r/Socialism_101

I personally don't like the thing 'hero worshipping '. But some communists do this thing a lot. I personally, don't like Mao's actions like - Four Pests and Great Famine, Cultural Revolution, Stance with oppressive countries side during my native countries freedom struggle, oppression on Xinjiang. So, if i agree with Mao's ideas but not many of his actions, will i be a Maoist?

So I have two options. Democrats or socialists. On one hand it feels like voting socialist is throwing away my vote, on the other I'd rather someone blue than another conservative who wants me dead. I don't like the Democrats in my state but it feels like my vote would matter more? Especially in such a red state. Some discussion would be appreciated

Edit: I want to add that this is my first time even thinking about voting because I was taught it is ultimately pointless and I honestly don't have a good civics education (working on it :) ), so I'm working on researching and working on that

I have constantly heard so many things that che Guevara was "homophobic" or a "mass murderer" and i know that almost all the murders he did were to batista members? is this true?

i’ve been interested in socialism and communism for a long time but i haven’t read any books about it because choosing a single book to start with is a daunting task. i know there might not be a good answer to this question, but what would be a good book to start with that best represents socialism?

What I have read (in order)

• Communist manifesto
• Principals of communism
• The state and revolution
• The civil war in france

State and revolution has probably been my favorite so far but cant decide on what to read next.

• A couple I am considering:
• Reform or revolution
• Why socialism
• Gotha program/critique of gotha program
• What is to be done

What would you all recommend for me next?

I love calling myself a communist, given that I generally align myself in my beliefs with the socialist theory that I’ve read. But sometimes, I feel like I’m being too “utopian” with my worldviews. Even considering the world superpowers we have today, is it really possible? I promise I’m not trying to dwell or make communism sound unattainable but I guess this is just my OCD.

Well obviously Marx himself but im not sure where he speaks on dialectics and such. Secondary literature is also something I’d be interested in. Thanks in advance!

Disclaimer and context on the kinds of bias I likely have: I (unfortunately) probably have a strong bias towards liberalism, capitalism and democracy as a result of being raised around these ideologies and values. I'm at least partially aware of the fact that these have been partially ingrained into me, and am doing my absolute best to acknowledge and work around this. I am also very, very deeply ignorant and have not read any socialist or communist theory. I apologize for my ignorance and bias ahead of time, and hope that I have done an adequate job of handling it within this post.

I've grown very interested in learning about socialist theory, and in reading through some of the posts here as my first real attempt at tackling my bias, saw something that confused me: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was said to be a socialist country. I'm aware that there's already a post talking about that (maybe there are many), but what I'm curious about has a somewhat smaller scope:

Q: To what extent can dictatorship of the proletariat be said to truly exist in the DPRK, both in terms of politic rule and image?

Before explaining my thoughts and confusion, I'd like to make it clear that I'm aware that the DPRK has been both involved in war and undoubtedly meddled with severely by imperialist or capitalist countries, to say the least, meaning it can't possible be in the best position. I'm not trying to discredit socialism or communism, and I ask my question out of genuine interest, not to discredit the DPRK necessarily.

And so, here are my points of confusion and concern, briefly notated. I'll elaborate on them after this summary of them:

- My first point of confusion is the extent to which the way in which the role of the President of State Affairs is appointed can be said to be indicative of a dictatorship of the proletariat, with particular focus on the seemingly hereditary passing on of power, and a possible lack of representation of the proletariat within the DPRK as a result of both this aspect and what I might call political oppression.

- My second point of confusion is the extent to which the structure of the DPRK is one of a dictatorship of the proletariat rather than dictatorship of a small elite group, with particular focus on the way in which the structure makes corruption practically impossible to get rid of once present. I have no doubt that corruption is something commonly discussed within the context of socialism, and so I want to specify that I'm not talking about whether or not corruption is somehow inevitable in socialist/communist structures, but rather about the way in which hypothetical corruption within the DPRK would have total power, should it exist, with focus put onto this as a result of the rest of these points of concern & confusion.

- My third point of confusion is the extent to which it can be said that the cultural and iconographic depictions of the President of State Affairs resemble a dictatorship of one person rather than a proletariat of the working class.

- My last point of confusion is the extent to which it can be seen in the internal actions of the DPRK that the well-being of the proletariat is prioritized.

That was the summary. I'll try to elaborate on what I mean with these points in more detail, now.

As stated, my first point of concern is the process of selection for the President of State Affairs. In examining the extent to which the proletariat has total dictatorship, we can examine both to what extent the proletariat comes into positions of power, and how much power these positions have. In examining the role of President of State Affairs, we see a passing-down of power from father to son for the entirety of the existence of the DPRK. While I don't expect a democracy or parliamentary voting from a socialist republic, I am confused as to how a position can be said to represent the interests of the proletariat, when the key defining feature and "requirement" for the position seems much so to be something hereditary rather than belonging to the proletariat. I additionally doubt the extent to which it can be said that the President of State Affairs is part of the proletariat as the result of the abysmal living conditions in which much of the population of the DPRK lives -- Wait, please wait; I'm not trying to assign blame to socialism or communism through critique of conditions of life in the DPRK, nor even to assign blame to the DPRK's regime -- rather, I want to additionally point out that the President of State Affairs enjoys (relative) luxury unthinkable to the proletariat of the DPRK. That's all. So in summary, this is concern about the extent to which the position represents the proletariat, and the extent to which the position is one of the proletariat.

The second point is one of to what extent this position can stay as one belonging to the proletariat. Now, I'm not very informed as to how the inner mechanisms of the DPRK's political system works. However, I do have Wikipedia, and I'm betting on those articles not being complete lies -- I get that they might be heavily influenced by liberalism or capitalism, but I am assuming that they would not entirely fabricate the roles and powers of these roles.

To quote the site forbidden in all schools known as Wikipedia: "The president chairs the State Affairs Commission (SAC), which is the highest leadership institution in North Korea, and serves as the commander-in-chief of the North Korean armed forces."

This guarantees the Supreme Leader the absolute most power, and while I lack the knowledge of the finer details of the inner mechanisms of the DPRK, obviously the DPRK is a dictatorship of some sort if it is to be a dictatorship of the proletariat, and I bring this up purely to point out the fact that should the Supreme Leader not work in the interest of the proletariat, or not belong to the proletariat, the DPRK would not be a socialist country under the assumption that such a dictatorship of the proletariat be necessary to be called as much. The political framework is there for one entity, one person, to have massive influence over all sectors of the republic.

Now, the third point is honestly the most surprisingly interesting one to me. Now, I've obviously never been to North Korea, however, everything that I have seen from North Korea, as well as the specific language chosen by the DPRK both internally and in their own propoganda, seems to indicate a level of almost worship for the lineage of the Supreme Leader, which is the lineage that seems to have enjoyed dictatorial rule over the country. The iconography does indeed incorporate socialist elements, but I question to what extent one can fairly argue that this iconography and culture is socialist, when the praise goes not towards the people but one person, even if that person is glorified as a representation of the people. There's a lot that can be critiqued about this statement of mine here, not least the fact that the propoganda that I would have seen from the DPRK would be that which capitalist-liberal countries and corporations "allowed" me to see through their regulation of social media algorithms, as well as the fact that the capitalist-liberal(????) governments I have lived under obviously have influence on what has been taught to me. Regardless, I have also seen such iconography and language from even people who at least claim to be anarchists and / or communists/socialists.

The last point is perhaps the absolute weakest: It's that the conditions of North Korea are awful. I don't know if I should even expand on this much, as what I know of this is based largely on online retellings from those who have managed to escape the DPRK (and seem universally thankful to have done so), and are basically all both anecdotal, and not adequately specific to the modern DPRK as a result of living conditions in the DPRK being surely worse now than they would have been if there had never been any war between the DPRK and other countries. However, this sub seems to know a lot, and so I'll leave this point generally open, if that is allowed -- My general feeling is that life in the DPRK should surely be far better than the absolute poverty faced there. How badly does this mean I was propagandized? :)

Ah, though there is a small point of this that ties back into the first that I can critique -- political oppression. It would make sense to ensure that the structure of the dictatorship of the proletariat does not suffer, but what I hear of in the news and read in pretty much every single organization is that political prisons are the norm in the DPRK, and that disagreeing with / going against the actions of the Supreme Leader will end with harsh consequences. This could only be justifiable if the Supreme Leader were a perfect representation -- or at least a suitable representation -- of the proletariat and their wishes, but as explained in this very lengthy post, I doubt this.

So that's my thinking. I understand that this might be very annoying to read, as I am a very ignorant person who hasn't even read any political theory yet. However, I definitely would never spend an entire day learning about the DPRK in order to have the knowledge of its system to properly ask this question -- I figure it's best to ask when I don't know something, rather than when I already am intimately familiar with the subject. I hope I'm not mistaken.

Additionally, I've been motivated to ask this because I absolutely adore the history teacher I once had, who was a self-proclaimed anarchist, and had a stunning amount of both knowledge and nuance. I believe he used the term dictatorship when referring to the DPRK, and so too does pretty much the entire internet, from what I've seen -- To waive it all off as propaganda seems to be such a large statement and claim that it itself would make me suspicious. Eh -- I don't know how to tactfully ask this, but as a newcomer, could I be forgiven just once for asking whether you, whoever is writing a comment, believe that some of the responses portraying the DPRK as a truly socialist country where the proletariat is faithfully represented and honored, could be propaganda? This veers on the edge of breaking rule A5, maybe Q3/A3. I don't mean to break these rules and don't think I do so just yet -- I'm just so confused and paranoid now because I've spent the past hour writing this post, then re-writing it and re-writing it again due to over-thinking what influences exist where, and so I also just wanted to ask whether this subreddit is a generally good place for me to get real responses from non-state affiliated socialists/communists/anarchists. I'm sorry for the annoyance.

Thank you to whoever read this, I am thankful for any comment at all. I apologize again for my ignorance and hope that my bias was adequately removed or at least acknowledged in this post.

Curious about what the consensus is among socialists. Obviously, there’s going to be some difference, but what is the broad majority opinion?

The countries today that claim to be socialist—but when we look at their economic systems and classes, we see that there is capitalism. With that, do you take it as them masquerading as socialists and having abandoned the path of socialism, or are they still considered socialist because they have socialists in government? Isn’t that really unfair and inaccurate terminology—to call the countries themselves socialist just because they have socialist governments?

For example, some of those countries today, like China, currently have a lot of resources that they could actually use to implement socialism, with workers actually owning the means of production, etc. Or is it that these countries cannot achieve socialism if there isn’t a domino effect of socialist revolutions happening, with an emphasis on Western countries? That they cannot become socialist because the world-dominating economy is capitalist, and there’s no revolution happening. But also, couldn’t they help bring that about?

And then you have countries like Cuba, in their own way, going down the path of privatization, aka capitalism.

I totally get that under socialism classes will be abolished, after which there will no longer be any need for the state to be a class tool. But won't the state still be needed for other decisions, ones taken by society as a whole, and to resolve other contradictions?

For example, we will need the state to decide how much labor to allocate to this or that need, to prioritize projects that benefit different segments of society (obviously not class-based, but maybe related to particular regional needs), to decide on matters such as language or gender or other, to judge cases of violence (obviously not class-related then, but personal or domestic or religious or other), to fight potential reemergence of capitalism, etc. After all there will still be non-class contradictions and different opinions on how to tackle any issues.

I am so new to almost everything when it comes to politics and working class and history and capitlism. i did knew about patriarchy because well who doesn't. But first i am not good when it comes to language be it english or any other language my biggest weakness. i have been directly affected by whatever the hell this system do i am a woman in pakistan I have lived my whole life wondering when would be the day i would be free from shackles. My family is dysfunctional and if today i told my parents how i want to live i can suffer consequence i might not deserve, what i am getting to is i want You all to suggest me books or maybe youtube creators that explain everything and i can understand how the world works and how it is supposed to work and maybe about history of colonialism etc.

I listened to Revolutionary Left Radio and one of the hosts casually expressed how they wanted more socialists in office to advocate for the abolition of the US constitution.

Now, I'm not American but have been highly American coded (A very nice way of saying whitewashed, I suppose) and it came a shock to me. So my question is pretty simple but a few follow ups for those who do wish to abolish it is what part of the constitution makes it exploitative to the working class? What do you do with the bill of rights? Are we starting from scratch or do we keep some aspects of it, whether that be governance, the branches of power, elections, rights, etc.

And for those who don't believe in it's abolition: why?

Should colonizers and their lackeys be removed root and stem from a society in order to decolonize successfully?

It's already happened in many countries in Asia and Africa during the decolonization period.

Disclaimer: I've lived in The United States all my life. I was raised on the American claim 'Capitalism good. Socialism bad'.

Recently, I had the opportunity to watch Michael Moore's \*Where to Invade Next\* which explores the differences between Socialism and Capitalism. Its very eye & mind-opening how the word & concept (of) Socialism differs in understanding & practice between hither and yon.

What are your thoughts on Capitalism vs (European) Socialism?

BTW, if you havent seen the flick, check it out sometime. It cherry picks, but its also very entertaining as well as informative.

Just my .02

One of my main issues with the DSA is that they seem to believe that they can only help people's material needs when they are elected to office, but in a capitalist country like the United States, counting on being elected to begin to help ease people's material needs and begin to implement socialism seems like a losing strategy. If I'm wrong about this and they do have that, please tell me because I'd like to get involved and do something beyond purely ideological.

In a previous post, I asked if cops are part of the proletariat. The overwhelming answer I got was "yes, but they are class traitors." Whilst my main question was answered, I didn't get a full explanation of how socialists move forward and address crimes and policing.

So my question is seperated into two. Addressing law enforcement and crimes in a capitalist society and addressing law enforcement and crimes in a socialist society.

Under capitalism, what do socialists do to reduce their relliance on cops or somehow utilize them for specific goals? How do we respond to crime rates? What policies do socialists in elected office propose and push for? And how should we organize as a community to resolve the issue of criminal activity?

Under socialism, would there be a police force? If so, what would they look like in terms of their conduct and duty and how they carry those out? How would socialists respond to deadly amd aggressive threats such as an active shooter situation, a hostage crises, etc? What laws would be considered unjust but is seen as normal in a capitalist society, where under socialism it would be abolished, repealed or wouldn't exist?

Việc gán nhãn "cực hữu" cho Đức Quốc Xã (Nazism) quả thực đã bị giới trí thức cánh tả trong nhiều viện đại học phương Tây lợi dụng suốt nhiều thập kỷ để biến nó thành vũ khí chính trị, đánh đồng phe bảo thủ hoặc phe ủng hộ tự do cá nhân với thảm họa phát xít.

Nếu chỉ dùng thước đo một chiều Tả - Hữu truyền thống, bạn sẽ thấy một cú "đánh tráo khái niệm" rất lớn của học thuật tả phái:

• Sự mâu thuẫn về bản chất Cực Hữu: Cực Hữu theo lý thuyết chính trị tự do (Classical Liberalism/Libertarianism) là đề cao chính phủ cực nhỏ, tôn trọng tối đa quyền tư hữu và tự do cá nhân. Ngược lại, Đức Quốc Xã kiểm soát toàn bộ đời sống xã hội, can thiệp sâu vào kinh tế, lập bộ máy cảnh sát trị và chà đạp tự do cá nhân. Về mặt vận hành, đây chính là Chủ nghĩa Tập thể Toàn trị (Totalitarian Collectivism) — thứ hoàn toàn trùng khớp với mô hình của Chủ nghĩa Cộng sản.

• Thủ thuật của trí thức Cánh Tả: Giới trí thức tả phái (đặc biệt là dòng tư tưởng hậu chiến tại Pháp hay Trường phái Frankfurt) đã tranh thủ việc Hitler tiêu diệt người cộng sản để đẩy Phát xít về hẳn phía "Cực Hữu". Bằng cách này, họ tạo ra một bẫy nhận thức: gieo rắc suy nghĩ rằng hễ ai chống Cánh Tả hay đòi hỏi giá trị truyền thống thì đều có nguy cơ biến thành Phát xít, trong khi giấu đi sự thật rằng chính Cánh Tả Toàn trị cũng tàn bạo không kém.

• Chủng tộc thay vì Giai cấp: Cả Stalin lẫn Hitler đều theo đuổi thứ chủ nghĩa lấy tập thể đè bẹp cá nhân. Điểm khác biệt lớn nhất chỉ là Cộng sản chia rẽ xã hội và kích động chém giết bằng chiến tranh giai cấp (Vô sản vs Tư sản), còn Đức Quốc Xã kích động bằng chiến tranh chủng tộc (Aryan vs Phần còn lại). Cả hai đều dùng chung một thứ vũ khí: sức mạnh tuyệt đối của Nhà nước và bạo lực hệ thống.

Chính vì vậy, nhiều nhà kinh tế và triết học tự do (như Friedrich Hayek trong cuốn Đường về nô lệ) đã chỉ ra rằng: Cộng sản và Phát xít thực chất là hai chị em sinh đôi cùng một mẹ Toàn trị. Sơ đồ Hình Bán Nguyệt (Horseshoe Theory) hay trục Toàn trị đối đầu Tự do mới phản ánh đúng bản chất — Cực Tả và cái gọi là "Cực Hữu" (Phát xít) uốn cong lại và gặp nhau ở cùng một điểm: hủy diệt con người bằng quyền lực nhà nước.

#Sự tỉnh táo khi nhìn ra chiêu bài "dán nhãn" trong giảng đường và truyền thông là rất đáng quan tâm

Hi, kind of a beginner here. Why is the conservative movement in the US so pro-gun?

lirc Marx said the workers should be armed so as to have means of opposing the ruling class, and Albania under Hoxha saw most of the civilian population armed. I read an excerpt of an anecdote that recounted how Khrushchev was shocked that ordinary people were armed, to which Hoxha said '... The people have every right to turn their guns against us if we do not do our job well.'

If the arming of workers is a measure of the workers' political power, why is it so propagated within the right? Please excuse my lack of knowledge and correct me if I am wrong, thank you 🥲 (I also posted this on r/socialism accidentally but I hope I can get some answers from both subs)