6 ms·

> It seems that the smartest, most sincere, most dominant communists the world has ever seen... became capitalists. Karl Marx said socialism would start in the

> It seems that the smartest, most sincere, most dominant communists the world has ever seen... became capitalists. Karl Marx said socialism would start in the most economically advanced country. Marx was just one member of the IWMA, which also included Bakunin, but Marx was remembered most. Thus Lenin's call to take over Russia surprised even the Bolsheviks initially. He maintained until his death that Russia was not the vanguard of worldwide socialist revolution - one reason the Comintern was formed. China was even less in Marx's vision than China - the country was agricultural and essentially feudal, and the revolution was in the countryside led by peasants. Molotov called Mao Pugachev. Actually Mao realized Deng Xiaoping was a "capitalist roader" in 1962, and began working to sideline him in 1966, but Deng Xiaoping came to power after Mao died. Xi is very much in line with Deng Xiaoping. If you're saying Deng Xiaoping and his followers like Xi are capitalist readers then you're echoing what Mao realized in 1962 and expressed in 1966.

civilized 4y ago
> Karl Marx said socialism would start in the most economically advanced country. Indeed. And as we come up on two centuries later, I hope Marxists have realized why Marx was wrong. Economically advanced countries became democracies and channeled popular discontent into incremental reforms, which mitigated the bottomless proletarian desperation that Marx calculated would explode into revolution. And all of these countries have continued on the incremental path, because a supermajority feel they have a great deal to lose from a revolution that leaves a psychopath like Stalin or Mao in power... only to collapse into yet another communist-in-name-only klepto-totalitarian one-party state. So, in these countries, I suspect we've indeed reached the end of history. All that remains to be determined is technical issues: how progressive the tax structure ought to be, how ambitious the public amenities, whether the workers wish to have collective representation, etc. I must say, though, it's amusing to read certain bits and pieces of the Communist Manifesto in the 2022 USA... > Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other ...well, yes, but not quite as he expected.

civilized 4y ago

> Karl Marx said socialism would start in the most economically advanced country. Indeed. And as we come up on two centuries later, I hope Marxists have realized why Marx was wrong. Economically advanced countries became democracies and channeled popular discontent into incremental reforms, which mitigated the bottomless proletarian desperation that Marx calculated would explode into revolution. And all of these countries have continued on the incremental path, because a supermajority feel they have a great deal to lose from a revolution that leaves a psychopath like Stalin or Mao in power... only to collapse into yet another communist-in-name-only klepto-totalitarian one-party state. So, in these countries, I suspect we've indeed reached the end of history. All that remains to be determined is technical issues: how progressive the tax structure ought to be, how ambitious the public amenities, whether the workers wish to have collective representation, etc. I must say, though, it's amusing to read certain bits and pieces of the Communist Manifesto in the 2022 USA... > Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other ...well, yes, but not quite as he expected.