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ProleWiki:Essays/Archive

2021-05-18T19:23:38Z

ComradeBirdyBird: /* List of works */

{{changetitle|''Essays''}}
This is a hub to promote original works made by our comrades.

Share your texts, your analyses, your critiques, and let other comrades participate in improving it even further.

Any piece of text produced can ''(and should)'' be criticized by using their respective discussion pages.

Works ''outside the scope of marxism'', but nonetheless politically relevant should be put in [[ProleWiki:Gulag|gulag]].

== List of works ==
* ''[[Essay:On drug use|On drug use]]'', promoted by [[User:FelipeForte|Felipe Forte]].
* ''[[Essay:Art and the Juche idea|Art and the Juche idea]]'', promoted by [[User:FelipeForte|Felipe Forte]].

* ''[[Essay:A biological odyssey|A biological odyssey]]'', promoted by [[User:FelipeForte|Felipe Forte]].

* [[Essay:Stalin wears Green and a Red Star|''Stalin wears green and a red star'']], promoted by Comrade [[Comrade:Certified Red G*mer|Certified R*d Gamer]]
* ''[[:en:Essay:What_is_imperialism?|What is imperialism?]]'', promoted by Comrade [[:en:Comrade:Certified_Red_G*mer|Certified R*d Gamer]]
* [[Socialism is not a parrot concept, personal or governmental]] by ComradeBirdyBird
* [[Every communist must support China]] by ComradeBirdyBird

Essay:Every communist must support China

2021-05-18T19:21:20Z

ComradeBirdyBird: Created page with "{{DISPLAYTITLE:Essay:Every communist must support China}} It comes up again and again in the various socialist groups, and the issue never seems to be really settled. Is Chin..."

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Essay:Every communist must support China}}

It comes up again and again in the various socialist groups, and the issue never seems to be really settled. Is China communist? Should we support China?

We are surrounded by accusations, criticism, respect and deference to and for the Middle Kingdom. Let's try to understand the country for once. Whether actions or lack of actions are good or bad is complicated to discern, as it often depends on one's perspective. Based on this, I offer the following reasoning.

As a communist, one is an anti-imperialist. Imperialism creates and created a level of proletarian exploitation and human crime that continues to hinder and even prevent the development of many nations. Between the years 1839 and 1949, China was forced into unjust imperialist treaties by Western powers. These treaties, enforced in part by the Opium Wars against Britain, forced China to cede territory, open ports to trade, and submit to Western powers. This period is called the "100 Years of Humiliation" in China. The humiliation was declared over by Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong in the aftermath of World War II.

This era remains an important part of contemporary Chinese identity.

For the communist, socialist theory is an elementary companion. Equally elementary is communist practice, of which there cannot be enough. Every organized communist can participate in the theory by questioning it, trying to apply it in different hypotheses but only the state itself can carry out communist practice. In our time, these countries have become rare, yet we need them to fathom our own theories. China follows socialism, socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must follow the development of this socialism so that we can learn from its successes and failures. An implementation of socialist practice on the scale of China is unique nowadays and an enormous source of knowledge.

Not only that, we can be proud of the successes of our Chinese comrades. A highly innovative infrastructure, fighting the pandemic and everything else predominantly fighting absolute poverty. One may follow the Western perspective and focus on the failures, but one cannot close one's eyes to the successes. Especially for the western communist, these successes are a proof of the rightness of the proletarian movement.

Neo-colonialism, rise of Nazism, oppression of women and minorities, and domination of world trade remain stains of the West all over the world. Examples such as the French Colonial Tax, which forces former African colonies to pay special taxes to France. Other examples are the West's trade wars, the imposition of sanctions, which irrevocably ends in third world countries having no choice but to submit to the World Trade Organization and trade with Europe. In recent years, a new trading partner has emerged: The People's Republic of China. For the West, this really only means problems, so this may be a rather hushed topic for many. Perhaps as a result, China is seen as very threatening. That is the right of the West. We can be afraid of dependencies on China. But let me switch to the perspective of Africa. Africa has been experiencing this fear for centuries. This malaise and this impotence that has undeniably been brought to this continent by Europe. A country that stands up to the West and especially to the dollar is something very valuable for many third world countries: the option. The option to make treaties with China and not with Europe. It offers sanctioned countries a partner that can desanction them. It also includes infrastructure programs that provide study abroad opportunities. These are opportunities that can help Africa stand up and eventually act and argue on equal footing with Europe.

The reader may now ask where the criticism of China is.

In my opinion, this criticism can be found every day in the Western media. The skeptical, perhaps even frightening perspective can be found without effort by the German. Important for the communist, however, is the understanding of several perspectives and also the interest in them. In my opinion, finding positive, hopeful perspectives about China has become very costly. This is logical because China remains a threat to the capitalist and imperialist West. Every socialist is an enemy of capitalism and imperialism, and so our task is to be even more precise in our research and to consider even more perspectives from the world's diverse cultures. The issue of China has reached such a relevance that every accusation must be analyzed very precisely before believing it. On the other hand, China must not be seen as the sole savior of the world, their decisions are happening right now and so they must be understood and criticized as necessary.

In the end, you are judged by your actions and that counts for China as well. For the communist, this starts with fighting poverty (I notice how amusingly high I set the bar here) and stops with anti-imperialist activities. Whether China is socialist, whether it passes for communism, or whatever one titles the Chinese government as. Based on China's past and present actions, every communist must support China.

ProleWiki:Essays/Archive

2021-05-18T19:19:51Z

ComradeBirdyBird: /* List of works */

Essay:Socialism is not a parrot concept, personal or governmental

2021-05-18T19:18:26Z

ComradeBirdyBird: Created page with "{{DISPLAYTITLE:Essay:Socialism is not a parrot concept, personal or governmental}} We are in an age where communication has reached a speed never before possible. Anyone who..."

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Essay:Socialism is not a parrot concept, personal or governmental}}

We are in an age where communication has reached a speed never before possible. Anyone who is active on the Internet experiences a sheer wave of information every day that floods the inexperienced user. One's own bilingualism even acts as a multiplier for the mass of information that the increased appearance of contrarians, slogan parroters and misguided people should surprise no one. Where, however, does the communist stand in this situation? Who is active in international socialist forums, recognizes also here how much discord prevails, completely alone due to different information. One sees one or the other comrade even quoting superficial, obviously influenced facts.
Especially in the many national information bubbles, which are clearly influenced and created according to the interest of the respective state, it takes a lot of effort to actually work out an international, socialist perspective. History also shows how each state represents its own propaganda concept, a freedom of the press according to its own interests. The morality of it all or when propaganda is positive/negative is not relevant in this article, but the context is.
The key here is to understand that different nations report differently. The black-and-white concept that one tells the truth and the other does not is a notion more akin to a fairy tale than a political analysis.
It is the fascist's trade to focus on only one way of thinking and dismiss every other culture, perspective and approach. In communism, parroting slogans without understanding them has no place. Especially in the times of disinformation, one must open both eyes and pay special attention to detail.
One's own philosophy must be that of questioning. As a communist, one must understand action and reaction. Recognize the problem and immediately look for the root.

Comrade Lenin already mentioned similar things in "What to Do?" in the chapter The Political Revelations and "Education for Revolutionary Activity."

"The consciousness of the working class cannot be a truly political one if the workers have not learned to react to all and any cases of arbitrariness and oppression, of violence and abuse, whatever classes these cases may concern, and to react precisely from the Social-Democratic standpoint and not from any other. The consciousness of the working masses cannot be a true class consciousness if the workers do not learn it by concrete and, to this end, necessarily by current political facts and events, to observe every other class of society in all the manifestations of the mental, moral and political life of these classes [...]."

Here we recognize it with another example. Black and white thinking and parroting slogans has no place in communism. So it is one's own task, between many illusory truths, to establish the truth itself on the basis of observation and understanding of many perspectives, instead of adopting the perspective of a supposed expert.

This is of course possible in self-reference, but also in the international comparison of socialist concepts. The self-reference makes this even easier to understand. Even after the revolution has succeeded, we must not simply copy state concepts of other successful nations. Just as every culture, every natural area, every religion is different, so must our own socialist concept be different. Although these attributes overlap, they never lie directly on top of each other. Thus, it is even more important to understand the other perspective and approach, because only in this way can one unite the classes and only in this way can one recognize what is applicable to oneself and avoid what is not applicable to oneself.

George Berkeley

2020-12-30T13:54:45Z

ComradeBirdyBird: Changed Nationality from English to Irish

'''BERKELEY, George (1685-1753).''' Irish philosopher, bishop, and, for a while, unlucky missionary in America. His clerical activities (as Protestant minister in Catholic Ireland, annexed and colonized by force in the beginning of the 18th century), on behalf of the victorious English nation, were of a quite reactionary nature. Along with speculations of a spiritual order, he indulged as well in more material speculations (for example, regarding the utility of the famous workers’ houses and child-labor), as witnessed by his work, An Essay Towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain (1720), composed on the occasion of the collapse of the South Sea Company which had been a speculative adventure. Lenin described his philosophy in depth. A discussion of the same can be found in Part One, chapter 2 of the present book. His economic concepts (in The Querist), in particular those on money, were examined in depth by Marx in his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Works: An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1707), A Treatise Concerning the Principle of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1712), a popular exposé of the preceding work.