It’s fascinating to me how the same people who like to do purity tests for China or Vietnam claiming they’re not actually communist are also the ones who’ll defend places like US or Canada saying yeah it’s not perfect, but it’s the ideal of the system that matters.
It’s such an incredible example of cognitive dissonance. These people able to recognize that their own system doesn’t live up to the ideal they have in their heads, but still treat it as a valid interpretation of the idea, but when it comes to a system they dislike then the same logic doesn’t apply all of a sudden.
“China isn’t real Socialism because they have billionaires and corporations”
“Nordic Socialism is a better form of Socialism than Marxism-Leninism, because it’s democratic and happiness is high in those countries”
Meanwhile, China has democratic elections and scores high on citizen happiness, and the Nordic countries also have billionaires and corporations. China has a ML government, while the Nordic countries are capitalist. Make it make sense.
The “TL;DR” version of below is that it is not bad to have opinions of how other places do things. I agree with you. It is stupid to demand that other places do things while the place making those demands can’t even make good on those same things. I like that I have a right to free speech and many other rights. But it is also very true that the people and orgs with the real powers in the US give zero fucks about violating those rights. So pretending that we are “number one” while others are completely evil is stupid.
Hardest part I run into is trying to just simply get more of my liberal/progressive friends/co-workers to see the self-traps they set for anything changing (outside of “vote blue and stop trying to make it easier for the Republicans!”). I both catch the shit about how “evil the CeeCeePee” is and the Russia of it all. I don’t really care about what they are doing in the way that those I know do. They see me as being brainwashed (more or less even if they don’t say it out loud) for “always defending them.” But what they misunderstand is that I am not “defending” and just try to point out how they don’t really attempt to even see the other side and how they are not questioning why our outlets seem to sync up on shit. How those outlets treat similar things done by any AES or post-socialist nations vs the US or other Western nations. I am not in those nations and just really want for those friends/co-workers to simply get out of the headspace of being binary about it all. At which point I do find the post-9/11 push for war as a good point of reference as to how most of the US was super for it up until they weren’t.
I have plenty of things I don’t agree with or support in China/Russia/etc, but I also think that the US is the only nation I have any real reason to change. As it is the nation I live in, and it is not our place to be the sole voice of what everyone should do because we say so. We can somehow send so much money and weapons to “help” everywhere, but we can’t find fucking resources to fix our own home. Even if for some reason another nation did want us to “nation build” them. It would be a farce from the jump, as the poor and houseless in the US would be pissed off to see us make that other nation in any way better than the poorest part of the US. So it means that our efforts need to be in putting our home in order, and try to help out and work with other nations (when they actually ask for it and not by force) after. Having opinions are fine and can be helpful, but they don’t if they are just “they need to do it our way or no way.”
There will always be things that one place does that other places will dislike. The best way to deal with many of those things requires that we unlearn the idea that we can only “fix” it by force. To be the best examples of how we would like to be treated by how we treat others. Which are nice words that lots of people of the whole class spectrum say in some form to appeal to their populaces (while most certainly acting otherwise). I think that socialism/communism are the most realistic ways to actually put those words into practice (though I will be fair to say that many real revolutionary anarchists do truly wish for this as well even with real differences in how to do it). While also requiring the most effort from each person to be alert enough to keep watch for regressions and bad faith actors that try to use the revolutions for greed.
This is actually another interesting aspect of the whole thing. People keep dredging up how bad things were in USSR, or how authoritarian China is today, etc. as if people are proposing just mindlessly replicating that kind of a system in the west. It’s a really naive argument because each country is uniquely shaped by its culture, history, and its material conditions.
USSR was the way it was because of all the factors that was present when it was created. China is the way it is because of its conditions. It’s a fallacy to nitpick negative aspects of these systems and fear monger about them. The reality is that if there is ever a serious socialist movement in the west then it will necessarily be rooted in western culture, history, and the conditions that are present in the west today. It’s going to be a unique project with its own positive and negative aspects.
When we point to USSR or China as examples, we’re not saying that we just want to copy that. We’re showing the positive achievements these systems accomplished that we too could accomplish by learning from their experience. However, as long as people keep refusing to even learn about these systems then no positive change is possible.
What’s weird to me is that China and Vietnam’s turn towards a market economy is usually framed as a betrayal, especially by other socialists. The way they portray it, it’s as if the CPC or CPV are secretly neoliberals behind closed doors. All the debate over reforms in either country was apparently just an insincere and cynical grift. You’d think listening to these people that China and Vietnam didn’t lift millions out of poverty through their economic policies.
It’s especially baffling since we can look to the USSR where the revolution and working classes were genuinely betrayed. The net consequence was a massive decline in living standards for working people. That is decidedly not what happened in China and Vietnam.
I get the impression is that what it ultimately comes down to is that admitting this requires also admitting that better things are indeed possible. The whole mantra in the west is that yeah shit sucks, but everything else is worse, so let’s not rock the boat too hard. Hence, most of the western left is invested in reformism. Admitting that China or Vietnam actually work the way it was intended means having to accept that ML approach was correct all along, and that western left has shat the bed.
I do suspect that part of the problem is better things are not currently possible in a western context. As such, the western left finds itself searching for that one weird trick which will spark off a revolutionary movement. This search inevitably leads them away from historical materialism and towards idealism.
I do think this may be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy though. Since people feel that better things aren’t possible they’re not trying to work towards them. If we look at the way the right has been organizing, it’s pretty clear that there are a lot of people who are disillusioned with the western political mainstream. These people could be educated and recruited into a communist movement if there was active organization happening. The main problem that I see is that a lot of people on the left are rejecting effective methods for building a movement that have been proven in the past as being authoritarian.
They are really hooked over the weird idea of “hiding the power level”. For them, socialist governments consequently realising plan of building socialism are the hidden neoliberals, while succdems like Bernie, consequently participating in imperialism and neoliberalism are real socialists who only wait for finally being in power to suddenly push the communism button (and they also accuse us ML’s of being “blanquists”).
Yeah it also comes up during election cycles in the US. If you say you don’t want to vote Democrat, you might hear someone say that you shouldn’t focus on purity and vote pragmatically™.
Of course they are either unable to understand that there are different politcal aims at play, or they are trying to extort you.
When the “Republican friend” tries to suggest a moderate or alternative dem for “pragmatic purposes” it’s often taken in bad faith. RFK Jr is a decent example of this today, a lot of Dems hate him because he sucks and is an obvious grifter. But if a communist or some other ‘lefty’ doesn’t want to vote for Democrats, they are selling everyone out to Trump because of a dangerous lack of pragmatism.
I don’t like to speculate as a matter of principle, but given what I’ve seen in my own evolution and what I can see traces of in some others, I suspect fear underlies a lot of it, as well as pride; fear of the implications of what it means and pride in not wanting to lose the idealized self image of western supremacy. If the US, for example, is genuinely terrible to the core on a fundamental state foundation level, that means a lot of pretty big change is necessary and change can be scary. And further, if a place like China or Vietnam is actually just a genuinely better system on a fundamental level and has better QOL for its people, that means the west is not only not superior, it’s not even on an equal level of political competency. Instead, it’s actually lower and in the capitalist caste socialization of “everything is a rung on a ladder,” that means the west is part of the “gross/bad class.”
People don’t have to see it this way though. They can see it as it’s not something to be afraid of, but a wakeup call that what’s being done is not working for most people and never has; they can consider the notion of major upheaval as an opportunity for fantastic expansion of the possibilities they’ve previously had presented to them, within which can carry drastic healing, improved quality of life, both personal and collective empowerment. They can also see the pride thing not as a designation of lesser nation, but as a designation of better or worse quality of life and empowerment and so on. It’s important that people unlearn the notions of it all being about caste, and who is and isn’t “superior.” Socialist projects doing better for their people are superior in the sense of quality of life, people power, etc., not in the sense of some colonizer-centric mindset of civil and savage.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Fear plays a huge role in this, and it’s generally what keeps people going along with the system even when they know it’s not working for them. Most people want their lives to be predictable, they might not like their jobs and their overall situation, but at least they know where their next paycheck and their next meal are coming from. You go in, do the work you know is expected from you, get your pay, and repeat. Losing that is really scary, and it’s a big part of the reason people tend to stay on at jobs they hate. A huge social change has a lot of unknowns associated with it, and people don’t want to take the the plunge to risk losing what little stability they have. I imagine this becomes many times compounded for people who have kids or other dependents they’re responsible for. I imagine this is why there’s the whole trope that older people become more conservative. The other aspect you mention is also important. Admitting that the system that oppresses you is not the best possible and that there are better alternatives out there is a hard pill to swallow.
I do hope that more people start looking at social upheaval from a positive perspective as well. I think we do need a vision of a positive future that inspires people towards change. This has to be the basis for an serious socialist movement. It’s not just about improving current conditions slightly, it’s about building a whole new society that’s more just and that empowers people to reach higher potential.
