CPC: Communist Party of China.
CCP: Chinese Communist Party
CPC is technically correct and follows the same style as every other communist party i.e. CPSU, CPI etc.
For some reason western libs decided to start calling it the CCP instead, my leading theory is that it was a redscare propaganda tactic to draw it closer to the CCCP in peoples minds during the propoganda torrent.
The end result in the end is that libs, ultras, fascists etc. tend to say CCP while ML's MLM's etc. say CPC.
In the end the synthesis of theory and practice to sharpen and refine each other should be the main aim as highlighted by every successful revolutionary from Stalin to Ho to Chairman Mao. All I can realistically currently do for the Western left is wish them luck and provide critique and observation from a hopefully at least somewhat novel perspective.
Thank you for your reply I would like to go much more in depth at some point as I find it to be a very interesting topic but for now I think I'll simply point to a book and an essay that I feel each encapsulate part of the issue.
First is Guy Debord The Society of the Spectacle, this I feel brings to light the issue in advanced capitalist countries for spectacle to replace real action and interaction.
Second is Jones Manoel Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture, which I feel succinctly explains in some way why even the western left falls prey to the spectacular yet materially ineffectual parades and riots as opposed to real organized protest with mass organisation, concrete demands and an escalation plan.
As for “what is to be done,” as much as I'd love to simply say form a maoist guerilla force and overthrow your overlords, I don’t think the real answer is that interesting or that novel a concept even in the west. Politically meaningful protest (even in the West) has historically depended on mass organization, clear material demands, and a credible threat of escalation. During the civil rights movement, disciplined organizations like the NAACP and CORE coordinated sustained action, while local militant currents, such as the Deacons for Defense, made repression costly and instability plausible. Later organizations, including the Black Panther Party, built on these lessons, demonstrating how escalation coupled with strong organization could influence political outcomes. Without comparable structures, leverage, and escalation potential, protest tends to collapse into either brief outbursts or sanctioned displays, both of which the state can safely absorb.
If I'm talking about China with someone and they call the CPC the CCP I know I'm in for a long winded rambling of liberal/fascist slop 9 times out of 10. Although it is kind of nice to have as an almost shibboleth that lets me know straight away where the bar is.
~~"protests"~~ angry parades*
I think where we’re talking past each other, I’m not claiming Western protest takes only one empirical form. There are broadly two recurring styles in my view. One is the riot: spontaneous, emotionally charged, sometimes violent, often met with sharp repression, but lacking durable organization, coherent leadership, concrete demands, or any capacity to sustain itself beyond the moment. The other is the parade: non-violent, usually permitted or tolerated, more organized on the surface, but structurally hollow, no leverage, no escalation strategy, no consequences for being ignored. I focus on the “parade” not because riots don’t happen, but because parades are culturally and politically dominant in the West. They are normalized, celebrated, taught as the legitimate form of dissent, and elevated in the cultural zeitgeist as the model of “good protest.” That makes them far more analytically significant. They shape how people understand politics, what kinds of action are deemed acceptable, and crucially what kinds are ruled out in advance. Neither form, however, really qualifies as protest in a meaningful political sense. Both lack what actually matters: mass organization, enforceable demands, and a credible threat of escalation if ignored or repressed. One burns hot and collapses; the other marches safely and dissipates. The state can absorb both without fear. That’s the core issue. The problem isn’t tone or terminology, it’s that Western protest culture is seemingly structurally incapable of converting mass discontent into anything other than showmanship.
Read that a few years back hard to disagree with seeing what has happened to now.
On the “much of the world” phrasing: I’m not claiming a universal global consensus. I’m speaking from experience as someone from the periphery who has had the privilege to be able to travel across the periphery, where this is a recurring sentiment I’ve encountered again and again. “Much of the world” may be an exaggeration, but the underlying perspective is far from rare, especially among people whose political reference points are mass struggle, repression, and real confrontations with state power rather than liberal civil society rituals.
On calling them “parades”: I’m not implying joy or celebration. I use the term because these events are seemingly typically state-sanctioned or permitted, confined to approved routes, heavily policed yet managed, and highly choreographed from start to finish. The presence of tear gas or batons doesn’t negate that. Violence can occur entirely within a controlled script, and when the outcome is predictable dispersal rather than escalation or leverage, “parade” is an accurate structural description, not a moral slight.
And to be clear, this isn’t about denying complexity or flattening liberation struggle, it’s about refusing to romanticize impotence. Western protest culture elevates these managed spectacles into moral absolutes while systematically marginalizing forms of struggle that actually threaten power. That’s not neutral; it actively disarms movements by teaching people that symbolic display and sanctioned outrage are the peak of political action. Naming that isn’t disrespectful to those who suffer within these protests, it’s a necessary critique of a model that reproduces defeat while insisting it represents resistance.
If you’re not in a great mood, I get that. But the disagreement here isn’t about empathy; it’s about analysis. And analytically, a system that can absorb mass outrage, brutalize it, and still face no material threat is not being seriously challenged, regardless of how real the pain involved is. And as sad as it sounds a protest that doesn't challenge power in any meaningful way is best described as a parade.
You’re arguing against a position I’m not taking. I’m not dismissing people’s suffering, courage, or risk; I’m rejecting the idea that suffering itself constitutes a challenge to power, or even a protest in any meaningful sense. Repression is not the same thing as leverage. Western protests don’t “fail” in some tragic way, they’re never structured to succeed in the first place: no durable mass organization, no discipline, no concrete enforceable demands, no escalation strategy, and crucially no mechanism that makes the state fear consequences if it ignores them. Being beaten by cops inside a ritualized protest cycle the state fully understands and contains doesn’t change that. And yes, from the perspective of the periphery, it’s hard to summon much sympathy when citizens of the core (whose governments operate the largest immiseration apparatus in human history, grinding the periphery nonstop, 24/7 365, with the ultimate orphan-crushing machine) can’t even mount protests that make the slightest material difference. That’s not arrogance or moral contempt; it’s a material critique of a protest culture designed as a pressure-release valve for the empire, not a threat to it, elevated in the West to near-biblical canon where peaceful, state-sanctioned parades are treated as the only legitimate form of politics outside of the ballot box.
Yes? Repression alone doesn’t turn something into a real challenge to power. Liberal states routinely brutalize protests they know will remain contained. In 2020 millions marched, chanted, got beaten, posted photos, then went home and the system carried on largely unchanged: police power intact, imperial violence ongoing, no serious threat to state authority. That’s why much of the world sees Western “protests” as angry parades: emotionally intense, sometimes violently policed, but structurally safe. They function less as challenges to power and more as pressure-release valves for discontent that the system knows how to absorb and move past.
Not to be mean but much of the world doesn't really see American or really western "protests" as protests they're more like angry parades
I agree with you on the IRA, and more than that, I see it as a clear example of an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial movement that extracted real material gains from a vastly more powerful state. Whatever one thinks of its limitations or internal contradictions, the IRA and the broader republican movement forced the British state to negotiate, reshaped the political terrain in Ireland, and secured concrete concessions that would have been impossible through moral appeal or symbolic protest alone. It didn’t achieve everything it set out to, but it demonstrated decisively how mass community support, disciplined organization, clear objectives, and a credible capacity for escalation can make an occupying power unable to simply ignore resistance. If I had to point to a broader analytical frame before listing examples, as I did elsewhere in this thread, I’d flag two texts that get at the underlying problem. Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle is useful for understanding how, in advanced capitalist societies, representation, spectacle, and performance replace real action and interaction. Politics becomes something to be seen rather than something that exerts force. Jones Manoel’s essay Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture is important for explaining why even the Western left internalizes this logic, mistaking visibility, suffering, and moral witness for power, and repeatedly reproducing forms of action that feel meaningful but are materially ineffectual. Historically, politically meaningful protest, even in the West, has looked very different. It has depended on mass organization, clear material demands, and a credible threat of escalation. During the U.S. civil rights movement, disciplined organizations like the NAACP, SCLC, and CORE coordinated sustained campaigns, while armed self-defense formations such as the Deacons for Defense made repression costly and instability plausible. Later, the Black Panther Party took this further by combining political education, mass programs, and armed deterrence, precisely why it was met with assassination, infiltration, and destruction. A third example is the early labor movement. Strikes worked not because workers marched politely, but because organized labor could shut down production, disrupt profits, and escalate to militancy if ignored. The difference between these cases and modern Western “parades” (a term I’ll continue to use because it best captures the structure) is decisive. Effective movements were not oriented toward spectacle, moral signaling, or catharsis. They were oriented toward leverage. They built durable organizations, articulated concrete demands, and created conditions in which ignoring them carried real costs. Contemporary Western “protests”, whether riots that burn out quickly or sanctioned marches that dissipate harmlessly, lack those fundamentals. That’s why they are absorbable. And that’s why, analytically, they function less as protests in the classical sense and more as managed expressions of dissent within a system that no longer fears them, angry parades rather than challenges to power.