I’ve been speaking with other more informed communists and they’ve told me that none actually exist. Is this true?
China, Laos, and Vietnam: now notoriously capitalists. Workers work 12+ hours with no protection in horrible factory conditions. Suicide rates are so high that suicide nets are installed. The air is so polluted millions die from lung cancer, especially factory workers w/out basic masks. Corporations dominate
North Korea: Undemocratically ruled by the Kim dynasty. Jong un indulges lavishly at the expense of his citizens, ordering millions in fine wine and trips from Denis Rodman. They might be the most socialist though, as Juche seems to otherwise be democratic.
Cuba: Sanctions have taken a massive toll, but even taking that into account the country still has its own problems. They have massive food shortages and inventory probs and aren’t self sufficient after 60+ years. Why couldn’t they’ve use machinery imported from the Soviet Union to develop their agriculture and fishery? The Soviets supported them heavily. They seem to be incredibly mismanaged or corrupt
To answer this question, we have to dive into the meaning of the main terms. What does it mean for a country to be communist or socialist?
To start with the term communist: calling a country communist has meant it’s run by a communist party, not that it has implemented communism as a classless, stateless society (which could not exist in the context of distinct nations in the first place, by definition). By this definition, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam are communist countries.
PS, anyone saying something like “real communism hasn’t been tried” doesn’t even understand the words they’re using and is not themselves a socialist or communist. Instead, they’re a confused liberal.
Next, socialist, and the idea of a socialist country. There is actually not a shared and specific definition of what would make a country socialist per se, it’s more of a project to deestablish the capitalist class and put the working class in power. Many socialists disagree with one another about whether a given country is socialist, and what is really underlying their thoughts is usually just whether or not they think a country is attempting to deestablish capitalism and/or is making sufficient progress in doing so.
In terms of your specific examples, I’ll offer some critiques.
China, Laos, and Vietnam: now notoriously capitalists. Workers work 12+ hours with no protection in horrible factory conditions. Suicide rates are so high that suicide nets are installed. The air is so polluted millions die from lung cancer, especially factory workers w/out basic masks. Corporations dominate
No socialist expects that the country they operate in after revolution will be free of having to work, for there to be no workplace abuses, for there to be no pollution or healthcare problems, or even for corporations to be immediately deestablished. In reality, what is expected is for the ruling party to begin a long process of undermining capitalist relations. One example is to place human needs into guarantees of the state rather than the whims of private corporations. Another is to quell the anarchy of the market through state controls on production. It is expected that the ruling party will rapidly address the key isy that drove the revolution, which has historically been land reform. An example of this in your list is that every person in Vietnam has a right to an amount of land to farm rice for themselves and their family.
You should also consider that these countries do not operate in a vacuum. Instead, they must fight to survive in a world dominated by extreme international violence, typically from capitalist countries. Therefore, countries like China and Vietnam have adopted specific strategies to deal with this intentional influence, i.e. to combat imperialists. China’s example is one of economic entanglement and to allow private markets in special economic zones, which will allow tons of capitalist elements and social relations to exist there. This strategy is working out relatively well, however: China has advanced concentrated industry and imperialist countries (e.g. the USA) that usually bomb or sanction their way into countries premised on socialist projects cannot do so without devastating themselves. Vietnam was forced into a similar situation but with less leverage and concentration of industry. This is a result of the legacy of being genocidally bombed by the imperialist powers during their struggle for national liberation. They won that war but arguably lost much of the peace, as the imperialist countries, despite stealing so much from Vietnam, saddled them with large debts as a condition for ending the war. Such debts were used to force more capitalist relations, especially foreign ownership, into Vietnam. This is a common story around the world, where most countries are violently bullied into carrying large debts in order to lose control of their own countries’ economies. With all that said, Vietnam is still riledy by a communist party and does distinguish itself from surrounding countries in how it pushes back against capitalist relations and prioritizes its people.
North Korea: Undemocratically ruled by the Kim dynasty. Jong un indulges lavishly at the expense of his citizens, ordering millions in fine wine and trips from Denis Rodman. They might be the most socialist though, as Juche seems to otherwise be democratic.
Nearly all of this is liberal fairytales with little basis. The Kims have high roles in the party but don’t act like dictators, more like figureheads. The primary challenge for North Korea isn’t the Kims at all, it’s the continued occupation of South Korea by the imperialists. Did you know that the Korean War is ongoing and that America won’t let South Korea end it? North Korea is brutally sanctioned at the direction of the United States, and this is where its poverty originates. NK outperformed SK for decades (SK was a military dictatorship at the time) and only ran into famine conditions when the USSR fell and the US imposed an all-encompassing, genocidal sanctions regime.
I don’t think discussing Juche or the NK political system in general would mean anything until the core misunderstandings are dealt with.
Cuba: Sanctions have taken a massive toll, but even taking that into account the country still has its own problems.
Socialism is not when a country has no problems. Socialists are ruthlessly locked in on practicalies, not utopian wishes.
They have massive food shortages and inventory probs and aren’t self sufficient after 60+ years.
This is hardly independent of the sanctions regime and Cuba did not have food security issues for decades until, again, the USSR fell and the US instituted massively broadened sanctions.
Why couldn’t they’ve use machinery imported from the Soviet Union to develop their agriculture and fishery?
They did. Who told you they didn’t?
The Soviets supported them heavily.
The Soviets traded with them when the imperialist powers were brutally sanctioning them. Cuba was not a client state being provided with alms. It was a recently decolonized country that had just survived a revolution and needed to build in the context of being treated like one big sugar plantation, brothel, and casino for Americans. They had to develop industry from the ground up and they routinely outperform the richest country in the world on health metrics, their healthcare system, and healthcare research.
They seem to be incredibly mismanaged or corrupt
According to who?
Can you be more specific about which 10 principles? Bunch of different people claim to have such a thing.
I would head some things off in the last question, though. Why should we want a “normal” society? Shouldn’t we fight for liberation, which necessarily falls outside current norms? Shouldn’t we allow societies freedom to structure themselves in different ways under a framework of liberation? Imposing a “normal” society reminds me of Residential Schools, the attempt to destroy indigenous societies through Western indoctrination and removal from their families.
The other thing to think about is the meaning of democracy, as the term is laden with a huge amount of propaganda and weaponization of thought patterns. I see Westerners call projects they work on democratic because sometimes people get to vote on parts of it even though power truly rests with, say, the people funding it or the people using interpersonal influence to direct the actual work to the exclusion of the voters. I see those same Westerners use cliches of “authoritarianism” to describe countries that actually respond to people’s needs while their own country ignores their own needs but buys their complacency with a limited voting system. I think we should question how the term is used and what we really mean by it, as well as whether our definitions of it mean that a space is actually made better through adopting allegedly democratic practices. Does it involve the people? Does it give them sufficient power? Does it defend against oppression? Is it a tool of oppression? These questions must be answered before a particular idea of democracy can be implicitly considered a good thing.
As an example, I don’t remember voting to or otherwise being able to use the existing system to prevent the genocide the Palestinian people, but most people seem to be very comfortable calling the US a democracy. I do remember being taught white supremacist narratives in school as if they were fact - do my peers that got duped participate in a democracy if they have been throughly propagandized? What if they have no time outside of work to investigate anything? Etc etc.
So you do fundamentally agree that democracy is good, correct? And you would be opposed to a society where a ruling class pretended it was sanctioned by the working class, right?
Anyway, here are the 10 principles as they were originally written. How do you feel about them?
- We must give our all in the struggle to unify the entire society with the revolutionary ideology of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung.
- We must honor the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung with all our loyalty.
- We must make absolute the authority of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must make the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary ideology our faith and make his instructions our creed.
- We must adhere strictly to the principle of unconditional obedience in carrying out the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s instructions.
- We must strengthen the entire party’s ideology and willpower and revolutionary unity, centering on the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must learn from the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung and adopt the communist look, revolutionary work methods and people-oriented work style.
- We must value the political life we were given by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung, and loyally repay his great political trust and thoughtfulness with heightened political awareness and skill.
- We must establish strong organizational regulations so that the entire party, nation and military move as one under the one and only leadership of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must pass down the great achievement of the revolution by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it to the end.
can you stop being a bleating goat or will you finally grow your own brain?
I understand that you use the same logic as Sartre describes in other bigots, so I don’t expect you to engage with the 10 principles and simply attempt to deny them, deflect from them, call the sources Zionist propaganda, etc.
Would you like to engage in good faith, or am I 100% correct in my assessment of you
How do you feel about the 10 principles? Are they something that a normal, democratic society would adopt?
China, Laos, and Vietnam: now notoriously capitalists. Workers work 12+ hours with no protection in horrible factory conditions. Suicide rates are so high that suicide nets are installed. The air is so polluted millions die from lung cancer, especially factory workers w/out basic masks. Corporations dominate
Which news lead you to this? 20 years ago?
China, Laos, and Vietnam… Suicide rates are so high that suicide nets are installed
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_countries_by_suicide_rate,_WHO_(2019).svg
https://www.goldengate.org/district/district-projects/suicide-deterrent-net/
North Korea: Undemocratically ruled
North Korea is ruled by the Supreme People’s Assembly (최고인민회의) which is directly elected.
Cuba… Why couldn’t they’ve use machinery imported from the Soviet Union to develop their agriculture and fishery?
No reason not to. Lots of Soviet farm machinery there.
I can give a longer response when I’m not on mobile, but so I know where to start: what have you read? What sources have you read about China’s economy, for instance?
Can you provide a source for this so-called Supreme People’s Assembly being democratically elected?
Who is allowed to be elected? Can the ruling party remove people from the ballot, ensuring their own elites remain in power forever?
And while you’re taking questions, is there seriously a North Korean “Socialist Patriotic Youth League”?
How do you feel about this North Korean doctrine?
- We must give our all in the struggle to unify the entire society with the revolutionary ideology of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung.
- We must honor the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung with all our loyalty.
- We must make absolute the authority of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must make the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary ideology our faith and make his instructions our creed.
- We must adhere strictly to the principle of unconditional obedience in carrying out the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s instructions.
- We must strengthen the entire party’s ideology and willpower and revolutionary unity, centering on the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must learn from the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung and adopt the communist look, revolutionary work methods and people-oriented work style.
- We must value the political life we were given by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung, and loyally repay his great political trust and thoughtfulness with heightened political awareness and skill.
- We must establish strong organizational regulations so that the entire party, nation and military move as one under the one and only leadership of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must pass down the great achievement of the revolution by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it to the end.
Can you provide a source for this? No use in responding if we don’t even know if it’s real
The content of North Korean doctrine seems particularly discomforting to people here, lol. Not sure why this is the country people feel the need to stand up for
I think this says very little of substance besides “our Great Leader is cool, Juche is cool, we must protect the revolution”. Oh, and supporting central organization. What do you think it says?
5 is the only one that looks iffy to me. I guess you could say 3 too, but honestly they are a little redundant.
have you ever actually studied the DPRK government, or did you watch a youtube and rely on pop culture politics?
They cannot remove people from the ballot
youth leagues are awesome
This is easily looked-up. China, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK
Can you provide documentation proving each of those is anything but a capitalist country, preferably using evidence that would not also include Nazi Germany
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