Spicy question maybe, but I’m interested in your takes.
Personally, I think there’s some major issues with at least the terminology of the 2 phase model of lower/higher stage communism or socialism/communism as the terms are used in classical theory. Specifically the ‘lower stage’ or ‘socialism’ term is problematic.
In the age of revision and after the success of counterrevolution it has become clear that there is in fact a transitional phase leading up to the classical transitional phase. Societies did not jump from developed capitalism to socialism immediately and even the states that arguably did were forced to roll back some of the core tenets of ‘socialism’ as it is described in Marx, Engels and Lenin. Namely no private ownership of the means of production and no exploitation of man by man.
To ultras this just means countries following this path aren’t socialist. So then China isn’t, Cuba isn’t, no country still is really and those of us claiming they are then have to be revisionists. And to be fair, if you’re dogmatic you can make that point going from the source material. China itself recognizes this inconsistency, thus not seeing itself at the stage of socialism. Yet it’s a socialist state. But then what do we actually mean by ‘socialism’ when we use the term like this? Just a dictatorship of the proletariat? Any country in the process of building socialism?
That question comes up all the time and confuses the fuck out of people, because the term is either not applied consistently or as it’s defined is lacking. I think discourse in the communist movement and about AES would profit immensely if we had a more consistent definition or usage of the term or a better defined concept of what that transition to socialism is and how we should call it.
Cuba has done a pretty good point about making strides for not only it’s Black population, but also Women and LGBT+ people as well. I think plenty of communist countries have implemented this more and more into their societies.
This seems mainly a Western ML issue if anything.
I think behaviorally and policy-wise it’s easy. I’m saying ML theory struggles to handle it.
I would say ML as a theory isn’t flexible to it, but rather that dogmatic settlers don’t understand that we have to study our own material conditions rather than copy-pasting China on.
100%
I am studying it and I’m struggling to find the linguistic and conceptual framings that work, hence why I posted this as my answer to the question about what I find lacking in MLism.
One example, the newly passed Families code in Cuba!
Again, I’m not saying Marxism-Leninism is incompatible with this. I’m saying MLism doesn’t seem to provide us with the tools required to analyze and formulate dialectical concepts that demonstrate the reality of the situation that Decolonial and intersectional research and analysis have uncovered.