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1. I found it on lemmygrad. I have read a lot of articles from it and I appreciate it a lot. I first wanted to join reading the lack of german language content on china. Now today I found a source having been lost and I made an archive.org snapshot to reinstate that source without the original website being able to interfere (nytimes).
2. Classical Marxist-Leninist. I started as a poor migrant child which gave me tons of opportunity to understand exploitation and oppression firsthand. i then tried the "startup" capitalist ideology of the newly rich migrant which was fleeced by the covid measures. Seeing the alt right bloom in the country I live in, I began to sympathize with "radical" leftism, started reading bakunin and kropotkin, got into a leftist party, started reading marx, then lenin (state and revolution), just downloaded "governance of china" by comrade xi jinping today.
3. Yes, i have. I agree with all points. I live in a country of the european imperalist bloc and am subject to much propaganda, although less than others in this country. Especially russia is a topic of hot debate and I dont have enough informationto speak on it right now so I will trust in the comrades who have formed this opinion and support them until I have read enough to either support or oppose individual claims and positions.
4. The materialist idea is that we start from matter, not from ideas. That is why materialism actually does not validate creationism and therefore is opposed to most religions where a being created time and the earth. Engels' idea that everything has always been in motion and always will be in motion speaks to this. The fact that a person is born with a different gender or sexual orientation, etc. is therefore a fact and not a mere thought or idea. More concise: People are born like this. They dont choose their gender on a whim. Since the equality of all people (and animals in my opinion) is the world we seek, we need to support our brothers and sisters from oppression now, also since they are the easiest to attack and oppress which also weakens the group.
5. They are two of the most influential people in world history and have brought much of the positive Change that we nowadays take for granted. Stalin famously wrote large parts of the ussr constitution and was the person who lead the red army to victory and with it, the german population out of the nazi dictatorship. Mao wrote the world famous mao zedong thought or the small red book which even reached german students. a lot of people have that book in their shelves. I'm not too privy to his ideals and policies though.
6. China, Cuba and the DPRK I know from multiple sources to be socialist. Vietnam and Laos I have not sufficiently studied yet but I am confident that the comrades who wrote the principles know why they consider them socialist so I will just agree here. More detail: China is famous for its state owned businesses and barring (at least some that I know of) capitalists from government influence, building of high volume housing, very low rent and solid social security.
7. The USA is still a settler colonialist state which invaded native-owned land and built white settlements there while kicking off a massive genocide on the indigenous people. Another famous example today is israel, which is an artificial settlement in palestine, expanding itself while killing and pushing out palestinian people. All indigenous land should be given back to the remainder of the people who still live there and they should be able to decide what to do. The Country is what we call a vasall state to the imperial core. It should immediately stop providing weapons, stop arming itself further and immediately stop dehumanizing, deporting and oppressing people of any ethnicity.
8. From recent news it is likely that the israely state supported the attack as a means to manufacture consent on the speeding up of the genocide in gaza. My analysis is that the settler state is trying to finish its work wiping out the remnants of the palestinian people and install "great israel" which zionists claim was promised to them by "god", which orthodox jewish rabbis denounce and oppose as fascist. The rabbis claim that their holy land must be given by god, not by man, etc. In any case, the oktober 7th attack was unfortunate but understandable from a palestinian pov.
In your own words, how would you describe dialectical materialism? I recently had a course from the party i am member in so it might be a bit scholarly: dialectical materialism essentially is the amalgamation of dialectics (evolution of thought through debate and opposing ideas) and engels definition of materialism which states in opposition to hegel, that there is no start and no end to the movement which is inherent in all things, even stones. More basic, materialism is the idea that every thought must spring from matter, not the other way round. This means that there is eg. a sun. It is not possible for two individual to experience the exact same sun but the sun is an objective truth. Dialectical materialism therefore thrives to come as close as possible to objective truth (instead of dogmatically claiming or outright denouncing it).
What do you think is the most pressing issue for communists in your country? What is your opinion of communist parties there? I think currently, we can only hope to build the groundworks and to stealthily oppose anticommunist propaganda where we can. We need to build local aid centers (which help the local population and make them resilient to government oppression) and educate people where we can. The country I live in has some "communist" parties but they are heavily and openly monitored by the intelligence services. People who immigrate even seem to have to sign a document that they wont join "leftist extremist groups" which speaks volumes to the progress of fascistization.
What do you believe to be the main difference between Marxism and other anti-capitalist movements? in short: marxism is based on science and history, the others aren't (in my opinion). Anarchism for example seem to be rooted mostly in idealism and anti-communist propaganda, which is a dangerous mix.
What is Imperialism and how do institutions and programs like the IMF, Belt and Road Initiative, and the World Bank relate to it? Imperialism is the practise of building and expanding an empire. That can be done through overt colonialism or covert through debt traps and other forms of pushing reliance. The IMF is infamous for its destabilizatory potential and the cruel debt they put countries under. The belt and road initiative in my opinion has the opposite effect as it builds infrastructure and makes countries self reliant. I dont know a lot about the world bank but i assume it is pretty much the same as the imf.
Have you read works from Marxists, pertaining but not limited to those from historical or existing socialist states? Please note some that stood out to you and what contributions to Marxist thought that they added and why you liked them. So far I read "Das Kapital" by marx and although it is a tough read, I liked it because it tought me the idea of exchange value and why money in itself is a bad idea. I read a ton of texts which I can not individually name since they were on random sites linked to by either the lemmygrad folks or other marxists. One was a marxist analysis of the gdr (now east germany) and why it "failed". This taught me that there are many more things that I learned in school which are pure propaganda. my current read is "state and revolution" and I like the easy to grasp polemics and not beating around the bush a lot. My next read will probably be "the governance of china" by xi jinping.
Do you have any comments or feedback about this application process? We will use it to improve the process. it took me probably more than an hour to complete this, while i just wanted to make a simple edit which would have taken like 1 minute probably. I'm pretty sure that you have good reasons why you ask these questions, especially given the person who still comments stupid things under different accounts and tries to build some "alternative" wiki which seems to be just his brainrotted thoughts. The most constructive I can think of is: maybe just let people with a lemmygrad or genzedong account in, which I both have, which means I went through this THREE times now ;) Maybe let them create an account here and instead of answering the questions, they can send you their registered username as a pm on either genzedong or lemmygrad.
Do you have familiarity or skill with any programming languages or MediaWiki? I am an IT specialist by trade. I program in python, some C# (legacy) and I am familiar with a lot more. i run a handful linux servers with a couple dozen services such as lemmy, mastodon, peertube, etc. i also run multiple wikis, some of them mediawiki for non-profits (neurodivergence community, an indi game dev and a minecraft server community). I also host the local chapter of a political party, multiple "resilience" hubs for local communities, etc. If you need any help, I'm your guy.