The reason the red scare existed was because the western capitalists were terrified of the revolution spreading to western Europe and the United States, which was extremely likely in the early 20th century. As such, all manner of censorship of Russian-language news, theoretical texts, reporting, etc. became the norm, and what was deemed acceptable to the capitalists was extremely filtered media, either from opposition in the USSR itself, or from western reporting, complete with what we now recognize as propaganda.

The truth is that the USSR was extremely functional. It delivered consistent results for the working classes, and in so doing doubled life expectancies, brought mass literacy and industrialization, dignified the soviet people, and much more. The west had to rely on a combination of fabrication, exaggeration of real issues, minimization of real successes, and other tried and true methods to invent an alternate reality version of the soviet union. Journalists like Anna Louise Strong, that supported socialism and reported on it honestly, were censored.

The red scare existed because porkie was terrified of a system that stood to steal from under their feet the very foundation they set up for their total reign.

Marxism-Leninism is dangerous to the ruling class because it’s true, understands the world in an actionable way, and stands to end all of class society.

You’re confusing the way people behave in some forms of organization with the way people behave in all circumstances and forms of organization. The idea of a universal human nature that exists in static form, outside of its context, is idealism, ie an appeal to the supernatural. Further still, socialist governments and parties have all been very large, the CPC for example has 100 million people.

I don’t personally take much stock in fiction as a means to explain reality. Orwell was an anti-semitic British fed that kept a list of Jews and communists. His projection in Animal Farm and 1984 are taught in western schools for the very reason you are reminded of them, to discourage socialist organizing at a young age.

Read when you gain interest! If you force yourself, you won’t retain any of it, or you’ll take the wrong message.

Yep, right here, I believe.

Loving your Parenti-series of posts as of late! For anyone that hasn’t read or listened to the late Michael Parenti before, I highly recommend the “Yellow Parenti” Speech on US interventionism, the third world, and the USSR and Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook. His lecture on “Inventing Reality” is also excellent.

For more works on the general question of reform vs. revolution, I recommend Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution | Audiobook, as well as Lenin’s The State and Revolution | Audiobook.

For learning about Marxism-Leninism in general, I recommend my intro ML reading list.

Lemmy.ml is one of the big communist instances, sure, but in no way fascist nor fascist collaborators. Communists support collectivization of production and distribution via establishing socialism, economies where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes are in control of the state. Fascism is about cementing capitalism and bourgeois rule in countries where capitalism has decayed. These stand diametrically opposed.

On Lemmy.ml’s meme communities, you see lots of leftist memes. Fascists are banned, as well as fascist memes.

Yep, Japan has no working class movement and is thus entirely controlled by the far-right.

Japan oscillates between far-right politics exclusively, the working class has little organizing and struggle going on and the state is thoroughly controlled by private intetests. The Republic of Korea may be an example of a capitalist dictatorship controlled by 3 companies in a trench-coat, but has active labor struggles and a history of millitant unions, at least.

Administration is not itself a class, and is necessary for any large-scale economy. Marxism opposes capitalism in theory and in practice. Management of industry is not the same as owning said industry. Marxism has never been about eliminating managament, because managers are not a class in and of themselves, but instead a section of the proletariat that perform necessary roles in coordinating production, distribution, and logistics.

Where did you get the idea that Marxists oppose administration from? It certainly isn’t found within Marx and Engels’ writings, without severe misunderstanding. Moreover, you’re displaying black and white thinking in believing administration under socialism is the same as capitalist ownership outright.

Every Western country is a mix of capitalism and socialism.

Capitalism and socialism are modes of production, ie descriptors for the principle aspect of a given economy. Having a public sector does not mean you have a socialist sector, just like having a private sector does not mean you have a capitalist sector. Public sectors in capitalism serve to support the private, and private sectors in socialism support the public. Determining which aspect is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries, and which class controls the state, is how we check for capitalism vs. socialism.

The US absolutely should move towards the socialism end but capitalism won’t vanish, most importantly because it’s detractors never offer a viable alternative.

Socialism is a viable alternative, see the PRC, where public ownership is the principle aspect and the working classes control the state.

Pretty much a guarantee that a big chunk of people wasting time and resources on an internet discussion board are in some way benefitting from capitalism.

The English-speaking internet does have a large portion of labor aristocrats, ie those who benefit from super-exploiting the global south, but that doesn’t mean socialism isn’t a necessary advance. Imperialism is decaying, thankfully, which necessitates socialism, not to mention the moral victory.

A less colonialist term for “citizen of the USA.”

Yea, it’s always a tightrope.

Whenever people ask me about politics at work beyond being vaguely progressive

I’m aware that Ukraine is in Europe, I was responding to their comment in the format they made it in.

You’re looking more at what the capitalists used to overthrow the aristocracy while entrenching their own rule here. Marx was an atheist, and built on the labor theory of value, for example. However, these liberal values were made with a mechanistic materialist outlook, not a dialectical materialist outlook, and as such could not actually stand for proletarian liberation.

Marxism is secular, has the labor theory of value, etc, but not because Marx was a staunch liberal and believed capitalism to not be capable of fulfilling these. Rather, he built upon what was already created to build new ideology.

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Haha, I appreciate it!

Brunch isn’t bad itself!

That’s a great comment, thanks for linking it! And ReadFanon hit the nail on the head, so to speak, we have to train and practice for revolution, while being cognizant that distrusting any and all formalized structure sets us back, as these formalized structures appear whether we acknowledge them de jure or not. Jo Freeman’s essay is also wonderful for showing how we really need to formalize vanguards, so as to legitimately democratize them and prevent people from naturally dominating the space.