Capitalists have a debunk to it that Planned economy and Economic planning are not the same. Now i view TPRW as a debunk to the ECP, which if true makes socialism impossible from what i know. Now, for all intents and purposes lets only focus on TPRW as a debunk to ECP. Some capitalists also say that empirical evidence to solve ECP doesn't exist because no state which attempted to practice socialism were truly socialist due to presence of some small market be it legal or illegal.

Is there a proper and structured debunk to all of this?

Everything I've read tends to paint Stalinist Russia in an unflattering light.

What are some sources that you all look at as objective?

are there other ideologies which are also considered far-left?

Sorry if this has been posted before. I did a search and didn't find any other questions exactly like this.

The Ukrainian military and police force are stretched to capacity defending against the Russian invasion. I assume there are still communist sympathizers and underground communist orgs, and also some aspects of government even still retain old soviet systems (afaik, but I don't live in Ukraine). It seems like it could be a great time to have a revolution.

I imagine they could adopt a position similar to revolutionary defeatism. The Russian government seems more and more willing to annex large parts of Ukraine without directly replacing its government (like originally intended). A communist (perhaps nominally pro-Russian) government could seize the capital and negotiate a peace with Russia directly. The Ukrainian Army would be split on whether to accept this or continue fighting both the communists and the Russians, and one way or another they would be crushed between the two. Let's ignore for now the question of whether such a state would still be threatened and eventually destroyed by Russia. This seems like an actually practicable plan on the face of it.

So why have the Ukrainian people not risen up? Is it really the case that Ukrainians care more about defending their homeland at huge material and human cost than defeating capitalism at home? Why?

Ideally, anyone from Ukraine want to weigh in? Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Edit: Also I forgot to mention. As far as I know, military grade arms and supplies have become easier to access and stockpile than ever before, due to the invasion. This could be a good thing for communist militias, just as it clearly has been a good thing for right-wing militias.

Hi, baby ML here. I'm reading through Capital vol 1 and trying to break through the chapter 3 bottleneck. As I read through it I wonder how it is applicable to today because Marx is operating on the gold standard. Aside from this, I was having a debate with my father who is not a marxist (he's a "liberal" zionist) and he claims Marx's works are outdated because we are moving towards a model in which data is the most valuable asset a company can own. I will admit I am somwhat unfamiliar with the data economy. However, I understand that the data we produce is a commodity, it has a use value and a value. It's use value is its ability to target us with adds and its value is...something I don't fully understand just yet. Going back to the story, my father argues that now that the greatest asset companies own is data, marx's theory is irrelevant. I assume his logic follows a similar line to Varoufakis in that he thinks we are moving beyond capitalism in some way. However, I pointed out that that data requires massive servers to be built. He then argues that third party companies can be hired to build/hold the servers. I then point out that the servers still need to be built, and the rare earth minerals needed to create said servers are still mined in the African Continent (such as the congo) and Latin America, not to mention many products we still use today from clothing to coffee. Based on my conversations with him he seems to generalize the data economy as a worldwide phenomenon rather than another front in the abstraction of relations and alienation of commodities from workers. What books should I read, or what could I say to make my larger point that the core relations of capitalism still remain, the core contradiction between workers and the owners of private property, the contradiction between the monopolist banks and syndicates, the contradiction between the various bourgeoisie of capitalist nations as they seek to expand their empire, and the contradiction between the handful of "civilized" countries and the numerous imperial colonies (or rather neocolonies)?

This question has probably been asked before, but whatever

I‘m from Austria, not a perfect country for sure but arguably one of the most developed welfare states in the whole world. We have had many left leaning social policies over the last decades, even when there was a right wing government in place.

In general, Austrian social democrats tend to be against privatization of services and goods essential for living (housing, healthcare, energy, water, education, etc.), but generally support a free market economy for other goods and services. This method has arguably worked very well in the past.

So my question would be: what issue do communists see with this approach? (If they do at all)

As in, “I hate my job but I go to work everyday only bc I need money, then I find joy in my hobbies after work” — sharply dividing work vs. joy rather than combining them as one’s meaning of existence or “calling”— Would this distinctively change if capitalism were abolished?

Wonder if any theorist predicted at length on this kind of psychological or psychiatric side of capitalist rule’s impact

This is a question of function, I don't intend to challenge political ideology with this post.

The US is the most armed country in human history, both in terms of the state and private citizens (400 million privately owned firearms). In the statistics I've seen, the vast majority of gun owners are politically on the right. I haven't heard of many communists who own a firearm, know how to fight, or intend to organize a militia. How is a revolution ever going to happen if all the lethal force is aligned with the state and in the hands of private citizens who hate communists?

It's no surprise to me that communists in the US are anti-cop and anti-military. But being anti-gun altogether is hard to understand if the goal is to fundamentally change the government. Haven't successful communist revolutions in the past had a fighting force that was integral to their success?

Please fill in the blanks to the best of your ability:

1. Communists in the Third Reich have a duty to _________.

2. Communists in the Japanese Empire have a duty to ____________.

3. Communists in the USian Empire have a duty to ___________.

Now the class can compare and contrast notes and discuss the results.

so first of all sorry for my english.

It seems to me that most people in the west have become wealthy enough by the imperialist system to be actively defending it: for them communism means de-growth, as the communist movement addresses what makes the West the world hegemon, which is imperialism and neocolonialism. how can communists achieve what they strive for if they live in a country that benefits off of leeching other countries riches? wouldn't a change of "who owns the means of production" not fundamentally change the inherent neocolonialism that makes us wealthy in the first place? and if it does, how would someone expect most of the population to accept this type of de-growth?

Think about it, 10% of the world's population (most of which lives in the West) owns the same wealth as the other 90%; it's clear that world's socialism or at least a "justice for third world countries" will never be accepted by the western population.

That's why it seems to me that the only way to achieve global socialism is by actively trying to sabotage western powers from the inside and help overexploited countries. thoughts?

I am defining Capitalism as: Private ownership over means of production in a market economy. I'm assuming you don't include the existence of SOEs and Dirigisme to negate a system from being Capitalist

In China, you can own a business and private property (they also have more billionaires than any other nation). The same is true in Vietnam, and it was true in the USSR (Lenin’s NEP, allowing black markets to take place). The only difference is that “one day we’ll abolish it.”

When does the transition take place? When the whole world becomes communist so there are no external threats? If that’s true, wouldn’t the Bourgeois within a communist nation not just prop up enemies until the end of time so there is always an excuse for them to never transition. Besides, if your ideology requires the whole world to go along with it, it’s never going to happen.

Regarding the following passage from Marx:

in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

My question is: why is this desirable?

From a subjective standpoint, part of a person's identity derives in defining themselves by focusing on particular aspects and neglecting others. If I'm a baker in the morning, software developer in the afternoon, musician in the evening, etc, etc, and just pick up and drop occupations like just so many hobbies, where do I get my sense of self as a person integrated in a society for which I am valuable in fulfilling a particular role?

From an objective standpoint, it just seems common sense that in any society we want to impose restrictions on what people can or can't do professionally. We want jobs to be done by people who are qualified for them and committed to them, so that every day there is someone to bake bread or check in for the hospital shift or clean the public toilets, and be proficient in all these tasks.

I'm not arguing for capitalism here, I'm arguing for the value of restraining the individual's freedom to choose what they do with their time, talents, and interests. "You need to pick one thing and do it well" seems like a good rule to institute in any society, communist or otherwise.

Asking all communists and socialists (comrades as a whole)

What exactly is wrong with patriotic socialists/communists? And what is wrong with the ACP in particular? I see no issue, just patriotic Marxist-Leninist's who are culturally right-wing (conservative). Do I agree with them? No. Am I a patriotic socialist? No. But are they wrong for it? No, but maybe? And why? I'd like to state 3 main points here. Firstly I heavily acknowledge Mao Zedong's quote: "Can a communist who is an internationalist at the same time be a patriot? He/she not only can be, but must be.", do other comrades disagree with Mao? Secondly, members of the Midwestern Marx Discord server have very good arguments, suppose I am not good at arguing with fellow political allies as I am with liberals but still their arguments were good. I see a lot of people criticize PatSoc's and ACP followers/members but when I ask them for evidence / an argument, they have none. Thirdly, what is inherently wrong with being patriotic/nationalistic? Do I and we long for a united Earth and species? Yes. But where does this not allow fellow comrades to be proud of their nationality? What makes it wrong even if we disagree with it

If you look at countries like Switzerland, Norway, or Australia, they have a great quality of life, equality, and workers have great salaries. I have a friend who went to live in Switzerland for a few months and worked putting metal sheets in a factory, and in one week he earned more than a month working here. It is true that things were more expensive there, but he could save much more than here and could practically afford whatever he wanted.

It is true that these countries had a strong interventionism and protectionism in the past, but hasn't free trade benefited these countries? Yes it is true that to have a “free market” a state is necessary, but these countries cannot be considered socialist at all.

I'm a form of anarchist (tiered council socialism) so I'd just like to know what the prevailing form communism is here.

Even in Lenin’s time , Russia had the same position on the world stage as a second rate nationalist bourgeois project who was fighting the main imperialist powers. Their alliance during world war 1 with the Ottoman Empire is exactly the same as Russias alliance with middle eastern powers today.

Modern communists who support Russias war of aggression and petite bourgeois imperialism are nothing but the same type of communists who would have attacked and tried to stop Lenin and Bolsheviks from leading protests and seizing power .

Right now , Stalin would be robbing Russian federation backed banks , Lenin would be in Germany waiting to return , the Bolsheviks would be underground, and there would be a network of sleeper cells ready to mobilize at a moments notice . The soldiers would be organizing a rebellion, and communists would bring this war to its conclusion by capturing the rich Russians who are funding it and using their money to improve the working peoples lives.

By 2026, the largest church in Moscow would be the largest wave pool this side of the Mississippi . That’s how communists would end this war , and have ended very similar situations in the past.

Edit : the first part about the alliances is actually wrong but that doesn’t invalidate my correct conclusion. Lenin would not change his stance on the czar or non-Bolshevik control depending on which side of world war 1 Russia was on.

Lenin:

In reality, the “defence of the fatherland” slogan in the present war is tantamount to a defence of the “right” of one’s “own” national bourgeoisie to oppress other nations; it is in fact a national liberal-labour policy, an alliance between a negligible section of the workers and their “own” national bourgeoisie, against the mass of the proletarians and the exploited. Socialists who pursue such a policy are in fact chauvinists, social-chauvinists. The policy of voting for war credits, of joining governments, of Burgfrieden,[1] and the like, is a betrayal of socialism. Nurtured by the conditions of the “peaceful”, period which has now come to an end, opportunism has now matured to a degree that calls for a break with socialism; it has become an open enemy to the proletariat’s movement for liberation. The working class cannot achieve its historic aims without waging a most resolute struggle against both forthright opportunism and social-chauvinism (the majorities in the Social-Democratic parties of France, Germany and Austria; Hyndman, the Fabians and the trade unionists in Britain; Rubanovich, Plekhanov and Nasha Zarya in Russia, etc.) and the so-called Centre, which has surrendered the Marxist stand to the chauvinists.

Zimmerwold conference 1915

I live in the western world and my whole life I hear how bad and evil communism is. Like I get Stalin was a communist and he killed a bunch of people but why is it that communism is so hated by the west and why is it it seems to end in bad stuff?

P.S: I know next to nothing about politics. This isn’t much to debate but just me asking a question

I'm aware of the different kinds of value (use value, exchange value, surplus value). When I say exploitation I'm referring to the pervasive assumption among Marxists that PROFITS are in some way coming from the labor of the worker, as opposed to coming from the capitalists' role in the production process. Another way of saying this would be the assumption that the worker is inherently paid less than the "value" of their work, or more specifically less than the value of the product that their work created.

My question is this: Please demonstrate to me how it is you can know that this transfer is occuring.

I'd prefer not to get into a semantic debate, I'm happy to use whatever terminology you want so long as you're clear about how you're using it.

Recently, I was researching some Marxist concepts and came across a debate about historical and dialectical materialism between a Marxist and a liberal. The liberal argued that Marx's analysis of capitalism is not scientific, because, according to him, every scientific theory must be falsifiable, that is, it must be possible to prove that it is wrong. He mentioned philosopher Karl Popper as a reference for this idea. Furthermore, the liberal criticized Marx for not having considered inflation in his analysis, claiming that there has been evidence of inflation for more than 1,200 years. This criticism seemed somewhat simplistic to me. When considering this criterion, disciplines such as psychology, quantum physics and philosophy could also not be considered scientific, and even this criterion itself would break its own logic. I would like to know your opinion regarding this issue. With the little knowledge I have regarding Marxist theory, I was unable to understand this liberal's argument very well, as it really seems very simplistic and shallow.

I have recently interacted with a few communists who were praising the Cultural Revolution as this amazing movement equivalent to the Paris Commune. I am of the opinion that this is quite delusional. After all, my own personal family were land owners (not rich ones mind you) whose land and assets were confiscated during the conflict.

In my view, the cultural revolution was problematic in the following ways:

1. Early stages, using people who are arguably minors who are unaware of what they are doing to do revolution is kind of bad. Most of the people doing the revolution were in fact teenagers from 13 - 16.
2. If the movement was truly to attack the imperialists, why attack scholars and academics? Most socialists and communists movements are propped up by support from intellectuals like Marx or Lenin. Figures like Lao She who are instrumental to shaping the ideas that led China out of Feudalism were brutally abused. This was along with nameless teachers, principals, scientists, doctors and other professionals.
3. The Mango Incident. If the movement was truly a revolution instead of a Mao Ze Dong cult, why would something like the Mango Cult exist? Where people worship mangos because they were given to the subordinates of Mao?
4. 文攻武卫. If the movement was really pure, why did the establishment not stop the students (“revolutionaries”) from attacking one another? There is literally no reason for the unnecessary deaths.

This is also all on the back of the disastrous Great Leap Forward, where whatever good which is built during that time is immediately destroyed. Further, most civilians have not really recovered much from the famine. To subject them immediately to a revolution?

On another point, the CCP in 1956 started the Hundred Flowers Campaign, allowing civilians to criticise the government. However, it turns out that it was because “牛鬼蛇神只有让它们出笼，才好歼灭它们”, giving the CCP the means to destroy them in an anti-rightist campaign. Explain that.

I had a conversation with a left-com that had the following critiques;

1. Stalin appealed to the aristocracy of the Russian empire, and formed a cadre of Russian chauvinists that dominated the other SRs and destroyed their 'culture'
2. Stalin spearheaded a state-capitalist country.

I have no idea about the former, the latter sounds like 'the presence of commodity production is evident of capitalism- and the USSR had it'.

I hadn't heard of the first critique before. Any validity?

EDIT: This person is not a left-com. They say that they have their own interpretation of socialism, and that most modern thinkers agree with them. No name to their ideology. No name of the movement that follows it.

Hello, maybe this does not belong here but I hope it does. As a parent in an unfortunately liberal area I want to provide some education and grounding to my children (and possibly give them some ways to start discussions and reflection within their group of friends). I have always tried to but they are now teenagers and obviously going through that fairly healthy period in life where you are in opposition to your parents views. Again, healthy and expected: when you raise them to be critical thinkers they apply that to what you say too, obviously, and I'm happy about it. At the same time I wouldn't want them to fall in the traps that our overlord are so good at laying around and end up buying into liberal views. So on to my ask: does anyone have suggestions on books, videos, even shows or comics, that help educating, prompting some reflection and developing a healthy view? We are a multilingual family living in Europe, so anything in either English, French, Spanish or Italian would work. If you want I can even regularly edit the body of this message to add your contributions over time so that it can be a sort of library for anyone in a similar situation. Thanks in advance.

Is china communist (or still communist)? Why ot why not? I've seen a lot of debate around this, and I just want a cut and dry answer. I believe China is, and I think it's a great country. What it has going for it is working. Thousands of kilometers of rails are build yearly. They are building clean energy at a very fast pace. The economy is in great shape. But I believe I'm also seeing some class separation happening. Thanks for any responses.

As of this post, Trump has 277 electoral college votes and roughly 900k votes over Kamala. If you are immersed in the echo chamber of Reddit, it’s likely that you’d believe the opposite.

We can expect turbulence with his presidency, but it won’t be as bad as 2016, as his support staff will have more experience reining him in, especially with regards to tariffs and his mercantilism. But still, be prepared for interesting times ahead.

As leftists, we shouldn’t take this to means that the American people support fascism. As always, class interests and personal interests takes precedence over dogma. The average person isn’t political, and they will organize according to their material conditions. Alienating trump voters (or Kamala voters) won’t be productive.

In summary, we need to get out of our echo chambers to connect with the people. And the method of organizing for change hasn’t changed.

During my time in a society where people's views are either close to or communist, I repeatedly see how a person who calls himself a communist acts contrary to the understanding of historical materialism, viewing events out of context, blindly believing the propaganda promoted in those years by the USSR and Vietnam, as well as by the US and others.

First of all, I would like to point out that such people who call themselves communists do not consider the history of the party and Pol Pot in particular, do not consider the context of the Khmer Rouge's actions, do not skepticize claims and materials. These people can contradict themselves - they can be against a person, against a particular state, but believe that state on certain issues.

Anyway. The Khmer Rouge has a lot of myths thrown at it these days, to a much greater extent than the proletarian DPRK.

First of all, the Khmer Rouge are accused of desurbanization, of senseless and ruthless resettlement. The very problem with this is that without context it does seem like a completely non-communist approach. But you have to realize that the country experienced a civil war, as well as the largest bombings in the world by the US, which led to a significant increase in refugees, who mostly fled to the capital, Phnom Penh. The city's population grew significantly, and given the destruction of water and food resources during the bombing, the city faced severe starvation and dehydration. Referring to the data obtained by a Singaporean newspaper (The Straits Times, 09.05.1975) (the source is bourgeois, but at least it was not a party to the conflict, i.e. it was relatively neutral in this respect), we can conclude that the situation in the city is terrible: people drank water from the air-conditioning systems of buildings, ate cats and leather goods. Eating leather is a sign of starvation at its most extreme, when there is no food left and no animals left to consume. Next is only cannibalism, and, many soldiers of the former Lon Nol army had already had the experience of eating human flesh. The shortage of drinkable water became a much more acute problem. April is the hottest month in Cambodia, and schools were sometimes canceled due to the heat. The city's water supply system was destroyed as early as early 1975. Add to this the numerous corpses of dead, wounded and starving people lying in the streets, floating in the city's lakes and in rivers whose water was contaminated. The use of water from air conditioners for drinking meant that there was virtually no potable water left in the city, and mass deaths from dehydration were a matter of the next few hot April days. Thus, the Khmer Rouge's first task in the captured capital was to provide the entire mass of people with at least minimal food and drinking water. But the fact the Khmer Rouge had rice, in principle. Just on the middle of April falls the New Year, timed to the harvest of rice sown in the dry season, and the sowing of new rice grown in the rainy season. Thus, the rural areas were just about to complete the harvest of dry-season rice grown mainly in the provinces around Tonle Sap Lake and also in Battambang province. Dryland rice yielded an additional crop, about 10% of the annual harvest, which corresponds to about 160,000-170,000 tons of rice based on the wartime harvest. However, it was impossible to transport the rice to Phnom Penh: bridges, roads and railroads were destroyed, much of the road transport was destroyed, and trophy trucks were needed for the Khmer Rouge military units. River transportation also faced difficulties because of the great loss of river ships and boats during the war, as well as the Mekong fairway blocked by wrecks. External assistance could not be counted on either. In this situation, leaving the men in Phnom Penh meant condemning them to an imminent agonizing death in the coming days, weeks at the most. What could be done? There was only one thing to do: for the people to come to the rural rice supply and drinking water sources on their own. The decision to evict Phnom Penh was not dictated by political considerations, "hatred of the capitalist city" or radicalism - it was imposed by the situation. In just three weeks, by May 9, 1975, virtually the entire population of Phnom Penh had been evacuated. Yes, there was some pressure, some threats, some intimidation with stories of a possible American bombing, so the Khmer Rouge forced people out of the city into the rural suburbs along the main roads. Having considered the conditions, the haste with which the population of Phnom Penh was evicted becomes clear, although it might better be called an evacuation, as Pol Pot himself called the event at a party meeting in Phnom Penh on May 20-25, 1975. If it had not been done quickly and decisively, mass deaths would have begun in the city within days and Phnom Penh would have become a dead city. Of course, the journey for people exhausted from hunger and thirst was a serious ordeal and not everyone endured it. However, outside Phnom Penh it was already possible to quench thirst and get some rice taken from nearby villages or trophy stocks. The Khmer Rouge leadership decided to make such an evacuation only because they already had experience in resettling peasants and organizing them into cooperatives in a new place, they were able to move peasants from one part of the country to another. Besides, it should also be remembered that the rice-producing areas did not start that far away, about 10-15 kilometers from Phnom Penh. Since the vast majority of the refugees who settled in Phnom Penh during the war years were from these provinces surrounding the capital, most of the refugees returned to their home areas. Apparently they soon took part in rehabilitating the rice fields and sowing the rainy season rice that should produce the main crop. Those whom the Khmer Rouge did not trust, however, were taken much farther afield, to the Northern Zone, where they were to take a personal part in clearing the jungle for new fields. Many urban laborers, as engineer Ung Pech testified at the 1979, were initially sent to work in the rice fields, but in November 1975 were moved to work in the port of Kampongsaom. Phnom Penh had to be more or less cleared of corpses, the water and electricity supply system had to be set up, the facilities needed to house the leadership and military units, and various events like the National Congress on April 25-27, 1975, and the party meeting on May 20-25, 1975, had to be put in order. Work also began on the restoration of the palace to which Sihanouk was to return. Work also unfolded outside the capital. The Khmer Rouge were trying to clear the Mekong fairway of the remains of ships sunk less than six months earlier. Intensive work began to rebuild the railroads from Phnom Penh to the port of Kampongsaom and to Battambang (The Straits Times, 18.07.75).

When talking about the Khmer Rouge, it is often said that the Khmer Rouge allegedly blew up the Bank of Kampuchea building when they entered the capital because they wanted to destroy capitalism in the most radical way possible. This sounds logical in the widely accepted version, but when you try to compare it with other known facts, you get a mixed picture. First, the Khmer Rouge abandoned money as early as 1973, due to the complete breakdown of economic exchange. Rice was much more valuable than money, and this situation had only been reinforced by the time Phnom Penh was taken. Therefore, the Khmer Rouge simply abandoned the Lon Nol period money. Second, the bank building could have been damaged during the shelling and storming of the city when 105mm howitzers and 107mm rockets were used. Third, there is a contradiction in the stories and propaganda films. For example, in the book by Shubin's book "Kampuchea: The Judgment of the People" has a picture of a destroyed bank building, while the Soviet movie "Spring in Phnom Penh", shot in 1979 right after the arrival of Vietnamese troops, shows something completely different. There are shots of a vault (the narrator talks about plans to remove money from circulation), almost up to the ceiling filled with boxes, next to which there are scatterings of banknotes. In some works there are references to Pol Pot's plans to introduce money circulation. However, this information has no direct confirmation. And the plans to introduce new money into circulation, if they did exist (Ieng Sari spoke of the possibility of a return to circulation; The Straits Times, 8.03.76), faced enormous difficulties: shortage of rice, lack of commodities, dysfunctional industry and broken trade links with neighboring countries. There was nothing to exchange. This circumstance made it necessary to maintain the system of direct distribution of rice and food rations established during the war. Many features of Khmer Rouge political activity in Kampuchea were caused by food problems.

The first priority for the Khmer Rouge was to rebuild the economy and its various sectors. This is usually denied in the legend of Pol Pot Kampuchea, where all educated people, teachers, doctors, engineers and laborers were allegedly killed. But there is plenty of evidence to the exact opposite effect, which points to very intensive reconstruction and construction work throughout Kampuchea.

The Khmer Rouge faced the daunting task of rebuilding an economy that was already very weak before the war. In 1959, Khieu Samphan defended his doctoral dissertation on the economy of Cambodia, in which he described the economic structure of the country in the last years of French rule and analyzed the main problems. In 1976, this thesis was translated into English and published.

This paper looked at the possibilities of industrial development in Kampuchea. Of course, the country was agrarian and there were few industrial enterprises. The largest enterprises in terms of the number of workers and the volume of production were rubber plantations. They occupied 32.2 thousand hectares and produced 27.5 thousand tons of rubber. About 15 thousand workers worked on the plantations. The production process involved not only the collection of hevea sap, but also its processing and the production of semi-finished products. Depending on the technology adopted, this could be latex concentrate, latex crumb or latex sheets. Latex processing requires the use of machinery, chemicals, and thermal energy, so a large rubber plantation was a true industrial enterprise. Latex production was one of the few industries in Cambodia that was based on local raw materials. The other enterprises imported raw materials.

Thus, already from Khieu Samphan's work, the unpleasant conclusion for the Khmer Rouge was that industry in Cambodia was not only extremely weak, but also completely dependent on imports of raw materials and fuel. It could be said that there was no industrial base in Cambodia. Producing energy with imported fuel and assembling ships and cars from imported parts and metal cannot be recognized as an industrial base. Any hiccup in foreign trade, in payments, or a change in the country's political course put such industry at risk of being shut down.

Therefore, as early as the late 1950s, Khieu Samphan put the question this way: Attempting industrial development in close connection with the world market will accomplish nothing for Cambodia. Dependence on industrialized countries will only increase and it will not be possible to create a normal economic system. Therefore, it is necessary to choose the second way - autonomy from the world market. After industrialization is carried out, it is possible to return the country to the world market, but already on other terms. Already in 1975, after gaining power, he could put the theory into practice. However, objective reality interfered with Khieu Samphan's theoretical constructs. There were two factors that forced Kampuchea to move in the usual way: exporting agricultural products and importing machinery and equipment. The first factor was that Kampuchea was completely deprived of the reserves of minerals so important for industrialization: coal, iron ore, oil. There are several iron ore deposits, among which the largest is Phnomdek with proven reserves of 2 million tons. There are several other small iron ore deposits in Preahvihea and Stingtraeng provinces. There are known coal occurrences in Stingtraeng province with outcrops of 10 to 50 cm thick seams. But these deposits even nowadays are poorly explored and not developed. No oil and gas were found in Cambodia. Of the major minerals, there were only bauxite on the Mondolkiri Plateau, which had export potential. But even these reserves were more or less explored only in the mid-2000s. Thus, after the Khmer Rouge victory, Kampuchea could not develop its own fuel and raw material base for industrialization, simply because of the lack of the necessary mineral reserves. This meant that Democratic Kampuchea had to find an external partner with a strong industry. Vietnam was not suited for this role, since in the mid-1970s its economic condition was not much different from Cambodia's, the war having brought enormous destruction. 40 cities and almost all industrial enterprises were bombed to the ground. Such a partner could be either the USSR or China. Due to the political positions of the Khmer Rouge, the Kampuchean leadership chose China.

The development of economic ties with China made Kampuchea dependent on China for many decades, as it would be required to export rice, rubber, timber and other agricultural products in exchange for machinery and equipment, construction materials, fuel and petroleum products. Even after the completion of a particular industrial complex, large quantities of raw materials and fuel would still have to be imported. All this could be paid for mainly with rice. Rice became the real "fuel of industrialization" without which nothing could be created at all. The second factor that Khieu Samphan also had to reckon with was the food problem, which had to be solved in the very near future. The people had to be fed, without which they were of very limited fitness for work. From this it was quite clear that the main economic problem that Democratic Kampuchea had to solve was to increase the production of rice. It was needed in abundance, both for domestic supply and for export. Thus, Khieu Samphan could not fulfill his main recommendation to ensure Kampuchea's industrial development autonomously from the world market. The conditions of the country, on the contrary, required entering into economic ties with other countries, reinforcing the somewhat lopsided economic development with its emphasis on rice and rubber, all the things Khieu Samphan condemned in his work. But there was no way out. Even now, with far more advanced technology than in the 1970s, and taking into account all the world's industrial experience, it is not easy to find a type of industrial development for Cambodia that avoids dependence on foreign trade. Although the slogan of self-reliance policy was widely used in the official documents and slogans of Democratic Kampuchea, the development of export-import operations was a non-alternative matter. One of the first measures was the resettlement of additional workers to the northwestern provinces (Battambang, Siem Reap, Preahvihea). In the fall of 1975, between 800,000 and 1 million people were sent from the central regions, mainly from Phnom Penh. The population of Battambang and Pursat provinces, which had 908 thousand people in 1968, jumped to 1.79 million. From that moment, the development of the economy of Democratic Kampuchea followed a certain plan, which in July 1976 was formalized in the form of a four-year development plan for 1976-1980. The main developer of this plan was Vorn Vet. The main guideline of this plan, which aimed at moving forward as fast as possible, was to double agricultural production within these four years.

The plan put forward the need to fully nationalize the productive forces of the country, and to facilitate the disposition of labor resources if necessary to move them to where workers were needed. The first stage in the movement of labor hands was to relocate to the Northwest Zone, which was to be the main supplier of padi - uncut rice. The task was of utmost importance; this zone provided 45% of export rice. According to the four-year agricultural development plan, it was planned that the main rice-producing areas of Kampuchea: the Northwest, East and Southwest Zones, which contained 72% of single-yielding and 65% of double-yielding land, should produce 4.5 million tons of rice in 1977 and 5.8 million tons in 1980. Rice harvest in the Northwest Zone was to increase from 1.6 million tons to 2.6 million tons. In the absence of agro-mechanization, such growth of yield could be provided only by increasing the number of agricultural workers employed in rice fields. Fulfillment of this plan required changes in the technology of rice production and wide use of two-harvest fields, which could be sown with rice both in the rainy season and in the dry season. Under the same plan, the area of double-cropped land in the Northwest Zone was to grow dramatically, from 60,000 hectares in 1977 to 200,000 hectares in 1980.

This required the development of irrigation and construction of irrigation structures, mainly massive earth dams and water-diverting canals. Their construction involved manual labor in digging and carrying the earth, captured in rare newsreel footage: hundreds of workers in black clothes hauling earth to the dam. Cement was used to build culverts, gates, and canal heads. Sometimes the construction was on a very large scale. For example, 35 km west of Battambang city, the Kamping Puoi dam was built, creating a reservoir with a capacity of about 110 million cubic meters of water. This reservoir is still important for irrigating fields and has become an attractive recreational site.

The four-year plan of agricultural development is often criticized in the literature, in particular, D.V. Mosyakov criticizes every point of the plan, calling it delusional and unrealistic. However, criticism sometimes yields interesting results, for example, the researcher noticed that in the plan at the stated 2.4 million hectares of cultivated land in the plan. hectares of cultivated land, only 1.65 million hectares were included in the planned calculations of rice harvest and marketing, and about 800,000 hectares simply disappeared somewhere. This is about one-third of the total cultivated area. There are such "disappeared" lands in all zones, and the North-West zone has lost them most of all - 202 thousand hectares. D.V. Mosyakov has thus refuted the established notion that the main task of the Khmer Rouge was unrestrained extensive growth of the cultivated area. On the contrary, the Khmer Rouge for some reason sought the maximum possible intensification of agricultural production, increasing the number of workers per hectare (from 4 people per hectare in the Northern Zone to 2.7 people per hectare in the Northwestern Zone). But this interesting conclusion was left without comments, the researcher only expressed perplexity about it. However, in the context of the above, it can be assumed that the "disappeared" lands belonged to areas where there was anti-communist insurgent activity and which were poorly controlled by the Khmer Rouge. The large "disappeared" areas in the Northwest Zone can be explained by the fact that this was the area most favorable to guerrillas, replete with mountains, jungle, and bordering Thailand.

Otherwise, criticism of the four-year plan in the works of researchers, the same D.V. Mosyakov, borders on attacks on Pol Pot. This four-year plan, when viewed from the perspective of planning experience in socialist countries, is a typical example of a recovery period plan, usually initiated after the end of a war to solve the most urgent problems. There were similar plans in the USSR in the early 1920s, and after World War II, in 1947-1949. There was a two-year reconstruction plan in 1949-1950 in the GDR, a three-year reconstruction plan in 1947-1949 in Poland, and so on. Usually these plans were devoted to solving some major economic problem. For example, in the GDR it was the task of rebuilding the lignite industry and increasing lignite production, since the country had been deprived of fuel after the split of Germany and the cutoff of hard coal supplies from the Ruhr Basin. In Democratic Kampuchea, too, all energies were thrown into the main economic task of restoring and boosting rice production, on which everything else depended most rigidly. The acute food situation forced the Khmer Rouge to introduce rationing and ranking of rice consumption: Vanguard brigades received 500-600 grams of rice per day, the main working population received 400-500 grams, and the two categories of the disabled population received 350-400 grams and 300-450 grams respectively. Such measures were introduced in almost all socialist-building countries in the early years of reconstruction after the wars, for example, food rationing and coupons existed in the GDR. Criticism of the Khmer Rouge's reliance on manual labor is also a sample of baseless attacks on Pol Pot. In the mid-1970s, this was the only possible solution, since Kampuchea had no tractors, no trailed farm implements, and no fuel. All of this could be obtained from abroad, again in exchange for rice. The Soviet Union did not provide Democratic Kampuchea with any economic aid, and China was not in the best of health: the devastating Tangshan earthquake in July 1976, Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976, and there was a major split and political infighting in the top political leadership. In essence, there was no hope of receiving meaningful assistance from allies in the socialist camp, and therefore had to rely on manual labor and export of rice for sale. Just at this time there was a series of recognitions of Kampuchea by other countries, diplomatic ties and even some business contacts were established. In late 1976, a foreign trade deal suddenly took place between the U.S. and Democratic Kampuchea. The US supplied Kampuchea with $455,000 worth of DDT insecticide. That's approximately 162.5 tons. For the U.S. suppliers, this was an extremely favorable deal because DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972. It was also a good deal for Kampuchea, as this famous chemical helped reduce the incidence of malaria, especially common in the northwestern jungle part of the country. This interesting fact shows that the leadership of Democratic Kampuchea cared very much for the laboring peasantry. Such a large-scale purchase of DDT for a small and war-torn country indicates that the intention was to decisively eliminate malaria. Experience with the use of this chemical to treat lakes, swamps, jungles, as well as homes and communities, showed that DDT achieved a rapid and dramatic reduction in the incidence of malaria. The banning of DDT even provoked a wave of criticism at the UN from representatives of underdeveloped countries, who argued that the use of DDT had almost rid them of malaria, which used to be a widespread epidemic. From the point of view of economic logic and interconnection along the chain: labor -> crop -> export -> industrialization, the purchase of DDT was fully justified. And this fact breaks the version of "Kampuchean genocide". DDT and malaria control are not necessary in genocide.

The problem with the left-right dichotomy is that it is very abstract and outdated, taking the 19th century device as a basis. In trying to define a movement by certain traits, one would come to the conclusion that there would be both right and left qualities in every movement. I do not support such a dichotomy, recognizing only the progressive and reactionary nature of certain movements.

(If this is not an appropriate place to post this, tell me and I'll delete it right away)

I want to get feedback from communists on this so it will sort of be a debate right? Here it is:

State Socialist Capitalism: In this system, citizens own shares in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that provide essential services (like healthcare) and distribute profits as dividends within a market economy.

• The state implements a "Donut" Model, where the economy meets all basic needs and that we avoid "overshoot," aka exceeding environmental limit.

Cooperative Capitalism: A private sector exists where all businesses are collectively owned by workers or communities through ESOPs or co-ops (See: Mondragon Corporation, Publix Super Markets)

• ESOPs must meet certain regulations (like wage setting for workers)
• Private (residential) property is guaranteed as a human right and distributed to all citizens who cannot afford it

People can still get rich, people can still own property, so I know you guys wouldn't like it, but I'd be curious if you like any part of it at all or what I could do to improve it