• davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    Actually Existing Socialism

    Actually existing socialism (AES) is a term commonly used to refer to socialist states, that is, states governed by a dictatorship of the proletariat.

    The five predominantly recognized AES states are China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and, Korea, while examples of former AES states include the Soviet Union, Mongolia, and the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe.

    Gabriel Rockhill - How The Left Should Analyze the Rise of a Multipolar World, China, Russia & BRICS

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      It’s funny because this term kind of underlines how ridiculous the claim is. Would we feel the need to stress the fact that socialism Actually Exists every single time we even refer to it if there really were prominent and obvious examples of it?

      I watched about half of that video but it really made no attempt to justify the designation of these far-right governments as socialist. Similar to others in this thread, it’s just asserted and then any attempt to question this assertion is dismissed as “imperialist propaganda”. This despite the fact that imperialist propaganda is exactly why people falsely believe China is socialist. So that the West can point to all of the obvious problems and say “See?! Socialism is bad actually! Please don’t read about meant before the Cold War!” This propaganda has been extremely effective and is why there hasn’t been much of a socialist movement in the West since before WWII.