bourgeosie and the proletariat. Which of these control the state?

Seconding this, being a military guy Mao is very good at explaining big concepts in clear, simple language

I am familiar with On Contradiction, and I think it is a load of word salad.

As best as I can tell, people who have drank the dialectical materialism kool-aid fetishise the word 'contradiction' and use it in place of any number of more correct words and terms.

Imperialists and their subjects have contrary interests. Definitionally opposed interests, even. Things being opposed doesn't make them contradictory the way everyone uses the word.

You can legitimately say that US imperialism is the biggest problem in the world. You can't say the US imperialism is the biggest contradiction in the world because that doesn't make any god damned sense in English.

Try George Politzer "Elementary principles of philosophy" maybe? Its a term coming from Hegel, it makes more sense in german (Widerspruch literally means contradictory statement, e.g. parents might say "I don't want to hear a Widerspruch!" to their kids when they're refusing to cooperate).

I also don't know what you mean by "dialectical materialism kool-aid", it's a useful toolbox for analysing society not some belief system one professes. And yeah someone using that toolbox will use the names those tools are called by other people who use the same toolbox. If you don't use diamat, then the names won't make much sense to you. E.g. I had to present a math paper where the person destructed a graph into "blocks", and called that destructure a "blockade". Which doesn't make much sense, when we think of a "blockade" it's an obstacle, not something we want on our way to prove a theorem, but within this framework it's a tool that was used to find a certain type of graph within the larger graph and not at all an obstacle.

I also don’t know what you mean by “dialectical materialism kool-aid”

It seems to me that dialectical materialism is a tool for post hoc analysis of society that is useful for constructing narratives and not much else. I can't see that it is in any way useful for generating falsifiable predictions. Yet people call off-the-dome predictions "scientific" just because they have identified the two things that are in contradiction (TM).

If you don’t use diamat, then the names won’t make much sense to you. E.g. I had to present a math paper where the person destructed a graph into “blocks”, and called that destructure a “blockade”.

Yes words have different meanings in different contexts. "Blockade" has a common meaning and a different meaning in graph theory. But if you used it in its graph theory meaning unbidden in an online discussion thread that wasn't already about graph theory, and without introducing the context of graph theory into the conversation first, then I would say you are using the word incorrectly.

It seems to me that dialectical materialism is a tool for post hoc analysis of society that is useful for constructing narratives and not much else.

have you not heard of the russian and chinese revolutions or what am I missing here? Two of the largest nations in the world mobilised their masses, led them into war against the ruling class and won. They lead huge literacy and industrialization campaigns that allowed their nations to leapfrog most other nations and made them able to compete with europe and the us in terms of technological advancements. Their leaders, now famous worldwide, are thought leaders in dialectical materialism and how to apply it. As a more concrete example Marx successfully predicted the monopolisation of market segments for instance. Which was a wild prediction to make in the 19th century when every town had their own factories and competition among them was fierce.

Yes words have different meanings in different contexts. "Blockade" has a common meaning and a different meaning in graph theory. But if you used it in its graph theory meaning unbidden in an online discussion thread that wasn't already about graph theory, and without introducing the context of graph theory into the conversation first, then I would say you are using the word incorrectly.

You are free to do so of course, but there are quite a few people around who have read about imperialism and got the meaning behind the comment immediately, making an outright statement like "i mean contradiction in the diamat sense" seem superfluous to me.

Again, word salad.

The contradiction is between the increasing interconnection of production and distribution, and the concentration of the profits of this system into fewer and fewer hands.

In what way is the interconnection of production and distribution increasing? Why is that contradictory with the concentration of profits into fewer and fewer hands? Our systems of production and distribution have been getting increasingly complex since the middle ages and yet the concentration of wealth has certainly ebbed and flowed in time. In what way are you suggesting one affects the other?

The old system of imperialism is dying away,

This is not a profound statement. It has literally always been the case since society has existed. The system of imperialism in the city states of antiquity died and gave way to the imperialism of the classical empires, which gave way to the imperialism of the feudal monarchies, and then the nation states, and the colonial empires, and so on to the capitalist economic imperialism of today.

while the interconnected, post-imperialist world is rising

Post-imperial? I doubt that and you have provided no evidence that that would be the case. It seems to me that the economic imperialism of the Western nation states is in transition to some kind of fascist corporate techno-feudalist imperialism.

And again, how does this relate to the distribution of wealth and systems of production of distribution? It's not big and it's not clever to say they are related because the fact that everything is related everything else is basically axiomatic of the system of analysis. You have to point out how.

On Contradiction isn’t word salad

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

It doesn’t give answers, but it helps us find them.

Which answers, exactly? Because the answer always seems to be the downfall of capitalism and to be replaced by socialism and then communism. And when that continues to not happen, the response always seems to be "but it totes will, eventually." That isn't analysis, that's a teleological belief.

One thing can be true at once: Everybody Sucks Here

My knees are well calloused from excessive use. What can I say, im a pleaser. Gender not important.

Not a fan of Jill stein myself, but if all it takes is her sitting at a table with putin to make her a KGB spy, what does that mean for all the establishment losers that went to epstien island and have taken APAIC's money?

Why does no one address the issue of the cat not knowing if we are real?

For bonus points, support leftist movements that have never gotten proper traction and have never have had to face and deal with the reality of capitalist nations trying to topple them. Like anarcho syndicalism, or worker coops.

I saw a video where they explained that it was a thought experiment and there was no cat, box or vial of poison

no I'm not opposing communism just tankies!

calls anyone left of Biden a tankie...

You are a polish nationalist who has done no research on China and thus should stop speaking on it until you do

Going to respond to all your comments in one go here for ease of reading.

It is understandable to a degree that dialectical terminology can seem opaque if encountered without context, but dismissing it as word salad without engaging the framework is ridiculous. You entered a space built by communists, for communists, using the conceptual tools developed within that tradition, and then criticized the vocabulary without first learning the grammar.

Let's start with the simplest example of a dialectical contradiction: the relationship between worker and owner under capitalism. These two classes are not merely opposed in the sense of having different preferences. They are bound together in a single productive relation, yet their fundamental interests are antagonistic. The worker must sell their labor power to survive. The owner must extract surplus value from that labor to accumulate capital. This is not a logical contradiction like A and not-A. It is a material contradiction: two forces that coexist, depend on each other, and simultaneously undermine each other. This tension drives wage struggles, technological change, crises of overproduction, and potentially, revolutionary transformation. Chairman Mao's 《矛盾论》(On Contradiction) explains this, showing how to identify the principal contradiction in any given period and how secondary contradictions shift around it. Applying that method today, many Marxists argue that imperialism is the principal contradiction of our era. Not because empires vanish by fate, but because globalized production, financialization, and interimperialist rivalry generate concrete antagonisms: between core and periphery, between capital's global reach and national political forms, between endless accumulation and ecological limits. These are the material tensions that shape war, migration, debt, and crisis.

Your "critique" leans on an idealist expectation: that theory should offer tidy, linear narratives or falsifiable predictions in the positivist sense. But dialectical and historical materialism are not idealist schemas imposed on history. They are methods for analyzing the material basis of social life. Historical materialism starts from the premise that the mode of production shapes social relations, politics, and ideology, not the reverse. Dialectical materialism adds that these relations are not static but contain internal tensions that propel development. This is not post-hoc storytelling. It is a framework for identifying which contradictions are principal at a given moment, how they interact, and where leverage for change might exist. Chairman Mao's 《实践论》(On Practice) and Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific both emphasize that knowledge arises from material activity and that socialist theory becomes scientific when it grounds itself in the analysis of real contradictions, not moral aspiration.

Terminology matters because names define tools. Every field has its lexicon. Blockade in graph theory (as was already pointed out to you), work in physics, contradiction in dialectics. To reject Marxist terms in a Marxist space without engaging their defined meaning is equally as ridiculous as rejecting any of these other lexicons. The point is not obscurantism. It is precision. Contradiction in dialectical materialism carries a specific theoretical weight. It signals a dynamic, historically situated antagonism, not just any opposition. Using the correct term is how we avoid conflating distinct phenomena and how we build cumulative analysis.

For anyone seeking a structured introduction, the Chinese university textbook 《马克思主义基本原理概论》(Introduction to the Basic Principles of Marxism) systematically walks through these and more concepts with some concrete examples.

Finally, the charge that dialectical materialism is teleological belief shows a deep lack of understanding. Communism is not an inevitable endpoint guaranteed by history. It is a possibility opened by the resolution of capitalism's contradictions through conscious praxis. When developments do not follow a predicted path, the response of serious Marxists is not wait longer, but to re-examine the analysis. Was the principal contradiction correctly identified? Did secondary contradictions shift? This is scientific in the sense of being self-correcting, materialist, and grounded in practice, not in the positivist sense of generating lab-style predictions.

If you wish to engage dialectical materialism seriously, contemporary Chinese Marxist scholarship offers rich resources for seeing the method applied to current conditions. Journals like 《马克思主义研究》(Marxism Studies) and platforms like 求是网 (Qiushi Journal) or 人民网理论频道 (People's Daily Theory Channel) regularly publish analyses that apply dialectical materialism to issues from global supply chains to ecological crisis.

If you wish to critique dialectical materialism, we welcome that. But do so by engaging its actual concepts, its canonical texts, and its contemporary applications. Dismissing its language from outside the framework, in a space explicitly built around that framework, is again ridiculous.

How much control does the average worker have over the state? Practically none.

Who do you think controls the state in China? Do you know how the Chinese state is structured? Do you know how Chinese democracy and political involvement works? What sources did you use to study China, the Chinese government and China’s democratic methods?

For the sake of finding common ground, do you condemn, or commend Hamas?

A contradiction is what you call the relationship between two opposing forces. In this case, it's the opposition between the US/NATO/CaptialismInGeneral imperialist core and 'The Global South.'

It's like the contradiction between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' but the whole world

I don't think you do.

Neither. While violent resistance to Israel's abuses is very understandable and maybe even commendable, deliberately targeting civilians is not the way.

I'm also under no illusion that Hamas would be any less abusive if they were the ones with the power. If they had the ability to do so, they'd gladly commit genocide as well.

They're also, to some degree, themselves a tool of Israel, propped up by Netanyahu's regime in order to justify Israel's continued aggression, oppression, and war.

Just don't let your belief cloud your judgement and blind you to real nuance that actually exists. Which this meme is intended to try and convince you to do.