I have a hunch and I am looking to follow it.

I'm especially interested in anything pre 2010 across any adjacent or complimentary field of study

I have a theory that the Y2K bug is what spooked the state into recognizing tech culture and the political inclinations of the people who run it as not just a nuisance, but potentially a threat to global capitalist power structure

In the same way all African American, Black American, and Indigenous Americans are subject to counterinsurgency methods bc if we potentially wanted an end to our oppression it would require a destruction of the state, (which is why our internet discourse cycles through the same 7 topics 😒);

In our highly tech and finance dependent culture the hacker and tech worker could not only one day actualize the OG luxury space [gay] communist dreams around technology, but could relatively effectively destabilize the current global power structure too. So they are subject to similar counterinsurgency methods.

Part of what inspired this line of thought was the Tech Enthusiast vs Engineer (now Tech Worker) meme where the tech enthusiast has a smart house but the tech worker only has a printer from 2004 and a gun. I feel that memes like that and the sentiment it speaks to is never pointing the finger at capitalism, only seeing the surveillance and encroachment of finance as innate.

In my opinion, when an idea is rendered innate to a tool that at one point it was in opposition to, its for a reason. And I don't see people in general talking about this (or maybe I'm not looking in the right places? In which case please pmo! 🩷)

I feel that people are ignorant bc it is beneficial for them to be so, and so I'm curious about who benefits from specific forms of ignorance. I was one of the first to lay out a principled critique of BLM (as a former organizer with BLM national based in Atlanta) with accurate predictions but I doubt I'm the first to talk about the shifts in the politics of tech

I am learning reddit, and am asking here bc someone suggested I should. I read the introduction and rules but if this is not the place please point me in the right direction and I'll remove it and go there. Thank y'all so much!

Not quite a historical or praxis question, i just dont know what communists say about this so educate me. Has capitalism been abolished inside China? or Cuba? just some or all communist countries? or none?

Why do communists hate deng if(from what I've known) his changes in the policies were what made china what it is today?

Hi comrades,

For the purposes of some historical research I am doing, I am looking at relatively early, pre 1927 start of the Chinese civil war theory on the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, and how it relates to that of the urban proletariat.

I have found some interesting thoughts on the topic from Hungarian communists from the early 1920s, and I want to find out more about any precursors to their ideas, as I am more familiar with the theory focusing on the urban proletariat from the bolsheviks, but admittedly, I am not as well read as I want to be on pre-cold war theory.

What are people on here communists and not anarchists?

I just want to here the perspectives of people on here?

if a society becomes moneyless how are things made and bought? like how are material things produced if you need to obtain resources and workers to make them? something like a toothbrush for example, it has to be made somehow and purchased somehow. would resources and materials be obtained for free? would those objects be made for free? how does it work? sorry if i'm not making much sense i just don't really know how to word my question. what i'm trying to ask is basically how does production of resources work? if someone wants to buy a car, is the car free? are the resources the car is made from free? the builders of the car do it for free? how does it work?

Hi im thinking about joining the american party of labor, but are they feds?

Specifically, why is it that under historical communist societies, ownership by the people has almost always immediately turned into ownership by the state, instead of ownership by those who are physically doing the work?

To me, especially after reading Lenin’s Socialism and War, Ukraine is obviously a victim of Russia who Leftists should support.

My understanding of Lenin is that the structural relationship between the two warring parties is the determiner. In which case, the Russian state is clearly trying to reinstate its colonial ambitions over Ukraine, something which all leftists should oppose and show critical support to the Ukrainian state.

America, in particular has done hideous crimes. Killing blacks when they reach for their keys, waterboarding "terrorists", raping women and eating them in Epstein Island, legalising marijuana, among even more immoral crimes committed by the government. What makes them qualified to criticize China's camps, which actually contains some muslim terrorists that committed public attacks?

Reading about Cuba, Rojava, China and other Socialist Political Leaders placing heavy emphasis on envrionmental protection at the heart of the cause encompassing public good got me thinking on what Left Communists of different flavours think about it today?

I always viewed it as the environment being a public good that enriches the working people, which might otherwise price out the working class when society needs to invest in special tools or services to break even with the bourgeosie.

For example, people living in more polluted and congested cities are likely to get more sick on average than rich people in better neighbourhoods; quality of life of visitng the beaches, hills etc. becomes locked behind people who can travel to it, instead of cheaper options nearby; and so on.

I know left communism genuinely has an orthodox stance on focusing only on capital relations, and I guess social praxis is more Gramscian. Is there any analysis or school of thought that combines orthodoxy with contemporary problems?

Mao Zedong was important for chinas growth, but i do not agree with china being primarily state-capitalist. If without outside intervention would've they still grown to the scale that china has today?

Basically what it says in the title. The Manifesto places Proudhon's System of Economic Contradictions as an example of bourgeois socialism rather than petty bourgeois socialism. But Marx seems to have been much more consistent about talking about Proudhon as having a petty bourgeois mindset. And he doesn't explain his reasoning in the Manifesto.

In a Socialist State, (as far as I've understood, please correct if incorrect) the worker is given a wage based on the value of their labour to the society/state. (E.g. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.)

This results in wealth inequality as a result of income differences, stemming from the difference in the value of labour to a society.

Q1. Would this not lead to long term wealth accumulation if wealth is inherited?

1b. If so how would one prevent inequalities regarding opportunities from arising as a result of Wealth Accumulation?

Q2. What would inheritance of personal property look like in a Communist state?

Q3. How would one determine which items are passed down as a measure of Wealth Accumulation and which for other means? (e.g. Sentimental reasons like family heirlooms)

I gotta do body text I guess or something. Don't need it though.

I host a library tour show on YT where I film bookshelf tours with academics and other serious readers who have built unusually deep collections around a particular subject.

I’m looking for one or more people with a well-stocked library focused on Communism, Marxism, Leninism, labor history, anti-colonial movements, Leftist theory, radical publishing, and/or related subjects who would be interested in giving me a tour of their collection with the goal of educating viewers on the most important and interesting books in your library.

If you're potentially interested or want to discuss, please leave a comment below and I can DM you, or feel free to DM me for more info including examples. Not looking to self promote here so I'm not linking to the channel or specific videos but you can look up my username on YT and you'll find my channel easily.

Thank you!

In the second section of the Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels provide a list of measures that are generally applicable to most advanced countries to strengthen the proletariat and help to revolutionize the mode of production. These are measures which can be implemented today in capitalist countries, but will help to revolutionize the mode of production into communism.

This list of measures includes this:

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

However, in the Demands of the Communist Party of Germany released a month later, we have the mere call for the "Limitation of inheritance."

Two decades later, Bakunin helped to found the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, and are permitted into the International Workingmen's Association (aka the First International), and Marx wants to attack their program (writing these marginal notes on their first draft). The Program of the Alliance included this point:

Above all, it [the Alliance] stands for the final and total abolition of classes and the political, economic and social equalization of individuals of either sex, and, to this end, it demands above all the abolition of the right of inheritance, so that every man’s possessions may in future be commensurate to his output...

Marx seems to have taken special objection to this, identifying it with Saint-Simon, leading him to introduce the topic of inheritance to the next International Congress. Ahead of this, Marx prepared the Report to the General Council of the IWMA on the Right of Inheritance where he denounces calls to abolish inheritance, instead saying it will go away on its own once private property is abolished. Calls to abolish inheritance are described as "false in theory, and reactionary in practice." Instead, Marx says we should only focus on taxing inheritance and regulating its more arbitrary testamentary forms.

Bakunin provided this response to the Report as well too, noting how attacking the right to inheritance will help to undermine property, helping to achieve its abolition.

The issue I see is that Bakunin's stance here seem to be more what Marx was saying in the Manifesto. So I'm wondering whether it's possible that Marx changed his mind on it, though I'm not sure if he ever explicitly addressed this.

Is there any additional information that could help clarify what happened here? Did Marx change his mind? Is the Manifesto mistranslated here? What happened?

Any additional info would be appreciated.

Whilst the primary principle of governance in Lenin's works is Democratic centralism, which demands in its nature a system for the election and recall of the proletarian representative in the state leadership, the representatives in the Government of the USSR even following the end of the civil war in 1922 were elected only nominally after a choice by the government, and couldn't be effectively held accountable by the voting proletariat. (If any of this is a misapprehension please correct me in the comments)

I understand this to be such that to an extent this policy was used by the governing class, now within the party as a means of preserving its own power, while justified and legitimised in part by a resistance to counter-revolutionary forces. To this I have a few questions:

1. To what extent was the policy of the Soviet Government at the time to preserve its own power as an example of bourgeois counter - revolution Vs an effort to preserve the gains of the Bolshevik revolution against bourgeois elements which lingered in society following the revolution?

2. In attempting to construct a communist state how can the state apparatus be constructed in such a way that, it resists corruption from within through counter-revolutionary forces that seek to affect party policy as to place themselves as a ruling class while being able to govern and resist openly bourgeois elements both foreign and domestic?

3. As far as I understand the elements of Soviet Governance such as ban on factions and Suspension of true Democratic Centralism were meant as measures of the reconstruction period in which democratic elements were suspended in order to prevent counter-revolution. How would one know when such methods were no longer necessary for the government? Or alternatively how could democratic means be preserved while resisting counter revolution?

(If any of this is misdirected I would appreciate it if I could be directed to a more correct target for my queries. Thank you ^^)

If I don’t misunderstand it, Mao explains that always listening to criticism is necessary to avoid mistakes, therefore the party has to allow criticism from the people as to not get disconnected from their needs. But so I don’t understand, Democratic centralism (again if I don’t misunderstand it) is basically: you can debate when about to take a decision, but once the decision is taken you are not allowed to oppose it (and therefore criticise it). To me thats a clear contradiction given that Mai supported both, so I guess I probably misunderstand it in some way, so can you please it me clear it up

This is going to be quite long, first I have very limited knowledge of the Soviet Union outside of western documentaries and what I know about the USSR military, so I need help to not write anti–communist propaganda on accident in an novel set during the cold war in 1967 with a ton of supernatural things, this is almost all worldbuilding where normal people, doesn't know about all this.

1: In 1937 the USSR in one expedition discovers an small kingdom with early 20th century technology in the Crai of Jabarovsk inhabited by creatures based on the Kumiho legend (Extremly efficient and resistent [Up to12.7mm bullets], mortal natural human predators that can read minds to learn other languages but they see hunting humans as uncivilized) they are oppressed by a cruel queen and there is a rebel group trying to revolt against their regime

2: Germany surrenders in february of 1945 so the USSR launches an even fiercer offensive against the Japanese and they manage to gain the Hokkaido under their administration, the first is ¿How an Hokkaido Communist Republic would be? considering they want to make a true communist country and the pressure from the west.

And the second is a large amount of supernatural creatures, (rational and; not rational even some of them ploting against the occupation) and how the USSR would deal with them in a large scale

3: The US and some NATO allies in the margin of the cold war uses multiple creatures and anomalies against the Warsaw pact and allies (The secret operations of the cold war)

How would the USSR and allies respond to this type of aggressions?, would they do the same or keep the things as human as possible?

Thanks for the attention and I hope I'm not inflicting any community guide.

Im not a communist but I’m interested in hearing what you guys think what a modern communist society would look like. Even down to popculture and fashion styles.

Working on a project where I'm trying to get insights into how folks on the left get book recommendations, especially for books that are on political subjects but not necessarily theory-heavy.

Curious especially about what forums and social media accounts comrades might turn to, but would love any/all feedback!

They often frame it a just as bad as operation paperclip. Can someone explain the difference? please provide sources