How did Stalin and Mao fight imperialism?

In the course of that discussion, we made some criticisms of the leadership of, of that revolution, and some criticisms of Mao, while also stressing that from our point of view, the Chinese revolution is the second greatest event in human history after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

But there was a comment that I thought was really interesting, which was, "I found this discussion very interesting, but it seems you're doing a lot of second-guessing of people who actually accomplished successful revolution.

Still, good video." So just to start with, Daniel, um, can you defend your work? Do you think that, uh, in that last episode, you were just second guessing people who, you know, say what you like about their methods-

Yeah

... did actually accomplish revolution?

First of all, Marxism is a science, and we have to be very sober-headed in our analysis.

Uh, we're trying to abolish not just a regime, but a class society as a whole, and liberate humanity.

So I think we have to be pretty, uh, pretty critical, uh, of anyone who's claiming to be a Marxist.

But I think that idea, and you often hear it from, from, uh, Stalinists, defenders of Mao, is, and of course sometimes it is correct, because there are people who do this.

I don't think we did.

The content of what they say is basically you're nitpicking, you know?

Mm.

And you're s- you're subjecting s- uh, incredible events and incredible people who achieved incredible things to purity tests.

Mm.

You know? Uh, just basically you'd never do anything, you'd never achieve anything, and then you're just holding people up to an impossible standard.

Um, as if Marxist theory is really just a set of ideals, um, that are abstract.

That's not what we're doing at all.

Marxist ideals are, are there to be applied to the real world, right? Uh, and our criticism of it is not just to say you haven't adhered perfectly to it, but we use the theory to explain it.

But, um, I think the, the, the point is on that, is that what they often say is that, an important part of what they say is that these were very difficult circumstances, right?

Mm.

Uh, and that's why they object to what we're saying.

You're, they're basically saying, "These people were in, were not in the laboratory or the seminar.

They were in the real world.

Messy, complicated, difficult revolutions.

And of course you have to compromise, and that's what you Trotskyists are not understanding, and with your silly purity tests." But in fact, the point that, you know, we, we, we could say, we could sit around and say, "Well, what would we have done differently?" Uh, you know, and that might sound a little bit, um, patronizing, you know.

In the course of that discussion, we made some criticisms of the leadership of, of that revolution, and some criticisms of Mao, while also stressing that from our point of view, the Chinese revolution is the second greatest event in human history after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

But there was a comment that I thought was really interesting, which was, "I found this discussion very interesting, but it seems you're doing a lot of second-guessing of people who actually accomplished successful revolution.

Still, good video." So just to start with, Daniel, um, can you defend your work? Do you think that, uh, in that last episode, you were just second guessing people who, you know, say what you like about their methods-

Yeah

... did actually accomplish revolution?

First of all, Marxism is a science, and we have to be very sober-headed in our analysis.

Uh, we're trying to abolish not just a regime, but a class society as a whole, and liberate humanity.

So I think we have to be pretty, uh, pretty critical, uh, of anyone who's claiming to be a Marxist.

But I think that idea, and you often hear it from, from, uh, Stalinists, defenders of Mao, is, and of course sometimes it is correct, because there are people who do this.

I don't think we did.

The content of what they say is basically you're nitpicking, you know?

Mm.

And you're s- you're subjecting s- uh, incredible events and incredible people who achieved incredible things to purity tests.

Mm.

You know? Uh, just basically you'd never do anything, you'd never achieve anything, and then you're just holding people up to an impossible standard.

Um, as if Marxist theory is really just a set of ideals, um, that are abstract.

That's not what we're doing at all.

Marxist ideals are, are there to be applied to the real world, right? Uh, and our criticism of it is not just to say you haven't adhered perfectly to it, but we use the theory to explain it.

But, um, I think the, the, the point is on that, is that what they often say is that, an important part of what they say is that these were very difficult circumstances, right?

Mm.

Uh, and that's why they object to what we're saying.

You're, they're basically saying, "These people were in, were not in the laboratory or the seminar.

They were in the real world.

Messy, complicated, difficult revolutions.

And of course you have to compromise, and that's what you Trotskyists are not understanding, and with your silly purity tests." But in fact, the point that, you know, we, we, we could say, we could sit around and say, "Well, what would we have done differently?" Uh, you know, and that might sound a little bit, um, patronizing, you know.