Topic on ProleWiki:Hub

closing old (2 years+) topics

People who request an account on ProleWiki currently have to answer the following questions:

1. Where did you find ProleWiki?

2. What current of Marxist thought do you uphold? Describe as thoroughly as needed your path towards your current political perspective.

3. Have you read our principles? Comment your agreements or objections to our principles

4. What is your position on China? Do you believe China is a socialist country? Why so, or why not?

5. What is your position on Joseph Stalin? How would you describe his historical role?

6. What is your understanding of gender? Should Marxists support the LGBT community?

I think questions 1-3 and 6 are essential, but I think questions 4 and 5 are too specific. At the same time, I think they are helpful because they let us figure out if there's any ultra-left (in the case of China) or right-wing (in the case of Stalin) tendencies. I'm opening this topic in case anyone has any suggestion on different questions we should be asking

I think questions four and five are essential to gauge potential comrades' historical background. Giving a measure of understanding what a current socialist Nation looks like, and a past one that is no longer with us. National features like dictatorship of the proletariat and so on.

This is overall good, however, I just have two critiques:

First, how are we going to prevent any Ultra-right elements from joining our community? I would argue that Ultra-right Revisionists are much more common than Ultra-lefts, and are therefore much more dangerous.

Secondly, how is reasonablely using Marxist economics and theory, along with other sources of empirical information, to form the conclusion that the modern People's Republic of China is not Socialist "ultra-left"? By those standards, likely half of Marxist-Leninists, all Maoists and Hoxhaists, and many other Communists would be "ultra-left". If we are to develop as a community, we should consider opening up to other intellectual viewpoints on the People's Republic of China.

Comrade, because of your recent insistence on considering China a capitalist country, I will publish a critique of your "anti-revisionism" for what it is: pure and simply, metaphysical idealism. The text I will produce I will make public on Lemmygrad, and will publish it as an essay. I do not plan to make it a personal attack, I am engaging not with your personality, but with your ideas.

I should state, though, that your personality is sometimes "in the way" when you engage with others. You very commonly resort to name-calling (calling them "revisionists", "liberals", "anti-Marxists", etc.) and you do not engage with the idea of others, you simply attack them, calling their political understanding "Dengist Revisionist propaganda", and in general being usually hostile towards others in this position. I should remember you, in the last discussion we had about the Nazi sympathies of the Ukraine state and government, where you claimed I was "destroying our revolutionary ideals" through "text-book revisionism", when in fact you simply misinterpreted what I had said.

I've never seen so many people reacting negatively to comments from an account which ended up not getting banned, and I've been there for almost 3 years. This should say something, that the way you talk with others is not convincing, and that by being hostile to others, you're just making people hostile to your point, and shows you're extremely insecure in your position. But I will do the opposite of what you've been doing, and I will consider your points and produce a critique on the Essays section. Your capricious temperament will not be part of my criticism.

Struggle unity struggle comrades. China is many things,Wisconcom, capitalist however is not one of those things.

https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/

After reading this work which you have shared with me, I am not particularly convinced, I am afraid.

This work simply wishes away massive problems to the claim that China is socialist (multi-billionaires in the Communist Party, massive bank sectors, economic imperialism) by doing little more than citing some Castro quotes (while Castro often had many good ideas, and led a Socialist state, these quotes totally forgets the geopolitical context for why he would be servile to China) and saying that "billionaires are state-owned!".

They forget the massive role of the ultra-rich in Chinese politics (Xi Xinping has a net-worth in the hundreds of millions), how there are atleast 100 billionaires in the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party, and how the Chinese government has very commonly acted in favour with the ultra-rich, such as degrading labour rights (in a way similar to that of Neoliberal governments), exploiting labour markets overseas, and overall permiting the expansion of the ultra-richs' power.

At the end of it, it offers what amonts to capitalist and billionaire apologetic arguments, only it is exclusively being apologetic towards Chinese capitalism. It says things like "we need multi-billionaires because they build advance trains and improve the lives of the workers!". This is nothing more than a crude repeat of Reagan's "Trickle-down" economics, and a total justifcation for bourgeoisie. This just exposes the degree of logical fallacies and mental gymnastics Dengists must rely upon to claim that clearly Capitalist and social-imperialist states like China are "socialist", to the point where they emulate the same arguments of Far-righters.

I still do not see how we should not accept other viewpoints on the economic system of the People's Republic of China.

You have constantly claimed leaders such as Xi Jinping and Deng Xiaoping has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars, but I only heard this claim from you in 3 years since I began studying Marxism-Leninism and on discussions on the internet. Where did you take this from?

They forget the massive role of the ultra-rich in Chinese politics (Xi Xinping has a net-worth in the hundreds of millions), how there are atleast 100 billionaires in the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party

What levels of the Communist Party of China are these billionaires in? Who are them?

I see no evidence of this reactionary bourgeois character, aka capital's high priests, capitalists meaningfully penetrating China's people's government as you describe. Consider South Korea and Japan. Two countries who are described very well by the same shades of paint as what you use above, wisconcom. These countries are little more than junior partners in the amerikan imperialist firm. Such is the success of capital penetration there and there.

Or consider Russia. A rival capitalist power to amerika that could seriously develop a Russian imperialism if the USA were to stop flexing its muscles(which capital will not allow).

Over and over, I see evidence in both the global south and bourgeois north reporting that the dictatorship of the proletariat in China is strong. Strong enough to discipline unruly capital and keep its MCM cycle thoroughly subordinate to the needs of the dotp and its signifier, the cpc. Bourgeois media are terrified by the Chinese. And for good reason as noted in the Redsails article. There is a clear qualitative leap in how capital's various ideologies treat the behavior of the mightiest member of the 5 flowers.

Considering that the following two dictatorships are mutually exclusive, where is your line wisconcom? At what moment, at what year, do you believe China's dotp broke down and was replaced by a dictatorship of the bourgeois?

"I see no evidence of this reactionary bourgeois character, aka capital's high priests, capitalists meaningfully penetrating China's people's government as you describe."

The Chinese bourgeoisie has deeply penetrated China's "people's" government, both metaphorically and literally. It is no secret that a large portion of the people who make up the Chinese parliament are millionaires and billionaires, most others are petite-bourgeois, and only some are Proletarians. The milionaires and billionaires in the Chinese government are by far the most powerful, they form cliques with their fellow bourgeois, and own a massive amont of banking capital. In short, the Chinese government has long-since been subverted by Capitalist interests.

"Consider South Korea and Japan. Two countries who are described very well by the same shades of paint as what you use above, wisconcom. These countries are little more than junior partners in the amerikan imperialist firm. Such is the success of capital penetration there and there."

Correct, South Korea and Japan are merely USA satellite-states and economic colonies. This, however, does not change the fact that imperialists can have rival imperialists, like during the First World War for example. It is simply the case that China was able to form its own Capitalist-bloc, where Chinese bourgeois are free to exploit.

"Over and over, I see evidence in both the global south and bourgeois north reporting that the dictatorship of the proletariat in China is strong. Strong enough to discipline unruly capital and keep its MCM cycle thoroughly subordinate to the needs of the dotp and its signifier, the cpc. Bourgeois media are terrified by the Chinese. And for good reason as noted in the Redsails article. There is a clear qualitative leap in how capital's various ideologies treat the behavior of the mightiest member of the 5 flowers."

What source is doing this reporting? As to the part where you talk about business cycles, the reason why China does not as badly suffer from them as the West does is not because they are a Proletarian Dictatorship, but simply due to their particular economic position. China has had access to a massive labour market and work force; if one market crashes, they can simply sell goods to a new one.

The reason why the Western media dislikes China is not because it is Socialist, but, as I have already talked about, it is simply a rival imperialist to the US-EU bloc. Why would you trust what the Western-media has to say about Socialism or Marxism anyways? Many Western "news" sources, particularly those in the USA, call things such as Covid-mandates "Communism", are you really going to trust them on this matter?

"Considering that the following two dictatorships are mutually exclusive, where is your line wisconcom? At what moment, at what year, do you believe China's dotp broke down and was replaced by a dictatorship of the bourgeois?"

The People's Republic of China is a bourgeois-revisionist state, from even the very start of Mao's leadership of the Communist Party, it already showed signs of Revisionism: be it with its class-collaboration, bourgeois nationalism, and usage of the petite-bourgeoisie. By Deng Xiaping's leadership, starting in the 1970's, it had firmly become Revisionist and State Capitalist.

It is quite easy to find his vast hordes of wealth and capital. Here are some sources which prove what I am saying:

https://victor-mochere.com/xi-jinping-net-worth

https://caknowledge.com/xi-jinping-net-worth/

https://highincomesource.com/xi-jinping-net-worth/

These billionaires in which I am talking about are in the parliament, the highest level of the government. They directly oversee the passing of legislation, and hold a massive degree of influence over politics, to the point where they greatly over-shadow the Proletarians in the government.

As to the question "who are they?", the list would be to big for me to put here, given how many of them there are.

This begs the question: How can a country be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat when its head of state, its leader, is himself a landlord and multi-millionaire, if not billionaire? What kind of Communist Party has its ranks filled with ultra-rich bourgeoisie, the people we were supposed to be fighting aganist?

The websites you've used don't prove anything. You used random internet blogs who cite no sources to their claims. You simply searched for "Xi Jinping net worth" and that was your "research". The sources say that Xi Jinping's annual salary is of $22 million. This 2015 China Daily article mentions the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and Xi Jinping's actual salary:

According to the plan, all civil servants will get a raise. The basic monthly salary for national-level officials, who are the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, including President Xi Jinping, will increase from the current 7,020 yuan ($1,130) to 11,385 yuan, a raise of about 60 percent.

This makes Xi Jinping yearly salary about 136,620 yuan a year, or about $19,700 dollars a year. Here is an official source for the salary of Xi Jinping. The only sources that claim Xi Jinping has a net worth of about $1.5 billion like you claim, are random blogs like you cited and anti-communist pieces. The net worth claims range from $1.5 million to $10 billion and some of them are very honest that they are taking this estimate out of their asses, such as this one:

According to reports, Xi Jinping's net worth in 2022 is around $1.2 billion. Though most of his finances are not declared in public, there is no means to validate the exact figure.

One of your links claims cites a distorted interpretation of a Bloomberg article, which claims the following:

No assets were traced to Xi, who turns 59 this month; his wife Peng Liyuan, 49, a famous People’s Liberation Army singer; or their daughter, the documents show. There is no indication Xi intervened to advance his relatives’ business transactions, or of any wrongdoing by Xi or his extended family.

The article also claims wealth can only be traced to Xi Jinping's extended family, where they have investments in several businesses, but nothing linking to Xi Jinping himself.

He likely has other sources of income outside his base government pay. Even so, he is still likely a multi-milionaire.

You said you were going to offer "logical and fact-based proof" against my critiques yet so far all you've said is based on hearsay. You said he is likely a multi-millionaire, showing how you aren't afraid to claim ludicrous stuff about China without a single evidence. At this point, your arguments don't sound much different than anti-communist liberal slander against China.

Of course, on this topic of Xi Jinping's wealth alone, I perhaps could have done more research to the claim I was making. However, you failed to adress the other topics, in which I have massive amonts of proof to support, but no, you had to choose the single claim you likely knew it would be hard to prove.

"At this point, your arguments don't sound much different than anti-communist liberal slander against China."

What are you talking about? A Liberal would not care about billionaires, Socialism, and all of the things I am critical of China for, if anything, they would militantly support the present State-Capitalist economy of China. I would argue that China itself is an Anti-communist regime, considering the fact that they have turned away from the goal of moving towards a Communist society, and have completely distorted Marxism to fit its leaderships' own personal goals of self-enrichment. That is not to bring up the fact that China constantly sells firearms to Anti-communist government to kill real Communists in India, Nepal, and many other countries.

Marx and Lenin would be disgusted by the economy of China; all the labour abuses, exploitation, and revisionism. Therefore, if you are a true and educated Marxist, it would be Anti-communist NOT to be critical of China.

So be it. I will be sure to offer logical and fact-based proof aganist your critique. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.