I am a Marxist in China
Orthodox Marxists in the Chinese internet community often view Russia and Iran as weak links in imperialism, rather than as anti-imperialist forces .However, in the view of Chinese Marxists, opposing the global hegemony of the United States takes precedence over opposing secondary imperialisms (Iran, Russia).
The person in the picture is Yang Heping, a US citizen with a Chinese green card, and he is the most popular orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Maoist self-media figure on the Chinese internet (with 3 million followers on Tiktok and 800,000 on Bilibili). Yang Heping advocates that whether it’s Ukraine, Russia, or Iran, “the truth is on the side of the proletariat, not on the side of any government or capitalist.”
In China, those who unconditionally support Iran and Russia are usually nationalists or national leftists.
I wonder if the differences between the left-wing in Europe and America and the left-wing in China are really that significant?
When the sanctions on Iran end, and they’re allowed to participate in the global community like everyone else, then we’ll be fine criticizing them day and night; for now, they’ve been through decades of sanctions that have genuinely killed and hurt people. Here’s Giuliani literally excitedly telling people about how the sanctions on Iran are working and using as evidence people having to sell their organs and that men and women are starving:
https://x.com/MintPressNews/status/1575843136798347265
https://xcancel.com/MintPressNews/status/1575843136798347265
There’s a time and place for criticizing countries, and one that’s currently being starved to death needs support, not criticism. Gaza isn’t communist either, and I’m sure there are nationalists who support Gaza as well, but that doesn’t change the fact that at this time the people of Palestine need help and total support.
As a Marxist, does the fate of the people of Iran mean anything to you? Because as bad as the Iranian government is, in an existential conflict like what they’ve been put through for decades, now is not the time to oppose them. When America conducts attacks on the Iranian people, when they attempt to starve the Iranian people to death, when they do everything in their power to destroy the lives of the Iranian people, who do you think is pushing back against all that and trying to put a stop to it? It’s literally their government; there are no other forces protecting the Iranian people from this horrific imperialist violence.
As I said, when they are allowed to rejoin the global community and participate like everyone else, then we’ll be more than happy to criticize them day and night, but while the lives of the Iranian people is at risk, now is not the time.
As for Russia: they’re opposing Western hegemony, and the world needs a power in opposition to the West’s EXTREMELY active imperialism. Trust the people of the world when they vote that America is the greatest threat to world peace. Russia has a bad government, but they’re not starting wars and civil wars in Africa and the Middle East or murdering African leaders. Over the course of the last twenty years, America has killed literal millions of people around the world and destabilized countries horrifically. Iraq used to be one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East, and after this last war, the UN said Iraq had been reduced to a pre-industrial stage. France has literally tried to murder Traore tens of times.
In fact, virtually all Chinese adherents of Marxism-Leninism agree with your statement that “the primary cause of poverty and hunger among the populations of anti-American regimes is the blockade imposed by NATO, rather than oppression by the regimes themselves.”
However, a fundamental disagreement arises thereafter: Chinese Marxist-Leninists believe that the root cause of everything lies in capitalist relations of production—specifically, the private ownership of the means of production and wage labor. They argue that when a weak capitalist nation breaks through a blockade and gradually evolves into a stage of monopoly capitalism, it will inevitably become the next imperialist power—citing the Empire of Japan as an example. Consequently, they maintain that such regimes should merely be utilized by the Left as instruments, rather than being objects of loyalty.
I believe this stems from the differences in historical memory between China and Western nations; in reality, Western countries never established independent leftist states through revolution.
In Chinese history: The Japanese Empire justified its invasion during World War II by claiming to “oppose British and American colonialism in East Asia,” yet history proved them to be fascists.
Similarly, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek justified its resistance by citing opposition to “the Japanese Empire’s aggression and colonial rule in China,” even though they, too, proved to be fascists.
You hold the view that “no one but an anti-American regime can defend the Iranian people,” whereas Chinese Marxist-Leninists believe that “the victory of the Communist Party of China demonstrates that the people are capable of defending themselves.”
This seems like ignoring material conditions.
(this reads very weirdly, like it was written by AI or something; like a liberal asked an AI to craft something that sounds like what a Chinese Marxist might say in English)
If this is truly what they think, they should study other nations that broke away from colonialism and how they turned out; Algeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa didn’t turn into the next imperialist powers, they were simply liberated from their colonialism. Either way, there is no acceptable solution where abandoning the people of suffering nations (the Iranians for example) is the answer. Let them first be liberated and then we can deal with the fallout if there even is one.
That’s not what I said; The current Iranian government is the one they have, not the one we’d like but it is the current one, and they’re the holders of the military weapons to rebuff attacks against them, and the ones who have the military that has the training to resist occupation. America literally bombed water plants in Iran; the government was not able to stop that, so how would the people stop it? Genuinely what a very bizarre response; what are the people supposed to do when faced with one of the most powerful governments in the world going to war with them? Especially when both Israel and America admitted they have mossad traitors embedded in Iran and giving weapons to create armed groups in Iran, intending to try and fracture the country.
Libya had a socialist government that was also decentralized, but their decentralization wasn’t developed enough to do anything about being attacked by America back in 2011; the people had tons of power in Libya, but the US government is way too skilled at destabilizing and destroying countries for the people to win that battle.
Are you a liberal who’s been sticking prompts into AI? This response reeks of liberal thinking, with very unnatural dogmatic sentences tossed in.
因为我是用AI翻译的，我英语不好，如果你支持我用中文，你来翻译，那我非常赞同
我现在觉得和你们交流根本是浪费时间，今天热的要死，我还要不断的用AI翻译翻译我的语言来照顾你们的语言障碍，这完全没有意义，你觉得是什么就是什么吧
The translation isn’t the problem (besides which I can just translate everything you say via google’s translate function), it’s the dogmatic responses that ignore the real world situation and which reads like the thinking of liberals.
你爱怎么想就怎么想吧，你觉得我是自由主义者，那你说的对，我不在乎，如果这个网站觉得我是自由主义者要把我封禁，那就封禁吧
This site, ban you for being a liberal? HA! If we did that this place would be a ghost town. Were all liberals down here comrade. (I’m making a joke, you’ll be fine).
🤨