I don't follow this sort of drama and i am perfectly happy that way. But when I hear about this sort of stuff i do wonder how it is that i have never heard of these sorts of problems in or around Lemmygrad. It's not as if we all agree on everything, i know there are definitely some ideological as well as tactical disagreements now and then, but for some reason it never devolves into this kind of sectarian drama.

I'm not an economist, I can't really tell you why that's what they do

I'm not an economist either but this one isn't that hard to figure out. A socialist state won't require all its SOEs to operate that way but it also obviously won't object if some of them do make a profit, since that can be used to offset some of the losses of the unprofitable SOEs.

This has always been a part of how socialist economies work. Even the USSR had some form of this iirc. The idea was that consumer goods industries were more "naturally" profitable and could be used to prop up the essential but less profitable heavy industries. (I'm simplifying here as i don't necessarily want to get into a whole discussion about the Kosygin reforms.)

This is a core idea of economic planning, that one part of the economy can balance and support another for the good of society rather than forcing every element of the economy to function as its own isolated entity competing against all others.

This is one of the features that distinguish economic planning from liberal market economies which require each individual enterprise to turn a profit (and ideally more so than it's competitors if it wants to survive long term).

even if the Hindutvas were to remain in power

I'm not sure it can get better as long as they are in power, because they are part of the problem. It appears to me that the neoliberal trend in India has accelerated significantly under their rule.

They have mastered the classic bait and switch: with the right hand they distract the people with false consciousness and a scapegoat group to blame for their problems, while with the left hand they steal the wallet right out of their pockets and give it to a small group of ultra-wealthy elites. It's a simple sleight of hand but very effective.

"India inching closer to China"

Yeah i fear a lot of that kind of rhetoric is liberal hopium. But i really do hope India can turn things around some day. I would love to see them prosper like China. That would be a massive FU to the colonial powers, Britain especially.

This article does not endorse Georgia's current ruling party, and neither do we. It is simply pointing out that relations between Georgia and Russia are stabilizing, and that this is a good thing for both countries while at the same time being a blow to the plans of the US empire to drive a wedge between them and turn Georgia into another Ukraine.

Georgia has been a US puppet for decades but it appears that enough people in Georgia have understood that that was not to their advantage and are now seeking to regain their autonomy and adopt a more neutral alignment.

As for the breakaway regions, so long as there is no pressing need for Russia to annex Abkhazia or South Ossetia the status quo is best left as is.

The end of Russia's war against Ukraine will be decided at the next peace summit

Lol. Yeah, good luck with that. Absolute clown shit. A "peace summit" without Russia is just the West masturbating and calling it sex.

Hopefully not Germany. Ideally we get kicked out in the group stage because that would mean a lot more peace and quiet for me.

Also fuck the whole competition. I'm not watching a "European" tournament that excludes Russia but includes Nazi Ukraine.

No philosophers, Marxist or otherwise, can answer this question, because this is not a philosophical question. It's a scientific one and it's up to (natural) science to answer it. So it has nothing to do with Marxism (other than that the natural sciences and Marxism both acknowledge material reality).

This is a bit like asking philosophers whether there is an engine in your car. While they can sit there and debate and make all kinds of esoteric, smart-sounding arguments, a mechanic can simply open up the car and look inside it.

The question of free will is also a simple yes or no question: is there any room for "free will" in the composition of the universe and the laws of physics? And so far the answer appears to be a clear and unambiguous "NO".

Everything in the universe is governed by (almost) deterministic laws at the macroscopic scale, and by stochastic (probabilistic) laws at the microscopic (quantum) scale. That includes the behavior of every living organism and every part of a living organism (such as a brain), because no matter how big or complex a system may get, its behavior is ultimately derived from and determined by the interactions and laws of behavior of its component parts, all the way down to (ostensibly) fundamental particles.

This is true even when the number of component parts is so unfathomably large that the behavior of the whole system can never be fully calculated from merely knowing how its component parts behave. In principle that's just a computational limitation.

According to our current understanding of physics there is no "free will" particle and no variable or quantity called "free will" in any of the equations that determine how the particles which make up the universe (and everything in it) move and interact with each other. There may be some randomness, but you have no more control over that than you do over a dice throw (one that someone else makes, not you, so we're clear that we're excluding "trick throws" or anything of that sort).

So i don't know why we pretend like this is still an open debate. Believing in free will is no different than believing in magic and miracles. If it makes you feel better, go ahead, but it's not a scientifically defensible position to hold, even if in practice we all have no choice but to behave as if we have free will because that's the only way to function in any society.

(Oh, and determinism is also, strictly speaking, wrong because of quantum randomness. But that's sort of splitting hairs because a lot of that randomness tends to statistically average out at the scales which are relevant for our everyday lives. For the most part reality is fairly deterministic, albeit chaotic - meaning in theory predictable, in practice not so much...so this whole discussion is kinda pointless if you ask me.)

I would suggest that if they are really interested in the subject they should start by reading some of the literature that the other comments have recommended. That's quite a significant time investment though and not everyone will be interested in doing that. But there's no magic phrase that you can say that will cause someone to immediately unlearn all the miseducation on this subject that they have been exposed to throughout their life.

The next best thing maybe is to just get people to start asking questions. Where does this narrative about Stalin come from and how can you trust a narrative that comes from the very interests that stand to benefit the most from discrediting communism and its leaders? And what are the people on the other side of this issue saying, how did people at the time who had a different view of Stalin than that which is now taught in the West feel? Isn't it important to hear both sides out?

But there's also a question that you should ask yourself, and that is: is this really that important of a battle to be fighting right now and why? What exactly is it about this debate that makes it relevant to our struggles today and is this the best use of your time? For me this was always a fascinating subject because i was always interested in history. But for someone else maybe you need to find other things that appeal to them in order to have them learn about communism.

When I say that repressions were actually good and Stalin didn't kill enough fuckers, she gets a little angry

Most of the time you're not going to reach someone with shock value statements, even if they're true. We all have to learn to be a bit more diplomatic about this if we want to convince people rather than just drawing a line in the sand and saying "this is where i stand, and if you're not with me, you're against me". That only reinforces divisions and isolates you rather than win people over to your side.

In general there is no one-size-fits-all approach and you have to adapt the way you go about convincing people depending on the personality but also the level of (mis-)education of your interlocutor. Some people respond better to certain approaches than others. Some may need a lighter touch, others more hand-holding.

In some cases they may need to first form a basic foundation of historical knowledge and at least a rudimentary materialist understanding of how the world works, while another person may be already more advanced and only need an extra push. Others may simply need you to make a connection with them and see that you understand their conditions before they are prepared to take in what you have to say.

Perhaps in this case you may want to try a more dry and dispassionate approach of just presenting facts without overly ideological language or value statements. You want to guide the conversation but allow people space to draw their own conclusions, to feel like you didn't push your viewpoint onto them but that they independently arrived there.

And maybe, in some cases, certain arguments are not really that important to have at this time. Is it really that essential that everyone have the same view of Stalin that we do? What exactly are we really trying to achieve? Shouldn't we focus on things that really matter for the most immediate struggles first? And then later when they are more advanced and interested in diving deeper into theory and history we can have those discussions.

I don't like this framing. I feel like it absolves the West too much of its knowing complicity.

It's not "the West" as a collective entity that's being spoonfed Zionist propaganda, it's the regular, everyday people living in the West. And the ones feeding it to them are not just the Zionist entity but also - and i would even say primarily - the West's own media and own institutions. And many people in the West willingly go along with it, they find it comfortable being put on this diet of pure propaganda because it validates their prejudices and their chauvinistic beliefs about themselves. It gives them permission to be racist.

Right decision, wrong motivation (and hilariously bad implementation).

Anything that weakens and diminishes the EU is a good thing. It is an unreformable, neoliberal, imperialist institution.

This goes double for the US. However i don't believe that any US state is actually going to secede. Their bourgeoisie all benefit too much from the federal government.

When reality turns into a Black Mirror episode...

And just after Ukraine got 10 more years of supplies.

I'm very cynical about these sorts of "deals". I think in reality they are just meant to create short term morale boosts for Ukraine to keep stringing them along with yet more false hopes. I don't think the US/NATO have either the capability or the intention of keeping any such promises.

It's just like when they dangle the NATO membership carrot in front of them despite knowing full well it's never going to happen, just so they can drag the war on a little longer.

So, after giving it some thought, i think you're probably right, in the sense that the idea of a "civilization" is an inherently assimilationist one. It's just a fact that countries like Russia (as well as the USSR before it) and China, although they are a composite of different nations/ethnic groups, do tend to assimilate these groups into a larger supra-national culture. The USSR did this with the attempt to create the "Homo Sovieticus", a "Soviet identity" to supersede (but not replace) national identities.

I don't think this is inherently something bad or wrong, nor does it have to clash with national self-determination, it just depends how you do it. And there is perhaps some validity to the argument that if you don't create a kind of over-arching culture which binds a country like this together that you risk it breaking apart along national lines, to the benefit of imperialist powers which are always going to seek to drive wedges between peoples, to "divide and conquer".

Far more problematic imo is when this impulse is turned outwards as in the case of the US. The US are arguably the only state in the West that would qualify as "civilizational" rather than a European-style nation state (there's no "US nation"). Unfortunately it's one that suffers from a collective messianic delusion. It views itself as essentially a crusader state (my impression is that this is intrinsically linked to its settler legacy), a unique chosen people with a holy mission of making sure they are the only such state in the world, eradicating all other civilizations and remaking the world in their image.

They cannot and will never be able to tolerate other "civilizational states" existing and will always seek to break them up in order to create a civilizational vaccum into which they can insert their own - their own culture, their own values, and eventually even their own language. Like they did in Europe and many other parts of the world (Japan, occupied Korea, Philippines, etc.).

I know this isn't exactly a Marxist analysis but it was the best i could do trying to give this concept of the "civilization state" the benefit of the doubt. I thought i may as well try to see if i can get some value out of it, maybe to provide a different perspective from which to view things. I'm still not convinced it's all that useful. It still has major, glaring gaps as an analytic framework compared to a proper dialectical materialist analysis, in particular on the class front.

The more innocent people that Ukrainian terrorists kill, the more determined Russian society becomes that they are facing an existential threat that cannot be negotiated with and must be eradicated once and for all. This isn't rocket science, it's not hard to figure out.

Apparently so. Putin is weaponizing reality.

It would be comical if it wasn't so evil.

I know the US was always a fucked up country but i feel like there can't have this much blatant corruption and dysfunction 30, 40, 50 years ago. I mean what is this if not the clearest indicator of terminal late-imperial decline?

individuals who already have questionable allegiance to the US

This commenter is literally the dictionary definition of blue MAGA. They're really trying to outdo Republicans in how jingoistic they can get. Each side boasting that they're the real patriots while accusing the other of insufficient loyalty. Seriously, what is wrong with Americans?