u/Ok_Measurement652

There’s a growing argument online that the atomic bombs did not really end WWII in the Pacific, and that Japan surrendered mainly because the Soviet Union entered the war and invaded Manchuria.

I think the reality is more complicated.

The Soviet declaration of war on Japan on August 8, 1945, was enormously important. Japan had been hoping that the USSR could mediate a negotiated peace. Once the Soviets invaded Manchuria, that diplomatic strategy collapsed. The rapid destruction of the Kwantung Army also demonstrated that Japan could potentially face a war against both the US and USSR.

But saying that the atomic bombs were irrelevant goes too far. Hiroshima shocked the Japanese leadership, and the destruction of two cities by nuclear weapons clearly became part of the crisis that led to surrender.

The timeline is particularly interesting:

August 6: Hiroshima

August 8: Soviet declaration of war

August 9: Soviet invasion of Manchuria + Nagasaki

August 10: Japan formally signals willingness to accept the Potsdam Declaration, with conditions

August 14: Hirohito makes the final decision

August 15: Japan announces surrender

So perhaps the better question isn't “Was it the atomic bomb or the Soviet invasion?”

It may be:

How did the atomic bombs and Soviet intervention affect different parts of Japan's strategic calculations, and which one mattered more in the final decision to surrender?

Personally, I think the Soviet intervention is seriously underrated in popular Western narratives, but “the atomic bombs had nothing to do with it” is just as simplistic as “the atomic bombs single-handedly ended the war.”

What do historians here think? Which factor was more decisive?

I recently came across a Chinese video that tries to analyze anime/otaku culture from a Marxist perspective. Its basic question is quite interesting: what kind of social and class relations are hidden behind the cute characters and seemingly harmless entertainment?

I don't think the answer can simply be “anime is capitalist propaganda.” That's too easy.

What interests me more is the way anime characters become commodities. A character can simultaneously be a fictional person, a brand, a game asset, a voice performance, a figurine, a gacha unit, and a symbol within an online community. The same character can generate value across many different forms of consumption.

At the same time, fans aren't merely passive consumers. They create fan art, cosplay, memes, translations, videos, mods, discussions, and entire communities—often without being directly paid. In that sense, otaku culture seems to involve both commodity production by capital and unpaid cultural production by consumers themselves.

There is also an interesting contradiction here: companies sell fictional characters as commodities, while fans often develop genuine emotional relationships with those characters. A character is simultaneously a product and, subjectively, a “person.”

So I'm curious what people here think:

Can Marxist concepts such as commodity fetishism, alienation, and cultural labor actually help us understand anime/otaku culture? Or does trying to reduce anime culture to class relations miss something essential about why people actually enjoy it?

I'd be especially interested in hearing from people who participate in anime, manga, gaming, doujin, cosplay, or other otaku communities.

I want to offer a short interpretation of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) from a Marxist/Maoist perspective—not as a simple defense of everything that happened during the period, but as an attempt to understand what problem the Cultural Revolution was trying to solve, why it mobilized millions of people, and why it eventually produced such severe contradictions and violence.

The Cultural Revolution did not emerge in a historical vacuum. After 1949, the Chinese Communist Party had transformed from a revolutionary organization into the governing party of a socialist state. Economic reconstruction, administration, education, and industrialization necessarily produced increasingly specialized bureaucratic institutions. Mao increasingly worried that these institutions could develop interests of their own and become separated from the masses. The experience of the Soviet Union, especially the Sino-Soviet split and Mao's interpretation of Khrushchev's policies, reinforced his fear of a bureaucratic degeneration and eventual restoration of capitalism.

This was the theoretical background of what Mao called “continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

From this perspective, the Cultural Revolution was not initially conceived simply as an attempt to overthrow socialism. Its central question was:

>How can a socialist revolution prevent its own state and revolutionary party from becoming separated from the people and eventually developing into a new privileged ruling stratum?

This explains why Mao encouraged students and workers to challenge established Party and administrative authorities in 1966. The Red Guard movement and later the workers' rebel organizations represented an unprecedented expansion of mass political participation. Ordinary students, workers, and other citizens were encouraged to criticize officials who were considered to be following a capitalist road.

But this is also where the fundamental contradiction of the Cultural Revolution appeared.

Mass participation does not automatically produce mass democracy.

Once established institutions were challenged, there was no stable institutional mechanism for determining who actually represented the revolutionary interest. Different groups claimed to be the true supporters of Mao and the revolutionary line. Their political positions were shaped not only by ideology but also by family background, workplace hierarchy, local Party structures, relations with the military, and material interests.

This is why the Cultural Revolution looked radically different in different places.

Beijing initially saw intense struggles among student organizations. Shanghai became famous for the workers' movement and the January Revolution. Wuhan witnessed violent conflict between rival mass organizations and the local military establishment. In Sichuan and other regions, factional struggles could become heavily militarized.

Thus, the Red Guards and workers' organizations were never one unified political movement. They frequently disagreed over who the real enemies of the revolution were.

One group might argue that only a handful of senior officials were capitalist-roaders. Another might argue that the entire local Party leadership had become bureaucratic and counterrevolutionary. Both could quote Mao and claim to defend socialism.

This helps explain one of the central paradoxes of the Cultural Revolution:

>The same political language that enabled ordinary people to challenge authority could also enable different groups to declare one another “counterrevolutionary.”

Once normal administrative and judicial mechanisms were weakened, political conflicts could become increasingly coercive. Criticism and political struggle sometimes turned into denunciations, struggle sessions, torture, imprisonment, factional violence, and—in some localities—mass killings.

These crimes cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant “excesses.” They were one of the major historical failures of the Cultural Revolution.

At the same time, it is insufficient to explain all of this simply as the result of Mao personally ordering every act of violence. Local political structures, factional competition, existing social conflicts, the collapse of ordinary institutional procedures, and military intervention all affected how violence developed in different regions.

This produces another fundamental contradiction:

The Cultural Revolution attempted to fight bureaucratization by weakening established bureaucratic structures, but it never developed a stable alternative capable of governing a modern socialist society.

This is why the later development of the Revolution is so important.

From 1967 onward, the central government increasingly attempted to restore political order through Revolutionary Committees, the “three-in-one” structure involving cadres, representatives of the masses, and the military, and eventually the reconstruction of Party organizations. The state therefore returned to the center of political life.

In other words, the Cultural Revolution demonstrated a profound institutional problem:

>A socialist society needs mass participation to prevent bureaucratic domination, but it also needs stable institutions to prevent mass politics from becoming factionalized and violent.

The Cultural Revolution never successfully resolved this contradiction.

The later period also saw increasing popular fatigue with continuous political struggle. By the mid-1970s, many people wanted stability, education, production, and ordinary life restored. The April 5th Movement of 1976 reflected a complex mixture of mourning for Zhou Enlai, opposition to the “Gang of Four,” dissatisfaction with the Cultural Revolution, and broader anxieties about China's political future. It should therefore not be reduced to a single political meaning.

From a Marxist perspective, I think the most interesting question about the Cultural Revolution is therefore not simply:

“Was Mao good or evil?”

Nor is it simply:

“Was the Cultural Revolution a power struggle?”

The deeper question is:

>How can a socialist revolution prevent the emergence of a new bureaucratic ruling stratum without destroying the institutions necessary for collective decision-making, social production, and the rule of law?

Mao attempted to answer this through continuing revolution and mass political participation.

The historical experience suggests that the problem he identified—bureaucratization, privilege, separation between rulers and ruled, and the possibility of capitalist restoration within a socialist state—cannot simply be dismissed.

But the Cultural Revolution also demonstrates that identifying a real structural problem does not guarantee that the proposed solution will work.

For me, this is why the Cultural Revolution remains worth studying from the left: not as a sacred myth, and not merely as an anti-communist cautionary tale, but as one of the most radical and contradictory attempts in modern history to confront the problem of bureaucracy, class power, and political participation after a socialist revolution.

Within Chinese leftist circles, Trotsky was once viewed as a traitor to Leninism and a schemer. Many attacked him based on his private life—such as bringing twin sisters into the Kremlin for sexual encounters or citing highly obscene letters exchanged with his wife during his time in Mexico—while Stalin was regarded as virtually sacrosanct and beyond criticism. This attitude stemmed partly from the Mao-era assessment of Stalin as "70% good, 30% bad" and the persistence of his cult of personality (though the CCP has since degenerated into a revisionist party, and its current assessment is quite negative). It also stemmed from the frenzied vilification of Mao and Stalin by Chinese liberals since the Reform and Opening-up (following Deng Xiaoping's rise to power); this forced the Chinese left into a defensive posture, making them reluctant to fully acknowledge certain errors committed by Stalin (such as denying the existence of classes within socialist states, or providing misguided direction and maintaining a negative attitude toward the Chinese Revolution). As leftist forces expanded, some "Stalinists"—after studying Trotsky's history and theories—began to recognize his indelible contributions during the Russian Civil War and the value of some of his theories (such as the concept of a Soviet bureaucratic *stratum*—distinct from the "bureaucratic class" described by Mao, etc.). Consequently, they are no longer willing to outright dismiss Trotsky, even though they do not identify as Trotskyists. However, other Chinese Stalinists—or rather, a segment of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists—disagree; they adhere to orthodox Marxist-Leninist views and continue to reject theories associated with "anarchism, Trotskyism, Western Marxism, and revisionism." Two factions have now emerged: one advocates for a balanced assessment of Stalin—acknowledging his errors while recognizing Trotsky's achievements—while the other insists on condemning Trotsky (often making "ice axe" jokes and derisively calling him "Ice-Axe-tsky") while steadfastly supporting Stalin. What is your position on this?

You might find the terminology a bit unusual, as I am unsure how these factions are referred to in your context; however, these are the names used for them on the Chinese-language internet. From last year through this year, a major debate has unfolded within the Chinese Left regarding the differing views held by figures such as Gramsci, Althusser, and Lukács versus those of Zhdanov and Stalin concerning philosophy, culture, and the state. One faction upholds Soviet Marxism as correct and labels the opposing camp "Western revisionists," arguing that thinkers like Althusser and Gramsci focused excessively on intellectuals while neglecting the power of the proletariat, and engaged in the revision of dialectical materialist philosophy (such as through "praxis ontology"). Conversely, proponents of Western Marxism—which emerged after Stalin's death—criticize the Zhdanov system for being overly rigid and condemn Stalin's personal dictatorship. What is your take on this?