Constantignoble posted:after more reading and pondering i'm still stalled on this point. i've found remarks that both support and counter it -- sometimes, frustratingly, from the same source.
i think the confusion you're having is the product of a sharp semantic distinction you're reading here which doesn't belong. my reference to the functional quality of the DotP is not to suggest that it does not exist as a concrete object but that what distinguishes it as a concrete object is a consequence of its functional role. it's of course true that the DotP is not purely devoid of any inherent structural content -- we are not anarchists or leftcoms, the marxist-leninist perspective clearly forwards the state apparatus. but it is devoid of any inherent structural content that distinguishes it from concrete objects of a similar type
all states are vehicles of a class dictatorship. once we are given the state form, we are left with the basic problematic of what qualities possessed by the state can distinguish it as a concrete vehicle of the dictatorship of a particular class. bourgeois and proletarian states are of the same basic type, like mao implies, the state is a concrete administrative-judicial-military apparatus which operates as an instrument of class dictatorship. this is equally true of state apparatuses of both a bourgeois and proletarian character, so we are forced to answer the question of how we can identify this class nature
the only inherent formal quality the quotes you provide assert is simply that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a state apparatus, which i was assuming as a given. how states -- as concrete objects of a similar type -- can be distinguished in terms of their class character is by virtue of their functional instrumentalisation in the suppression of class enemies
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Constantignoble posted:my other concern with the functional qualification is that it problematizes the entire category of retreat, essentially deprecating strategy in favor of tactic. ontologically, I guess would be comparable to what critical realists term "actualism," which neglects to acknowledge the presence of mechanisms that, while still structurally real, are nevertheless not at the moment being operationalized. the NEP was a retreat, but it didn't signal that the dictatorship of the proletariat ceased to exist for a time, surely. likewise, the Long March was a retreat; it also proved a winning strategy, in the end.
i think you're making a basic confusion between strategy and tactics here yourself. the NEP and long march were not strategic manoeuvres, they were tactical. the politburo explicitly declared that the NEP was only a tactical retreat, mao categorised military retreat as a tactical manoeuvre. the marxist-leninist strategy is armed revolutionary struggle in the long-term. this is likely where i would identify what huey has pointed out is the distinction between lenin and bukharin's economic line -- the former was a tactical retreat, the latter elevated to a strategic one
blinkandwheeze posted:it's of course true that the DotP is not purely devoid of any inherent structural content -- we are not anarchists or leftcoms, the marxist-leninist perspective clearly forwards the the state apparatus. but it is devoid of any inherent structural content that distinguishes it from concrete objects of a similar type
I'll cop to misreading you to the effect that the DotP exists as "pure" function. sorry about that.
so i think you're basically saying the same thing Stalin is, in the Foundations of Leninism:
The state is a machine in the hands of the ruling class for suppressing the resistance of its class enemies. In this respect the dictatorship of the proletariat does not differ essentially from the dictatorship of any other class, for the proletarian state is a machine for the suppression of the bourgeoisie. But there is one substantial difference. This difference consists in the fact that all hitherto existing class states have been dictatorships of an exploiting minority over the exploited majority, whereas the dictatorship of the proletariat is the dictatorship of the exploited majority over the exploiting minority.
but it seems to me that it follows from everything we've discussed that there are structural qualities that distinguish a majority-class dictatorship from a minority-class dictatorship, which prevents them from being hot-swappable, as it were. to be clear, this is not me arguing against stalin; I think this idea flows from the above thought -- abstract similarity (class suppressing class) masks concrete difference (majority vs minority)
Common to the theory and practice of various revolutionary dictatorships is the utilization of the unitary party, its simultaneous representation of the working class and incorporation of the most class-conscious and advanced elements thereof, its hegemonic position in alliances with other working class segments, and above all the party's exercise of power through (and not as) the state -- i.e., "the Soviets, which embrace the labouring masses irrespective of occupation."
these qualities seem straightforwardly structural to me, but of course they're structural qualities that arise as a consequence of the scope, scale, and quality of the intended function. the apparatus must be capable of fulfilling the three principal roles of suppressing the former ruling class, consolidating the masses, and developing higher modes of worker organization
it might simply represent a failure of my imagination, but it seems to me the requirements are stricter upon the forms a revolutionary dictatorship might take, since those tasks seem much more delicate and difficult (especially when surrounded by a hostile world) than consolidating a very small clique of ruling bourgeoisie and then beating the rest into submission in whatever way the local subordinates please
blinkandwheeze posted:i think you're making a basic confusion between strategy and tactics here yourself. the NEP and long march were not strategic manoeuvres, they were tactical.
fair enough, good catch. it's kind of a semantic point in light of the content of my remark, but given that you weren't actually saying the thing I was arguing against, my objection is moot
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but like i said earlier, my point is that these forms are not valuable in themselves in terms of distinguishing the revolutionary character of the state, only to the degree that these forms functions as instruments of proletarian dictatorship. the degree of this instrumentalisation is the sole determinate quality of the class character of the state, so formal qualities can only be assessed regarding the degree of their active instrumentalisation (rather than their potential for such)
blinkandwheeze posted:but like i said earlier, my point is that these forms are not valuable in themselves in terms of distinguishing the revolutionary character of the state, only to the degree that these forms functions as instruments of proletarian dictatorship. the degree of this instrumentalisation is the sole determinate quality of the class character of the state, so formal qualities can only be assessed regarding the degree of their active instrumentalisation (rather than their potential for such)
ok, i think i'm fully on the same page, now. i do agree that if a class isn't exercising power, then there's really no coherent way for that class to speak of "its" state apparatus, and thus dictatorship. emendations stand accordingly.
pulling one last relevant stalin quote, because it's a good'un, and also drives home the point by discussing each aspect in terms of "utilization":
Hence the three main aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
1) The utilisation of the rule of the proletariat for the suppression of the exploiters, for the defence of the country, for the consolidation of the ties with the proletarians of other lands, and for the development and victory of the revolution in all countries.
2) The utilisation of the rule of the proletariat in order to detach the labouring and exploited masses once and for all from the bourgeoisie, to consolidate the alliance of the proletariat with these masses, to draw these masses into the work of socialist construction, and to ensure the state leadership of these masses by the proletariat.
3) The utilisation of the rule of the proletariat for the organisation of socialism, for the abolition of classes, for the transition to a society without classes, to a socialist society.
The proletarian dictatorship is a combination of all these three aspects. No single one of these aspects can be advanced as the sole characteristic feature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the other hand, in the circumstances of capitalist encirclement, the absence of even one of these features is sufficient for the dictatorship of the proletariat to cease being a dictatorship. Therefore, not one of these three aspects can be omitted without running the risk of distorting the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only all these three aspects taken together give us the complete and finished concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
i guess the reason i've come into the discussion hesitant about leaving potential out of the calculus is the idea that, okay, the proletariat made this neat tree fort with all the bells and whistles, and tin can phones to communicate with the other neighborhood kids, and then while they got distracted by something shiny, a bunch of older kids with stolen beer and lighters climbed in. that treehouse is still there, and the kids can still reclaim it without the rigamarole of building it from scratch, and use it exactly as they were -- it's just a question of whether they can before it's completely demolished. obviously, a struggle lies ahead -- and one with a revolutionary character, even! -- but it's nevertheless qualitatively different from the full-fledged revolution that created the apparatus, and orders of magnitude easier to boot.
that's the idea I'm trying to capture, but i suspect i haven't been deploying the right concepts. maybe i'm actually reaching for the distinction between a revolution and the defeat of an incomplete counterrevolution? what do you think?
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as marxists we should understand that political participation under socialism is the active intervention in building socialism, rather than legal or parliamentary procedures or whatever. the democratic legacy of china and the ussr is mass participation in the development of productive relations, the institutional forms of which are entirely absent under revisionism. i don't see how social-democratic political norms and the development of productive forces -- however successful these might be -- are capable of hosting revolutionary mass tendencies
edit: "huge waste of time" is a bit contentiously phrased, but do you suppose the whole thing was "too far gone" already?
Edited by Constantignoble ()
much as there are fair reasons for denying the revisionist period its chosen self-identification, i'm not sure whether any of the familiar terms, with all their familiar baggage, quite fit the bill. Hua Guofeng makes a similar point; we're in a territory that doesn't really reward a backward-looking perspective
Continue the Revolution Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to the End posted:No ready answers to this question could be found in the Marxist-Leninist works of the past. Marx and Engels founded the doctrine of scientific-socialism and the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but they had no experience of the victory of the proletarian revolution and therefore such a question had never been posed for them in a concrete way. Lenin developed the Marxist thesis on the dictatorship of the proletariat in both theory and practice, pointing out that after the proletariat seizes political power, acute and complicated class struggle still exists as does the danger of capitalist restoration, and that it remains necessary to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. But Lenin died too early to see with his own eyes the completion of the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production and it was impossible for him to answer the question clearly and definitively. Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist. He inherited the cause of Lenin and led the Soviet people in achieving socialist industrialization and agricultural collectivization and winning victory in the anti-fascist war. In practice, he waged resolute struggles against various counter-revolutionary bourgeois representatives who had wormed their way into the Party. Yet, theoretically he did not acknowledge that after the collectivization of agriculture, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and between the socialist road and the capitalist road continued in the Soviet Union. For a long time, he did not look at socialist society from a materialist dialectical viewpoint of the unity of opposites, but saw it as an integrated whole where there is only identity, but no contradictions. Under the influence of this idea, there prevailed in the international communist movement for a long time the viewpoint which refused to recognize that class struggle continues between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie after the completion of the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production, that such class struggle will manifest itself in the form of the struggle between two different lines within the Party, and that the danger of capitalist restoration remains. The bitter lesson of the usurpation of the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and state and the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union by the Khrushchev renegade clique placed a serious task before Marxist-Leninists, the task of conscientiously summing up the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat and reconsidering the related questions.
all this is to say that I still don't see how we're doing ourselves any favors by simply saying "capitalist restoration" and leaving it at that. It's clear a proletarian-built state with politically ascendant capitalist roaders, even if it ceases to function as a full-fledged DotP, has clear qualitative distinctions from any bourgeois state, a traditional capitalist country -- structurally, functionally, and in its role and context in the broader world system -- and letting that detail slide seems to me unthinkable if we're trying to concretely employ class analysis. this is basically the idea that underlies my last couple posts.
We can say the bald Ukrainian Kenshiro tagged all the USSR's pressure points, and it simply didn't know it was dead for a few decades, but to accept this as a fait accompli, as though the category of struggle were removed from it at that point, should be self-evidently erroneous. there's no reason to discount that the scales could shift in either direction; in Stalin's time, Voznesensky was able to get a price reform passed in 1949 that would have otherwise started the ball rolling on the revisionist course early. these policies were reversed not too long after through the efforts of Stalin and his faction. (hilariously, this also happened around the time Voznesensky was being executed for treason, but i suspect the big man and his homies still had enough sway that the former didn't specifically depend on the latter.)
my point here is: if part of the very argument you're making is that the institutional/parliamentarian/legal trappings aren't actually the deciding factor in pursuing socialism, then we have no reason to accept that institutional change conducted through legal channels is irreparably decisive at destroying it. otherwise, we're basically saying "socialist roaders need to win every time, while capitalist roaders only need to win once." i just can't see a good reason to accept that, and i'm not just saying that because it's pretty damn bleak
edit: guess im finally gonna have to get around to reading this thing, huh
Edited by Constantignoble ()
Constantignoble posted:We can say the bald Ukrainian Kenshiro tagged all the USSR's pressure points, and it simply didn't know it was dead for a few decades
Constantignoble posted:after a lot of back and forth on what the USSR wasn't, I still don't have a sense of what you're arguing it was. state capitalist? degenerated worker's state? dictatorship of... nothing in particular? (the enterprise stratum, in the end, held power, but they didn't get there overnight, certainly.)
i believe i repeatedly referred to the revisionist ussr as a social democracy. as far as i'm aware, i've consistently expressed a very conventional anti-revisionist marxist-leninist line. the point at which the enterprise stratum holds power in itself, relations of production are consolidated as state-monopoly capitalism. to the extent that the revisionist state dedicates itself to the process of consolidating this productive form in a procedural sense, they are a bourgeois dictatorship
i think your issue here is a failure to recognise the procedural expression of the functional state as holding power over multiple contiguous productive forms. lenin identified that the conditions of social production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a distinct mode of production in itself but the coincident existence of multiple forms --- capitalist, communist and petty commodity production
Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite tranition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble.
...
The basic forms of social economy are capitalism, petty commodity production, and communism. The basic forces are the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie (the peasantry in particular) and the proletariat.
The economic system of Russia in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat represents the struggle of labour, united on communist principles on the scale of a vast state and making its first steps—the struggle against petty commodity production and against the capitalism which still persists and against that which is newly arising on the basis of petty commodity production.
which is to say, there is a fundamental inadequacy in accounting for the socialist character of the state solely in terms of the persistence of particular relations of production and their enforcing legal mechanisms. it is true that the revisionist ussr continued to host communist relations of production and consequent legal norms to a weakening degree in some sectors of the economy, but this is in the same sense that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat continued to preside over capitalist and petty commodity productive relations (in feudal and colonial forms) and hosted, to weakening degrees, their associated political forms
in this case, we are again faced with the question of how the class character of the state (and hence its qualification as a DotP) can be determined. i believe that the marxist-leninist line is clearly unambiguous on this -- it is only to the extent to which the state apparatus is mobilised as a weapon in the continuing class struggle. this is strictly an identification which can be made based on its procedural and instrumental form. static snapshots and the relative accounting of various formal qualities within them is inadequate because of
1. in all cases these are a contiguous assemblage of productive forms, the dominance of which is accounted for by political intervention, which is necessarily procedural in nature and 2. legal forms are ultimately determined by productive relations. any dictatorship of the proletariat is likely going to play host to persisting bourgeois legal forms to the extent that it also continues to play host to persisting bourgeois productive forms, in much the same sense that capitalist restoration will continue to host the legal norms of proletarian dictatorship. as i was suggesting earlier, however, these legal forms are contentless when isolated from the accompanying relations of production they are a consequence of, and it is the reversal of communist productive relations which is the fundamental task of capitalist restoration
Constantignoble posted:much as there are fair reasons for denying the revisionist period its chosen self-identification, i'm not sure whether any of the familiar terms, with all their familiar baggage, quite fit the bill. Hua Guofeng makes a similar point; we're in a territory that doesn't really reward a backward-looking perspective
i think you're missing the obvious implicit point here being made by isolating this out of context. hua is here quite clearly making the point that we cannot find such historical investigation in the classics of marxism-leninism, but we can find it in mao. his reference to "works of the past" are those that were formed prior to the theoretical contributions of the chinese experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat. this is not an exhortation to depart from the anti-revisionist marxist-leninist frame of analysis or the call for the necessity of developing novel heterodox theories, but a call to study the maoist line. while this presented a development of the principles of anti-revisionist marxism-leninism, it is nevertheless entirely consistent with such
obviously the revisionist states are unique in terms of their various contingent forms. the issue we are confronting though, is whether the existence of particular contingent forms indicate a change in kind -- if we are to remain within the marxist-leninist position, the answer should be clear. this does not mean we need to abandon the necessity of carrying out rigorous historical accounts of the particular practical forms revisionism has taken, just that we can do so without abandoning mao
Constantignoble posted:my point here is: if part of the very argument you're making is that the institutional/parliamentarian/legal trappings aren't actually the deciding factor in pursuing socialism, then we have no reason to accept that institutional change conducted through legal channels is irreparably decisive at destroying it. otherwise, we're basically saying "socialist roaders need to win every time, while capitalist roaders only need to win once." i just can't see a good reason to accept that, and i'm not just saying that because it's pretty damn bleak
i think you're misunderstanding me here again. i am not saying that the political-administrative institutions are not the deciding factor, but they are not in themselves the deciding factor. they are a deciding factor dependent on the degree of their instrumentalisation, not by virtue of their formal qualities. it is political power expressed through the state apparatus is the deciding factor in the class nature of dictatorship, by virtue of the instrumentalisation of its organs as a weapon of class struggle. as such a weapon, the organs of state power are as necessary in the development of socialism to the same extent that they are capable of doing the opposite
as bleak as this is, it is what stalin and mao repeatedly warned us of, as your previous quote from the foundations of leninism highlights. in the provision of the three aspects of proletarian dictatorship, only one of them needs to be abandoned for its total cessation
as for the rcp volume, i think the squabbling of first world sects on these questions is entirely uninteresting. but santosh mehrotra's contribution to the first volume is very good
blinkandwheeze posted:i believe i repeatedly referred to the revisionist ussr as a social democracy.
I didn't apprehend this; of the times you made reference to social democracy in here (though i don't know if you also have other threads in mind) one was a qualified, conditional statement about China, and the other I had read as more of a generalization. Thank you for clarifying.
blinkandwheeze posted:i think your issue here is a failure to recognise the procedural expression of the functional state as holding power over multiple contiguous productive forms.
I'm happy to concede a lot of points, but this charge I deny. "'Left-Wing' Childishness" was pretty much one of my big oh-shit moments in coming to the ML camp. Moreover, recognition of coexistent relations of production is one of the very things that lends plausibility to the argument that building market relations under a communist party can amount to retreat rather than defeat.
(Though I hasten to add that said argument holds no water when applied to the USSR's revisionism; the Soviet economy was vast and varied, and I'm not aware of any dire material fetters on development that might have justified such a tactic.)
I am also quite on board with urging people to consider trajectories over "static snapshots" (in fact I've used that phrase verbatim), and as I've said earlier in this very thread I am fully on board with the point about the final evaluation being given in terms of instrumentalization. I read the whole Hua piece and found it very good, but stopped the quote there out of considerations of length and readability; my first draft did include more, extending down into the part about the GPCR, which was ultimately less germane to what I was saying. So I think in this case you've misunderstood the point of my queries, or I did not communicate them well.
What I was getting at is that I think we need more intermediate terms for the discussion, and my hope was that you might be aware of some that maybe I had not come across yet. I can, if I force myself, look at the USA and the post-Stalin USSR and say "these things are completely the same," but I'll also feel downright dishonest for having said it, for an enormous slew of reasons that you're certain to be aware of. I'm clamoring for better lenses for the "rigorous historical accounts" you describe, not arguing in favor of revisionism.
Fortunately, last night I did some reading on Samir Amin's concept of "national popular delinking," and found it to be one such idea along the lines of what I was looking for.
[ed: And, as I stated, the "bleak" thing was more in response to the "fait accompli" thing. It's half the territory of counterfactuals (so fuck it) and half about how we ought to think about and discuss the change in the grounds of struggle in, e.g., 1950 as compared to 1917. Again, I don't think we're actually taking different positions on this.]
blinkandwheeze posted:as for the rcp volume, i think the squabbling of first world sects on these questions is entirely uninteresting. but santosh mehrotra's contribution to the first volume is very good
Noted, thanks. If you've got any other good docs to recommend, please pitch 'em my way; I'm very motivated to digest this stuff right now.
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babyhueypnewton posted:It's also worth pointing out that whether or not Chinese revisionism "worked" in developing an advanced economy, it didn't work at all in Vietnam which has been reduced to labor intensive production at the bottom of the global value chain and has seen agriculture reduced to poor peasants exporting rice for global markets. If China did create growth (which doesn't mean much, whether China is actually approaching first world standards or not is what matters and is much more difficult to measure), it's because of exceptional circumstances like have been pointed out already.
Interesting to consider this in light of reports I've heard that Un is considering a Vietnam style development strategy in DPRK.
Kim Jong Un told Moon Jae-in he favours the Vietnamese style of economic opening and reform. Vietnam frequently came up in their conversation, Blue House sources tell South Korean media. https://t.co/dVlZR8xEtC
— James Pearson (@pearswick) May 7, 2018
Constantignoble posted:What I was getting at is that I think we need more intermediate terms for the discussion, and my hope was that you might be aware of some that maybe I had not come across yet. I can, if I force myself, look at the USA and the post-Stalin USSR and say "these things are completely the same," but I'll also feel downright dishonest for having said it, for an enormous slew of reasons that you're certain to be aware of. I'm clamoring for better lenses for the "rigorous historical accounts" you describe, not arguing in favor of revisionism.
i just don't find it convincing at all -- there is nothing about holding to these particular frames of analysis which requires you to identify arch-imperialist powers and progressive bourgeois-national powers as exactly the same. we can easily identify syria as having a significantly different position in the world-system to the united states, but this doesn't indicate a difference in kind, just in the various contingent aspects of its expression. the historical uniqueness of the revisionist-ussr and the united states is not weakened by these categorical forms, because the identification of kinds doesn't require homogeneity within them. obviously all such entities will play host to distinct internal and external contradictions
that is, if the supposition of new lenses is required, they can either contradict the anti-revisionist analysis or they won't. as it seems like you're fairly comfortable with the validity of the anti-revisionist point, i'm not sure to what degree your objection isn't just a rhetorical one. there's nothing about the thrust of your argument that actually denies the validity of these qualitative kinds, and i can't really identify your hesitation in using them beyond a rhetorical discomfort with drawing such parallels. clearly the identification of specific kinds does not imply that all entities sharing such are identical in terms of their concrete expression. we can certainly realise that there can remain contradictions between entities of a similar type. in spite of its categorical designation, bourgeois-nationalism can express itself in progressive forms in contradiction to the arch-imperialist powers -- but this can't be attributed to any inherent formal property, and it doesn't mark a distinction in kind, it is a consequence of the particular historical contingencies of the expression of that kind
i just don't see at which point in your argument there is any actual reason for going beyond the maoist frame of reference. which is my confusion at your invoking hua's piece -- clearly this is arguing for the continued adequacy and relevance of mao's works in answering these questions, completely the opposite of identifying a need to move beyond them
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babyhueypnewton posted:E: decided I was trusting bourgeois media for no reason. I'll wait until I see action. Have faith in the Korean people to defend the gains of socialism.
I'm interested to know what you said before. While that reporting does come from bourgeois media, a lot of it is from regional media, which is much more fair to DPRK than other forms, and so I trust it on this count. It's in line with the railway construction that Moon is supposedly coordinating with Un, and the economic planning advice it was reported that Moon came to Un on a flash drive. It gets me thinking, is there anything good I could read on Vietnam's "reform"?
Parenti posted:babyhueypnewton posted:E: decided I was trusting bourgeois media for no reason. I'll wait until I see action. Have faith in the Korean people to defend the gains of socialism.
I'm interested to know what you said before. While that reporting does come from bourgeois media, a lot of it is from regional media, which is much more fair to DPRK than other forms, and so I trust it on this count. It's in line with the railway construction that Moon is supposedly coordinating with Un, and the economic planning advice it was reported that Moon came to Un on a flash drive. It gets me thinking, is there anything good I could read on Vietnam's "reform"?
The South Korean media is even less trustworthy lol. Unless I see it in the Hankyoreh I'll keep my distance. If you're curious though:
"베트남은 경제적으로는 중국보다 자본에 대한 통제가 덜하고, 정치적으로는 미국과 보다 친밀한 관계를 유지하고 있다는 점이 특징"이라고 덧붙였다.
Kim is saying that Vietnam is preferable as an economic model to China because they have less capital controls but that politically the close relationship with China should be maintained over relations with the US. Which I find disturbing since as of now China and NK have very similar investment laws although in practice North Korea is much more socialist (some of this is simply aversion on the part of investors while some of it is determined by class struggle in North Korea and in the party), if the goal of reforms is to go further than China that's disturbing. But then I said Kim is a diplomatic and symbolic figure, the actual mechanism of economic opening up, if it happens, will be determined by class struggle and the very different situation of capitalism in 2007 vs 2017.
그는 북한이 중국에 대한 경계감이 생각보다 강하다고 전했다. 이 때문에 미국과의 관계 개선을 통해 미국과 중국 사이에서 견제와 균형을 취하는 전략을 취할 가능성이 높다고 지적했다. 이 관계자는 또 "북한은 주한미군을 원한다는 이야기를 이번에 했다"며 "북한은 주한미군에 대한 거부감이 없다"고 밝혔다. 중국을 견제하기 위해서는 주한미군이 주둔하는 편이 오히려 낫다는 것이다. 그는 "북한은 미군을 주적으로 생각하지 않는다"며 "지정학적으로 가까운 나라가 주적이 되지, 먼 나라가 주적이 되는 경우는 없다. 미국은 주적이 될 이유도 필요도 없다"고 강조했다. 따라서 다가오는 미·북정상회담에서 김 위원장이 주한미군 철수를 요구할 가능성이 지극히 낮다는 것이다.
this makes me suspicious since it's basically saying North Korea doesn't care about the American military and wants to use them to mediate between China and America. I find that hard to believe since it's an American orientalist fantasy that North Korea secretly hates China and loves America.
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blinkandwheeze posted:i can't really identify your hesitation in using them beyond a rhetorical discomfort with drawing such parallels
You've definitely nailed my point this time; thanks for walking with me on this.
Rhetorical, terminological, lexical -- I'm saying that scientific discourse calls for as much specificity, clarity, and conciseness as can be rendered verbally. Emphasizing that "kind" draws the focus to something that is, unfortunately, categorically vast. In the last instance, a dictatorship of the haute bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of petty-bourgeois cap-roaders, and various new-democratic configurations all support the dominance of capitalist relations of production in the world. I think it's critical that said identification be where discussion begins, not ends. In my experience, though, discourse on the ways, the degrees, the positionalities, the expression of internal contradictions, etc., tend to fall by the wayside once the grand pronouncement is issued. Maybe I've just been exposed to crappy Maoists, but whereas they often appeared entirely willing to elide those important differentiations (while their various opponents would actually delve into the concrete with gusto), for a long while I had mistaken them for ultralefts. Frame of reference is key, but discourse matters -- such as what degree of focus is afforded to which details within that frame.
At any rate, I'm glad you took me to task in the first place. I've gained a lot from this discussion and the deeper readings it's prompted.
Constantignoble posted:(while their various opponents would actually delve into the concrete with gusto).
part of my dissatisfaction with these kinds of discussions is exactly this -- the revisionist overreliance of sociological eclecticism and increasingly granular accounting of minutiae while avoiding dealing with the very basic questions raised by the marxist-leninist perspective