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>> "... kowtowing to fascists ..." "Fascists" is probably not a good description of the Chinese Communist Party, since Fascism is widely regarded as always and

>> "... kowtowing to fascists ..." "Fascists" is probably not a good description of the Chinese Communist Party, since Fascism is widely regarded as always and everywhere the diametric opposite/enemy of Communism and Communists. Examples of this include [0] and [1] and [2] and [3], which are the results of me googling "is fascism the enemy of communism?" for 5 seconds. Probably you mean "Totalitarians" or "Statists" or "Authoritarian Governments" or something like that. This is pedantic but lots of the discussion downthread seems to hinge on this point of equating "Chinese Communists" with "Fascists," and that's imho a totally false premise. Oftentimes people say things like "Well the Chinese are commies in name only" and similar, and this might be semi-or-mostly true, but it's a bit of a leap from there to calling them fascists. [0] "Mussolini, with his anti-Communist doctrines..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini [1] "In Hitler's mind, communism was a major enemy of Germany ... Hitler claimed that his singular goal was to assist the German government in "fighting Marxism". Marxism, Bolshevism, and communism were interchangeable terms for Hitler..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Adolf_Hitler#Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Adolf_Hitle... [2] "Fascism is often considered to be a reaction to communist and socialist uprisings..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism [3] "...in the early 1920s the Nazis were only one of many nationalist and fascist political parties contending for the leadership of Germany's anti-communist movement" also from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism

fucking_tragedy 7y ago
It's difficult to take a look at modern China and call it communist with a straight face.
- lacampbell 7y ago
  Communism is a utopian ideology from the 19th century. That doesn't mean communists don't exist, and the people who advocate that ideology aren't communists. Of course China isn't a communist society. Nowhere is or ever will be. It's a bit like saying Tom Cruise isn't a real scientologist because Xenu doesn't exist.
  - fucking_tragedy 7y ago
    Communist hunter-gather societies have been studied extensively and it's the earliest forms of production.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> Fascism is widely regarded as always and everywhere the opposite/enemy of Communism and Communists. By who? Is there a reason for this? Fascism's self-description is basically just the motto "united we stand, divided we fall". It's right there in the name. As a philosophy, I know it best for strict intolerance of public dissent. That sort of thing undermines unity. And that's pretty much it. I would have said that "fascism" in modern American usage had lost all meaning other than as a generic term of abuse; I would never have guessed that it was supposed to mean "the opposite of communism, whatever that might mean". "The opposite of communism" is usually considered to be capitalism. But there seem to be many good correspondences between Chinese practice today and original, Mussolini-style fascism.
- avn2109 7y ago
  >> "By who?" First and foremost, by the inventors of fascism themselves, as I tried to show in some stealth edits in my comment above.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    The inventors of fascism cannot satisfy the claim "is widely regarded", for the two reasons that (1) they are a very small group confined to a restricted area; and (2) they're all dead and do not currently regard anything as anything.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
voldacar 7y ago
Fascism and Communism differ mainly in their aesthetic. The universal end result is authoritarianism and mass suffering. If they were diametric opposites, China would never have been able to pivot so quickly and easily from fairly orthodox communism during the Mao years to the sort of Fascist/state capitalist model they use now.
- lacampbell 7y ago
  Which communist society was not "State Capitalist"? IIRC State Capitalism is a term invented by Trotsky, who used it to describe state control of the economy is opposed to workers control in the utopian vision of communism. But the early USSR rapidly abolished the workers councils while he was still a major figure in the USSR.
lacampbell 7y ago
Fascists and Communists are very similar. Mussolini used to be a marxist, the Nazi party started out as an explicitly socialist party and was until Hitler took over. Many people today call the regimes of Mainland China and North Korea fascist. People used to call Chiang Kai Sheks regime fascist, but earlier in his career he was the "red general". The two seem to always be found near each other.

fucking_tragedy 7y ago

It's difficult to take a look at modern China and call it communist with a straight face.

lacampbell 7y ago
Communism is a utopian ideology from the 19th century. That doesn't mean communists don't exist, and the people who advocate that ideology aren't communists. Of course China isn't a communist society. Nowhere is or ever will be. It's a bit like saying Tom Cruise isn't a real scientologist because Xenu doesn't exist.
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago
  Communist hunter-gather societies have been studied extensively and it's the earliest forms of production.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> Fascism is widely regarded as always and everywhere the opposite/enemy of Communism and Communists. By who? Is there a reason for this? Fascism's self-description is basically just the motto "united we stand, divided we fall". It's right there in the name. As a philosophy, I know it best for strict intolerance of public dissent. That sort of thing undermines unity. And that's pretty much it. I would have said that "fascism" in modern American usage had lost all meaning other than as a generic term of abuse; I would never have guessed that it was supposed to mean "the opposite of communism, whatever that might mean". "The opposite of communism" is usually considered to be capitalism. But there seem to be many good correspondences between Chinese practice today and original, Mussolini-style fascism.

avn2109 7y ago
>> "By who?" First and foremost, by the inventors of fascism themselves, as I tried to show in some stealth edits in my comment above.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  The inventors of fascism cannot satisfy the claim "is widely regarded", for the two reasons that (1) they are a very small group confined to a restricted area; and (2) they're all dead and do not currently regard anything as anything.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

voldacar 7y ago

Fascism and Communism differ mainly in their aesthetic. The universal end result is authoritarianism and mass suffering. If they were diametric opposites, China would never have been able to pivot so quickly and easily from fairly orthodox communism during the Mao years to the sort of Fascist/state capitalist model they use now.

lacampbell 7y ago
Which communist society was not "State Capitalist"? IIRC State Capitalism is a term invented by Trotsky, who used it to describe state control of the economy is opposed to workers control in the utopian vision of communism. But the early USSR rapidly abolished the workers councils while he was still a major figure in the USSR.

lacampbell 7y ago

Fascists and Communists are very similar. Mussolini used to be a marxist, the Nazi party started out as an explicitly socialist party and was until Hitler took over. Many people today call the regimes of Mainland China and North Korea fascist. People used to call Chiang Kai Sheks regime fascist, but earlier in his career he was the "red general". The two seem to always be found near each other.