Comrade:ComradeSpahija

I am a French comrade of Albanian and Yugoslav origin, currently living and studying in Taiwan Province of China; and I will study in Shanghai from September 2025 onwards.

I am a student of Marxism-Leninism since 2019, member of the French Communist Party (PCF) and the (much less revisionist) Young Communists Movement of France (MJCF) since 2022. I am hopeful that the current return to Marxism-Leninism in the MJCF is a prelude to the PCF's own return to Marxism-Leninism, though we have a lot of work on our hands in order to make this a reality.

I discovered ProleWiki on Lemmygrad in 2020. I was not active for long at that time, and my only contribution from back then is creating the page on Deng Xiaoping, but I want to contribute more in the future. One possible route to take in the near future is improving/updating pages on French politics and history, as well as contributing more generally to the French instance of ProleWiki.

My answers to vetting questions

FIRST SET:

1. I found it on Lemmygrad around 2020. I created my account around this time, though I only contributed to the Deng Xiaoping page back then. I wish to contribute on subjects I am knowledgeable in, including (but not limited to) the history of past and present Socialist experiments, and that of workers' movements in Europe (particularly in France). I could also help creating/expanding pages on the French instance.

2. I uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and I specifically uphold Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the Chinese context. This is the culmination of years of deprogramming from the liberal political framework and moving towards scientific socialism. Like many in the imperial core, my first exposure to revolutionary politics was through anarchism. This had led me to questioning the mainstream narrative on workers' movements, but it was only through then studying past socialist experiments that I became open to Marxism. I have since studied the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism, and would consider myself a Marxist-Leninist from 2019-2020 onwards. From then on, the only changes in my worldview were the result different understandings of specific issues or historical projects: for example, learning more on Deng's reforms in China and thus turning away from left-deviationist mistakes regarding China.

3. Yes, and I have already signed them back when I was first active. I still agree with the current version; though I'd argue that the members of the Alliance of Sahel States (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger) also have their place in the Anti-imperialism section, as states for which we offer critical support.

4. Yes, transgender people should be supported by Marxists in all countries. Indeed, they transgender workers are no less members of the proletarian class than cisgender workers. The oppression of trans people is a symptom of capitalism, and they stand to gain as much from Communism as anyone. Trans liberation is only possible through Socialism. However, we must also avoid the pitfalls of dismissing the issues of transgender comrades and focusing unilaterally on the fight for Socialism, this is a form of left-deviationism which in the end leads us no closer to Socialism while alienating potential comrades. Even if true liberation is not possible under Capitalism, we mustn't surrender our transgender comrades to bigotry and oppression.

5. Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong are great socialist theoreticians and leaders. Without falling into the "great man of history" fallacy, we must recognise their contributions and study their leadership of their respective countries. Under their leadership, both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China started building the primary stage of Socialism. Stalin led the USSR through rapid industrialisation, literacy campaigns, collectivisation, victory over fascism in the Great Patriotic War, with the country being on the verge of entering the space race when he died. His contributions to the USSR and to humanity are massive; however he made a number of mistakes in his leadership: he supported the Zionist project in its early years, he forcefully deported the Volga Germans, and he probably trusted the West too much at the start of the Cold War (up to the Korean war), thus abandoning revolutionary movements in countries such as Greece and suggesting that parties in Italy and France pursue electoralism in order to avoid provoking the US. In the end, Mao Zedong said that Stalin was 70% correct and 30% incorrect, which I view as a fair assessment. Mao Zedong was a great leader of the Chinese Revolution, his theoretical contributions are more consequential than Stalin's, under him the Chinese communists fought valiantly against the Japanese fascists, and under his leadership China's living expectancy doubled, a testament to the many successes of the early years of Chinese Socialism. He was also considered by Deng Xiaoping to be 70% correct and 30% incorrect, though I'd argue that Mao's mistakes were more consequential than Stalin's: the four pests campaign led to disastrous results, the Great Leap Forward didn't account for the material conditions of the country and caused the Great Chinese Famine (which, although exaggerated by bourgeois historians, was still a calamity; though it is true that the violent rupture with the USSR around that same period also contributed to the dire situation at the time, as Soviet aid was cut for example), and the Cultural Revolution also was the stage for both great successes and big mistakes, and China's disastrous foreign policy following the Sino-Soviet split was probably one of the biggest mistakes of any Socialist country. From my understanding, I agree with Chen Yun's assessment of Mao's later years. Nevertheless, these mistakes from Stalin and Mao should never eclipse their amazing contributions on Marxist theory and on the concrete building of Socialism: their leadership has led to the betterment of the lives of hundreds of millions of people, and they should be eternally remembered for this fact above all.

6. China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba and the DPRK are all dictatorships of the proletariat, and are all building Socialism. We should fully support these countries, while recognising their mistakes (i.e: China's invasion of Vietnam in 1979). Since the primary stage of Socialism still contains elements of the capitalist mode of production, such as commodity production, it is incorrect to view these countries as capitalist based on these factors: this is a left-deviationist position which should be combated.

7. Settler colonialism is the invasion and colonisation of a territory by foreign settlers, whose aim of perpetual occupation is only possible through the complete genocide of the indigenous population. Settler colonialism was historically—and still is—mostly practised by Western settlers in places such as the Americas, Australia, Algeria and Palestine. Any socialist movement should advocate for decolonisation, including centuries-old settler-colonies such as the United States. While my country (France) is not a settler colony, it has historically been the initiator of one of the worst examples of settler-colonies in Algeria, still supports current settler-states such as the Zionist entity, and still occupies territories on almost every continent (such as New Caledonia-Kanaky, la Réunion, etc.). Furthermore, French colonialism still has profound effects on French society, which is characterised by racism against colonised and formerly-colonised peoples, and many immigrants from former-colonies are marginalised in French society and work in the worst conditions in the country. However, this is a subject I have to do more reading on (I am yet to read Fanon's work, for example), and thus I am hesitant as to how concretely the workers' movement in France should go about liberating the oppressed minorities in our country, as I am aware of the need to avoid falling into paternalist attitudes, and especially because I am aware of the many mistakes that our movement has historically committed on this very question.

8. The Zionist entity is a settler-colonial project whose very existence relies on the continuous genocide of the Palestinian people. Freedom for Palestine necessitates the destruction of the entity. The Zionist entity is unconditionally supported by imperialist powers such as the United States precisely because it is an outpost of western imperialism in West Asia, helping to destabilise the region and sabotage any nearby anti-imperialist project. It takes on this role because, by its very nature as a settler-colonial project, the Zionist entity is dependent on financial and military support from imperialist powers. Supporting the Zionist project in its early years was one of Comrade Stalin's great mistakes. 7 October 2023 represents a new stage in the movement for Palestinian national liberation, as Palestinian forces have directly attacked the settler-entity and forced the traitorous Arab states to halt their normalisation process with the Zionist entity. The Zionist reaction to the attack has been to heighten the intensity of their genocidal project against the Palestinian people, in a campaign justified by lies about Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Despite the religious and non-socialist nature of many of the groups leading the fight for Palestinian liberation, such as Hamas, they represent a progressive force in the country, as the primary contradiction facing Palestinians today is not one between the various political factions leading the national liberation movement but one against the colonial entity. The Marxist-Leninist PFLP has recognised this, and fights alongside Hamas for the liberation of the Palestinian people. To oppose Hamas, or to view the issue through the lens of "both sides"-ism, is a left deviationist mistake which only serves to legitimise the genocide.

SECOND SET:

1. Dialectical materialism is the principal theoretical tool for Marxist analysis. Its two components are dialectics and materialism. Dialectics is a method of analysis which focuses on contradictions within and between the things analysed. Contradictions are the motor of change, and change is a constant, with stability only being a temporary state and not an unchanging essence as posited by metaphysics. Dialectics was a key aspect of Hegelian philosophy, which itself influenced Marx and Engels: however, Marx and Engels turned Hegelian dialectics on its head, by turning this idealistic framework into a materialist method. Materialism focuses on material conditions as the foundation for analysis, as opposed to idealism which focuses on ideas. Instead of believing that the contradictions between ideas is what motivated the evolution of human thought, and thus of human society, Marx and Engels posit that it is the evolution of material conditions, and principally the development of the productive forces, which form the basis of the mode of production of a given society, and this mode of production influences all other aspects of said society. Ideas do not influence material conditions as much as material conditions themselves influence ideas: hence Marx's quote about how slavery cannot be abolished without the steam engine. Contradictions within society take the form of successful phases of quantitative change and qualitative change. For example, the development of manufactures and the bourgeoisie under feudalism is a long phase of quantitative change, which is then followed by rapid and radical qualitative change, such as the seizure of power from the nobility by the bourgeoisie during a bourgeois revolution, which then leads to another long phase of quantitative change, such as the development of the productive forces under capitalism, the proletarianisation of the working classes, etc. which then leads to another episode of qualitative change: a proletarian Revolution which establishes a dictatorship of the proletariat and Socialism. Dialectical materialism applies not only to human societies, which is the focus of Marxist analysis, but also to natural phenomena as shown by Engels' Dialectics of Nature.

5. There are many pressing questions for Marxists in France, but they all stem from one central issue: the need to rebuild a true vanguard party. Indeed, the PCF has long been dominated by revisionists, and has devolved away from Marxism-Leninism from the end of the Second World War onwards due to its belief in electoralism and its positions against national liberation movements in French colonies. It is today a shell of its former self, a lifeless eurocommunist party which advocates for nothing more than social-democratic concessions from the bourgeoisie, and which is bleeding membership. On the other hand, some anti-revisionists have left the party and formed other Marxist parties, though they are nothing more than glorified reading groups and newspaper publishers, with no acknowledgement from the masses. However, the PCF still has a number of Marxists within its ranks, especially among its younger members. In fact, the youth wing of the party (the MJCF) has increasingly reconnected with Marxism-Leninism. I thus believe that it is not productive to agitate within small parties, and that Marxists should instead work to retake the PCF, in the same way that the MJCF was.

6. Marxism is a movement based on a scientific analysis of the world, contrary to Anarchism which is based on idealistic liberal foundations. Anarchism, because it is a liberal ideology, is not a threat to the capitalist order; a fact that the bourgeoisie recognises. Marx posited that Communism would follow Capitalism, not because of wishful thinking, but because Capitalism creates the conditions that render Communism possible: proletarianisation of the working classes, socialisation of production, development of the productive forces… Marxist analysis is true only insofar as it corresponds to the material conditions of a given area. For example, Socialism with Chinese characteristics is based on the analysis of the material conditions of China, and cannot be transposed to another country. As global Capitalism evolves, so too is Marxism constantly evolving: for example, as capitalism reached its imperialist stage, Lenin completed Marxist theory to reflect this new stage of capitalist development.

7. Imperialism was most notably defined by Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism according to five points:

1. The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
2. The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy;
3. The export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
4. The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves;
5. The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.

He also defined imperialism as "moribund capitalism," as the characteristics of imperialism create pre-conditions for Socialism (for example, the increased importance of private monopolies under Capitalism prefigures the dominance of state monopolies in the primary stage of Socialism). The IMF and the World Bank are institutions created to maintain the Global South in poverty, to keep it relegated to the status of providers of natural resources and cheap labour in the production of commodities consumed in the imperial core. The IMF and World Bank force neoliberal "restructuring" upon states to which they grant loans, which ends up gutting these states' social programmes and labour laws while stripping them of their means of paying off their debt, necessitating further intervention from these organs of imperialist domination and thus further "restructuring." The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), on the other hand, is not an imperialist project, as it is conducted by China with the expressed goal of fostering "win-win" cooperation between countries. It does not force neoliberal policies upon countries and instead directly contributes to the development of their infrastructure. Despite fear-mongering from the West, China frequently cancels interest on loans when countries cannot afford them, and often even cancelled loans outright, which would be unthinkable for the IMF and the World Bank. However, the BRI is not without criticism, as for example Niger has recently denounced misconduct from Chinese firms and thus banned these specific firms from operating in the country. However, China has proven willing to renegotiate terms with partner countries, and there are much fewer incidents under the BRI than under imperialist projects. To analyse the BRI as an imperialist project is a symptom of left-deviationism.

8. Yes, I have read many works from Marxists, most notably (but not limited to) Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Domenico Losurdo and Michael Parenti. I really like Marx's early works such as The German Ideology, as it is really interesting to see Marxism in its infancy, and the way Marx distinguishes his thought from that of his influences. I also particularly like Lenin's contributions, not only because they are easier to read than Marx's, but because he reclaimed Marxism from revisionists such as Kautsky and Bernstein which had stripped Marxist theory from its revolutionary core. Lenin detailed the evolution of Capitalism into its imperialist phase, and he created the vanguard party. In the end, it is also because Lenin's contributions directly led to the first successful proletarian Revolution in history that studying Lenin is crucial. I also like Mao's contributions to Marxist thought, especially his essays On Practise and On Contradiction, which offer beautifully simple explanations of these essential Marxist concepts. .