Well there’s not a lot of options, since most of the screen has a black background.

I think very simply, the answer is that the former wanted to end socialism while the latter wanted to preserve it.

In affect, they both succeeded to a certain extent. Gorbachev admitted himself that after the secret speech (thanks Krushchev), he wanted a Nordic style social democracy, in a sense. Of course that goal wasnt achieved in Russia, but the end of socialism was successful.

In comparison, Deng Xiaoping and the CPC reiterated possibly hundreds of times that the reform and opening up was not a restoration of capitalism.

As the other commenter pointed out, this led to two very different systems. In the first, where capitalists regained control of the state, the nation’s of the USSR were drained of their resources and sent into debt, chaos, poverty and strife.

In the second, where the proletariat and communist party remained in control, the Dual track marketization and controlled development of productive forces, (albeit with some temporary setbacks intially) led to the biggest development in quality of life in human history, possibly only seconded by the socialist construction in the USSR.

There is of course the third factor that hasn’t been mentioned, which was that marketization in china was progressive in a Marxist sense.

(It’s been a while so feel free to correct me if I’m missing remembering). In his book “understanding the French revolution,” Albert Soubel describes the San Clouttes as the proto-proletariat petite Bourgeoisie, but points out how they were not necessarily the most progressive force. In order for capitalism to develop to its higher stages, the productive forces of society would have to be collectivized and centralized at least within the country. The San Clouttes fought against this, as it was not in their class interest to go from artisans and workhousemen to factory workers.

A similar situation existed in china even after the great leap forward. While China had limited markets and a fairly centralized political system, along with some industrialization in the cities, the wider economic system was decentralized into wide mostly rural communes. Without markets the communal labor and markets would have to be centralized via the political governance of the CPC, which would have been costly and unpopular. It most likely would have happened at some point, but the wish for the ascetics of communism conflicted with the actual political-economy of china.

Comparatively, the USSR had very different political-economic positions. Very simply the privatization was pointless. The most justifiable expansion of markets would have been in the light consumer goods industry in order to alleviate buercratic strain. However, instead of that, everything up to the commanding heights of heavy and resource industries were privatized and of course the entire socialist state apparatus was done away with.

Tbf would Bashar even want to? He basically immediately started being a doctor again and it wasn’t exactly his Forte originally

This is the most condesending comment section I’ve seen in a while

Huh, even if it isn’t what I’m looking for it looks good. I might check it out

It might be, but at the same time it’s not ringing any bells. It does fit all the criteria though, the only issue is that I’m pretty sure the American book and Chinese book had a similar plot, which isn’t existent in this case.

But then again, my memory isnt great, so it might be it. Thank you for trying though

I hate having to quote someone I’m 99% sure is a liberal and 99.9% sure is not a communist, but PhilosophyTube said it best that, “voting with your wallet means that people with no money get no votes.”

The point is that we can’t disprove a negative. It’s on you and everyone who agrees with you to provide evidence of the fabrication. Otherwise I can also just say “no they wouldnt” and that has the same evidentiary validity as your argument.

I find it funny how the Chinese use the same logical throughlines to come to different conclusions to liberals. Instead of saying that people shouldn’t be able to live comfortably in every job, because then people would just do the easy Jobs, the Chinese say that people should be able to live comfortably in all jobs so that people will do them. I also saw one person on 小红书 using the “feed a man a fish” quote, not to argue for taking welfare away, but for actually giving people jobs.

Maybe, but my main issue is that it doesn’t change anything. Let’s say we assume that we are in a simulation…what now? If you had 100% irrefutable proof of it, what would we do? And if you can’t convince others, what would change on an individual level? I still feel pain and love and sadness, so it’s kinda pointless, i feel anyway.

Well, it’s a little more complex but I think it has the same conclusion. You have to look at a theoretical perspective as well. You have to ask “is this a fundamental issue with the political-economic system of the people’s republic of China, or is it some form of mistake or flaw natural of the economic period existing within and without china” Because you technically could make a maoist or anarchist argument that China should be replaced with a new system, so youre not replacing China with “the average nation.” However the answer is more along the lines that it is flaw but not indicative or damning of the general progressive trend of the people’s republic.

Also, like this is so many degrees removed from China. It’s a company owned by the state, who owns a minority stake in another company, being criticized for a pipeline in a foreign country.