cfgaussian

Or they've been bullshitting you all along and you never should have believed them.

Don't believe everything you read in the MSM. The fact that they are "admitting" this should make you suspicious. It is possible that they are trying to divert blame away from the Zionist entity in the same way that they diverted blame away from the US for the Nordstream bombing by "admitting" that Ukraine did it (obviously we know that's bullshit).

You can see this humility and hunger for knowledge from the author here:

In this regard, we stated that we have much to learn and adopt for building socialism in Russia.

Agreed! It solidifies my belief that KPRF are on the right path.

Nothing major stands out.

I mean there are very minor things like:

And throughout the entire journey, we experienced no jolts or jolts.

Where you can tell that two different Russian words with similar but not identical meaning were just translated using the same word in English.

The original Russian says

И за все время пути нас нигде не дернуло и не тряхнуло.

Which literally would be translated as:

"And during the entire journey we were not jerked or shaken anywhere."

It's just a stylistic thing though so i wouldn't bother about it, it really doesn't affect the meaning at all. It's just a telltale sign of machine rather than human translation.

And anyway i don't speak fluent Russian, so i'm not the best to ask. I just have some basic reading comprehension.

"Believe X people but only those who hate their country and want to see it bombed."

Small correction to the translation:

In this passage:

This historical analogy was voiced at the forum by our delegation and was well received by the participants...

There is twice a mention of the "Second World War". This is a mistranslation. If you look at the Russian original it says "СВО" (SVO) which stands for "Специальная Военная Операция" (Special Military Operation or SMO) and refers to the war in Ukraine.

Incredible piece, full of some very astute and evocative writing. Thank you so much for sharing!

Some parts that particularly stood out to me:

Just ten years ago, the movement of cars, bicycles, and mopeds in Chinese cities often resembled Brownian motion, with limited observance of the rules.

Ok this was one just very funny. I think it still describes a lot of today's South-East Asia quite accurately.

"The Sinicization of Marxism for Russia is Leninism. Lenin is one of the most, if not the most, brilliant Marxist and political figure in world history. In its initial stages, the CPC, inspired by the successes and victories of the USSR, copied the Soviet model as much as possible, but quickly realized the futility of this approach. This isn't because Leninism, the Leninist model of socialism, is flawed. No, it's simply that Lenin developed them for Russia, for its culture, traditions, including its traditional economic structure. They are undoubtedly optimal and relevant for Russia."

This is an excellent insight. Leninism is "Socialism With Russian Characteristics". That is why it worked.

And even within Russia itself, depending on the time period, there have been completely different concepts of socialism.

We were taken to the birthplace of the CPC and Chinese War Communism (I'll return to this later). The delegation was literally immersed in that era. I had the distinct feeling that, in those wartime and postwar conditions, a different approach to economics and politics would have led to the collapse of the state. But while recognizing this, the Chinese, with Eastern wisdom, do not absolutize that model of socialism. They do not attempt to transplant that Marxism to new realities, [...]

Marxism has to adapt to the circumstances and needs of the time.

A model that may be necessary and correct in time of civil war or when there is a need for rapid industrialization in the face of imminent fascist invasion, might not be suited for a later time period.

During academic discussions, I saw similarities between the tenets of the doctrine of socialism with Chinese characteristics and Lenin's theory on the possibility of building socialism in a single country. Moreover, this idea is further developed to the point that socialism MUST be built in each country in its own way.

Yes! Copy-pasting one country's model of socialist development onto another's will not and cannot work. It must always be adapted to the specific local conditions and each country's unique historical and cultural characteristics.

At the same time, the shared ideology of Marxism brings countries and peoples closer together. It allows them to unite around the global goal of a just society. This dialectically develops into socialist globalization. Xi Jinping voiced this idea of new global governance as a counterweight to the global governance of imperialism.

And more than just uniting through shared global development goals, countries are also now uniting out of necessity in defense against the ravages of imperialism and neo-colonialism.

In general, ten years later, the Chinese remind me very much of Soviet citizens in the late 1970s. They are full of optimism and confidence. In some ways, they may seem naive, but in reality, they simply have a much better, clearer, more nuanced understanding of what is good and what is evil.

I believe here there is a bit of romanticization of the USSR. Compared to Soviet citizens in the 70s, i would say Chinese citizens today are far less naive and more worldly.

This is good because it serves to innoculate them against the western capitalist propaganda that so many Soviet citizens unfortunately fell for in the 70s and 80s.

Now Chinese people can not only see on TV and on the Internet the ugly reality underneath the glamorous facade the West puts on, but many of them can travel and witness the rot and decay of western society, particularly in the US.

This is thanks in large part due to the openness highlighted in the next passage:

And here comes the time to highlight the key difference. Modern China is by no means a besieged fortress, even if confident in its defensive bastions. The PRC has recognized its strength and its rightness. This strength is not so much military or even economic, but the appeal of its ideas, its way of life, its state, and its society to the peoples of the world.

China has recognized its strength. It has opened the gates and moved out into the world, eager to offer everyone a model for the most progressive development. Beijing is expressing its full readiness to assume its necessary share of responsibility for the universal well-being of humanity.

Of course opening up is not by itself enough to counter the West's propaganda. You also have to deliver material results, and China has:

One of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe, as well as the infamous events in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, was the appeal of the Western lifestyle to young people. [...]

But for the first time in history, it is now, and specifically, China that has become the world's leading economy. By 2030, the average Chinese citizen's standard of living will be no lower than the European average. And China's pace of development continues to impress.

Moreover we are or will very soon see an inversion of the dynamic that existed with the Soviet Union:

The situation is changing radically. Now Europeans and Americans will envy the standard of living in socialist China. It will be time for them to take to their squares, demanding socialist reforms in their countries.

However this also makes the situation very dangerous in that it makes it almost certain that the imperialists will be forced to resort to open war this time as a result of being defeated economically:

This makes the Chinese path even more attractive. And, incidentally, not everyone likes this. Global imperialism sees this as a threat, and a clash is seen as inevitable. This was repeatedly stated at various forum events. The PRC declares its readiness for such a clash.

In general, assessing the current state of society in China, I was reminded of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. Everyone understands the inevitability of conflict, they are preparing, trying to delay the outbreak.

Meanwhile, neighboring non-socialist Russia has been fighting for its interests against Ukraine and the entire NATO bloc for years.

I am also very glad to see that both China (both the CPC and Chinese society in general) and the KPRF are clear-eyed about this situation and about the role they each have to play in this global struggle:

Just as the CPC served as an important link between the USSR and China in the 1930s and 1940s, so too is the CPRF currently doing everything it can to unite the efforts of socialist China and, as yet, non-socialist Russia.

This historical analogy was voiced at the forum by our delegation and was well received by the participants. This analogy, apparently, has been accepted by China. The underlying theme of most of the speeches was that imperialism is rapidly degenerating into fascism, and Russia is the first country to directly encounter this new fascism during the SMO. Support for Russia's actions was unequivocal in the speeches.

Incidentally, this position was equally clear and unambiguous on Chinese television channels. In my view, all of this reinforced my confidence that the CPRF has adopted the correct position regarding the SMO.

It's good to see that the KPRF are not falling into the trap of dogmatism and understand that China still fundamentally follows the socialist path, even if the specific implementation today looks different than it did in the past:

The modern ideology of the PRC does not contrast the periods of China's development, but rather unites all paths and breakthroughs into a single great path. This path is also proposed for the entire modern world through the "One Belt, One Road" initiative toward a "Community of Shared Future for Humanity."

And this was a great quote to end on:

"Marxism is a river. Its waters vary at different times and in different places. But no matter how historical terrain changes its course, it always flows in the same direction and is capable of overcoming any obstacle."

What goes around comes around. The US does it to Russia all the time, why would Russia not respond in kind? Russia has been warning for years that there would be a response to Western participation in the aggression against Russia, even if the response did not come right away and would be assymetrical.

The first part is probably true. Though i think they may have mixed in a few of the newer weapons here and there. The second part is definitely true. There is no way for the US production of interceptors to keep up with Iran's missile and drone production. It is mathematically impossible given the nature of the interceptors and the state of US industry.

These teachers are heroes. I wouldn't even be able to breathe properly at 4,500m let alone teach at that altitude and do it with such enthusiasm and energy each day.

The Iranians, like the Russians, are far too nice and tolerant to these western media outlets. They are doing propaganda against Iran for the country that is attacking Iran. These people should not be allowed into the country at all. Not to mention they are all essentially spies too. If allowed to see or hear anything critical to Iran's national security they would immediately pass it on to the CIA.

I think this is crucial to break through, not for the sake of Imperial Marxists, but the people they preach to in the peripheries. They end up turning us into semi-Western people who are essentially- naive do-gooders.

Like the West is absolutely dominated by ideals. Eco stickers, consumer charity, the people who get most support and opportunities are those who are best well spoken, not those who do the most work

Well said.

It has almost completely diverged into more abstract analysis and historical materialism (it has to be said that many cases it produces rather good analysis), but it mostly stops there.

I'm going to have to disagree with your statement in the brackets there. When theory is alienated from praxis, the analysis it produces cannot be good. And you correctly identified this problem of the lack of experience in actual revolutionary practice:

Marxism in the west has never exercised political power and consequently a lot of the western critique against the east is based on the inexperience of using the tool of dialectal materialism in revolutionary practice.

It is in fact precisely because western Marxism has been divorced from the praxis of class struggle and the struggle for production for so long that it has degenerated to the level it has. This is why we observe the reformist and/or dogmatist-sectarian tendencies that we do in western Marxism.

"Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice, and from it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment." - Mao Zedong

And when the theoretical analysis is incorrect yet unable to be corrected because it is assumed that the theory cannot be wrong (since it is "pure" and academic), instead all sorts of other excuses start to be made, and you get splintering or demoralization or chauvinism, which leads to further failures in achieving practical victories. So this becomes a self-reinforcing failure spiral.

Just a minor correction. I agree with the rest of your comment.

It is true that socialism and the caste system are fundamentally incompatible. But the question is which needs to come first? Do you first have to get rid of the caste system to have a socialist revolution or do you need a socialist revolution to get rid of the caste system? A sort of chicken-and-egg problem, if you will.

I'm thinking here of historical examples such as the feudal-patriarchal social order that existed in pre-revolutionary China. Did the revolution require women to be liberated and feudalism to be abolished before it could happen or could the liberation of women and abolition of feudalism only happen once the revolution had succeeded?

In fact what happened was both essentially took place at the same time. The revolutionaries pushed for land reforms, women's equality and dissolution of the old aristocratic system and this in turn made the success of the revolution possible as it rallied more people to the cause and convinced them that this was the force which was fighting for their objective material interests.

Obviously this didn't happen overnight and it wasn't just willed into existence by having the correct ideological line and someone speaking the correct words. It took decades of real on-the-ground struggle, communists working alongside the people and to convince them of the necessity of these changes. People also had to experience what didn't work and didn't deliver on its promises, which in China's case was the nationalist path.

Perhaps India needs to experience first the failure of the neoliberal path.

To me the issue with the strikes, as i said, appears to be that they were defensive actions rather than offensive. The government tries to implement neoliberal policies which would harm the people and this provokes a response: people protest and try to mobilize to stop it.

The problem when you always play defense is that you can at most stall the enemy's advance, never roll it back. And eventually the protests weaken or die down and the government still implements the neoliberal reforms, even if slower or temporarily in a more diluted form.

The people need to start taking the initiative and organize proactively. Demands need to be made for something and not just against something. And this needs to happen under a sustained, long term, organized and ideologically coherent movement rather than a spontaneous, single-issue uprising.

This cannot be achieved without political organizations. Even if you have to organize clandestinely at first, until a critical mass is reached which the government can no longer suppress. Whether the material conditions are suitable yet for this level of organizing, given that as you said, there is still some growth, i don't know.

Maybe the country does need to first hit rock bottom or some kind of crisis before this becomes a real possibility. I hope not.

Another interesting aspect to consider is how will the geopolitical situation with the US empire on the decline and China on the rise affect the interests of the national bourgeoisie? Will they still be motivated to act as compradors or will they be forced to adopt a more sovereigntist line on national economic development?

I get that. It looks bleak right now. It looks very bleak in the West as well. In fact from my perspective it looks like we have far less revolutionary potential than India. We have our own religion of liberalism and western supremacism that is used to keep the people docile and aligned with imperialism.

But what we need to remember is that as the contradictions intensify the same tricks that have worked so far to fool the masses will at some point stop working. Simply because if this path continues the material conditions will be too dire and the contrast with the development path of countries like China will be too great and impossible to hide.

Even if false consciousness like nationalism and religion is still able to paper over the contradictions now, that will not be possible forever. Any system can at most only continue so long as it is possible to survive under it. A moment will come when the people will have no other choice but to develop class consciousness and rise up.

And if i am not mistaken i believe we have seen a few times in recent years some very big strikes/demonstrations take place in India involving farmers, right? This shows that there is some class struggle happening and the people understand how to organize. Only the problem is that so far these actions have been reactive rather than proactive.

As long as you are under the West's digital ecosystem, yes. That is why it is so important for countries to develop their own sovereign digital ecosystems like China has done and like Russia is starting to do.

Pathetic, sad display of bootlicking.