v.i. lenin - c or d?

lol I know some IRL, I was at lunch last year where one friend suggested North Korea was up to some shit and my tankie friend rolled his eyes and really condescendingly said "oh, that's not true" about whatever shit Kim was up to that week

Who knows what is Kim up to on a week -by-week basis though? I'd be up for querying the sources of the suggestions (depending on what they were).

i don't think he gets the benefit of the doubt

neither does lenin by the way. there is ambiguity about whether he actually ordered a "massacre of sex workers" but, regardless, he did preside over a policy of terror.

It's not giving Kim any "benefit of a doubt" to query misinformation that could be used to build a case for any kind of action or increasing tensions xp

Is no-one going to stick up for Lenin in his own thread?

i mean, i have done that throughout this thread in a heavily, heavily qualified way.

there are amazing posts in here, way up, from difficult listening hour.

More classic as the world gets shittier to live in.

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 27 November 2019 bookmarkflaglink

xp

Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution?

China and NK not really comparable in a lot of important respects

I agree they're not! Which is why tankies who love both are so maddening.

I accept that we must be cautious regarding misinformation but really you'll find ppl who just systematically deny any bad news on N Korea whatsoever based on that, when there's plenty of evidence that it's a terrible regime that doesn't come from US media. Also these types inevitably bust out the "oh sure, but AMERICA isn't a threat to world peace??" line even in discussions amongst leftists where it's a given that yes, America is that. There's a lot of knee-jerk enemy-of-my-enemy reasoning.

Which is why tankies who love both are so maddening.

tanks don't really have a coherent ideology beyond "if Big Bad Empire says it's bad, it's probably good" iirc

I dunno, there's some smart tankies with well thought-out arguments etc who when it comes down to it are like "stalinism was cool and contemporary china rocks, yay communism". Domenico Losurdo a good example

tbf the only people I've chatted to who stan for china are chinese citizens. china seems v interesting from an economic & governance point of view

I don't know, I must get out more and meet all these pro-Chinese non-Chinese people and DPRK cheerleaders - or not, preferably.

Comparing China in 1920 to China in 2020, it's no cause for wonder if Chinese citizens are willing to accept many of the drawbacks and difficulties presented by their government.

Accepting the drawbacks doesn't seem like much of a choice for Chinese citizens.

Accepting the drawbacks of an Indian democratic capitalist system isn't much of a choice to a huge underclass there either, you could go on forever here!