/lit/ - Literature

>>18097870
Socialism counts for very little now. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a socialist, Friedrich Ebert was a socialist, Julius Martov was a socialist, Adolf Hitler was a socialist, Richard Wolff is a socialist, some greasy nerd on a computer is a socialist. Being a socialist is simply nothing to write home about.

Marx hated the term social democrat (back then the term was synonymous with socialist) for this exact reason, the term asserts nothing. He advocated for communist to be the preferred term among scientific socialists. "Social" means nothing much, "communal" implies a drastic redistribution of resources and it's telling that the Nazis co-opted socialism but very few right wingers identify as communist. Time to grow up and put on your big boy pants and become a proper communist, because it's grown up time.

I would also read up on Wang Huning. His book on America was translated recently:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/cnnb5nzyo5xj1sx,60wuceq9tydgs7h,2a5pmeiwwge3yzk,x6gxyyzhg2e7fxv/shared

Wang is the top ideological advisor to Xi, is on the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CCP, and is credited with being a guiding force but operating in the background. The book is interesting because it was about his experiences in the U.S. in the late 80s, his observations about it, what he liked about it, what he didn't. And he was holding up a mirror to his own society at the time and seeing what they could do to improve it, and you can see that reflected in China today. He also predicted that political polarization and conflicts in the U.S. would get worse, which is another reason why he has been getting more attention.

I think China is like a neo-Stalinist, a Marxist-Leninist system, except they've "Sinicized" a lot of the tropes, which is why it has worked so far. A lot of stereotypes of socialism is basically "Russian" stuff, which is really the Soviets trying to adapt it to the culture. I don't think the Chinese system is as intense as under Stalin, but the commonalities are immediately apparent once you start studying it. Socialist realism is a thing again now too, it's pretty interesting.

https://youtu.be/L9AF2fiYANc

https://youtu.be/ojpN6PjRcQc?t=1001

https://youtu.be/0hIMfJs5s8E

>>17991812