Like the title says, I'm new to Marxism and have only read a couple works relating to socialism. I don't think I know enough about Marxism to firmly define myself into any "type" (although council communism sounds pretty interesting.) Second Thought and Yugopnik are what got me into Marxism, but more recently I've been listening to Socialism For All's audiobooks and reaction videos while driving. In his reaction video to The Deprogram's China Episode, he makes some interesting points about how China could become "social imperialist" and succeed the US/NATO as the new imperialist global hegemon, among some other things. From an outsider's perspective, I don't consider the current China socialist because of the fact that private property and many other capitalist elements still exist within it, but I do appreciate how much it has been able to develop over the past few decades, like poverty reduction and massive infrastructure projects that wouldn't be possible with typical liberal democracies. People excuse the private property and "restricted" capitalism as necessary evils until China has the conditions to create socialism, but I have doubts about whether China's still even working towards socialism or whether the Chinese proletariat actually hold power over the bourgousie. China doesn't support communist movements internationally, and the liberalized economy has gone on far longer than the NEP in the soviet union despite both being created for the same reason, and I can't seem to find a good reason why it's lasted this long. (I also have concerns about privacy and the fact that access to the outside internet is restricted, although that's not really related to this topic.) I'd stumbled across this reddit thread a while ago, and while I know reddit isn't the best place for serious discussion, I think that the person in the video does make good points, as do the people in both the r/TankieTheDeprogram and r/ultraleft threads and I honestly don't know what to think or who to take seriously in that discussion. I would appreciate if anyone could give me a genuine response to these concerns, thanks.
Edit: Thank you all so much for the responses! I've learned quite a bit reading them, although I haven't had a chance to check out the links people have sent yet. I'll try to update this post with any new questions and respond to comments whenever I have time.
It's a good clarification to make since I didn't really explain what I meant, the adversaries of people like S4A making completely boneheaded cases is the entire problem with this whole scene. Since they've gone through such an extensive process of elimination
Here is The Deprogram hosting a completely insane Russian leftcom (anticommunist) to talk about how the Ukraine war is heckin imperialist Russian fascism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J65So9Ub-w0
When I get done watching this stupid Chapoid Deprogram video about China in the middle of the night I will explain why it sucks as well
I'm just tired of none of these people even listening closely to their own shows. I find the same shit every time. You guys actually have reactionary programs being posted on this side of the fediverse constantly & I'm too tired to explain since people just make Zizek glazer-esque "they radicalized me" excuses. No they didn't
That episode is where they lost me. Up until then I really thought they were a solid podcast, despite their flaws. But to me it is inexcusable to choose to platform a representative of a tiny minority of contrarian ultra-leftists over any one of tens of thousands of actual Russian communists, the overwhelming majority of who support the SMO and supported it before it even started. It is indicative of deeply entrenched western leftism on the Deprogram that they never thought of asking a communist from the Donbass who actually lived through the eight years of being constantly shelled and attacked by fascists to come on their program and explain the pro-SMO viewpoint, or give some insight into how the people of the Donbass view the Kiev regime. That is the very least you should do if you want to do the liberal "both sides" thing. You owe it to your audience to at least hear the side out that most Russian communists support, but they didn't even do that.
I still listen to a lot of people I have profound disagreements with if they have highly developed their field of study (not just to keep tabs on them and get mad ╭( ๐_๐)╮ ive been in recovery from that for years, thanks to D&HM). My issue with most of these Chapoids is they're simply regurgitating the same-old-same-old mainstream & popular alternative media stuff, and doing a teensy bit of media criticism to put their own spin on it. They don't move away from the premises that the US uses to enforce "realism" and hide its objectives (even from Iran and Russia partly) + true nature of its political control over "allies". So, they're not actually bringing underlooked global events, new angles, or sharp theoretical analysis to the table. They focus on making their audience feel like they have friends, which is really grating in the same way an AI trying to be nice to me is (like seriously stop it)
Guerrilla History or maybe Revleft (isnt it the same guy lol also he was in that fake psyop Misha girl's server along with FalconryFinance #hornyoldmen #IYKYK) did something similar where they platformed the one singular group of Ukrainian communists who hadn't been tortured to death, who explicitly say on their website they don't GAF about Donbas & Luhansk.
The underlying issue here is none of these people understand dependency theory! They're still working with economistic metrics dressed up as unequal exchange when the good part of that field has been using a much finer comb for years
Do you have some reading for dependency theory? I keep encountering it in contexts that assume the reader is already familiar.
What is D&HM?
Dialectical & Historical Materialism (I assume).
Ah, gotcha. That makes more sense.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: