FIRST SET (please answer all 8 questions):
1-I found ProleWiki on Reddit a few weeks ago, more specifically on the subreddit r/communism. I was looking for alternatives to Wikipedia since much of the political content on Wikipedia has a very anti-communist bias, and I found out that almost all the content is supervised and edited by bourgeois and liberals. As soon as I entered the page i fell into a rabbit hole; everything I have read has helped me a lot to form my vision as a Marxist-Leninist, all with reliable sources. I would like to become even more familiar with the project and contribute to the expansion and creation of more articles. More specifically, I would like to contribute to the articles referring to Venezuela, since I am Venezuelan and I feel that there is a lot of information to contribute regarding the country, the political parties, Chavismo and Maduro.
2-At this moment I consider myself a communist. When I was a child I was a socialist because my family is chavista and I grew up with their ideals. When the crisis began in Venezuela, many of my relatives went to the far right, including me; By that time i was already a teenager. After thousands of intense debates and confrontations that I had with the chavista faction of my family on political issues, I spent a long time questioning my own political visions of the moment and comparing them with those in which I was raised, most of all with issues regarding injustices and systems of power. I didn't wanted to consider myself a socialist or a communist since at that time I still considered Chavismo to be horrible, so after several years, I considered myself an anarchist to have an excuse to be in favor of social issues without supporting "left-wing dictatorships" or "authoritarianism."
Some time later I discovered the Diego Ruzzarin YouTube channel; His videos helped me understand the reason for many of the world's social problems from a Marxist perspective, for example the Palestinian genocide, which i believed it was just a conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Russia-Ukraine war, and most importantly, western imperialism. That was the main catalyst for me to start reading Marx, training my media literacy, knowing where to find the correct information and investigating a lot. After a long time of reading, analyzing and understanding his work, i spent a long time reading other socialist/communist works, understanding why socialism quote unquote "fails", what socialism and communism really mean, and how dialectics and materialism have influenced the whole world throughout the history of humanity even in the present. Everything ended up falling into place for me, and again, i related and connected it to all those things that I learned as a child about socialism and what my relatives have told me in all the previously mentioned debates. At the end of 2022, i returned to my socialist origins, now considering myself as a communist.
3-Yes I read them. Honestly, I do not disagree with anything, in fact, I think it is very good that there is an emphasis on critically supporting anti-imperialist governments, since even though we support them in the fight against Western imperialism and in favor of economic sovereignty, we are critical of their bourgeois systems, and we support those who are oppressed within those systems. I absolutely agree with supporting AES countries and the fight against systems of oppression, and honestly the goals of the Wiki seem very good to me; I feel that at the end of the day they are the essential goals for a Wiki of the proletarian class to function correctly.
4-Oh boy, this is one of my favorite topics. Gender is an intrinsic part of a person's self-expression and personality. It is how one sees oneself, how one relates to others and to oneself, all of this through one's own reflection, and obviously it is worth emphasizing that gender is also influenced by different cultural contexts. Because of this, there are many different types of genders, not just 2. Gender roles based on the supposedly "only 2 genders" serve as a hegemonic tool to oppress those who do not identify in those roles. Marxists should definitely support the LGBT community. It has been one of the most violated and discriminated groups by Western society for centuries. The oppression they suffer due to their sexual orientation and gender identity is unjust and hegemonic, and their fight against Western imperialism fits with our fight.
5-Curiously, Stalin and Mao are two of the most controversial figures in communism for those who are against communism, when in reality their achievements were extremely admirable. I admire Stalin for being the one who pushed the Soviet Union to shine at its peak, as well as for his critical role in destabilizing Nazi Germany and Japan during WWII. Even with the conflicts and contradictions he had at the beginning and end of his political career, thanks to him, the Soviet Union was what it was, marking an indelible legacy in the development of the country. Despite all of this, my admiration falls more on Mao than on Stalin, and it is mostly because of how Mao understood Marxism-Leninism so well in terms of the material conditions of the Chinese, and how his thinking was so masterful and carefully developed to leave a strong legacy on what China should aspire to be. I feel that the MZT is one of the most important thoughts that has been developed based on Marxism-Leninism.
6-Honestly, I don't understand why there are people who think that these 5 countries are not socialist. Their policies literally consist of prioritizing the working class over the bourgeois class in terms of controlling the means of production. Just because private companies exist in China, for example, does not mean that they have the same freedom as they do in the United States, for example. The government is the one who keeps them from dominating the means of production, the same with the other AES countries. In my opinion they are the 5 most admirable countries in what they have achieved thanks to socialism; Especially as a Latin American, I feel very proud of the achievements of socialism in Cuba.
7-Settler colonialism is probably the most horrible form of colonialism in existence. It seeks to completely eradicate the natives of a specific land. Sadly, there are many examples of settler colonialism in the modern era, including the case of the Zionist project that occupies the territory of Palestine and is committing genocide against the Palestinians. What we have been doing for Palestine is the best we can do against this massacre and any other example of settler colonialism. Raise your voice, never shut up, strengthen support, communication and help networks, confront those who support the massacre, are lukewarm or who do nothing about it, and denounce as much as possible until justice is done. In my country Venezuela we are very clear: we all deserve and must be free, the indigenous peoples know this better than anyone, since during the 16th century we suffered the clutches of Spanish colonialism, but we never stopped fighting. All indigenous people, ethnic minorities and immigrants from Venezuela are free in the country, and they will maintain this freedom even if they have to fight for it.
8-The situation of October 7 is something that inevitably was going to happen. The struggle of the Palestinian people never ended and has not ended, the blockades in the Gaza Strip and the growing expansion of Israeli settlers in the territory were going to have their consequences, and they were the events of October 7. Although it was a sad situation for the Israeli people, the state never protected them, and furthermore, it never released the Palestinian prisoners that the attackers went to rescue. Hamas is criticized a lot, but at the end of the day it was the deplorable conditions in Palestine due to the state of Israel that created Hamas; Hamas is a product of Israel that is seeking justice and liberation at all costs against the real terrorist group: the state of Israel.
SECOND SET (choose 5 questions to answer):
1-Dialectical materialism is the basis on analyzing how society and history as a whole was developed. As its name suggests, it seeks a materialist approach to the dialectical process, and recognizes that contradictions on economic bases are what shaped society, since dialectics, as an isolated term, is the process of interaction between two opposing forces to create new ideas.
2-National liberation is a just cause depending on who carries it out and what its objective is. It may be with the objective of freeing the people from the clutches of colonial and bourgeois oppression, or it may be with the objective of creating a bourgeois system of its own. One benefits the proletariat, the other benefits the bourgeoisie, and obviously, I support the first. The same with the concept of land-back. Depending on the context, it can benefit the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.
5-In my country there is a particular communist party that has been at the forefront for years: the PCV. The PSUV, which is the government party, is a socialist party. The PCV is suffering a giant crisis right now. They unilaterally criticized the PSUV's policies regarding US sanctions without considering the conditions or context in which they were carried out. This opposition to the government led them to be very uncritical and even sympathize and slowly connecting with the right-wing faction of the country. I feel that communists in Venezuela should critically support the government, denoting its actions while on their side in the anti-imperialist struggle and for economic sovereignty. The PCV needs to return to its Marxist-Leninist factions and remember what a revolutionary party they were at the time.
6-The main difference is that Marxism breaks with the idealist scheme of the moment and replaces it with a realistic and historical vision of the class struggle. Marxism is revolutionary, seeking to emphasize class struggle in search of a classless society through revolution, while other anti-capitalist movements tend to be lukewarm through non-violent political reforms within existing systems.
7-Imperialism is, in basic terms, the highest stage of capitalism, caracterized by monopolization and the exportation of capital to establish economic and political control over other countries. Institutions and financial organizations like the IMF, Belt and Road Initiative, and the World Bank facilitate the exportation of capital by providing loans to countries that are then used as leverage against them. These institutions pressure countries into adopting neoliberal policies that perpetuate global economic inequality.
OPTIONAL QUESTIONS (not necessary, but it could give you an advantage):
1. I honestly feel like it was a very good and fun process. Although I feel like the question about settler colonialism should be a little more specific, or I just didn't understand it. "Further, what is to be done about the decolonization and liberation of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and immigrant groups in your country?" Are you referring to a hypothetical case? And if you're refering to a real case, what happens if there is no current case of colonization in my country? In my case, I responded about the Venezuelan vision of colonialism, because there have been no current cases of it in the country.
2. Sadly no :'/