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If your first instinct as a westerner is to criticize and lecture 3rd world communist movements, instead of learning from their successes, then you have internalized the patronizing arrogance of the colonial system you claim to oppose.
this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Meanwhile the success in question: The 3rd world communist countries have managed to more or less industrialize and build up wealth, but under (state) capitalist system with all the bells of whistles which are markets, commodity production, wage labor, etc. In other words, they used capitalism to build up wealth.
Don't get me wrong, I actually think they had some absolutely amazing policies for the workers like free housing and social benefits, and good on them for building themselves up. However, this has nothing to do with socialism (socialist mode of production in this case) or communism as it was achieved with, and is therefore a win for capitalism - the same system that drove colonialism and the system that had already built up wealth for 'non-socialist' feudal/agrarian countries in the 19-20th century.
EDIT: Damn, judging from the amount of upvotes, it genuinely feels like walking into a bar and everyone drawing a gun and pointing at you. This is probably the most antagonistic I've been towards ML (or MLM/Dengist/Maoist) ideology and it's kinda disappointing how there's no actual non-ML Marxists to be seen here.
What no theory does to you.
No seriously, you need to read on this, you clearly have at best a very simplistic understanding of the subject.
Private property and markets can't just be abolished immediately after a revolution, it's not magic. Young socialist systems have to go through a transitional phase during which private property and markets are still allowed under strict oversight of the state.
His does not make them capitalist as the proletariat still has control over this private sector via the socialist state, such as in China where all of the essential industry that is necessary for every other, known as the commanding heights, are fully state owned and the enterprises that are private are required by law to have a party member on their board as well as a "golden share" owned by the state that allow it unchallenged veto power over the board's decisions among other means of authority over the private sector.
That makes sense
Okay... but when will this "transitionary period" finish.
If a "transitionary period" takes more than a decade at what point do we say "they aren't transitioning" and call it what it is, state owned capitalism.
I mean, how could we know how much time is needed for the transition? It has never happened yet, we're still experimenting.