WPK is a party in DPRK, not ROK.

I didn’t say you were anti-Marxist, just that the term “Democratic Socialism” carries the notion of Reformist Socialism, so some may interpret it that way. I was pointing it out because I believe you’re well intentioned, comrade, not to pick a fight. I apologize if it came off in that manner.

Yeah…the DDR worked so well they had to build a wall to keep people from leaving the country.

Yep, people would get free, high quality education, and then go to the west to make more money.

UdssR worked also so well that the ex-member nations would rather burn than return.

Wrong, actually. The vast majority regret the fall of the USSR and say they lived better under it.

North Korea is such an awesome system it also hinders it’s people at leaving. Oh and the regular parades to praise the leader… much social yeah.

None of this is a point other than saying you aren’t allowed to emigrate, which isn’t even entirely true.

Uh and China…nice place to live? Yeah, I sincerely believe that but you say something, anything against the system? Ups…bye bye social points. And the internet is totally not censored. Tian’anmen square? Nothing ever happened!

1. Social Credit is largely a myth, Capitalist countries have worse systems.

2. Capitalist internet is also censored.

3. Tian’anmen Square in April 1989 was actually peaceful, the conflicts and deaths happened outside the square itself, hence why there’s a western myth that the CPC is somehow covering up a mass-Maoist protest against Dengist reforms, when the CPC acknowledges that hundreds of people were killed that day in the areas surrounding the Square.

Please, read. Anything.

You may want to swing back to Principles of Communism as well as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels, then Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit by Marx before getting into Lenin if you’re not confident in the basics of Marxism. Lenin is Marxism applied to early 1900s Capitalism, which has largely grown along the lines he analyzed and predicted (among numerous other analysis in theory and practice).

And what do you think happens next?

Good politics.

I’m a Marxist-Leninist, it’s a good thing.

I genuinely am not really sure what you’re getting at, here. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, I am stating that AES is democratic as is Marxism in general, and am saying that liberals often use the nebulous, ill-defined term of “Democratic Socialism” as an AES cudgel.

No problem! Lenin’s writing is very eye-opening as it’s Marxism applied to more modern, international Capitalism, but he may not make the most sense if you aren’t already familiar with Marxism.

The Marxist-Leninists won despite 2 other parties competing, for anyone unaware.

Speed up there Marx!

Have you read Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism? It analyzes modern Imperialism, where workers in the Global North are both exploited by their bourgeoisie and yet benefit from the fruits of Imperialism, forming a labor aristocracy.

It isn’t Socialism for corporations, it’s Imperialism in action.

In what manner?

Yes this is what I believe as well but to many people Socialism is synonymous with authoritarianism. Many of those people are amenable to Socialist ideas if not able to be won over completely as you and I have been.

That’s fair, but can backfire and delay radicalization, giving rise to “left” anticommunists that ultimately help contribute to antisocialism more than they do to pro-socialism, as their anticommunist views are magnified by bourgeois media. Chomsky, for example, is guilty of this.

Also, (not to begin the debate about AES) but I think its fair to say that where many socialist projects have failed is in the arena of democracy. Maybe its just a feature of the tradition I come from, but to me that commitment to democracy has to be constantly renewed. Not bourgeois democracy but worker democracy. The working class has to learn real democracy in order to engage in political struggle in preparation to overthrow the ruling class.

This is where idealism and practical realism need to reach a balance. Unfortunately, in the face of international Capitalist and Imperialist dominance has forced stronger measures.

Lenin was constantly stressing and renewing his commitment to democratic process, which was one of the reasons he was able to create the revolutionary party after 1905 that was able to seize power in 1917. And while he had no illusions about the limitations of democratic process within his historical moment, he always “bent the stick” in that direction which in my opinion was one of the things that made him such an effective leader prior to and up through the civil war period ending in 1921.

Yep, but Lenin also banned factionalism. He tried to combine worker participation and democracy with unity. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, of course, I just want to stress that even Lenin made concessions, and had to.

So I will always stress the importance of democracy, not only for the historic necessity and precedent but also because it is not enough to be good materialists (and there certainly has been a history of bad ones) but also good dialectitians, which means contextualizing our project through unificatiokn of the subjective and objective; and to fail to do so is to fail to be dialectical Marxists. If I have to work and debate with some Harringtonites in the process well that is just a necessity of the historical moment.

I understand, I just want to stress that you risk playing into anti-Marxist hands, which is the entire reason for DemSocs.

In theory yes. In reality all socialist systems had surprisingly few changes of leadership after one guy rose to power of the “socialist” movement or party

There are numerous reasons for this. Stability in protecting revolution and genuine popular support are among the larger and more important reasons.

And they don’t really seem to trust their citizens to be socialist without a lot of fear, censorship, spying, silencing critics…

Neither are Capitalist states, and neither was Marx. Combatting international Capitalist influence was and is key for retaining Socialism.

It’s almost as if the majority of humans reject socialism. Which is weird but true.

Not true at all, actually. Those controlling the media want you to think it though.

DemSoc itself is a bad term. It either is used to refer to Reformist Socialism (which is an impossibility and thus akin to astrology) or to pretend Marxist Socialism isn’t democratic, advocating for factionalism and other possibilities of Socialism itself being destroyed by international moneyed interests and domestic wreckers.

Developing for the future, what a wild concept!

Yep, hopefully their solar production forces mass adoption among other nations and we can get back on track to mitigate environmental damage.

Yep, taking one of the most populous countries on the planet and judging it by total emissions is ludicrous, plus the PRC is drastically improving solar panel production and infrastructure. If the world was set to the same environmental standards as the PRC we wouldn’t have nearly as much worry.

Alright, next we have the blue team, which is the opposite of all those things, at the exceedingly high cost of… getting cockblocked by the red team when they try to implement those things… and… well there was that time Bill lied about getting a blowjob- outrageous! Surely the red team does a better job of keeping it in their pants… *checks* …uhh, nope! Fuck, I’m starting to become aware of my own cognitive dissonance and it feels like absolute shit.

The DNC isn’t to the opposite of the GOP, they are aligned on the vast majority of issues and use the rest to yap loudly in disagreement. Dems aren’t left.

During all ^that I wandered into the military which gave me access to all kinds of socialized resources which have enabled me to get where I’m at now and have made a pretty significant improvement on my life.

Social programs aren’t socialized, that’s a bit of a misnomer.

Yep, correlation, not causation. Getting older doesn’t cause it.