Yes this is what I believe as well but to many people Socialism is synonymous with authoritarianism. Many of those people are amenable to Socialist ideas if not able to be won over completely as you and I have been.

That’s fair, but can backfire and delay radicalization, giving rise to “left” anticommunists that ultimately help contribute to antisocialism more than they do to pro-socialism, as their anticommunist views are magnified by bourgeois media. Chomsky, for example, is guilty of this.

Also, (not to begin the debate about AES) but I think its fair to say that where many socialist projects have failed is in the arena of democracy. Maybe its just a feature of the tradition I come from, but to me that commitment to democracy has to be constantly renewed. Not bourgeois democracy but worker democracy. The working class has to learn real democracy in order to engage in political struggle in preparation to overthrow the ruling class.

This is where idealism and practical realism need to reach a balance. Unfortunately, in the face of international Capitalist and Imperialist dominance has forced stronger measures.

Lenin was constantly stressing and renewing his commitment to democratic process, which was one of the reasons he was able to create the revolutionary party after 1905 that was able to seize power in 1917. And while he had no illusions about the limitations of democratic process within his historical moment, he always “bent the stick” in that direction which in my opinion was one of the things that made him such an effective leader prior to and up through the civil war period ending in 1921.

Yep, but Lenin also banned factionalism. He tried to combine worker participation and democracy with unity. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, of course, I just want to stress that even Lenin made concessions, and had to.

So I will always stress the importance of democracy, not only for the historic necessity and precedent but also because it is not enough to be good materialists (and there certainly has been a history of bad ones) but also good dialectitians, which means contextualizing our project through unificatiokn of the subjective and objective; and to fail to do so is to fail to be dialectical Marxists. If I have to work and debate with some Harringtonites in the process well that is just a necessity of the historical moment.

I understand, I just want to stress that you risk playing into anti-Marxist hands, which is the entire reason for DemSocs.

In theory yes. In reality all socialist systems had surprisingly few changes of leadership after one guy rose to power of the “socialist” movement or party

There are numerous reasons for this. Stability in protecting revolution and genuine popular support are among the larger and more important reasons.

And they don’t really seem to trust their citizens to be socialist without a lot of fear, censorship, spying, silencing critics…

Neither are Capitalist states, and neither was Marx. Combatting international Capitalist influence was and is key for retaining Socialism.

It’s almost as if the majority of humans reject socialism. Which is weird but true.

Not true at all, actually. Those controlling the media want you to think it though.

We can do different than the last times. I don’t believe we’ll get not even close to a moneyless society until… God knows when, but the system has to change before we end up in a new feudal world where we all burn alive.

DemSoc itself is a bad term. It either is used to refer to Reformist Socialism (which is an impossibility and thus akin to astrology) or to pretend Marxist Socialism isn’t democratic, advocating for factionalism and other possibilities of Socialism itself being destroyed by international moneyed interests and domestic wreckers.

Tis the difference betwixt private and personal property, we don’t want your toothbrush but your toothbrush factory however…

Honestly I think China will be the only country actually reaching their carbon emissionsl targets set in Paris. All these preaching democratic nations are failing theirs year after year.

“Pick Me” vibes

You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote. I said they installed more solar power than the US’s entire history, not a single year.

China is fulfilling its internationally-agreed climate commitments while the major imperialist countries do not.

You should find a more sustainable way to fulfill whatever drive makes you seek out this level of pointless smugness and guesswork gotchas.

China did not start industrialization until 1949. Climate Change effects have been known since 1896 or 1824 depending on how you look at it. China literally did not start the fire 🔥

Yes, they are rapidly developing and increasing percentages of their overall power comes from renewables, especially Solar, which they have invested tons of money into R&D to make scaling that economical.

?

Do you think you have fairly characterized my comment?

Yes, they have a Dictatorship of the Proletariat that carefully manages and plans a market economy in a transitional socialist state.

I didn’t say that. Wrong comment chain.

I see no reason why we can’t have both.