- cross-posted to:
- globalsouth@lemmy.ml
- china@lemmy.ml
- china@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- globalsouth@lemmy.ml
- china@lemmy.ml
- china@lemmygrad.ml
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“But CoMmunisT Chyna is out to plunder the gardens of Europe and North America and we have to stop them from it” -
There’s my president
I wish we had more Fidels and Guevaras in the world today. I don’t think they would be preaching peaceful coexistence with the capitalists. I don’t think they would be so naive as to think that you can peacefully coexist with capitalism. It will seek their destruction and they will be forced to change path from this one way or another.
I see it as an ideological mistake as large as democratic socialism is compared to revolutionary socialism. You can not expect them to not seek your violent destruction just because you played nicely. You have to seek revolutionary socialism because they will not allow a peaceful alternative. In the same line of thinking they categorically will not allow peaceful coexistence either, you have to seek revolutionary coexistence.
Thing is that revolutionary socialism can’t be imposed on others. I think that China’s approach of leading by example is the correct one to take. China does not seek conflict, and it does not seek to dominate countries, or to impose its values on them. However, China will defend its interests, and will push back when threatened. The capitalist world is tearing itself apart, and it will be up to the people living under capitalist regimes to find ways to build socialism domestically.
I didn’t say anything about imposing it. Supporting revolutions that come from the ground up within other countries is not imposition.
While supporting revolutionary movements is a principled stance, it necessarily leads to the formation of ideological camps, as demonstrated during the Cold War era. In a world where capitalism reigns supreme, socialists find themselves at a disadvantageous position. This was the predicament that the USSR faced, which made it an easy target for unification among capitalist regimes due to its threat to their collective interests. The Chinese approach, on the other hand, cleverly exploits this division by keeping the capitalist world fragmented and weak, allowing existing socialist countries to thrive without constant threats of annihilation.
Becoming a threat to their collective interests is an inevitable outcome whether they do or do not use their position to put a thumb on the scales of socialist movements around the world.
This is an unavoidable contradiction. At some point or another the collective capitalist world WILL see unify around it. Periods of socialist growth and socialist retraction are going to continually occur until the contradiction resolves itself. Socialists should do everything in their power during the growth periods so that the effect of the retraction periods are lessened.
Capitalist world is in a crisis now, and we can see anti capitalist movements only getting stronger around the globe. Meanwhile, BRICS is a perfect example of the division in the capitalist world. It’s a bigger economic bloc than the G7 now, and it includes a mix of capitalist and socialist countries. Something like BRICS would not be possible with an ideologically driven geopolitical position from China.
Furthermore, as the economic situation in the west continues to decline, we’re seeing people increasingly lose faith in the system. Western powers continue to weaken, and their ability to prevent socialist movements also weakens as a result. Recent events in Bolivia are a perfect illustration of this working in practice.
The contradiction is unavoidable, but it’s possible to create a situation where socialists will be the ones who have the upper hand.
The contradiction is unavoidable, but it’s possible to create a situation where socialists will be the ones who have the upper hand.
It is arrogance to believe that will always be the case. The same arrogance that the capitalists had in believing capitalism had won with the defeat of the USSR and that capitalism would always be in hegemony thereafter.
What China is currently doing has objectively accomplished more to derail global capitalism than USSR was ever able to. It’s not arrogance, it’s making tactical retreats to achieve long term strategic gains. As Lenin very eloquently put it:
To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted and complex than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to renounce in advance any change of tack, or any utilisation of a conflict of interests (even if temporary) among one’s enemies, or any conciliation or compromise with possible allies (even if they are temporary, unstable, vacillating or conditional allies)—is that not ridiculous in the extreme? Is it not like making a difficult ascent of an unexplored and hitherto inaccessible mountain and refusing in advance ever to move in zigzags, ever to retrace one’s steps, or ever to abandon a course once selected, and to try others? And yet people so immature and inexperienced (if youth were the explanation, it would not be so bad; young people are preordained to talk such nonsense for a certain period) have met with support—whether direct or indirect, open or covert, whole or partial, it does not matter—from some members of the Communist Party of Holland.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch08.htm
I think it’s probably actually better for the world that China isn’t painting a huge target on it’s back by supporting every single revolution everywhere.
The Soviet Union ran itself ragged with all the military spending, including to places that were basically socialist in name only to get weapons from them and it mostly resulted in a lot of violence and death and didn’t create any lasting communist governments for the most part.Beating capitalism by undermining the global economic systems seems a better way to go.