[dude with glasses in a communist t-shirt, arguing]
I'm the only leftist here, your opinions are TRASH

[dude holding a theory book on smug, arguing]
Read theory you losers, you're all WRONG

[dude in an anarchist hoodie, arguing]
Nuh-uh, I'm the only leftist here, you're SHITLIBS

[the three dudes are now caught in a cartoon fight, glasses gone flying, punches everywhere, while a firing squad of nazis are targeting them with rifles]

[a confused nazi asks]
Why… why are they still arguing?

Ok. Neither did the communist revolutions of the 20th century permanently damage communism as a political system.

Watch the news, talk to people, "communism bad" is all they blurt out without thinking.

So if there one thing I'd be happy for you take out of this convo, is that I am in no way supportive of US-style polemics about "this is such a communist shithole!" or any of the variety of standardized phrases comparing "capitalism" to "communism".

When I lived in the US, this was extremely annoying! That being said, that doesn't mean I am going to deny reality.

Ok. Neither did the communist revolutions of the 20th century permanently damage communism as a political system.

But they have. There are no more communist countries. The remaining countries that are marketed as communist, have long become authoritarian capitalist countries.

There is zero mass momentum towards "communist" parties. Many "communist" parties are little more than fronts for places like russia (a hyper-capitalist shithole with a majority of the population committed to genocidal imperialism).

Anarchists and communistic system have indeed existed before the USSR/CCP China appeared, but they are not functionally comparable to an ideology-focused communist government regime.

It's like saying commerce, competition, innovation are element of capitalism, when these things have existed before capitalism and will likely exist after capitalism (in the polemical sense) becomes mostly a matter of history books.

Besides, so called “liberal democracies” have done far more evil than the USSR or Communist China. In fact, they’re doing a repeat of the Holocaust as we speak. Does that “permanently (without any chance of rehabilitation) discredit democracy as a legitimate ideology”?

This is false.

Sure, if you’re a complete dullard who has mainlined nothing but pure, concentrated cold war propaganda without any thought or consideration, without ever bothering to open a single book on political theory. Everyone else is not that stupid.

This is not cold war propaganda. I was born in the USSR, as was my family. I live in a country that was occupied under the banner of communism under the USSR.

I oppose the current oligarch regime and I have an extremely negative view of the American political system. That being said, communism is not the answer.

Communism is the past. It's history. It's done.

We need to build something better (often inspired by the ideals of Marx), we are wasting chasing a dead end ideology; this only makes the oligarchs and the criminals stronger.

[dude with glasses in a communist t-shirt, arguing]
I'm the only leftist here, your opinions are TRASH

[dude holding a theory book on smug, arguing]
Read theory you losers, you're all WRONG

[dude in an anarchist hoodie, arguing]
Nuh-uh, I'm the only leftist here, you're SHITLIBS

[the three dudes are now caught in a cartoon fight, glasses gone flying, punches everywhere, while a firing squad of nazis are targeting them with rifles]

[a confused nazi asks]
Why… why are they still arguing?

If you're throwing the word "liberals" around, you're an authoritarian, which is no better than being a fascist.

This is why I can't stand Tankies and establishment Democrats. You can't claim to be a champion of human rights, while simultaneously supporting the governments that egregiously violate peoples' human rights. Complete and utter hypocrites.

Edit: See what I mean? All of you suck.

Sounds like you're the one betraying us

I don't care what someone calls themselves as long as they oppose fascism and understand that the only place where Pedophiles are welcome is the inside of a wood chipper.

They would also tell me to my (virtual) face that they think my country has no right to exist, so that too makes it pretty hard to have any sort of productive collaboration.

Not gonna mention the Secret Protocol in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that enabled the partition of Poland and the Baltics?

Or that Stalin actually fell for it all, trusted Hitler, disregarded all evidence of Nazi troop buildup until the day of Operation Barbarossa? Then Stalin spent weeks disappeared from public view.

Credit to the Soviets for defeating the Nazis. WW2 would have been lost without them. But they also acted as imperialists in reattaching Tsarist colonies to Russia, dividing Poland and the Baltics with Hitler, invading Finland, not to mention all the puppet states created postwar.

Still looking for a single leftist here who claims they support communism. I constantly see it being attributed to the left, but in real life scenarios I just don't see it, only in memes, unless you meant socialism, which is a healthy system of every country, including US.

EDIT: I guess I should stop waiting, this feels like strawman argument/gatekeeping

You're literally the pink guy on this comic.

“Voting is actually bad”
Tankies Nazis

If you're throwing the word "liberals" around, you're an authoritarian, which is no better than being a fascist.

This is why I can't stand Tankies and establishment Democrats. You can't claim to be a champion of human rights, while simultaneously supporting the governments that egregiously violate peoples' human rights. Complete and utter hypocrites.

Edit: See what I mean? All of you suck.

If you're throwing the word "liberals" around, you're an authoritarian, which is no better than being a fascist.

This is why I can't stand Tankies and establishment Democrats. You can't claim to be a champion of human rights, while simultaneously supporting the governments that egregiously violate peoples' human rights. Complete and utter hypocrites.

Edit: See what I mean? All of you suck.

I'm not uniting with people who will kill me later. We've done that multiple times. Your ilk always betrays us.

The nice thing about the two party system is that there is no one else to vote for. Its how we got here. But at least we will have a chance of putting someone who has an idea how to run a country in charge

If you're throwing the word "liberals" around, you're an authoritarian, which is no better than being a fascist.

This is why I can't stand Tankies and establishment Democrats. You can't claim to be a champion of human rights, while simultaneously supporting the governments that egregiously violate peoples' human rights. Complete and utter hypocrites.

Edit: See what I mean? All of you suck.

"poor management" is one hell of a way to put it.

You should try the every time somebody gets unhappy they splinter off and form their own party political system. It essentially amounts to the two-party system in any case but provides more entertainment.

Well, up front, it's nice that you at least cleared up that you don't consider Marxism to be socialist. I disagree with that, of course, but now that we've established that your definition of socialism is exclusionary of Marxism, then that does at least mean we can have a consistent conversation.

As for delegates vs. representatives, the PRC's democracy extends beyond simply voting for candidates and representatives. I already explained that each rung makes decisions for that which their area needs, and elect from among themselves delegates that they can recall. People's integration into politics isn't relegated to simple elections, but consensus building, feedback, drafts of policy, etc.

As for ownership, your argument was that politicians are literally owners of publicly owned industry, which isn't how public ownership works anywhere. Even if the PRC is centrally planned for the majority of its large firms and key industries, that doesn't mean those large firms and key industries are run for profit, personal enrichment of capitalists, participate in markets, etc. There's nothing at all resembling capitalism there, so state capitalism is an absurdity. I gave clear examples of capitalist systems with heavy state involvement, like Singapore, that better fit "state capitalism."

Either way, this will be my last comment too. Have a good one!