"I'm going to pass market reforms..."

Khrushchev gained power by intentionally lying about Stalin, demonizing the socialist project, and implementing reforms that ultimately undermined the centralized system of the USSR, leading to stagnation and collapse. Deng, on the other hand, refused to do so:

Not only did Mao Zedong Thought lead us to victory in the revolution in the past; it is - and will continue to be - a treasured possession of the Chinese Communist Party and of our country. That is why we will forever keep Chairman Mao's portrait on Tiananmen Gate as a symbol of our country, and we will always remember him as a founder of our Party and state. Moreover, we will adhere to Mao Zedong Thought. We will not do to Chairman Mao what Khrushchev did to Stalin.

Whether the socialist market economy of the PRC looks like the perfect ideal of socialism in our heads or not, we must recognize that the same failures caused by Kruschev have not come to pass:

Marxism-Leninism/Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory are the core of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, rather than a rejection of Mao and historical nihilism.
Socialism is upheld in the PRC, the large firms and key industries are firmly in the hands of the state, while the CPC maintains strong control of the medium firms.
The centralized system of socialism in the PRC is upheld. Social unity in collective purpose is high, even if there is broad diversity in thought, there is unity in continuing to improve and develop socialism to higher stages.
Rather than stagnating due to clunky liberalization undermining the planned economy, economic growth has stabilized and increased, allowing the PRC to commit to vast infrastructure projects and serve as an alternative to US Hegemony from within the global market.

The market reforms are not without their risks, nor their contradictions, but to be good Marxists we must correctly analyze material reality. The failures of Khrushchev and the successes of Deng's market reforms are both lessons in practice. Dogmatism and book worship are to be opposed.

While I think the meme whitewashes Mao, I think this is whitewashing Deng in reference to Mao. Yes, you have repeated Deng's rhetorical tact in his own estimation very well, but the substance of what Deng and the subsequent CPC said amounted to that Mao was a good revolutionary leader, and he did things here and there (like liberate Tibet) that were good, but it is an overall condemnation of the projects that he oversaw in office from start to finish, with the Cultural Revolution just being the most exaggerated example of this condemnations, despite itself featuring programs that were globally recognized as radically successful and beneficial to the people, like the Barefoot Doctors campaign, which withered and died under Deng (granted some of that was from development, but the gutting of social welfare made some aspects of this harmful).
- The modern CPC recognizes Mao as 70% good, 30% bad, not 70% bad, 30% good. Further, many of Deng's specific policies are outdated, which is why the modern CPC adheres to a "middle of the road" position upholding both Mao and Deng equally. The overall estimation of Mao is quite positive, but with a lot of the good from the Cultural Revolution came instability and excess, which is why not just the CPC, but the people of the PRC see it as a contentious subject.
  I uphold both Mao and Deng as valid and important Marxist-Leninists, but not that all of their policies and actions are universal. I don't think that's an uncommon position, or one that elevates Deng over Mao, which would in my opinion err on right-deviationism.
"Historical nihilism" is a term used by patsocs to attack communist who oppose settler-colonialism and its history in the United States.
- Disapproving of mud-slinging towards previous socialist heads of state like Stalin, Mao, Deng, etc. has nothing at all to do with denying settler-colonialism in the US. You have literally no evidence of me denying the US Empire's settler-colonial nature, I regularly push for decolonization and landback, especially over on my Lemmy.ml account where there are far more bloodthirsty settlers.
  You laser-focused on a strawman because you aren't interested in discussion, like you claim, but sowing division until you eventually get banned. Wrecker behavior.

I like that you compare these two in a way that suggests you think they are the same, and that it is ridiculous for people to have different opinions of them despite them taking the same actions.

It works really well as a humorous comparison, because as we all know, the Chinese communist party lost power, the socialist project was utterly dismantled, and the country was broken apart and ravaged by the West resulting in a massive drop in life expectancy, education, and housing, and a massive increase in poverty, unemployment, and alcoholism, just like what happened in the USSR. These are nearly identical situations.

OP has done pretty much nothing but attempt to start struggle sessions since making his account a few days ago, so it's unsurprising.
- Oh for sure, this is almost certainly Wisconcom, who has been making weird anti-revisionist screeds on lemmygrad across many accounts for literally years. He loves Hoxha and hates Deng, and if you get him upset he will "go thermonuclear" on us all.
- I am here to generate productive discussion around hot-button issues which surround the left. I have no intent on starting undue drama or struggle sessions.

The main problem with trolls and wreckers who pop up here is that they have no education, whether its politics in general or this site's history
So when they start yapping like strawman versions of us, we spot them immediately

Vindicated yet again

Strange of you to say that. I am directly connected with some of the brightest and most educated Marxist-Leninist-Maoists in the United States and know the founder of the world's most politically advanced online encyclopedia to ever exist.
Do you have these same connections?
- I am directly connected with some of the brightest and most educated Marxist-Leninist-Maoists in the United States and know the founder of the world's most politically advanced online encyclopedia to ever exist.
  lmao great bit
- I know people who claim to be knowledgeable therefore I also am smart.
- What does "politically advanced" even mean???
- No for sure and my girlfriend is real too… she just goes to another school ok?? … in canada.
- Oh shit oh fuck!! Run everybody its....

holy shit, I've woken up in late 2019

I mean one major difference on the latter point is that Deng criticized Mao, but he never deMaoized the party. He did target the Red Guards and the Gang of Four, but he was selective. Khrushchev effectively killed as much Soviet patriotism and pride as he could in order to make his position more secure personally, at the cost of institutional legitimacy

Cool. Deng spent most of his time at the helm murdering communists internationally with the Americans.
Or do we just not care about conspiring with americans to invade, wage war on, undermine or kill communists? Is that just not a metric we're supposed to care about?
- I mean the Split with the Soviets and Detente with the West happened while Mao was still in charge, im not defending anything he did but he was not solely responsible for China's foreign policy shift
- I am one of the more anti-Deng people here. I am just saying what a major difference is in perception. Khrushchev set himself as opposed to the existing paradigm of communism everywhere at that time, including domestically. The pivot west was already happening under Mao, and Deng was not leading the international communist movement. So it felt like less of a betrayal, more just an awful expansion of prior PRC post-split policy. Other communists already did not have great relations with China when Deng pivoted, so the Angolan Communists for instance did not experience much of a betrayal. Those that did feel betrayed like in Burma, already had been harmed by Chinese foreign policy under Mao. Vietnam was never Maoist and had already firmly placed itself in the Soviet sphere.
  It is easier for people to view Deng pragmatically as all that is left of communist superpowers, whereas Khrushchev caused things to fall from their peak
  I am not concerned with the moral judgement, just stating why people react differently.

I don't like Dengism in principle, but it worked so I have to adjust my principles to account for praxis challenging theory

"Dengism" isn't even a thing, Deng Xiaoping Theory is just Marxism-Leninism applied to the conditions of the PRC at the time he was in power. Not every socialist leader needs an "ism" attached to their name, that's usually reserved for major, universal updates on Marxism (be they valid or contested).
- i mean, its pretty normal to add an ism to describe the thoughts/ideals of someone or group without going for an long specific name, it doesnt have to be reseved only for big updates on a science or belief and its not only used for marxists/socialists
- Considering the competition between the left and right wings of the CPC historically, it seems like a good thing to have names for each of them rather than letting one camouflage as merely being an indifferent application of Marxism-Leninism, because it question-begs their legitimacy.
I don't like Dengism in principle, but it worked
Same. The idea sounds wack, but it worked, and I care about outcomes over ideology, so

Yes.

If you asked me to choose between the USSR under Khruschev and the US, I'll choose Khruschev. If you ask me to choose between the PRC under Deng and the US, I'll choose Deng. That's not so much an endorsement of every single thing they did or believed as it is about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to ideological disagreements or imperfect implementations.

Also, the same idea can be good under certain circumstances and bad in others. That's the whole point. Marxism isn't about a certain set of policies, it's a materialist, class based method of analysis, specific policies should be developed based around specific circumstances.

The only problem is that it is not that simple. Communists support neither the revisionists nor imperialists (including social-imperialists), but the people. For instance, in China there exists a Maoist Communist Party. There is also a Maoist party in Russia.
- Yeah, and there's also a Trotskyist party in China (Hong Kong). So what?
  What it comes down to, for me at least, is that I don't really have any influence over what happens in China, except through my government fucking with them. And I don't want my government to fuck with them. So you can verbally "support" whatever group with whatever line you like but I don't see how that's really going to have any material impact on anything, unless you live there. I suppose there are other forms of mutual cooperation, but it's not as though I'm mailing envelopes of cash to the Chinese embassy, and if they ever decided to start sending me envelopes of cash, you know, baller.
  To put it another way, for all intents and purposes, I support China. Any policy question that's "Should we (meaning my, the US, government) mess with China?" is going to be answered in the negative. If you would also answer that question in the negative, then we're on the same page, mostly just disgreeing on phrasing. If, on the other hand, you're potentially willing to support the US government against China, then that's a bit of an issue, and a position that you would need to actually defend.
  Otherwise, can you give a practical, realistic example of how my support for China and your opposition to China manifest in tangible differences?

Regardless of your opinions on Khrushchev or Deng or OP, you have to admit, this makes a good struggle session

it's a tagline goldmine

As Vladimir Lemon once said "socialism is when you get rid of markets and the fewer markets there are, the more socialism there is"

lmao ratioed

This all you do?

It's like I'm really on the moretankiechapo discord in its heyday but in reverse lol

I vividly remember posting stuff and getting slapped down with comments of "but that's dengist!"

It's incredibly rude to misgender people

Ah, but there is a difference.

Write this down: we will never do to Mao Zedong what Khrushchev did to Stalin at the twentieth Congress of the CPSU.

From an interview with Deng many years ago: https://redsails.org/deng-and-fallaci/

Likewise, the notable difference is Deng's reforms fucking worked. China is the world's largest economy and is still run by the Communist Party. The Soviet Union uhhhhhhh isn't around anymore.

- I mean the initial citation is from a book by an Italian journalist, but sure whatever. That's quite a take to have on fucking Hexbear lol, you're aware where you are, right?

One succeeded other not. Devil is in the details, implementation matters.

The PRC's implementation led to a significant reduction in the standards of living, and it 'succeeded' due to offering its labour to the imperial core at more advantageous conditions for the latter compared to what the rest of the world offered. Now, the PRC lacks such things as guaranteed housing and is embedded into the colonial system imposed on the world by NATO to the point of being either unable or unwilling to dismantle it.
Khruschev, in contrast, did not implement privatisation (though, there was at least one experiment in liberalisation of the economy via Kosygin and Liberman's reforms), and did not ally with NATO.
So, there isn't really much ground to argue that 'one succeeded, other did not' in the relevant sense.
- One is currently still around, and actively improving things, the other is not. The problem I have with this sort of "both are failures" argument is it relies on an unfalsifiable hypothesis, that China would be in a better position had these reforms not happened. Personally, I doubt China would've survived the 90s without a nuking from the US if they were more "morally pure" and I would say that being utterly destroyed by capital is far worse than being temporarily subsumed by it in order to survive, but the cool thing about hypotheticals is that you get to imagine whatever you want.

Hey, i'm going to the corner store, anyone want anything?

Some popcorn for this dumpster fire

russia didn't need to liberalize to industrialize they were already fuckin' industrialized

Scoreboard

Its true. We should judge them by their scoreboard. So ol' Nikita gets one point for every international communist project he supported and minus one for being mean to stalin. So thats what, 20 points?
Now deng gets 1 point for every communist project he supported internationally and minus 1 for each time he supported the Americans against a communist project.... Oh dear he's in the negatives.

Very brave to post this in the most terminally online leftist space possible

all timer thread

Posting in a wisconcom thread for the ratio.

just here for the sweet ratio

Commenting to add to the ratio

I blame Pizza Hut

The amount of people who support privatisation (including its consequences such as non-provision of guaranteed housing and guaranteed access to healthcare) and working with NATO is ridiculous.

Op is literally just right and its funny the knots you guys have tied yourselves into about it.

meh, i thought the funniest part was following ops replies and blacking out my "smug redditor lingo" bingo card but humor is subjective

i mean, hindsight solves that one doesnt it?

I'm more sympathetic to this sentiment than most of the people here, but one of the things that makes it less serious is that it somewhat whitewashes Mao's role in the people who he spent decades calling roaders taking over, because he basically opened the flood gates right before he died, having lost in a second civil war to the bureaucratic apparatus and making a desperate bid to at least maintain China's nationalist gains.