BEIJING: China issued its first national action plan to build a "strong education nation" by 2035, which it said would help coordinate its education development, improve efficiencies in innovation and build a "strong country". The plan, issued by the Communist Party's central committee and the State C
One of the key aspects of Marxism isn’t just about state control or central planning, it’s about the active involvement of the working class in managing production and society. If a state is controlled by a small elite, even if it calls itself socialist, it risks becoming a form of state capitalism rather than true worker control.
This isn’t about rigid, dogmatic labels which I can’t help but notice in your assumptions of me. What is interesting is understanding material conditions and power structures. Discussing any state, does it give the workers control or whether it serves a centralized elite.
I’m not claiming that any state is “false” without evidence. It’s an examination of how power operates in those states and whether it matches the idea of socialism where workers are in control. Doesn’t Marxist analysis require questioning these things, not simply accepting a label?
I think you’re stuck on this idea of AES being controlled by an “elite,” without doing actual class analysis. It isn’t about being “called Socialist,” it’s about the proletariat being in power. State level planners are not distinct classes. We can see that, in the USSR, for example, the economy was democratized and the Working Class gained massive improvements in material conditions. This shows quite clearly that the Proletariat was indeed in power.
Marxism does require questioning. The problem you’re running into is dismissing the opinions of a supermajority of Marxists worldwide with very little in the way of evidence, and you’re making an error in class analysis. It isn’t about accepting a label, it’s the knowledge that social practice increases knowledge, and that therefore requires an understanding that practicing Marxists, whom overwhelmingly hold to lines such as Marxism-Leninism, likely know more about Marxism than non-practicing individuals on the internet.
Marx differentiates between workers directly managing production and a state acting as their proxy. Material improvements alone don’t prove proletarian control, as state capitalism can achieve similar outcomes while concentrating power in a minority.
Marxism prioritizes dialectical analysis over majority opinion. Experience matters, and it must be tested against material conditions and theory. The opinions of the majority cannot substitute for class analysis. Even Lenin argued that revolutionary theory develops.
Also what the fuck even is this, this is illegible. Who fucking cares, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about; are you saying that your imagined form of analysis you’ve named dialectical materialism is more meaningful than statistical facts showing widespread approval? That’s nakedly really stupid, even if you’re clearly an anticommunist it’s feeble to try and hide it behind an absurdly thin veneer of Marxism. Just be honest and say you’re a liberal, or start engaging with Michael Parenti’s work.
Marxism emphasizes understanding the deeper class dynamics of society, not just surface-level opinions. Marx and Engels critiqued relying solely on immediate public sentiment because it can be shaped by ruling class ideology (eg., The German Ideology). A proletarian state requires scientific analysis of material conditions, not just popularity metrics. Insulting someone as “anti-communist” ignores Marxist principles of material critique over ad hominem attacks.
Socialism is not the electrification of Russia
Yeah, clearly, but you haven’t proven it at all. The revolutionary conditions of the PRC have made it so that regular working people can engage with their government in ways impossible in the liberal world, I know from my own experience of being there and from studies like this one from famously CCP Elite backed Harvard which shows that the great masses of people are satisfied in their governance and feel engaged.
You can imply and say all day without evidence that the world’s largest socialist country is purely in the hands of a ruling elite which comprises it’s own economic class separate from the working class people it represents, but it doesn’t make it true.
Socialism is more than material development. Marx and Lenin argued it requires the working class to democratically control production. Electrification or industrial progress is a tool, not proof of socialism.
High satisfaction with governance doesn’t prove proletarian rule. Lenin noted that oppressed classes can feel represented under non-socialist regimes. The Harvard study shows approval but doesn’t demonstrate that the PRC is run by and for workers.
Socialism requires more than material gains or approval ratings. Workers would collectively control production and the state to validate proletarian power.
Honestly your response was so frustrating I had to write up much more than fits in one comment. Just open this link to what I had to say FML
What do you believe Socialism and Communism looks like? Where is the line between the “administration of things” as Engels describes it, and a state acting as proxy? You keep saying workers didn’t have control, but by all accounts they did, and the material benefits prove this. You may want to read Soviet Democracy and Is the Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the Soviet Union. The Material improvements are a symptom of the system at work, not proof of it but support the thesis. You have nothing supporting your thesis.
Dialectical analysis is important, yes, but just calling your analysis dialectical even if it stands in contrast with reality and the social knowledge of hundreds of millions of Marxists requires serious burden of proof. Marxism-Leninism is a science because it evolves, but simply going against the grain without materialist analysis doesn’t mean you have a point.
Socialism is direct rule by the working class where the state fades away, as Engels described. A state acting as a proxy concentrates power in a minority and keeps workers from controlling production. Marx argued that the proletariat must destroy the old state machinery, not rely on it to act for them. The Soviet state kept a hierarchical structure that directed workers rather than enabling their control.
Material benefits do not prove workers were in control. Marx warned that state capitalism could produce growth while keeping power out of workers’ hands. Lenin himself criticized the growing Soviet bureaucracy after 1917. By the 1920s, workers’ councils had lost power to the Party and state officials. Gains can exist under exploitation if workers do not democratically run production.
Dialectical analysis means critically studying contradictions in a system. The USSR had contradictions like inequality and bureaucracy, which Marx predicted under state capitalism. Marxism evolves through testing theory against reality, not just following the majority, even when it challenges what many believe as socialism.
That’s not what the state is in Marxist theory. Engels:
The State is chiefly the aspects of class society that enforce class distinctions, not government planners. Administration requires management and planning. Further, Engels:
Communism requires ever larger manufacturing, ergo it requires planning and administration. In the USSR, as an example, these were democratically run by the Soviets. Lenin’s critiques did not mean the USSR was not Socialist, administration never formed a class. Read Soviet Democracy and Is The Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the USSR.
The USSR was not “state capitalist,” that’s an entirely different concept. The closest would be during the NEP, which was later pivoted from in favor of collective ownership after the NEP served its purpose.
No, AES isn’t perfect or free from struggle, but it is real, and you’re attempting to define Socialism as perfect, and Capitalism as anything with hierarchy, including a publicly owned, democratically controlled and planned economy, which is so far beyond useless for understanding economic phases that it adds massive confusion.
The state is supposed to wither away as the working class takes control of production. Engels and Marx argued that the state, under capitalism, is a tool for maintaining class divisions, and this should end in socialism.
Socialism requires large-scale planning, but the key difference is that it must be managed democratically by workers, not a central bureaucracy. Lenin criticized the Soviet bureaucracy because it hindered true worker control.
The USSR state managed the economy without giving workers control. Even after the NEP, the state still controlled production without real worker participation.
For Marx, socialism means the working class collectively controls the economy, which wasn’t realized in the Soviet system. While there were gains, they came from a centralized authority, not workers themselves.
Despite state planning, the Soviet system concentrated power in the hands of a few.
Again, Engels literally stated that administrators are necessary for large industry. There’s no difference between what Engels is describing here and the USSR’s model of Political Economy, driven by Soviet Democracy. The government controlling the economy via worker-led democratic soviets is fully in line with Socialism and Communism, which must be global. You’re making the same error as the Anarchists who wish the state abolished overnight.
Really, this is going nowhere because you are unfamiliar or deliberately ignoring the makeup of AES from a democratic perspective, and redefining Socialism as the impossible status of “perfectly represents Marx’s principles.” Marx himself would laugh.
Thank you for acknowledging this is going nowhere. As said multiple times, there are no perfection requirements, only an emphasis on aligning with Marxist principles. Beyond that, this has always been just forum posting, not a debate to win.