Please explain for the class what imperialism is in your view and how China fits that.

Depends on what you’re talking about, but usually it either means they are in the global south, or have otherwise had a longer history of working class organization or proximity to socialist countries. Not by voting.

Not really true. We post sources from all over, especially groups like Al Mayadeen that post in English. If we post something in spanish from Granma, for example, people can’t read that.

Sure, but there is no other option. We must build up a working class party, if running them electorally doesn’t work, then it will still work when conditions falter and revolution happens.

I agree, though I’d say there’s a difference between criticism and self-criticism with what we think of as “purity testing,” ie demonizing AES or other movements for their imperfections.

Please, President Xi, my people yearn for liberation and high speed rail

The DNC has always been a capitalist and imperialist party, passing social welfare programs doesn’t counter that basic fact, and as such doesn’t counter that leftists have been trying to change them into a leftist party for far longer.

Point 3 is wrong. The working classes in the States are already increasingly left, while the DNC is increasingly rightward. The DNC doesn’t care about what voters want, but what their donors need. That’s why it’s critical to engage with parties like PSL.

A capitalist party being right-wing is basic left/right understanding. Dugin has nothing to do with this.

No worries! Honestly it’s designed to turn anyone from not knowing anything at all about Marxism into a capable cadre that can figure out where to go next (like Capital, Anti-Dühring, etc), but just reading section 0a is great if you just want to dip your toes in.

I think having a shallow understanding of theory even within our own tendencies is a common problem that just comes with trying to study dense topics that are deliberately hidden from us. It isn’t a fun problem, but it’s one that comes with the territory. I try to do my best with it, that’s why I made my intro Marxist-Leninist reading list for those that want one.

Bingo.

The DNC is designed against entryism, and drives its power not from popular support, but wealthy private donors. What’s important is directly organizing on the ground to form a large, working class party, like PSL. Reading theory and organizing are the best things you can do. If you want somewhere to start with theory, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out.

Liberals call this “purity testing,” but fundamentally the democrats stand for perpetuating capitalism and imperialism. These two points of contention are irreconcilable with any leftist.

You’re conflating “proper sourcing” with being western, that’s already an error, and second of all it’s the west that has been most prominently pushing the genocide theory. Of course it’s going to be contested by China. The validity of sources used by posts on YouTube and Medium aren’t in question because of where they are hosted, they are often hosted on these kinds of platforms because opposing western narratives gets you blacklisted.

Nobody here is denying that genocide is bad, what’s in question is what the US Empire says is happening vs what is actually happening. The US Empire has lied before, such as the babies taken from incubators story or Iraq’s WMD, but it was only long after the dust had begun to settle in Iraq that the liberals started to agree with the leftists that the evidence was actually insufficient after all.

Marxists aren’t ignorant of prefiguration, we agree with some of it, such as building dual power. We don’t agree that doing so erases the basis of class, and thus doesn’t also erase the basis od the state. Marxists in general take the opposite approach to solving class struggle, believing in collectivization of all production and distribution to suit the needs of all, rather than creating loosely organized communalist cells, and this is because of analysis of class struggle being different for Marxists (and I believe more correct).

Marxists and anarchists get along far more often than not, the problems arise when one group takes up arms against the other and fighting ensues. Given that Marxists have had more success establishing systems, there are more examples of those minority of anarchists taking up arms against the Marxists. Marxists and anarchists may take opposite approaches, ie collectivization instead of communalization, but history proves that the two groups can and do work together far more often than not.

Goldman is a horribly biased source for the Russian Civil War. She lived in Russia during the Civil War, 1920-1921, wrote that piece in '22 from Stockholm, and then the Civil War concluded in '23. She grew up with anti-Russian biases common of western Europeans (still continues today), spoke relatively broken Russian, and chiefly was entirely wrong about the anarchist movement in Russia.

The anarchists, who were faced with a dillema between supporting the bolsheviks and the Whites, majority decided to support the bolsheviks and were comrades in arms. Bandits like Makhno’s faction that were slaughtering villagers and stealing soviet supplies were killed, but the overwhelming majority of anarchists joined the Red Army, called “soviet-anarchists.” Goldman is primarily pointing to the minority of anarchists that denied the bolsheviks as the only anarchists.

Goldman was also contested by other anarchists at the time. Kropotkin, while displeased that the revolution wasn’t an anarchist one, supported the revolution nonetheless. Lucy Parsons was another principled anarchist that nonetheless supported the bolsheviks, and also agreed with labelling Makhno a bandit. Goldman, however, was a friend of Makhno, showing the real allegiances Goldman had.

Goldman’s anti-communism was ultimately based in unprincipled chauvanism. Her writings on anarchist theory are valuable, but we should not take her as any sort of authority on actually existing socialism, which she had denounced before it even finished fighting for its own existence.

That’s a pretty fantastical view. The Bolsheviks came in second, behind the SRs, who were fond of terrorism and were entirely backwards in theory and in practice. The SRs had also had a major split shortly before the election without most of the voters knowing. It was the bolsheviks that succeeded in carrying out the revolution, weathering the Russian civil war, and then solidifying the socialist state.

They didn’t just murder anyone that had more support than them, that’s a fanfiction view of soviet history. They were, towards the revolution, consistently the most supported among the working classes. The Left-SRs, who weren’t really a coherent political force as the SRs themselves had a major split, supported the revolution and many ended up joining the bolsheviks anyways as the SRs faded away. The Right-SRs, who came behind the bolsheviks, had some join the bolsheviks and some join the White Army.

All in all, the bolsheviks were supported by the majority, and the CA was being phased out in favor of the soviets anyways.