You're downplaying the systemic proliferation of neo-nazi groups like Azov in Ukraine, and the west's collective complicity in creating the conditions for that.
Yep, good point. Thankfully solar and other supplies are being given to Cuba in large quantities, but this is a return to special period style intentional misery.
Why is that surprising? Ireland is sometimes better, I would suppose, but Sweden, Ukraine, UK, Canada, Japan, Iceland, and Hungary are all pretty damn right-wing and pro-imperialist.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45041279
Stolen from r/Marxism_Memes
Free Palestine.
Stolen from r/Marxism_Memes
Check their modlog, they were banned for being a bigot.
It has some anti-features that make it worse IMO, like the social credit score "feature," not to mention the right-wing and anti-communist views of the lead dev.
Just agitate in communist and other anti-imperialist communities on reddit, not on reddit in general, for now. The liberals usually flock to Lemmy.world anyways, leftists tend to go to left instances like Hexbear.net or Lemmygrad.ml.
Depends on the instance.
You're also missing the vital context that it was the soviet union being right next door, with their massive expansions in social safety nets, that forced western countries into capitulating to worker demands. It also misses that these safety nets in western countries are funded by imperialism, creating a domestic working class with class interests aligned with imperialism, rather than against it.
Mao was referring to Krushchev, not Stalin. Mao supported Stalin, but opposed Khrushchev's line that class struggle had ended in the soviet union, when it hadn't. This led to some of the worst foreign policy by the PRC, such as supporting Pol Pot over Vietnam, and siding with the US over the USSR. Comparatively, the USSR continued to be firmer anti-imperialists. Mao was correct about the snake Khrushchev, and Khrushchev did introduce reform that led to the weakening of socialism, but neither the PRC nor the USSR were imperialist, and the split was a major error.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43729189
Stolen from r/marxism_memes
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
Stolen from r/FalloutMemes
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43730786
Often times, Marxists use the term "material conditions," and "dialectics." What does this mean? Why do Marxists care so much about material conditions? The answer is that Marxists seek materialist explanations for observed processes as opposed to idealist, and do so dialectically, as opposed to metaphysically. In other words, Marxists apply dialectical analysis to find materialist explanations for phenomena. Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the proletariat as a class, and serves as the most vital ideological tool for overthrowing capitalism.
In order to understand dialectical materialism, we need to understand its component parts, materialism and dialectics, and their historical predecessors, idealism and metaphysics.
Idealism is, in short, to put ideas prior to matter. Idealism has been used by feudal lords to justify their position above the serfs, forming the ideological basis for feudalism. The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:
Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual
Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, "above," or "beyond," or "behind" what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.
Common idealist arguments are appealing to a supernatural "human nature," or "good vs. evil" explanations for processes. Materialism arose over time, as people grew to understand the world more deeply, and especially as a tool to overthrow the feudal aristocracy that justified its existence via the church. In other words, materialism rose to help the bourgeoisie. The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:
Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.
The type of materialism that overthrew the feudal lords was still underdeveloped, and metaphysical. The bourgeoisie needed an explanation for why the feudal lords were illegitimate, but still needed to support their own static, permanent rule. This was called mechanistic materialism, for the bourgeois scientists saw the world as a grand machine repeating simple motions forever. Mechanistic materialism, therefore, makes certain dogmatic assumptions:
That the world consists of permanent and stable things or particles, with definite, fixed properties;
That the particles of matter are by nature inert and no change ever happens except by the action of some external cause;
That all motion, all change can be reduced to the mechanical interaction of the separate particles of matter;
That each particle has its own fixed nature independent of everything else, and that the relationships between separate things are merely external relationships.
This, of course, has proven false. History did not end with the dissolution of the USSR, despite what modern mechanistic materialists claim. Mechanistic materialism relies on metaphysics, seeing everything as a static abstraction, devoid of its context. It has no explanation for how new qualities emerge, and ultimately fell to idealism to explain the "first mover," ie "God." Dialectical materialism holds instead:
The world is not a complex of things but of processes;
That matter is inseperable from motion;
That the motion of matter comprehends an infinite diversity of forms which arise one from another and pass into one another;
That things exist not as separate individual units but in essential relation and interconnection.
This became remarkable for the proletariat, as it sees nothing as static, and therefore marks the eventual downfall of the bourgeoisie. Putting it all together, we get the following:
- Dialectical materialism understands the world, not as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which all things go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away.
In other words, when analyzing events and contextualizing them, we must always viee them as a struggle between the rising and the falling, the old and the new, for example the concentration of capital in markets and the rise in socialize labor.
- Dialectical materialism considers that matter is always in motion, that motion is the mode of existence of matter, so that there can no more be matter without motion than motion without matter. Motion does not have to be impressed upon matter by some outside force, but above all it is necessary to look for the inner impulses of development, the self-motion, inherent in all processes.
In other words, all movement is a result of contradiction. Your foot presses on the Earth, and the Earth presses back on you.
- Dialectical materialism understands the motion of matter as comprehending all changes and processes in the universe, from mere changes of place right to thinking. It recognizes, therefore, the infinite diversity of the forms of motion of matter from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher.
In other words, dialectical materialism recognizes that development exists as a change of quantity into quality. Addition or subtraction gives way to qualitative change. A balloon is filled with air, until at a given point it pops due to pressure buildup. Water goes from liquid to gas at its boiling point, and back into liquid when cooling down to said point.
- Dialectical materialism considers that, in the manifold processes taking place in the universe, things come into being, change and pass out of being, not as separate individual units, but in essential relation and interconnection, so that they cannot be understood each separately and by itself but only in their relation and interconnection.
In other words, everything is connected, and must be analyzed in context to truly understand it. A worker isn't just an individual, but instead part of a social class of many workers. Wages are not something invented brand new every time, but instead are set by societal standards, controlled by the ruling capitalist class.
Karl Marx created dialectical materialism by turning Hegel's idealist dialectic into a materialist one. Then, he applied it to the progression of society, creating historical matetialism. By analyzing social structures and progress as a dialectical process based in materialism, we can learn from history and analyze where it's going. This is scientific socialism in progress.
If you keep these in mind, you can do your own dialectical materialist analysis. Always seek explanations based on the material, not the ideal, and always do so by contextualizing the processes, analyzing their contradictions, the unity and struggle of opposing tendencies. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative development, and progresses as a result of the conflict or struggle of opposite tendencies. There's much more to dialectical materialism, but this should help serve as a simple overview!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43732471
Rest in peace, comrade.
For those who haven't read or seen Parenti speak, I highly recommend both the "Yellow Parenti" Speech and Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook both litanies against anti-communist mythos, an examination of the real successes and struggles in the USSR, and an analysis of fascism.
Michael Parenti's Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media has always been better than Manufacturing Consent. Considering Chomsky's appearance in the Epstein files as being good friends with billionaire pedophiles, On Chomsky is also a fantastic read for why the left should reject him.
Parenti has turned countless westerners into Marxists, and was vital in my own journey to the left. May we carry on his legacy.
Rest in peace, comrade.
For those who haven't read or seen Parenti speak, I highly recommend both the "Yellow Parenti" Speech and Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook both litanies against anti-communist mythos, an examination of the real successes and struggles in the USSR, and an analysis of fascism.
Michael Parenti's Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media has always been better than Manufacturing Consent. Considering Chomsky's appearance in the Epstein files as being good friends with billionaire pedophiles, On Chomsky is also a fantastic read for why the left should reject him.
Parenti has turned countless westerners into Marxists, and was vital in my own journey to the left. May we carry on his legacy.
Thumbnail is Marx's manuscript for The German Ideology. Summary below is a compilation of my notes I wrote when reading Materialism and the Dialectical Method by Maurice Cornforth, along with general knowledge from reading various Marxist authors.
Often times, Marxists use the term "material conditions," and "dialectics." What does this mean? Why do Marxists care so much about material conditions? The answer is that Marxists seek materialist explanations for observed processes as opposed to idealist, and do so dialectically, as opposed to metaphysically. In other words, Marxists apply dialectical analysis to find materialist explanations for phenomena. Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the proletariat as a class, and serves as the most vital ideological tool for overthrowing capitalism.
In order to understand dialectical materialism, we need to understand its component parts, materialism and dialectics, and their historical predecessors, idealism and metaphysics.
Idealism is, in short, to put ideas prior to matter. Idealism has been used by feudal lords to justify their position above the serfs, forming the ideological basis for feudalism. The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:
Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual
Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, "above," or "beyond," or "behind" what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.
Common idealist arguments are appealing to a supernatural "human nature," or "good vs. evil" explanations for processes. Materialism arose over time, as people grew to understand the world more deeply, and especially as a tool to overthrow the feudal aristocracy that justified its existence via the church. In other words, materialism rose to help the bourgeoisie. The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:
Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.
The type of materialism that overthrew the feudal lords was still underdeveloped, and metaphysical. The bourgeoisie needed an explanation for why the feudal lords were illegitimate, but still needed to support their own static, permanent rule. This was called mechanistic materialism, for the bourgeois scientists saw the world as a grand machine repeating simple motions forever. Mechanistic materialism, therefore, makes certain dogmatic assumptions:
That the world consists of permanent and stable things or particles, with definite, fixed properties;
That the particles of matter are by nature inert and no change ever happens except by the action of some external cause;
That all motion, all change can be reduced to the mechanical interaction of the separate particles of matter;
That each particle has its own fixed nature independent of everything else, and that the relationships between separate things are merely external relationships.
This, of course, has proven false. History did not end with the dissolution of the USSR, despite what modern mechanistic materialists claim. Mechanistic materialism relies on metaphysics, seeing everything as a static abstraction, devoid of its context. It has no explanation for how new qualities emerge, and ultimately fell to idealism to explain the "first mover," ie "God." Dialectical materialism holds instead:
The world is not a complex of things but of processes;
That matter is inseperable from motion;
That the motion of matter comprehends an infinite diversity of forms which arise one from another and pass into one another;
That things exist not as separate individual units but in essential relation and interconnection.
This became remarkable for the proletariat, as it sees nothing as static, and therefore marks the eventual downfall of the bourgeoisie. Putting it all together, we get the following:
In other words, when analyzing events and contextualizing them, we must always viee them as a struggle between the rising and the falling, the old and the new, for example the concentration of capital in markets and the rise in socialize labor.
In other words, all movement is a result of contradiction. Your foot presses on the Earth, and the Earth presses back on you.
In other words, dialectical materialism recognizes that development exists as a change of quantity into quality. Addition or subtraction gives way to qualitative change. A balloon is filled with air, until at a given point it pops due to pressure buildup. Water goes from liquid to gas at its boiling point, and back into liquid when cooling down to said point.
In other words, everything is connected, and must be analyzed in context to truly understand it. A worker isn't just an individual, but instead part of a social class of many workers. Wages are not something invented brand new every time, but instead are set by societal standards, controlled by the ruling capitalist class.
Karl Marx created dialectical materialism by turning Hegel's idealist dialectic into a materialist one. Then, he applied it to the progression of society, creating historical materialism. By analyzing social structures and progress as a dialectical process based in materialism, we can learn from history and analyze where it's going. This is scientific socialism in progress. Human thought is shaped by our social experience, forming class consciousness and ideology. How we produce and distribute determines our ways of thinking.
Socialism and communism also have their own contradictions as well, and just because we progress on to socialism does not mean we cannot fall back to capitalism. The dialectical materialist world outlook understands that nothing is static, and there is always new contradiction and new movement from that.
If you keep these in mind, you can do your own dialectical materialist analysis. Always seek explanations based on the material, not the ideal, and always do so by contextualizing the processes, analyzing their contradictions, the unity and struggle of opposing tendencies. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative development, and progresses as a result of the conflict or struggle of opposite tendencies. There's much more to dialectical materialism, but this should help serve as a simple overview!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43729189
Stolen from r/marxism_memes
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43729189
Stolen from r/marxism_memes
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
Stolen from r/marxism_memes
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43728612
Stolen from r/Marxism_memes
The ROK has a more complicated geopolitical position. They are actively colonized by the US Empire, and have a government that carried over many of the former colonial elements under Japan. They voted the same way the DPRK did.