Amazing to watch libs slowly discover why there need to be limits on democracy. Maybe one day they’ll even understand why socialist states have a single socialist party in charge.

As far I’m aware, Anarcho-syndicalists don’t really provide a solution for changing the system as a whole. Meanwhile, Lenin focused specifically on achieving a socialist revolution. Lenin primarily dealt with the task of organizing and education the masses to create a revolutionary force that would be able to seize power from the capitalists. The two most prominent works I’d recommend starting with would be What Is To be Done? and The State and Revolution.

• https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
• https://redsails.org/witbd-rs-abridged/

That’s not what MLs actually believe, we have the concept of critical support. It’s the act of backing a cause, group, or individual while maintaining a clear-eyed critique of their flaws, contradictions, or harmful actions. It’s not unconditional endorsement but a pragmatic stance that balances solidarity with accountability.

Honestly, I find there’s a lot of overlap between Marxism and Anarcho-syndicalism, and I think this is essentially the correct way for the workforce to be organized.

What this has to with Russia defeating all of NATO, I have no idea.

The EU is firmly on the side of the jihadists in case anyone is wondering.

What’s it like living in the alternate universe you hail from?

Ukraine is destined to become a cautionary tale of Western promises. When nations ally themselves with the West, they are inevitably abandoned, handed a bill for broken vows, and left to pick up the pieces of their ruin. The primrose path leads straight to the gallows. The west has utterly discredited itself on the global scale.

updated the post to add it in

yup

a certifiable FAFO moment for Canada

It’s hilarious to watch this happen in real time. I’m guessing in a few months time they’ll be openly talking about the need to end the proxy war.

So you prefer a more centralised state that is still beholden to the will of the populace.

The mistake here is in treating the populace as being homogeneous. The reality is that capitalism creates classes. You have a class of people who own capital and use it as their primary source of wealth. These are factory owners, landlords, financial capitalists, and so on. Then you have a second class of people who do not own significant amount of capital and rely on selling their labor as their means of survival. That’s the working class. The state fundamentally represents the interests of the class that holds power in society, and a capitalist liberal state represents the interests of the capital owning class.

About China, and I’ll try to word this as unbiased as I can, from what I’ve seen it’s not a state known for complete freedom of speech.

The reality is that every society puts limit on freedom of speech and expression. There’s nothing unique about China in this regard. What makes you think that the west got this balance fundamentally right while everyone else got it wrong aside from the anchoring bias you experience by virtue of growing up in a particular society? It’s seems clear that China’s approach results in far more social stability than western approach.

The whole narrative of Chinese police stations has been debunked. It’s just another piece of western propaganda.

• https://www.mintpressnews.com/false-witnesses-sinister-plots-exposing-cia-connection-chinese-police-station-narrative/285021/
• https://thechinaproject.com/2023/07/20/transnational-repression-and-chinas-overseas-police-stations/

In contrast, people from the country I’m from openly defy and mock ourselves (a bit too much if you ask me).

People in western countries have the freedom of screaming into the void, but not the freedom to translate their grievances into tangible material change. As Eric Li put it, the biggest difference in the political systems between China and US is that in America, you can change the political parties but you can’t change policies. In China, you can’t change the party but you can change policies.

It’s also worth noting that centralization at high level is in no way at odds with local governance. I urge you to read this excellent article explaining how Chinese system encourages decentralized governance and grassroots organization https://www.noemamag.com/what-the-west-misunderstands-about-power-in-china/

Similarly, the government itself is also organized based on using grassroots structures as its foundation https://news.cgtn.com/event/2021/who-runs-the-cpc/index.html

Btw when you said “liberal democracy” I took it as a democracy where personal freedoms (speech, privacy etc) are respected at least to the point no one really complains about it.

Liberalism is an ideology with two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on individual freedoms, democracy, and human rights. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.

Liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights, over supporting ordinary people, which contradicts the promises of fairness and equality. Private property is seen as a key part of individual freedom under liberalism, and this provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. The talks of promoting freedom and democracy is just a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.

This is an excellent primer on the subject https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/

You are conflating the concept of democracy with the failed attempt at its implementation in the west. China is the obvious legitimate alternative today, based on the principles of democratic centralism, where the government actually works in the interest of the working majority and thus enjoys mass public support.

The main fallacy there is the idea that the west is a force for good in the world. The harsh reality is that liberal democracy being portrayed as the sole legitimate form of governance amounts to nothing more than modern-day marketing for colonialism, serving as a pretext for Western invasions and global atrocities masquerading as benevolent civilizing missions. This is precisely what the author laments under the guise of “noble ideas”.

The relevance of Europe stemmed from USSR being the main adversary of the US. Today, it’s clearly China and the US is very openly saying they want to pivot to Asia. In this scenario, normalizing relations with Russia and pulling out of Europe makes perfect sense. The US can’t be everywhere at once, and they have to prioritize now that they’re dealing with multiple peer adversaries in form or Russia and China. Europe simply doesn’t have the relevance that it used to.

NATO was created to keep Europe subservient to the US, but now there’s a rift in policy towards Russia. The US starting direct talks with Russia is a clear sign that from US perspective Russia is the more important player. Unless Europe knuckles under, then I fully expect the US to abandon it.

Furthermore, US pulling out of NATO will provide a big stimulus for the military industry in US, which will boost the economy that Trump desperately needs right now. Europe is already in panic and they’re talking about allocating vast amounts of money to defence. Given that Europe lacks any serious military industry, much of that money will go directly to US.

Another factor here, is that US is not terribly happy about the EU existing. Vance was pretty clear on that point at Munich. With NATO being gone, the US will have an easier time attacking the EU politically. The ideal situation from US perspective would be if EU broke apart and they could deal with individual countries from a position of absolute strength.

The notion that Russia will militarily occupy Europe is pure fantasy. However, what’s absolutely certain is that both Russia and the US will exploit the political chaos in Europe caused by collapsing living standards, a crisis Europe itself created. In a twist straight out of Greek tragedy, Europe’s fear of Russian domination has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Since 2014, and especially post-2022, the EU has doubled down on a strategy of sweeping sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and moralistic rhetoric in its crusade against Russia. Yet, now it’s Europe that finds itself politically isolated and with its economy collapsing. By cutting itself off from cheap Russian energy, Europe triggered a steep decline in living standards that left the neoliberal political center teetering on the edge. Sanctions intended to harm Russia have instead led to Germany’s deindustrialization, with giants like BASF now shifting production abroad. Russia, on the other hand, successfully pivoted toward the Global South, with major countries like China and India more than making up for any lost trade with Europe.

After three years of economic war, EU unity is finally starting to fray. Hungary and Slovakia openly defy the EU, Greece and Cyprus veto arms shipments to Kyiv, and that’s just the start. Populist parties across Europe are weaponizing economic pain into anti-EU sentiment. Elections in France, Germany, Czech Republic, and Romania all show nationalist parties steadily gaining momentum. This trend will only grow as the standard of living continues to decline.

Meanwhile, the US appears to have recognized the end of the unipolar order and has opened dialogue with Russia cutting Europe out of the discussion. Europe’s obsession has left it stranded, lacking the military might to resist realignment or the economic autonomy to chart its own course. Its survival hinges on abandoning its zero-sum vendetta and adapting to the new multipolar world. Unless the EU swaps moral crusades for strategic realism, it risks its own destruction.

This is a silly argument because actual real world communism has to be compared to other real world alternative we have available which is capitalism. By every measure capitalism has created far more horrors than communism has.

What people who lived in the Soviet union and other socialist states have to say:

• A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.

• The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.

• Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.

• A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -“during the time of socialism”. The survey focused on the respondents’ views on the transition “from socialism to capitalism”, and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito’s rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as “more or less the same”. 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions.

• 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.

• Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12u

• Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx

This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.

• https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cje/beac072/7081084?guestAccessKey=01c8dd9f-af1c-48b3-b271-eb5d3a45017c&amp%3Blogin=false