Go watch some documentsaries about USSR, north korea, khmer rouge, and china then talk. USSR collapsed, Khmer rogue executed 1/4 of its’s population and north korea is a nation of brainwashesd people thinking their leader doesn’t poop (I don’t know enough to talk about China, but they have an economy)
Khmer Rouge was backed by the US and was lead by fascists who rejected Marx, like the Nazis.
The USSR and China both drastically improved metrics like life expectancy, literacy rates, reduced poverty, eliminated famine, and generally uplifted the poor when compared with Fuedal Russia and Nationalist China. They had numerous issues and tragedies, yes, but overall did very well for its people.
Please find a genuine source saying that North Koreans don’t think their leader poops. Or, just watch a video of some Aussies going to North Korea to get a haircut. North Korea is certainly no paradise, but it’s also one of the most propagandized against in the western world.
Khmer Rouge was backed by the US and was lead by fascists who rejected Marx, like the Nazis.
I think that’s a highly misleading and highly reductionist interpretation. The Khmer Rouge was supported by the US, but mostly after the conflict had ended.
The Khmer Rouge was overwhelmingly supported by the CCP, especially during the Vietnam war, and before the Chinese invasion of Vietnam afterwards.
Also, PolPot wasn’t criticized for his diversion from Marxism until the 80’s, well after the most turbulent times in Cambodia. And even then Deng Xiaoping only criticised the Khmer Rouge for engaging in “deviations from Marxism-Leninism”
The only person on the left who accused him of being a fascist was Hoxha, but that was after his schism with the maoist. So to him any communist Asian was basically a barbaric fascist.
I don’t believe I made the point that contemporaries criticized their fascism outright, I made the point that they were fascist and rejected Marx. Calling them Communist isn’t accurate in any way, plus they were stopped by the Vietnamese Communists.
The history of geopolitics in Asia is very complicated and cannot be summed up in a short Lemmy comment, my point was to distance Pol Pot from Communism, because he wasn’t a Communist and denounced Communism, nor did he implement Socialism.
China, the USSR, and North Korea were/are Socialist, and should be judged as such, for better and for worse. Pol Pot and the gang were not, so judging them as though they were is just silly.
To be fair, those failed because capitalists took charge claiming to be socialists. Not saying there is a surefire way to prevent that from happening every time.
Yes, because the revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat tears down the checks and balances that usually exist to avoid people grabbing power, and instead attracts power hungry people.
A democratic gradual implementation of socialism is a much safer was to achieve many of the same outcomes, like what some European countries are doing.
Revolution and the historical application of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat have resulted in more democratic institutions being put in place than what previously existed.
Social Democracies are not Socialist, nor are they trying to be Socialist. They still depend on Capitalism, and exploitation of the Global South. They are also seeing rising disparity and weakening worker protections over time, because reforming a Capitalist state into something better over a gradual process is extremely difficult.
History’s most notable democratically elected Socialist was couped in 2 years, Salvador Allende, with the help of the US.
