Thanks for recommending the book I studied for 6 years in high school/university, what about our century of socialism building which has brought us from being colonial slaves to defeating Japan, France, and USA to having one of the fastest growing life quality is Utopian, again?
Is it the fact that we are increasing the number of worker owned cooperatives by tens of thousands per year? The fact that we have been able to contain COVID with extremely limited resources? That 90% of us own our own homes and have full healthcare?
Can you explain to me how YOUR personal "scientific socialism building efforts" are an improvement over what we are doing in Vietnam? Can you enlighten me on what we in Vietnam need to do to meet your expectations?
Can you make any point at all beyond "read a book stupid you stupid utopian Vietnamese people so you can get on our level!" ??? Might help if you had ANYTHING to show for your "scientific socialism building." I'll wait to see your success since you are so much smarter than us!
This is the kind of critique that Twitter leads to. Bluster with no substance, no project to point to as a workable alternative, no recommendation of the harsh material conditions YOUR imperialisy nations have made for us, just "read a book you dumb Vietnamese commies lol pwned"
In my life my village has gone from being so poor that we had to filter our own dirty well water with charcoal and we had to eat insects for protein to having comfortable, secure lives for every farmer. I have LIVED THROUGH massive life quality improvements thanks to socialism.
Condescend to me all you'd like, 85% of Vietnamese approve of our path to socialism based on an independent Taiwan survey, we don't care about white savior armchair leftists who have accomplished literally nothing calling us "Utopian."
Dialectical materialism demands we seek a COMPREHENSIVE and HISTORICAL perspective. This means understanding the DEVELOPMENT of internal and external relations which compose ALL THINGS. Case in point, photos like this of Black Panthers organizing with Young Patriots:
It has been used by some USA leftists to claim that Fred Hampton would have "hated me" for sharing my personal feelings of the USA flag, based on my childhood growing up in extreme poverty from USA embargoes and many members of my family and village being victims of USA genocide.
That image is literally a snapshot, which shows one stage in development which occurred over half a century ago. The Young Patriots organization knew, even early on, that the confederate flag would alienate many black people and even covered it up around them.
THREAD: Coops were ~8.3% of the economy in 2020 (15,000 were added in 2020, and about 50% of them are in agriculture - most agriculture in Vietnam is cooperative).
Also, about 55% of Vietnamese workers are self-employed.
Vietnam gov is actively transitioning from SOEs to coops.
Western "Vietnam Understanders like to talk about how we are "state capitalist" even though the vast majority of workers don't work for the state and don't work for capitalists. We are a socialist-oriented market economy actively pushing for more workers owning their labor.
Learn more about socialist oriented market economy:
When I explain the Vietnamese socialist perspective, I get told Vietnam is "not real socialism." When I say "I guess that depends on your definition of socialism," they demand I explain our socialism. When I link to theory texts explaining it in detail, they say it's a "cop out."
These people are not serious about building socialism, and their offensive stance conceals deep insecurity and defensiveness. I can only guess that being an ideological Western supremacist in a world where Western leftists have accomplished nothing leads to cognitive dissonance?
Anyway, like I say repeatedly: it is not my place to try to "sell you" on the Vietnamese path to socialism. You couldn't copy us even if you wanted to. You have to find your own path based on your material conditions. You can learn from Vietnam but you can't just copy us.
Once again I have to say this: please teach us how to do socialism right by building your own socialism. Vietnam would love to look at your revolution and learn from it.
If every single one of you, great socialist thinkers, can somehow start a revolution in your home countries and successfully build a post-revolution socialist society, Vietnam would be soooo fucking happy!!!
Seeing you destroying capitalism is our dream comes true.
Please do it
Vietnamese communists are totally aware of the mistakes that Vietnam made and the weaknesses we still have.
We are just trying our best, you know.
So if you reall want to help, please focus on dismantling your capitalist system in your countries.
Western leftists think of Vietnamese communists like me as brainwashed to never criticize the state. Self-crit is a vital part of our education and political culture. This article openly discusses the shortcomings of our social welfare programs:
We definitely know our systems are highly imperfect and undeveloped. But we speak openly about our ambitions to increasingly REDISTRIBUTE RESOURCES and force the private sector to provide more to workers and to communities with an eye towards building a socialist system.
I often get accused of "never criticizing Vietnam," which I find laughable. Yesterday in my livestream I must have criticized Vietnam for a full 30 minutes or more on things like failing to protect gig workers who work for foreign corporations like Grab.
Marx and Lenin and Engels and Uncle Ho could only write about their own times and material conditions. We study them to learn HOW they thought, so we can apply their methods CREATIVELY to our circumstances in the here and now.
Trans liberation, decolonization, BLM, ableism.... these are not distractions because the old books don't discuss them. They are our material conditions. Learn dialectical materialism so you can properly consider and synthesize these concerns into the movement.
Class is the primary contradiction, there are many secondary contradictions. Class relates to base, many other forms of oppression relate to superstructure. Base determines superstructure but superstructure impacts base. Mutual impact! They reinforce each other dialectically!