No problem, never apologize for being curious! I mainly use this account to try and gain comrades and correct misconceptions about theory when I can, so it isn’t wasted time by any stretch! And developing a plan is excellent, I always recommend that if I can, many people meander and spend far more time than necessary as a consequence.

If you’ve seen my “Read Theory, Darn it!” intro reading list, you’ll find that the way I structured it is focused on building up over time. I start with a quick FAQ from Engels, then Blackshirts and Reds to dispel common red scare myths and promote a sympathetic view towards the people in Socialist countries in their real struggles to build real Socialism.

After that, though, it delves into the theory side, in a specific order. I start with Dialectical Materialism, as it’s by far the most useful concept to understand first. It’s kinda like approaching the world from a scientific point of view, always stressing to view things as they exist in context and in motion, rather than isolated and static. After that comes the Law of Value, and the concept of Scientific Socialism, then we return to Socialist history and Imperialism/Colonialism, Social theory, then putting it all into practice.

I bring this up, because if you really study the Dialectical Materialism section well, you’ll already be equipped to do your own political analysis from the Socialist viewpoint, even if you don’t fully understand the Law of Value, the theory of the State, etc. Those all help contextualize, but in my opinion that’s the single biggest step you can take in knowledge of Marxism, and when you can consider the most critical “pre-req” research relatively solid. Studying Cuba after you get those basics firmly down will help you see what they are trying to do, and measure how they are doing in your own eyes, for whenever you can make it to Havana.

Now, you can always spend way more time reading, but you can also start reading Che Guevara’s speeches and writings as well as Fidel Castro’s interviews and whatnot to begin to get some context on the thoughts and actions of Cuban revolutionary leaders. I also recommend researching what happened to Slavador Allende in Chile, who tried to play by the rules, so to speak, rather than going the revolutionary path. This is an important point of contrast to put the success of the Cuban Revolution in context.

Feel free to ask any questions you want, no worries!

Nobody defines economics as “have or have nots” or denies that trade existed a long, long time ago. I think you’re missing the point of class society and how that plays in economics, but isn’t all-encompassing of it.

It isn’t about oppression or being oppressed.

I’m actually primarily talking to people that disagree with me, here. If you look at the other comments, most of my time is spent explaining the difference between Capitalism and Commerce.

People like yourself that take issue with it have largely taken to the comments, I’ve achieved my goal.

I understand your caution, though it’s best to contextualize why Socialist States often have long-serving leaders. As Socialism generally exists under siege, often times there is heavy millitarization and political stability is prioritized. The people generally approve, be it through elections or general support, as the Socialist system would fail if it lost the support of the people. Looking more into various Socialist leaders, like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro from a proletarian point of view, can help contextualize. Blowback season 2 is about Cuba, for example, and has helped me understand Cuba more.

What’s important to understand is that, for Marxists, public ownership and planning in a world government run democratically is the end-game, not necessarily worker self-management. This gets more into the economic basis of Marxism, but Marxists don’t see administration as the same as the “state,” a highly millitarized entity, but that the state can only wither when class is abolished globally.

Tito is an interesting case. Yugoslavian Socialism was loved by the people, but also depended heavily on IMF loans that ended up being its undoing. Some Socialists hated Tito for being a revisionist, and for splitting from the USSR, some believe Tito’s Socialism was the best example of Socialism in practice.

The standard Marxist-Leninist take is that Tito’s Socialism was undone by tying to the West via IMF loans, and thus can’t be seen as a true measure, but that it was still an example of how a generally Socialist system can achieve great things, even if its brand of Socialism was distinctly diverted from traditional Marxism at the time.

Didn’t put that together, that would be really funny!

There’s a lot of discussion going on here, from what I see.

Fairly certain drag is a troll, honestly. drag has done similarly clearly wrong trains of thought and validates “soulists.”

Marx doesn’t acknowledge “human nature is to oppress or be oppressed,” though. Marx builds the economic analysis of class society and charts how it will eventually erase its own foundations. Primitive communistic societies did not usually have classes, as they didn’t have an economic basis for it.

Communism would be centralized, but it would also be democratized.

Your background makes a ton of sense as to why you’ve been able to essentially grasp the essense of Marxism-Leninism, without committing to studying it. This is a very common phenomenon! The reverse is also true. I live in the US, and Marxism-Leninism is an extreme minority here, because many are “bribed” by the spoils of Imperialism, on top of the US being founded on Settler Colonialism.

I think it’s an excellent choice to focus on Cuba and Venezuela, given their proximity. As a precursor, I’ll state that both face economic pressure from Imperialist countries far beyond what other countries in the Global South normally face, due to nationalizing parts of their economies, and pulling those resources out of the hands of Imperialists, so to speak. Many fleeing are from privledged backgrounds who lost their property when their assets were siezed for the public, but sadly there are also those whose economic conditions were very dire, primarily due to sanctions. Cuba in particular is under intense embargo, as I’m sure you know.

One thing that’s important to know, is that Venezuela is better described as pseudo-socialist, while Cuba is Socialist. Venezuela is a petro-state, and is similar ecomomically to Social Democracy in the Nordic Countries, but without the Imperialism inflating the lifestyles of those within. Cuba on the other hand is Socialist because large firms and key industries are overwhelmingly in the public sector. Cuba is generally more supported by its own people, even if circumstances during and post-COVID have been more dire. Normally, Cuba does well for itself when measured against its peers despite the sanctions.

As for Maduro, I myself am not an expert. It is generally believed that he was democratically elected among Socialist circles, and that the US supports candidates and calls foul when elections are close in an effort to practice regime change, like with Guaido. Democracy is an important part of Socialism, as “commandism” separates the party from the masses, and loses support for the system. You can read an example of a publication from a Marxist-Leninist org on the Venezuelan elections here, from Liberation News, run by the US-based Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Sadly, this isn’t an area I have studied thoroughly. As such, I can only say that this looks outwardly like a narrow but legitimate election that the US is trying to overthrow. The reason I say this is because it’s a tried and true tradition of the US to stir up opposition to those who would oppose their plunder. Maduro did declare himself a Marxist-Leninist on TV, but I myself am again not super familiar with the Bolivar Revolution or Maduro himself.

So, to summarize, Socialists support Venezuela’s attempts at taking control over their own economy and resisting the US’s Imperialist ambitions for their economy. The actual specifics are debated, but this resistance to Imperialism itself is seen as progressive, regardless of the successes or failures of the government. More nuanced critique can be had from those who have done more research than I, but that is the general opinion of Marxists as far as I am aware.

Marx states that all hitherto existing history is the history of Class Struggles. In analyzing tribal societies, he did so as they did indeed lack class, money, and a state, but were distinctly not “Communist” as production was low, and life relatively harsh and brutal. Communism as a mode of production is the classless society of the future, the end of class struggle. There will be new contradictions and new changes, most likely, but class as a concept is abolished through a global, publicly owned and planned industrial economy, in Marx’s analysis.

The creation of the aqueducts. I am aware of how they functioned technically.

Again, though, I think you’re either conflating Capitalism with accumulation in general, or trying to make the argument that I don’t think accumulation existed prior to Capitalism. I’m not really sure where we disagree, to be honest, I’m not sure what point you’re making.

I stole the meme, so 🤷

Just wrote the text.

I recommend this thread, though maybe don’t bother going down the chain that far as it becomes a stalemate.

Essentially, you’re correct in that tribal societies were very communistic, but not Communist. Marxists call this “primitive communism,” as a distinguishing factor from Communism, a highly industrialized and global society emerging from Socialism.

The truth is, all modes of production are “human nature.” Human nature, after all, is malleable, and is largely determined by which mode of production humanity finds itself in. Each mode of production turns into another due to human nature, Capitalism is merely also human nature, just like feudalism, tribal societies, as is Socialism and eventually Communism.

The technical constraints were also constraints on the Mode of Production. The Roman Aqueducts were largely slave driven like the rest of Roman society, not through commodity production and the M-C-M’ circuit affording it. Rome also extracted vast rents from the colonies.

Elements of the old exist in the new, and elements of the new existed in the old, yes. However, Capitalism as an encompassing system is only a few hundred years old.

It’s extremely relevant, because the manner of production is entirely different. In feudalism, as an example, production was largely agricultural, while serfs tilled their parcel of land and produced most of what they consumed for themselves. They didn’t compete in markets, as an example, and specialization was relatively limited outside of handicraftsmen.

If you fail to accurately analyze the differences between modes of production, you fail to find meaningful conclusions. Oak trees aren’t penguins, even though both are living things.

I’d argue the teaching is in the comments for those who disagree but wish to learn. All good agitprop sparks discussion, not quiet acceptance or dismissal.

You’re using Capitalism as a catch-all term for Class Society. Different forms of Class Society have existed for thousands of years, but Capitalism itself is relatively new.

Answered here. Commerce isn’t Capitalism, and neither is small manufacture.

I disagree. Back in earlier forms of agricultural accumulation, technology hadn’t developed the same system of rapid expansionism as Capitalism and the creation of large industry has brought. The M-C-M’ circuit wasn’t always here. Class society has existed, but not the same mechanisms of Capitalism as an encompassing system.

Great! You’ll probably fly through Blackshirts and Reds, it’s a quick read.

My not-very-developed perspective is: When I think of capitalism as a ‘metastable’, I think that this meta-stability is achieved by allocating some resources to keep the masses just comfortable enough to remain somewhat pacific and complacent. It is not essential to achieve this globally, but it is somewhat important locally. So those who have accumulated more can simply apply the more violent and extractive practices abroad while things locally OK.

Not to overload you, but this is 100% correct. This process is known to Marxists as Imperialism, in the Global North, concessions are often made in order to pacify the proletariat using the spoils expropriated from the Global South, a complicated process stabilized through bodies like the IMF, NATO, and US overseas millitary presense. Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is the best text outlining how this process came to be from Capitalism specifically (colonialism and other forms of Imperialism of course predate Capitalism). I also recommend Alice Malone’s Concessions for how thst worked.

The consequence of Imperialism is that, rather than cropping up in the most developed countries like Marx initially predicted, Socialist Revolution occurs first in the Global South. That’s why a lot of rapid industrialization and millitarization to protect from outside threats has solidified in every surviving Socialist state.

Your holdouts regarding revolution, however, take a much longer time to study. Revolutionary strategy and tactics, historical applications, and more is more of a deep topic. I could simply link Lenin’s The State and Revolution as well as an abridged version of Lenin’s What is to be Done? but that’s an unsatisfying answer without familiarizing yourself with the history of Socialist struggles and victories, from a proletarian point of view, and not bourgeois. After you read Blackshirts and Reds, I can make other recommendations, in absence of that I will link Blowback, a podcast on US Imperialism and taking a sympathetic view of the victims of it, and the why behind the actions on all sides of, say, the Iraq War or Cuban Missile Crisis.

Regarding your section on not knowing if events are true, or if they are being justified, etc, this unfortunately as you already hinted is clouded in decades of Red Scare misinformation. Usually those upholding Actually Existing Socialism are less likely to outright fabricate information, but that does exist to a degree, usually among supporters of Gonzalo and Pol Pot (and these people usually have absurd claims about AES, and are nowhere to be found among Marxist-Leninist orgs, usually small isolated groups). There is no one-size fits all answer, each event, figure, etc has a different answer. Some may distort the quantities, some may distort the qualities, some may distort both. There’s no “one indisputable history of Socialism” I can recommend that covers all the countries and figures you listed, so if after finishing Blackshirts and Reds you have a specific country or figure you’d like to delve into, I can do my best to help. I’ll also plug Zhenli’s Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as an example of a Marxist critique of existing Socialism, in a manner that still ends up pro-Socialism and upholds existing Socialism.

And no worries! Sorry that the historical answer isn’t very satisfying, I’m not trying to dodge it so much as ask that you specify further if you want an answer that does such a question any kind of due justice. The history of Socialism is, as I said, hotly debated and frequently distorted heavily, Blackshirts and Reds is going to be a much better intro and give you good points to jump into other areas. Personally, I recommend starting with Cuba, as it’s usually easier to grasp historically, but the USSR and PRC are the two largest examples in history we can look to if you want to dive into the deep end.

Additionally, the website Red Sails (which I have linked throughout this conversation) often has speeches and interviews from some of these figures, and modern analysis of some of these countries. This can help you found a more “multi-sided” understanding, rather than a one-sided one as presented in “normal,” presumably western society. My favorite description of Red Sails is in the footnotes on their Mission Statement:

Red Sails has been described as “Marxists.org Criterion Collection with Home Videos mixed in” and “woke ML-MZT.”

Hope that helps!