Why Socialists are getting more liberal?

[Pogravska]

As I already know of, many socialists are becoming more liberal than revolutionary because of Marxism-Leninism failing. But this is rather worrying because this is what exactly the elite wants, the socialists to be liberal because the elite will be able to easily manipulate things when its a democracy but can't do much when a mass revolution takes place. Elites want freedom for themselves, hence why they have this "liberalism" thing of their own which they impose on Western socialists. As for the socialists on the Eastern camp, yeah good luck trying to not lose your sanity to Stalinists and NazBols.

But still, despite the obvious concern of the bourgeois presence in liberal societies, why is it that Western socialists are accepting liberalism? Why are socialists pursuing this path of defeatism? Isn't that betraying the socialist revolution and the will to establish a communist society?

[Technoscience Leftwing]

* There is a certain amount of shortsightedness and superficiality here: a well-fed bear is perceived as a friend of man.
* Capitalism is like a bear, which looks good-natured when well-fed, but becomes dangerous when hungry. Every 50 years the world market becomes overstocked, and wars break out between superpowers for the redistribution of the world market, and during this period dictators, militarists, fascists, and autocrats come to power. This is a predatory period.
* But after the war comes a peaceful, well-fed period: inventions tested in military industries are introduced into peaceful industries, the workforce that survived the war is lured to factories with higher salaries, goods find a wide market, culture is liberalized, and so on until the next war.
* If socialists were born in a peaceful period, many of them subconsciously consider it eternal, and past wars and hardships are forever past signs of savagery. Therefore, they do not try to eradicate the causes of wars and dictatorships, that is, large monopoly capital and ultra-right parties. But they try to achieve reforms within the framework of capitalism, to humanize capitalism. And they have the illusion that they have managed to achieve this... But then again the world market is overstocked, a predatory period sets in, and the illusions of the reformists are destroyed. Illusions arise because of the favorable social position of the socialists themselves (professors, publicists, etc.), and their lack of historical outlook (a premonition of the next round of wars and dictatorships, with an eye on the tragedies of the last century).

[Pogravska]

* There is a certain amount of shortsightedness and superficiality here: a well-fed bear is perceived as a friend of man.
* Capitalism is like a bear, which looks good-natured when well-fed, but becomes dangerous when hungry. Every 50 years the world market becomes overstocked, and wars break out between superpowers for the redistribution of the world market, and during this period dictators, militarists, fascists, and autocrats come to power. This is a predatory period.
* But after the war comes a peaceful, well-fed period: inventions tested in military industries are introduced into peaceful industries, the workforce that survived the war is lured to factories with higher salaries, goods find a wide market, culture is liberalized, and so on until the next war.
* If socialists were born in a peaceful period, many of them subconsciously consider it eternal, and past wars and hardships are forever past signs of savagery. Therefore, they do not try to eradicate the causes of wars and dictatorships, that is, large monopoly capital and ultra-right parties. But they try to achieve reforms within the framework of capitalism, to humanize capitalism. And they have the illusion that they have managed to achieve this... But then again the world market is overstocked, a predatory period sets in, and the illusions of the reformists are destroyed. Illusions arise because of the favorable social position of the socialists themselves (professors, publicists, etc.), and their lack of historical outlook (a premonition of the next round of wars and dictatorships, with an eye on the tragedies of the last century).

Based on your analysis, we lack the capability to end capitalist wars which fuel the eternal cycle of oppression in capitalist states and brew eternal competition. The idea of socialists being born in a period of peace and not knowing of the past or dismissing it as "savagery" could also explain the rise of anti-ML movements in the United States with the "socialist" or "communist" tag on them (CPUSA, DSA, the fascistic ACP, etc.) and those born in the United States, taught a false view on communism being "evil" because "Russia" or "USSR" or real communism being individual freedom (liberalism) and legal reforms and trade unions that only suit the bourgeois elite.

This is ISA to me, something that Louis Althusser first theorized and addressed in 1970. It explains how capitalism is able to avoid a violent revolution by introducing welfare but not allowing complete freedom of workers' rights because it would violate their profit motive, hence "welfare capitalism" in Nordic states.

Ideological state apparatuses (ISA), according to Althusser, use methods other than physical violence to achieve the same objectives as RSA. They may include educational institutions (e.g. schools), media outlets, churches, social and sports clubs and the family. These formations are ostensibly apolitical and part of civil society, rather than a formal part of the state (i.e. as is the case in an RSA). In terms of psychology they could be described as psychosocial, because they aim to inculcate ways of seeing and evaluating things, events and class relations. Instead of expressing and imposing order, through violent repression, ISA disseminate ideologies that reinforce the control of a dominant class. People tend to be co-opted by fear of social rejection, e.g. ostracisation, ridicule and isolation. In Althusser's view, a social class cannot hold state power unless, and until, it simultaneously exercises hegemony (domination) over and through ISA.

The reproduction of labour power is ensured by the wage system which pays a minimum amount to the workers so that they appear to work day after day, thereby limiting their vertical mobility. The reproduction of the conditions of production and the reproduction of the relations of production happens through the state apparatuses which are insidious machinations controlled by the capitalist ruling ideology in the context of a class struggle to repress, exploit, extort and subjugate the ruled class.

This is the reproduction of the capitalist means of production. By this, we can explain how liberal socialists in the West are a falsehood to the proletariat because it benefits the individualism that the elite desires. No wonder why revolutions won't be happening due to the strong ISA. But it's not just the ISA, but the RSA that works together with ISA in ensuring the loyalty of the proletarians to the bourgeois elite. Speaking of which, Althusser himself predicted the "cancel culture" in this one paragraph.

Moreover, when individual persons and political groups threaten the social order established by the dominant social class, the state invokes the stabilising functions of the repressive state apparatus. As such, the benign forms of social repression affect the judicial system, where ostensibly public contractual language is invoked in order to govern individual and collective behaviour in society. As internal threats (social, political, economic) to the dominant order appear, the state applies proportionate social repression: police suppression, incarceration, and military intervention.

In the 21st century, this is prevalent. We see that with the rise of the Internet, the ISA and RSA have intensified. Liberal socialism becomes the dominant ideology within the Western audience of the Internet and those who criticize its individualism and idealism are "canceled" through this digital oppression of the RSA (Repressive State Apparatus) itself. We even see the presence of ISA and RSA here in NationStates. While we aren't canceled for being Marxist-Leninist, our comrades elsewhere face this digital oppression from the ISA and RSA of the bourgeois elite that aims to promote a false form of socialism that envisions liberalism and welfare capitalism compared to true socialism of Marxist-Leninist cause (not Stalin's totalitarianism).

It is no wonder why liberal socialists and anarchists are more hated upon by MLs in the 21st century given their open collaboration with the bourgeoisie.

[D7 ncp]

I'm not an expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure its because claiming that you are "for the people", while also being actually for the people, is better than being "for the people", but not actually being for the people. yknow what I mean?

[Pogravska]

I'm not an expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure its because claiming that you are "for the people", while also being actually for the people, is better than being "for the people", but not actually being for the people. yknow what I mean?

"Liberalism is when fighting for the people". Exactly whom are we fighting for in liberalism? The workers who want to work actually better and not be chained by capitalists, or the bourgeois elite with their crocodile tears claiming that giving rights to the working class is "anti-liberalism"? You had this dogma in the US bourgeois revolution. Sure the US became free land, but it developed an economy that oppressed. Simply, the bourgeois hasn't changed the position of the ruling class. They oppressed people while continuing to spread the rhetoric of "fighting for the people".

A socialist does not fool people into that. A socialist rejects liberalism because it is a code name for bourgeois individualism. Real freedom must stem from the liberation of the workers.

[Pogravska]

To refresh, I understand that there are other social issues to be dealt with. We are indeed fighting for the people which is what makes socialism progressive. But socialism is about class struggle. Socialism is about helping the workers achieve the luxury they're being denied by the greedy bourgeoisie that won't bother sharing the wealth to solve global crises such as climate change, poverty, lack of drinking water, etc.

[Dumb Ideologies]

The chemicals get into even the socialised water.

[Pogravska]

And when everyone is living a good life and doesn't deny the other a chance to live a good life (unless they're a criminal), then there is no surplus value and there is no more social stratification, and so, classes are abolished, and the state withers away in the higher stage, resulting in a communist society. Socialism is the lower stage of it and it must be authoritarian because we have to protect the working class with all means necessary.

[El Lazaro]

If human rights and democracy are evil and bourgeois, then Real Socialism^TM sucks.

[Technoscience Leftwing]

* In Marxism, ideology has always been considered a secondary superstructure over the economy. And therefore, the ideological apparatus has never been considered all-powerful. An illustration of its impotence: the leaders of Bolshevism were brought up under tsarism, within the framework of the official tsarist and bourgeois educational system, supplemented by church preaching. Nevertheless, they all became enemies of tsarism and capitalism, as well as religion. Because the pressure of living conditions is always stronger than the impact of the ideological apparatus.
* When and how can the peace-war cycle and capitalism be put to an end? In the event of an uprising of the masses, the rise to power of socialists on this wave, and the construction of the technological base of socialism: an automated production system that does not require living labor. If the socialist party, having taken power on the wave of revolution, does not have time and is not able to build such a technical base, then after its degeneration and defeat, another round of the capitalist cycle of prosperity-crisis and peace-war will occur. Everything depends on the success of the next attempt to create a technological basis.

[Pogravska]

If human rights and democracy are evil and bourgeois, then Real Socialism^TM sucks.

Your view of socialism is flawed. Human rights and democracy are something of a higher stage communist society. Bourgeois liberalism promotes "human rights" and "democracy" of the propertied elite, the rich, the minority elite at the top of the hierarchy.

[Pogravska]

* In Marxism, ideology has always been considered a secondary superstructure over the economy. And therefore, the ideological apparatus has never been considered all-powerful. An illustration of its impotence: the leaders of Bolshevism were brought up under tsarism, within the framework of the official tsarist and bourgeois educational system, supplemented by church preaching. Nevertheless, they all became enemies of tsarism and capitalism, as well as religion. Because the pressure of living conditions is always stronger than the impact of the ideological apparatus.
* When and how can the peace-war cycle and capitalism be put to an end? In the event of an uprising of the masses, the rise to power of socialists on this wave, and the construction of the technological base of socialism: an automated production system that does not require living labor. If the socialist party, having taken power on the wave of revolution, does not have time and is not able to build such a technical base, then after its degeneration and defeat, another round of the capitalist cycle of prosperity-crisis and peace-war will occur. Everything depends on the success of the next attempt to create a technological basis.

The difference though is that Bolshevism emerged from discontent with the ultra-regressive Tsarist Russia and the liberal government of Kerensky that promised capitalism and not socialism. The New Left did not originate from class oppression. It emerged from an elitist circle that created the concept of it, the idea of a fake socialism that serves the Western bourgeoisie. Lenin himself became a revolutionary because the Tsarists killed his brother Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov (member of the Narodnaya Volya, a revolutionary socialist party) and from a socialist cell of others who were discontent with the Tsarist regime given the obvious oppression of the peasants by the Tsarists.

Speaking of which, Lenin and his family were also ostracized not just by Tsarists but by liberals as well, hence his revolutionary socialism.

[Technoscience Leftwing]

* In Marxism, ideology has always been considered a secondary superstructure over the economy. And therefore, the ideological apparatus has never been considered all-powerful. An illustration of its impotence: the leaders of Bolshevism were brought up under tsarism, within the framework of the official tsarist and bourgeois educational system, supplemented by church preaching. Nevertheless, they all became enemies of tsarism and capitalism, as well as religion. Because the pressure of living conditions is always stronger than the impact of the ideological apparatus.
* When and how can the peace-war cycle and capitalism be put to an end? In the event of an uprising of the masses, the rise to power of socialists on this wave, and the construction of the technological base of socialism: an automated production system that does not require living labor. If the socialist party, having taken power on the wave of revolution, does not have time and is not able to build such a technical base, then after its degeneration and defeat, another round of the capitalist cycle of prosperity-crisis and peace-war will occur. Everything depends on the success of the next attempt to create a technological basis.

The difference though is that Bolshevism emerged from discontent with the ultra-regressive Tsarist Russia and the liberal government of Kerensky that promised capitalism and not socialism. The New Left did not originate from class oppression. It emerged from an elitist circle that created the concept of it, the idea of a fake socialism that serves the Western bourgeoisie. Lenin himself became a revolutionary because the Tsarists killed his brother Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov (member of the Narodnaya Volya, a revolutionary socialist party) and from a socialist cell of others who were discontent with the Tsarist regime given the obvious oppression of the peasants by the Tsarists.

Speaking of which, Lenin and his family were also ostracized not just by Tsarists but by liberals as well, hence his revolutionary socialism.

The Bolsheviks became an influential party and took power during the world war, and the "new left" became influential during the peace period. Therefore, the "new left" set much more moderate goals, reformist ones (emancipation of youth culture and sexual sphere, benefits for the poor from the bourgeois state, tolerance for drugs, for hippies to refuse work, family and career). They did not live in the period of wars and cruel reprisals against dissent. Hence their softness and readiness to limit themselves to wheedling handouts from the establishment.

[Futurist State of Flassau]

Everybody wants money to live better, man. Ain't nobody wants to be a worker or farmer, they want to be, at least, a Office worker.

[Pogravska]

The Bolsheviks became an influential party and took power during the world war, and the "new left" became influential during the peace period. Therefore, the "new left" set much more moderate goals, reformist ones (emancipation of youth culture and sexual sphere, benefits for the poor from the bourgeois state, tolerance for drugs, for hippies to refuse work, family and career). They did not live in the period of wars and cruel reprisals against dissent. Hence their softness and readiness to limit themselves to wheedling handouts from the establishment.

Yes. True! You have helped me understand the difference. This is exactly the material reality between struggle and peace. Obviously based on your theory, class struggle persists in peaceful states but is unheard of because there is bourgeois prosperity and stability that many uphold because there is no war. Hence, no war, great peace, no need of a revolution, all of this allows for capitalism to exploit the working class in peace literally.

[Pogravska]

Everybody wants money to live better, man. Ain't nobody wants to be a worker or farmer, they want to be, at least, a Office worker.

If everyone wants to live better, why do we see poor people? We have such wealth and yet we refuse to share it to end poverty and climate change? Pfft. These reformists will never do their job in persuading the rich to share the wealth. Always worked perfectly with revolutions, at least when the time proved rightfully to revolt against a dying bourgeois state. Now, communism declined and failed as a result of totalitarianism but also the capitalist pressure and the liberalism that just divided societies based on individual rights.

"Communist Oppression" -> Free workers' rights, formal equality, redistribution of wealth, people's democracy, mass revolution against the oppressive elite, etc.

"Capitalist Freedom" -> DEI, individualism, idealism, anti-communism, racism, sexism, oppression of minorities, pay it or get lost, eternal hunger, homelessness, etc.

[Duvniask]

A more pertinent question is why you're spamming these treads like you're on a production line.

[Pogravska]

A more pertinent question is why you're spamming these treads like you're on a production line.

Spamming isn't the correct term. These are occasional. Besides, I just wanna discuss on why real socialists should not be liberal. Peace or not, we must organize against the elite. The problem stems that because there is peace, people are less revolutionary, leading to fake socialism such as "social democracy", "reformism", "liberal socialism", etc. all of which suit the bourgeois democracy and not the people's democracy.

If the bourgeoisie aren't fighting wars right now and are in peace, then why not secretly sabotage peace and blame others to stir paranoia and destabilize the bourgeois apparatus? That way a revolution can happen in unstable conditions but it would require a lot of effort. This is nowadays such as "cyberwarfare".

[Futurist State of Flassau]

Everybody wants money to live better, man. Ain't nobody wants to be a worker or farmer, they want to be, at least, a Office worker.

If everyone wants to live better, why do we see poor people? We have such wealth and yet we refuse to share it to end poverty and climate change? Pfft. These reformists will never do their job in persuading the rich to share the wealth. Always worked perfectly with revolutions, at least when the time proved rightfully to revolt against a dying bourgeois state. Now, communism declined and failed as a result of totalitarianism but also the capitalist pressure and the liberalism that just divided societies based on individual rights.

"Communist Oppression" -> Free workers' rights, formal equality, redistribution of wealth, people's democracy, mass revolution against the oppressive elite, etc.

"Capitalist Freedom" -> DEI, individualism, idealism, anti-communism, racism, sexism, oppression of minorities, pay it or get lost, eternal hunger, homelessness, etc.

"Redistribution of Wealth" = Taking money from hard working 50 years old and giving it to people with no experience
"People's Democracy" = One Party State
"Anti-communism" = Most Parties in the UK Favors Communism over Fascism
"Racism" = White Men in the US Statistically like Latina and Black women more
"Homelessness" = Stills happened in Communism
"Eternal Hunger" = Most widely-khown and devastating Famines in history were in Communist Regimes
"Sexism" = Womens' Right is now greater than Mens' in some aspect
"Individualism" = Basic Human Need unless Pressured

[Pogravska]

"Redistribution of Wealth" = Taking money from hard working 50 years old and giving it to people with no experience
"People's Democracy" = One Party State
"Anti-communism" = Most Parties in the UK Favors Communism over Fascism
"Racism" = White Men in the US Statistically like Latina and Black women more
"Homelessness" = Stills happened in Communism
"Eternal Hunger" = Most widely-khown and devastating Famines in history were in Communist Regimes
"Sexism" = Womens' Right is now greater than Mens' in some aspect
"Individualism" = Basic Human Need unless Pressured

1. That's how capitalists steal money from working class and give it to rich people who they favor of.
2. Regardless of the number of parties, if the people are partaking in party stuff and elections, then it's fine.
3. Keir Starmer ain't no commie, he a big-tent conman who brought Labour Party to victory so he can just do the same thing Sunak did but under a different name lol.
4. That's not what it meant. I was talking about the capitalist enterprises hiring workers based on their race, ethnicity, and sex, to get "diversity points" which is inherently racist and divisive to say the least
5. Maybe, but no one should ignore capitalist homelessness. Ever been to America? Can't afford good education without at least $40,000 of student debt on average cause greedy men don't wanna at least make education free for everyone so more smart people.
6. Yes in Stalin and Mao but also in capitalist regimes. Irish famine for example was caused by greed and partially by a Potato blight. Famines in British India were a thing too. Britons literally refused to feed the Indians and just used India for free trade. If you count all major famines in British India from the wiki list, you will get a death toll of up to over 75 million deaths. How can you not know that, eh?
7. That's because of DEI. Don't blame women, blame capitalism.
8. Individualism is the ideal bourgeois ideology where only individuals are fit to have certain amount of wealth while everyone else is to suffer because they're not "special" in the eyes of individualist bourgeoisie.

[Futurist State of Flassau]

"Redistribution of Wealth" = Taking money from hard working 50 years old and giving it to people with no experience
"People's Democracy" = One Party State
"Anti-communism" = Most Parties in the UK Favors Communism over Fascism
"Racism" = White Men in the US Statistically like Latina and Black women more
"Homelessness" = Stills happened in Communism
"Eternal Hunger" = Most widely-khown and devastating Famines in history were in Communist Regimes
"Sexism" = Womens' Right is now greater than Mens' in some aspect
"Individualism" = Basic Human Need unless Pressured

1. That's how capitalists steal money from working class and give it to rich people who they favor of.
2. Regardless of the number of parties, if the people are partaking in party stuff and elections, then it's fine.
3. Keir Starmer ain't no commie, he a big-tent conman who brought Labour Party to victory so he can just do the same thing Sunak did but under a different name lol.
4. That's not what it meant. I was talking about the capitalist enterprises hiring workers based on their race, ethnicity, and sex, to get "diversity points" which is inherently racist and divisive to say the least
5. Maybe, but no one should ignore capitalist homelessness. Ever been to America? Can't afford good education without at least $40,000 of student debt on average cause greedy men don't wanna at least make education free for everyone so more smart people.
6. Yes in Stalin and Mao but also in capitalist regimes. Irish famine for example was caused by greed and partially by a Potato blight. Famines in British India were a thing too. Britons literally refused to feed the Indians and just used India for free trade. If you count all major famines in British India from the wiki list, you will get a death toll of up to over 75 million deaths. How can you not know that, eh?
7. That's because of DEI. Don't blame women, blame capitalism.
8. Individualism is the ideal bourgeois ideology where only individuals are fit to have certain amount of wealth while everyone else is to suffer because they're not "special" in the eyes of individualist bourgeoisie.

1. Redistribution of Wealth has always been inefficient, and therefore, never had a good effect.
2. Democracy is not a Ideology fighting itself over and over again. At least, there should be to party, Progressive VS Conservative.
5. Homelessness is not caused by the Government, when using Globalism, if the world goes down, you go down, if the Economy sucks, then its not the Government's Problem if people go Homeless. Homelessness also maybe caused by a person's actions, most of the time via Gambling.
6. The Blight was caused by Cultural Reasons and Poor Governance, not Capitalism, India was Colonialism, Colonialism is NOT Capitalism. Mao and Stalin was DIRECTLY caused by Economic Policies, where Stalin literally took Ukrainian Provisions DIRECTLY.
7. Women and Minorities has made much more advances in their rights than their Socialist Counterparts. See China.
8. Individualism is not created by Capitalism, it is created by oneself to promote Personal Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, and Civil Rìghts. In the Soviet Union however, it have caused Stagnation of Civil Rights and Oppression of Minorities.

[Technoscience Leftwing]

The Bolsheviks became an influential party and took power during the world war, and the "new left" became influential during the peace period. Therefore, the "new left" set much more moderate goals, reformist ones (emancipation of youth culture and sexual sphere, benefits for the poor from the bourgeois state, tolerance for drugs, for hippies to refuse work, family and career). They did not live in the period of wars and cruel reprisals against dissent. Hence their softness and readiness to limit themselves to wheedling handouts from the establishment.

Yes. True! You have helped me understand the difference. This is exactly the material reality between struggle and peace. Obviously based on your theory, class struggle persists in peaceful states but is unheard of because there is bourgeois prosperity and stability that many uphold because there is no war. Hence, no war, great peace, no need of a revolution, all of this allows for capitalism to exploit the working class in peace literally.

Moreover, during these peaceful periods, radical groups also appear among the left, which are not satisfied with handouts and cultural reformism, but try to offer the masses an uprising and forceful methods, such as the "Red Brigades" in Italy and the RAF in Germany in the 1970s. But these groups do not find support among the masses, and they suffocate in isolation, they are crushed by the police - unlike the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, who were also repressed by the police, but the influx of young people to them was greater than the loss from repression. Because in a crisis period, life becomes unbearable for a huge number of ordinary people, the poor - and in the peaceful phase of the capitalist cycle, workers are fed with handouts.

[Pogravska]

1. Redistribution of Wealth has always been inefficient, and therefore, never had a good effect.
2. Democracy is not a Ideology fighting itself over and over again. At least, there should be to party, Progressive VS Conservative.
5. Homelessness is not caused by the Government, when using Globalism, if the world goes down, you go down, if the Economy sucks, then its not the Government's Problem if people go Homeless. Homelessness also maybe caused by a person's actions, most of the time via Gambling.
6. The Blight was caused by Cultural Reasons and Poor Governance, not Capitalism, India was Colonialism, Colonialism is NOT Capitalism. Mao and Stalin was DIRECTLY caused by Economic Policies, where Stalin literally took Ukrainian Provisions DIRECTLY.
7. Women and Minorities has made much more advances in their rights than their Socialist Counterparts. See China.
8. Individualism is not created by Capitalism, it is created by oneself to promote Personal Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, and Civil Rìghts. In the Soviet Union however, it have caused Stagnation of Civil Rights and Oppression of Minorities.

1. Redistribution of wealth reduces social stratification and reduces class conflict and class division by wealth. Countries with huge wealth gaps will face class wars and revolts from working classes.
2. Both fit the same picture of capitalism. As long as they serve bourgeois interests while claiming to be opposed to one another, that is how the bourgeois democracy works.
5. Ban gambling, ban a globalist economy, and enforce a more central approach to the economy with some autonomy for the workers and little to no significant influence from a market. Economic crashes will not affect nations whose economies are self-reliant. Financial crises are a weakness to capitalism. Stock crashes, global recession, Great Depression, etc. are all consequences of free-market capitalism. You depend on the global market too much and then you suffer a massive downturn like you cannot get access to opium anymore after having smoked it. Free market is a drug towards an inevitable recession. Self-reliance and lack of market influence deters such.
6. "When a country is full 'o food, and exporting it, there can be no famine" (George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903), in reference to the starvation of Irish people from profit motive of exporting food.
7. Women's rights in Russia were achieved by primarily socialists in 1917, three years before the United States and their "liberalism" could have done it. Look upon a comparison of posters from the US and the USSR from the same time regarding gender equality.
8. Individiualism was not created by capitalism. Capitalism was created by individualism because one seeks personal freedom to profit off from exploiting the labor of the working class in their own property without any public influence (CEO, landlords, etc.).

[Askio]

On a more philosophical note, the paradigm shift does make a lot of sense. Socialism at it's very core is a movement that aims to liberate people from oppression, feudalism, imperialism and tyranny - that was also Marx's goal.

A lot of socialists have had a hard time defending the dictatorial nature of state socialism as seen in the USSR and China, because the workers there were also oppressed and tyrannized. This isn't a new phenomenon, already in the 1930's George Orwell, a democratic socialist who fought in the Spanish civil war on the Republican side, criticized Stalinists for being oppressive and defeating the inherently liberating nature of socialism - Animal Farm is meant to showcase the contradiction of authoritarian socialism, it promises to liberate people from oppression only to submit them to a new form of oppression. A lot of communists also became democratic and liberal socialists after the uprisings in Prague and Budapest - how can authoritarian socialism be liberating and anti-imperialist when it was clearly oppressive and imperialistic?

Democratic/liberal socialism does not have this innate contradiction, it still aims to liberate people form the Bourgeoisie, but it also aims at actually achieving liberty - thus allowing workers to finally do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others and bringing in democracy to prevent anyone in power from going crazy as this was the case in every "communist" state. And honestly this Gedankengang makes a lot more sense - the only downside to democratic/liberal socialism is that people can switch back to ye olde ways at the next election if they so desire

[Pogravska]

the only downside to democratic/liberal socialism is that people can switch back to ye olde ways at the next election if they so desire

Hence why reformism is not a vital idea as we live in a society of capitalist lords interfering in the lives of the workers.