I am a Marxist in China
Orthodox Marxists in the Chinese internet community often view Russia and Iran as weak links in imperialism, rather than as anti-imperialist forces .However, in the view of Chinese Marxists, opposing the global hegemony of the United States takes precedence over opposing secondary imperialisms (Iran, Russia).
The person in the picture is Yang Heping, a US citizen with a Chinese green card, and he is the most popular orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Maoist self-media figure on the Chinese internet (with 3 million followers on Tiktok and 800,000 on Bilibili). Yang Heping advocates that whether it’s Ukraine, Russia, or Iran, “the truth is on the side of the proletariat, not on the side of any government or capitalist.”
In China, those who unconditionally support Iran and Russia are usually nationalists or national leftists.
I wonder if the differences between the left-wing in Europe and America and the left-wing in China are really that significant?
What do you mean by “Orthodox Marxist”? Generally in American left circles, the people who adopt that term tend to think that Lenin (or if not him, then certainly Stalin) either misinterpreted Marx or cynically used Marxism to gain power, but if I am not familiar with its usage in China.
If by “nationalists” you mean fascists and “national leftists” you mean fascists who adopt superficially left-wing rhetoric to cynically appeal to people, yeah that’s pretty much the same as here in America. What are you seeing that leads you to believe that may not be the case?
In China, “orthodox Marxism” primarily refers to Marxism-Leninism; its core premise is the irreconcilable nature of capitalist production relations, and its ultimate goal is the establishment of a democratic planned economy through either legitimate elections or revolution (though there are fierce internal disagreements among proponents of figures such as Stalin, Mao Zedong, Trotsky, and other Marxist theorists). This distinction is drawn primarily to differentiate it from the center-left—particularly liberals like Habermas who invoke the Marxist banner while essentially abandoning class theory—and from the reformism of the official establishment’s “socialist market economy.”
The reason why I have this doubt is that I stated on the Reddit forum “Late Stage Capitalism” that I opposed the US invasion of Venezuela, but also didn’t like Maduro, and then I was permanently banned
Often in the American media, offering a negative opinion of a target of imperialism will be used by those promoting the imperialism to support their agenda. They will say things like “Everyone dislikes this regime, and we are the only ones brave enough to make the hard choices and sacrifice to get rid of them”. This leads the anti-imperialist movements in the US to say they oppose imperialist interventions and hold any critical analysis of the targets out of public view. Similarly, any intra-left disagreements will be amplified into viciously destructive sectarianism instead of a more productive conversation.
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