Gotta love gish gallop, a dash of outright lies, a good deal of completely inventing a new definition of Imperialism, and a large heaping of ignoring that you’re a genocide enthusiast that bats for the IOF for free, and thus isn’t worth taking seriously.

Absolutely. Not only was it genocide pre-October 7th, but now it has ramped up to spiking sugar with narcotics, opening fire on Palestinians running for aid, and so much more. Fuck anyone trying to play cover for the IOF.

Yep, if you check their history it’s filled with pro-IOF hasbara, I even think they’re debating in other threads today on if Israel is commiting genocide or not.

No, it was not. It did not export capital, nor was it under the control of finance capital. The Soviet Union wasn’t imperialist. Again, you’re deeply unserious, have no idea what you’re talking about, and are a genocide-denying Zionist sycophant for the IOF.

Among other things, comrades in PSL reporting record growth, Mamdani winning ovet Cuomo, and a shift from a ~14 point favor to “Israel” among democrat voters in 2017 to ~57 point favor to Palestine in 2025. The rate of growth is high, even if the numbers aren’t yet.

I gotta have revolutionary optimism. If I let doomerism take hold, I’d never be happy.

Correct ☭

Fair, but it also gives an opportunity for socialism and finally escaping this capitalist hell.

You never know, European Nationalism is on the rise, especially on Lemmy in recent months after that one Reddit drama.

Not really. The US Empire may have hegemony, but Western Europe is a willing participant in that imperialism, and is a major benefactor of it. When the nicer quality of life in Western Europe depends on the same system of imperialism that the US benefits from, it still requires vast exploitation of the global south.

Better to end imperialism in general and move on beyond capitalism to socialism, so humanity can finally begin to move forwards collectively.

How about we end not just US imperialism, but also European imperialism, once and for all?

As a socialist economy. The Party for Socialism and Liberation outlines what they believe to be a realistic course of development in their party program. But, in short, it means that the large firms and key industries should be nationalized (as well as the small and medium firms as those grow to levels that central planning works more effectively at), colonized peoples like indigenous and black Americans will take priority, decolonialism will be an important task, as well as working to eliminate imperialism as committed by the US.

A lot of that is easier than it sounds, the US can save a ton of its current productive capacity by nearly eliminating its massivrly over-inflated millitary expenditure, and focus its industrial capacity on re-industrialization, green energy, and necessary infrastructure improvements like high speed rail.

Democracy will also be extended to the economy. Local governments will have ballot initiatives that can be voted on, there will be strict control of private capital (as long as it still exists) with regards to political freedom and influence. The central government will focus more on economic planning, likely copying something like the Five Year Plan model, to ensure a cohesive and comprehensive shift from a heavily fossil-fuel and car-centric financialized economy into a green, industrialized, socialist economy.

Obviously, queer rights, women’s rights, and minority rights will be expanded and absolute. Education, healthcare, and even housing can be made eventually to be free at point of service. Employment will be expanded through government infrastructure programs, training, and other important factors for social mobility.

In rural and poor areas, there will be special attention. Impoverished communities will recieve massive infrastructure expansion, fixing, and job training so as to boost these economies and improve their life metrics. This will be similar to what China did to fix their gap in rural and urban development.

That’s all general, and fairly abstract, because it must be until we get there. Join an org like PSL. Read theory, here’s an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list I made, targetting radicalized but new leftists. A better world is possible! ☭

That’s a horrible misattribution of the famines in the early USSR and PRC, where famine was common before collectivization and industrialized farming. It wasn’t a misappropriation of food, but natural causes and a government ill-equipped to overcome the force of nature without industrialized farming. See why despite the early famines, life expectancy was consistently rising, unlike England where the introduction of industrialization caused a drop in life expectancy for a long time.

The “higher economic prosperity” in the global north is because of imperialism. African countries are no longer traditional colonies, but are largely imperialized by western countries. The global south does the majority of the labor and production, the global north does the majority of consumption. The fact that you don’t even consider that this is true means you likely have never actually engaged with Marxist theory (which, to be fair, was already obvious, just moreso now).

The “wall” hit by the USSR was an increase in liberalization, recovery from 20 million dying due to World War II, and having to devote a ton of resources to millitary purposes to prevent the US from nuking them outright. It wasn’t because of socialism inherently. Again, see the PRC, where there’s no “wall” in sight despite the economy being increasingly socialized.

The unions and labor movements in the global north also depended on the USSR as an example of what happens if concessions aren’t given. When the USSR fell, workers rights in the global north shrank massively and wealth disparity rose massively. And, again, they depend on imperialism! The socialist bloc produced for themselves, their positive acheivements didn’t depend on imperialism, but their own labor. Not true at all for the global north.

Again, you’re deeply unserious. You have no clue what you’re talking about. If I heard from 3 family members about how Biden is an ultracommunist and Trump is going to save the world, that doesn’t mean shit. What matters is looking at the facts, statistics, trends, and metrics.

Edit: lmao, of course you’re a genocide denier that supports the fascist Zionists. No wonder you don’t factor in imperialism, you think it and settler-colonialism are good things. You bat for the IOF for free and say they are doing a good job of minimizing their genocide.

I don’t actually agree with the theory of brainwashing, it’s closer that imperialism and settler-colonialism contributed to a largely reactionary working class. However, now that conditions are deteriorating, the working class is still becoming more radicalized.

Not only do Marxists have theory, we also have practice. Practice doesn’t look different from theory, actually, you’d know this if you actually understood that Marxists reject the perfect utopian wonderland from earlier socialists like Robert Owen. There is diversity in opinion, spirited debate, and many different perspectives. The bourgeoisie is indeed oppressed, as they should be. Socialist states do indeed have prisons. The “millions of deaths” you hint at, in reality, corresponds to far fewer deaths than the victims of liberalism and capitalism.

I have spoken with people that grew up in socialism, and current citizens of socialist countries like the PRC. I don’t rely on anecdotes for my stances, I read historical texts, statistics, track metrics, and engage with theory and practice. I don’t care who your family member is, I can find Flat Earthers or those who think the US is the greatest country on the planet. What matters is the actual, on the ground facts.

Industrialization in a planned fashion, with a direct focus on uplifiting the proletariat, was the cause of uplifting from poverty. Without Marxism, using England as an example, capitalism skyrocketed poverty. The working class had it far worse than as independent peasants for a long time, life expectancy dropped, and it was only when the proletariat began to organize violently did concessions come and begin to eventually surpass feudalism in England. In socialist countries, the impact was immediately positive.

You’re deeply unserious.

Communist organizing is increasing more rapidly than ever before, with the exception of the CPUSA back when it wasn’t revisionist and had genuine backing from the USSR. I don’t see a civil war, unlike the US civil war there aren’t two competing forms of labor and production (agrarian slave owners vs industrialist bourgeoisie). I do see the US Empire collapsing, hopefully via internal revolution during crisis but it may be that the US realizes that trying to re-industrialize under capitalism while depending on the financial profits of imperialism isn’t going to work, and instead takes on a more state capitalist economy like South Korea to force re-industrialization while maintaining bourgeois control.

I don’t think the latter would work, either, mind you. The US is thoroughly subservient to imperialist financial capital, it has all of the control. Re-industrializing can’t work when Chinese commodities are so much easier and cheaper to produce thanks to its advanced industrialization, the US would need to go into hyper-tariff, state planning mode and that would go directly against its current hegemonic position as a debtor country flooding the world with US dollars.

Honestly, I don’t know. Decay is the only thing I can really see as nearly certain. I do think we are approaching the weeks where decades happen, as Lenin put it.

Join an org like the Party for Socialism and Liberation!

1. No, political theory is not the same as religion.
2. No, there are no sacred texts in Marxism. One of the key elements of Marxism is Dialectics, it’s an ever-evolving theory. One of the more important works is Oppose Book Worship.

Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, “Show me where it’s written in the book.” When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from “a higher organ of leadership” but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.

3. No, Marxism does not promise “paradise on Earth,” in fact it directly tackles the Utopians that tried to make such a paradise, like Robert Owen and Saint-Simon.
4. No, it doesn’t have “superficial pseudoscientific trappings.”
5. No, it has succeeded in lifting billions out of extreme poverty, ended famines common to feudal countries like nationalist China and Tsarist Russia, and more. Meanwhile, liberalism created industrialized mass-murder in the Holocaust, caused Chuchill to divert food from India to the deaths of millions, has created the conditions for mass murder, genocide of Palestinians, and so much more. The death toll of liberalism, both by ratio and in total, far surpasses Marxism and it isn’t close.

You’re deeply unserious.

The former is partially true, (though not intrinsic to socialism, but the unique flaws in the later years of the soviet system), the latter, no. The large majority of the people supported the system and wished to retain it until the very end due to the social instability at the time, and the larger majority regret its fall. The “internal contradictions” were the liberal reforms that added elements embodied into the system that worked against a collectivized and planned economy.

The soviet economy was relatively strong, but towards the end because of liberalization, as well as problems from needing to dedicate a large proportion of production to millitarization to keep parity with the US, it began to decrease the rate of growth that was so rapid earlier on.

More importantly, it’s absolutely true that the dissolution of the USSR was avoidable. The mistakes made by the soviets towards the end don’t need to be repeated, we can learn from what worked so well with the socialist system while also not repeating their mistakes. The torch is carried on by countries that have learned, like Cuba, the PRC, etc.

Marxism is a science, and is improved through practice.

This is true, liberalism is the superstructure of capitalism. The big difference in the US is that historically, for workers, land was promised to settlers for dirt cheap if they were willing to kill indigenous Americans for it. This settler-colonialism meant that there was a lot of upward mobility for white USians. Now that the US is in the modern era, it supports itself mostly via imperialism, which bribes the upper segment of the working class into support for the system, and this viewpoint permeates to the middle section.