I’m referring more to the fact that Marx envisioned the populace rising up. What really rose in places like Russia and China was a group of self appointed elites who were really just reactionaries.
Tankies get mad because they believe that their utopia already exists and everyone else is an idiot for not ascribing to the same.
From my (very limited) understanding of Marx and Engels I suggest your point is correct. I don’t understand how a full-fat, red flag waving comrade could come to any other conclusion… but then I have no dog in this fight and no emotional need to be correct.
Again, you really need to go back and read the history of the Chinese Revolution of you believe this. I might - at a bare minimum - crack open a copy of Fanshen or Life and Death in Shanghai. The idea that the Chinese Civil War and Cultural Revolution were waged by “elites” in any conceivable sense is flatly wrong. It is ahistorical to the point of being the opposite of truth. Like insisting George Washington was a First Nations native person or asserting the French Revolution was orchestrated by the Hapsburgs.
At its ugliest, Chinese revolutionaries were arresting, beating, and executing anyone who might vaguely be defined as “elite”. You were having people fight over whether parents should be executed for being landlords over their children. The opening scene of the Netflix “3 Body Problem” wasn’t all that far from the truth - college professors were, in fact, getting hauled out in front of student committees for adhering to the texts of English and German physicists. The very idea of “elitism” was what was on trial during the hottest years of the revolution.
It’s a non sequitur
You don’t know your history. You’re saying things that are flatly, broadly, and totally incoherent.
Marx thought that the revolution would need leaders, and so the self-appointed elites aren’t totally out of keeping. It’s just that they were then supposed to step down and let the people govern themselves.
I’m referring more to the fact that Marx envisioned the populace rising up. What really rose in places like Russia and China was a group of self appointed elites who were really just reactionaries.
Tankies get mad because they believe that their utopia already exists and everyone else is an idiot for not ascribing to the same.
That, again, is another reason why they are not really communist. “Workers of the world unite”
Exactly. My point at that time was to say that it can happen but had not yet.
From my (very limited) understanding of Marx and Engels I suggest your point is correct. I don’t understand how a full-fat, red flag waving comrade could come to any other conclusion… but then I have no dog in this fight and no emotional need to be correct.
sadly there are many stalinists and moaists. the Russian revolution ended when stallin took power.
I think that’s why you and I aren’t tankies, militant vegans, hard evangelicals, etc. It’s not important enough to worry about.
Are you suggesting the Red Guard didn’t exist and the Long March didn’t happen?
self appointed
What does that mean?
I’ll start over:
Me: self appointed elites did this
You: oh so you’re saying that none of it happened?
It’s a non sequitur, it has nothing to do with the conversation.
Again, you really need to go back and read the history of the Chinese Revolution of you believe this. I might - at a bare minimum - crack open a copy of Fanshen or Life and Death in Shanghai. The idea that the Chinese Civil War and Cultural Revolution were waged by “elites” in any conceivable sense is flatly wrong. It is ahistorical to the point of being the opposite of truth. Like insisting George Washington was a First Nations native person or asserting the French Revolution was orchestrated by the Hapsburgs.
At its ugliest, Chinese revolutionaries were arresting, beating, and executing anyone who might vaguely be defined as “elite”. You were having people fight over whether parents should be executed for being landlords over their children. The opening scene of the Netflix “3 Body Problem” wasn’t all that far from the truth - college professors were, in fact, getting hauled out in front of student committees for adhering to the texts of English and German physicists. The very idea of “elitism” was what was on trial during the hottest years of the revolution.
You don’t know your history. You’re saying things that are flatly, broadly, and totally incoherent.
Lol found the tankie. You all simply can’t avoid making it personal. You’ve managed to affirm everything I’ve been saying in this thread.
What?
Jesus fucking Christ.
It was the process of creation of an entrenched counter-elite - a process which had been ongoing since at least WW2 in the CCP.
Marx thought that the revolution would need leaders, and so the self-appointed elites aren’t totally out of keeping. It’s just that they were then supposed to step down and let the people govern themselves.
Yet they refuse to go live there
Good observation!