They are run by Communists over a Socialist society, working to reach Communism. They have not reached Communism, nobody has, but they have an overwhelmingly publicly owned and planned economy they are advancing year over year.

I called you a “Left” Anticommunist, which I think is accurate. You’re overwhelmingly negative about Actually Existing Socialism, as in you deny it as such, which I don’t think is putting words in your mouth. The reasons you have given have actually rejected Historical Materialism, in our previous conversations you indicated that Socialism is a unique Mode of Production defined by the absence of all other forms of property relations, which entirely disregards the Dialectical aspect of Historical Materialism, ie how each Mode of Production emerges from the old, containing elements of both the old and the emerging society. There’s no “sniff test” done by you, no Historical Materialism from what I’ve found, just US State Department friendly “Marxism.”

Mussolini’s Italy and Socialist China are not at all the same, which is again utter nonsense. In Fascist Italy, throughout the 1920s privatization of state industry was the norm. In the 30s, the instituti were formed, which brought the bourgeoisie into government unity, quite literally a state designed from the 1920s to strengthen the bourgeoisie now further entrenching them. This was said in 1934:

“While nearly everywhere else private property was bearing the major burdens and suffering from the hardest blows of the depression, in Italy, thanks to the actions of this Fascist government, private property not only has been saved, but has also been strengthened”.

In China, this is obviously not the case. SOEs are publicly owned, as well as key industries, and in the medium firms the CPC has the golden share. The Public truly owns these, and the CPC has power over all Capitalists. Marxism is taught in school as the basis for ecomomics, and gradually the public sector is growing and exerting more power over the medium and smaller firms which are more privately owned. The CPC is not a “Capitalist,” nor is the NPC. The funds they bring in through SOEs, taxation, and more get used for development and social services, Marx talked about this in Critique of the Gotha Programme:

But “all members of society” and “equal right” are obviously mere phrases. The kernel consists in this, that in this communist society every worker must receive the “undiminished” Lassallean “proceeds of labour.”

Let us take first of all the words “proceeds of labour” in the sense of the product of labour; then the co-operative proceeds of labour are the total social product.

From this must now be deducted:

First, cover for replacement of the means of production used up.

Secondly, additional portion for expansion of production.

Thirdly, reserve or insurance funds against accidents, dislocations caused by natural calamities, etc.

These deductions from the “undiminished proceeds of labour” are an economic necessity and their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces, and partly by computation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.

Further, Fascist Italy crushed Communists and worker organizations, Socialost China is run by Communists that strengthen worker organizations. Fascist Italy was designed to enrich the business owners, Socialist China works comprehensively towards strengthening pay year over year, eradicating poverty, and building towards higher stages of Socialism.

As a tangent, your comment implies cooperative property is the basis of Marxism, ie direct worker ownership, but Marx and Engels themselves rejected it as petite bourgeois relations. Exclusive ownership over a small portion of the economy cannot truly be considered abolition of private property, but protecting it. That’s why Engels describes the Proletarian State gradually collrctivizing all property until class struggle is resolved through “lower stage Communism,” or what we would call “Socialism,” before the state withers into the “Administration of Things,” which still wouldn’t be direct worker ownership but publicly owned and planned production to fulfill use-value.

The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.

I take what you say seriously because your type of views ultimately end up working against Marxists globally, and are often magnified in liberal spaces. “Left” Anticommunism is something that deeply permeates Western Marxism, so it’s important to call it out when I see it.

The overwhelming majority of the large firms and key industries are publicly owned and planned, so yes, the workers do own the means of production for the majority of the economy. Further, managers are workers too, not owners. I think you have a very specific view of Socialism that’s exclusionary towards Marxism, for Marxists cooperatives aren’t truly “Socialist” as they are petite bourgeois cells that retain private property and exclusive ownership within, when the goal of Marxist Communisn is the eventual abolition of Private Property, which can only be accomplished by folding all property into the hands of all, through public ownership.

I understand the Wikipedia entry, I read Marx, Engels, Lenin, and countless other Marxists. I even read anarchists like Kropotkin and so forth. You are confusing public ownership in general with Socialism as a Mode of Production, which the Wikipedia entry hints at, but you lack the context to understand that, which is why I am telling you.

China is a Socialist country run by a Communist party, which is why the overwhelming majority of major Communist orgs recognize it as such. The economy is dominated by the public sector, which controls the large majority of key industries and large firms. They aren’t fully developed post-scarcity Communist yet, but they are developing through Socialism.

Further, Chinese infrastructure is good. The rails are safe and the trains aren’t held together with duct tape, and they aren’t made with slave labor. This is just chauvanism.

You’re conflating public ownership in general with Socialism, though, which is wrong, and leads to wrong conclusions like thinking the US Postal Service is a “socialist part of a Capitalist economy.” All systems are mixed, what determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is which aspect is primary in the economy.

Sure, republicans tend to think the Russian Federation is somehow still Communist despite the fall of the USSR in the 90s. However, China is absolutely Socialist, which is a fact recognized by every major Marxist-Leninist organization worldwide, so that doesn’t have any relevance here. Their economy is Socialist, the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and they have a form of democracy that results on over 90% of the population supporting their government.

Yeah, it’s a play on the fact that modern day China and its “socialist qualities” that ML’s use to claim the country is socialist are remarkably similar if not identical to how fascist Italy worked.

That’s what you had to say the other time you tried to compare fascist Italy with Socialist China, to the point of calling it “identical to how fascist Italy worked.” This is of course wrong, Italy was driven by Private Ownership, the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries were controlled by the bourgeoisie, and Mussolini murdered countless workers and crushed worker organizations. The opposite is true of the PRC, which is an economy dominated by Public Ownership.

Your comment is essentially “China has good railways? Mussolini cared about railways, and he was a fascist! Checkmate, commies!” It’s extremely surface level to the point that any humor it may have had is thoroughly undermined.

Attributing the achievements of Socialist economies governed by Communist Parties to the ideology driving the decision-making of the government is very different from a random republican calling the Post Office “Communist.”

Public Ownership is not Socialism itself, but a component of a Socialist economy. An economy where public ownership controls the large firms and key industries, ie has genuine political control, is Socialist.

No system is purely public or private, hence the line of demarcation between Socialist countries and Capitalist countries is where political power is vested.

In the late 1990s, when Blackshirts and Reds was written, it really did seem like China was capitulating in the same way many other countries had, by letting in foreign Capital. It was only with time that it was proven to be genuinely limited in scope, and that the CPC had course-corrected from the Ultraleftism of the Cultural Revolution to a more traditional Marxist understanding of development. Parenti has since turned around on China, as all major Marxist-Leninist orgs who were skeptical of Reform and Opening Up have.

Further, Parenti himself is less of a Marxist and more of a “pro-Marxist.” His understanding of Marxist Theory is weak, what’s strong is his understanding of Western demonization of Communists and Socialist countries. He’s valuable because he nails western anti-communism.

No problem!

Social programs are not Socialism. The government doing stuff is not Socialism. You cannot take aspects of a society out of their context and analyze them discretely. The United States does not have a “Socialist” millitary. Socialism is a mode of production determined by public ownership being the principle aspect of the economy, ie large firms and key industries being firmly public, as opposed to Capitalism where private ownership is the principle aspect.

Ah, fair enough, there is that too.

Likening a Socialist country to a fascist party just because both have trains is the epitome of western anti-communist “Marxism.” There’s no materialism here, and you’re upvoted because the only Marxism approved within liberal spaces is the anti-communist kind. Michael Parenti, in Blackshirts and Reds, quite clearly sums up the role of western “Left” anticommunists:

In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

“CCCP” is the “USSR,” so no. I think you mean “CCP,” which stands for “Chinese Communist Party,” although the preferred term is “CPC,” or “Communist Party of China,” as is the international standard designation for Communist Parties.

Either way, the CPC does have control over the economy, including the private sector, through mechanisms like “the golden share.” Even further, key industries like steel, energy, etc are publicly owned and controlled, hence the companies that do exist in the private sector must still rely on the public sector and play by the rules or else they can’t actually do business.

I answered over here, China is a Socialist economy trying to build up to Communism. Billionaires wouldn’t really exist in Communism, but China hasn’t managed to abolish the commodity form in general yet, it takes time and most importantly development of the productive forces.

Socialism does not necessitate the abolishment of commodity production in totality to be considered Socialist, just that the society we are analyzing is working towards abolishing it in the future, which is further cemented by running an economy where the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are in the public sector and thus have leverage over the rest of the economy.

This is because no system is static. Whoever controls the Means of Production controls their development, and in which direction. As production improves, centralization increases, and state management becomes more feasible and more fundamentally necessary. This propels further socialization of the economy, as long as there is a dictatorship of the proletariat, the development of the productive forces drives the development to higher and more developed stages of Socialism, eventually giving way to the establishment of Communism.

Further, to compare China to fascist Mussolini is just absurd. Mussolini had minor nationalizations, in order to support the Capitalist state. In China, it’s fundamentally the opposite. Engels went over the difference in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

But the modern state, too, is only the organization with which bourgeois society provides itself in order to maintain the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against encroachments either by the workers or by individual capitalists. The modern state, whatever its form, is an essentially capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal aggregate capitalist. The more productive forces it takes over into its possession, the more it becomes a real aggregate capitalist, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-workers, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished, rather it is pushed to the limit. But at this limit it changes into its opposite. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it contains within itself the formal means, the handle to the solution.

Engels is specifically speaking about economies where the state is thoroughly bourgeois, and thus the character of the state ownership is to support Capitalism. This is not the case for China, however, which has gradually been seeing large gains for the working class and the Capitalists within China thoroughly submissive to the proletarian state. China has already had its revolution, it did not abandon it, neither did Cuba, Vietnam, etc. This is supported by what Engels says later:

The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.

Production is gradually transformed into public property as it develops and is more capable of being publicly owned and planned.

But you’ve already been explained this before, repeatedly. Your stance is that there can be no such thing as Socialism until commodity production, markets, and money all cease to exist, when in all likelihood vestigial elements of each may continue to exist even in the earliest stages of Communism, if we agree with Marx. Your stance is the “One Drop Rule,” which eliminates the entirety of Dialectics and treats Socialism as a unique mode of production defined by purity, while Capitalism, Feudalism, and so forth were all defined by which element was the principle aspect, as no system has ever truly been “pure.” This is plainly a wrong stance to take.

I answered over here, China is a Socialist economy trying to build up to Communism. Billionaires wouldn’t really exist in Communism, but China hasn’t managed to abolish the commodity form in general yet, it takes time and most importantly development of the productive forces.

Communism is not “everyone puts their resources in a big pile and we re-distribute them evenly.” Marx blasted the “equalitarians” who wished to do so. Communism is about collectively running production to fulfill the needs of the people. Your random anecdote can best be countered by asking why managers of single payer healthcare institutions aren’t just taking all of the surgery for themselves, or why post office managers aren’t shipping all of their own packages instead of others.

Now, Social programs are not “socialism” themselves, but these are quick examples.