Reliable left observers like Ann Garrison, writing in Black Agenda Report, have voiced concerns about Chinese investments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, based on Siddharth Kara’s book, Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. Kara contends that Chinese are engaged in a brutal competition to acquire a raw material essential to battery manufacturing, participating in the highly exploitative practice of artisanal cobalt mining.

More recently, Razan Shawamreh has challenged the PRC’s economic engagement with Israel. Writing in Middle East Eye. Shawamreh cites three different Chinese state-owned companies heavily invested in Israeli firms servicing or operating in illegal settlements — ChemChina, Bright Foods, Fosum Group — that own or have a majority stake in an Israeli corporation. She charges Peoples’ China of hypocritically publicly denouncing Israeli policies while quietly aiding the cause of Israeli settlers.

On May 22, Kim Petersen posted a thoughtful, well reasoned piece on Dissident Voice, entitled “Palestine and the Conscience of China.” Petersen persuasively lauds the many achievements of Peoples’ China. It is easy to forget the century of humiliation that this once proud, advanced society suffered at the hands of European imperialism. After 12 years of fighting Japanese invaders and enduring a bloody civil war costing tens of millions of casualties, China’s advance since — under the leadership of the Communist Party of China — has been truly remarkable.

As Peoples’ China celebrates meeting its goal of becoming a “moderately prosperous” society, it is important to see how far it has come from 1949. When Western apologists for the market economy brag of the aggregate economic gains that global markets have brought to the developing world, they are largely talking about China (and, more recently, Vietnam and India).

By any measure of citizen satisfaction with their government by international surveys, the PRC consistently ranks at or near the top.

At the same time, Petersen raises questions about the seeming inconsistency of the Chinese government’s vocal criticism of Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza and Peoples’ China’s continuing economic engagement with Israel. The PRC accounts for over 20% of Israeli imports.

Petersen quotes Professor T.P. Wilkinson: “Non-interference is China’s top principle — business comes first. If there is any morality it only applies in China.” And it is precisely China’s moral conscience that Petersen finds wanting.

Nick Corbishley, writing on June 6 in Naked Capitalism adds:

However, not everyone is trying — or even pretending — to distance themselves from Tel Aviv right now. The People’s Republic of China, for example, is actually seeking to strengthen its ties with Israel.

After initially siding with Palestine (and Hamas) following October 7, Beijing is now looking to rebuild ties with Israel. Just four days ago, as Israel’s Defence Forces were unleashing coordinated attacks on aid depots, China’s ambassador to Israel Xiao Junzheng discussed “deepening China-Israel economic and trade cooperation” with Israel’s Minister of Economy and Industry, Nir Barkat.

Still others ask why Peoples’ China, a self-described socialist country, has failed to replace the Soviet Union in guaranteeing the economic vitality of tiny socialist Cuba– a country starved by a US blockade and harsh sanctions upon anyone defying that blockade. It is difficult to reconcile the PRC’s modest economic aid to Cuba with China’s $19 billion dollars of annual exports to proscribed Israel.

China’s Foreign Policy in Retrospect

China’s foreign policy is a direct reflection of the political line of the Communist Party of China, a line changing often in the Party’s history. At the 10th National Congress (August, 1973) — the last before Mao’s death — Zhou Enlai delivered the main report. He affirmed that:

In the last fifty years our Party has gone through ten major struggles between the two lines… In the future, even after classes have disappeared… there will still be two-line struggles between the advanced and the backward and between the correct and the erroneous… there is the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, there is the danger of capitalist restoration… The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents), p. 16 [my emphasis]

Zhou explains that the opposition in the last two Congresses — led by Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao — advocated that the main contradiction facing the party was “not the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but that ‘between the advanced socialist system and the backward productive forces of society’”. In short, the two lines continually challenging the Party, as explained at the tenth congress, were that of the “productionists” — those giving priority to the development of the productive forces — and that of the class warriors — those giving priority to political struggle.

The CPC’s failure to simultaneously advance the productive forces and, at the same time, carry out a consistent, comprehensive class line accounts for its often inconsistent foreign policy.

Since the “opening” — the Deng reforms, beginning in 1978 — the productionist line has held sway in the Communist Party of China.

From the time of the rebuilding of the Party based on the rural peasantry after the destruction of its urban working-class base in 1927, Mao had sided with the class warriors.

Even in the era of the united front against Japanese aggression, Mao wrote in On New Democracy (1940) of the necessity of a cultural revolution, a focus on political and cultural struggle over other forms:

A cultural revolution is the ideological reflection of the political and economic revolution and is in their service. In China there is a united front in the cultural as in the political revolution… and the cultural campaign resulted in the outbreak of the December 8th Movement of the revolutionary youth in 1935. And the common result of both was the awakening of the people of the whole country… The most amazing thing of all was that the Kuomintang’s cultural “encirclement and suppression” campaign failed completely in the Kuomintang areas as well, although the Communist Party was in an utterly defenceless position in all the cultural and educational institutions there. Why did this happen? Does it not give food for prolonged and deep thought? It was in the very midst of such campaigns of “encirclement and suppression” that Lu Hsun, who believed in communism, became the giant of China’s cultural revolution… New-democratic culture is national. It opposes imperialist oppression and upholds the dignity and independence of the Chinese nation. It belongs to our own nation and bears our own national characteristics… [my emphasis]

The centrality of cultural revolution likely comes from the class base shaping the trajectory of Chinese Communism. Because the Kuomintang wiped out the CPC’s urban working-class centers in 1927, the Party became based in the rural peasantry, as Mao freely concedes in On New Democracy:

This means that the Chinese revolution is essentially a peasant revolution…. Essentially, mass culture means raising the cultural level of the peasants… And essentially it is the peasants who provide everything that sustains the resistance to Japan and keeps us going. By “essentially” we mean basically, not ignoring the other sections of the people, as Stalin himself has explained. As every schoolboy knows, 80 per cent of China’s population are peasants. So the peasant problem becomes the basic problem of the Chinese revolution and the strength of the peasants is the main strength of the Chinese revolution. In the Chinese population the workers rank second to the peasants in number…

On New Democracy suggests that Mao places primacy of place in the struggle for the support of the peasantry, a struggle that is cultural in form and national in scope. While Mao locates the Party’s battles within the world revolutionary process, he doesn’t see it as an immediate fight for socialism, but apart from it, for China’s national liberation:

This is a time … when the proletariat of the capitalist countries is preparing to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism, and when the proletariat, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and other sections of the petty bourgeoisie in China have become a mighty independent political force under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Situated as we are in this day and age, should we not make the appraisal that the Chinese revolution has taken on still greater world significance? I think we should. The Chinese revolution has become a very important part of the world revolution… [my emphasis]

The separation between the proletariat’s role in the capitalist countries and the Party’s “independent” role in shaping a multi-class force could not be clearer.

Absent from the 1940 statement of Mao’s vision is any endorsement of the Communist International’s broad principles of solidarity. Instead, the Party operated under the Three Principles of the People, the CPC’s revision of Sun-Yat Sen’s original Three Principles. On New Democracy defines them as:

Three Great Policies of alliance with Russia, co-operation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. Without each and every one of these Three Great Policies, the Three People’s Principles become either false or incomplete in the new period…

Thus, “alliance with Russia” (USSR) became central to China’s foreign policy and expanded to alliance with other socialist countries. After liberation in 1949, the PRC practiced that line by aiding the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, especially in repelling the US and its allies as they invaded DPRK territory. The PRC military fought in the DPRK until the armistice of 1953. Over 183,000 Chinese died resisting the invasion of the North.

The CPC established ties with various liberation movements after the Korean War, with Peoples’ China offering military aid and training to many movements in Asia and Africa. At the same time, the PRC adopted Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to lead foreign relations: respect for territory and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and cooperation for common benefit, and peaceful coexistence.

The Five Principles were strikingly similar to the natural-law doctrines adopted by the early mercantilist theorists of bourgeois international relations; they constituted an even less robust version of the eight points of the 1941 Atlantic Charter crafted by Roosevelt and Churchill. Nonetheless, they were enshrined in the constitution of Peoples’ China:

China pursues an independent foreign policy, observes the five principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence, keeps to a path of peaceful development, follows a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, works to develop diplomatic relations and economic and cultural exchanges with other countries, and promotes the building of a human community with a shared future. [my emphasis]

By the end of the 1950s, The CPC had rejected the first of the “three great policies”: the “alliance with Russia”. The PRC had embarked on a period of bitter conflict with the USSR, culminating with a split in the unity of the World Communist Movement. It is source of great irony that many of the charges the CPC made against the Soviets in the Mao era were and are features of China today that have drawn the same charges from some on the left: The Chinese attacked the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence with the US, taunting the US as a paper tiger; they accused the Soviets of being “social-imperialist” intent on global hegemony; they claimed a restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union; they accused the Soviet Party of revising Marxism-Leninism. All charges that resonate for some in current policies of Peoples’ China.

It is difficult to reconcile the Five Principles with the PRC support for the US proxies in the former Portuguese African colonies. For over a decade, the PRC sided with South Africa, Israel, the US, and bogus liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, delivering weapons, training, and material support to surrogates fighting the internationally recognized freedom fighters. It was left for thousands of Cuban internationalists to give their lives to finally close the door on this ugly chapter and open the door to the fall of Apartheid.

It is difficult to reconcile the Five Principles with the PRC 1979 invasion of Vietnam, ostensibly in response to Democratic Vietnam’s overthrow of the Khmer Rouge — an intervention, if principally motivated, that cannot be squared with the PRC’s vocal denunciation of the Warsaw alliance’s engagement in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

It is difficult to reconcile the twists and turns of Peoples’ China’s foreign policies with its once radical denouncement of Soviet foreign policy as “social-imperialist.” The late, estimable Al Szymanski– a scrupulous researcher– met those charges in great detail (“Soviet Socialism and Proletarian Internationalism” in The Soviet Union: Socialist or Social-Imperialist?, 1983), showing that Soviet “export of capital” outside of the socialist community was minimal, largely limited to establishing enterprises that expedited trade. Soviet assistance was limited almost entirely to countries outside of or escaping the tyranny of global markets. Soviet trade was minimal — Szymanski argued that it was the world’s most self-sufficient system (no doubt often through forced isolation). Its importing of raw material was minimal: “In short the Soviet economy, unlike those of all Western imperialist countries… has no… need to subordinate less developed countries to obtain raw materials.”

Also, the Soviet Union frequently paid higher prices for imported goods than market prices. Citing Asha Datar, “[O]f the 12 leading export commodities studied…, six were consistently purchased by the USSR at higher than their world prices, three usually purchased at prices higher than those paid by the capitalist countries, and two purchased on a year to year basis sometimes above and sometimes below the world market price.”

Suffice it to say, the Soviet Union substantially subsidized trade with fraternal countries, especially within the socialist community (CMEA), Cuba receiving especially generous terms of exchange.

It would be interesting to compare the PRC’s current foreign policy with the internationalist standards set by the former Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, Peoples’ China — since the victory of the productionist line under Deng’s leadership — has largely been a force for stability in international relations. Over the last thirty or so years, the PRC has sought to maintain a peaceful stage for its trade-based economic expansion while the US and its capitalist allies have engaged in one bloody, imperialist adventure after another. Entry into the global market and acceptance into its market-based institutions has been well served by its Five Principles foreign policy.

But it has been naive to expect capitalist great powers to respect the high-minded, Enlightenment values of the Five Principles and simply stand by while the PRC rises to challenge their dominance of the world economy. Since Engels’ early writings, Marxists have understood that competition is the motor of the commodity-based economy. And since Lenin, Marxists have understood that competition between monopoly capitals and their hosts have spawned aggression and war.

It is equally naive — or disingenuous — to equate the Five Principles with the proletarian internationalism, class solidarity that has been embraced by the international Communist movement throughout the twentieth century. From Comintern activity, to the internationalist sacrifices made for democratic Spain, to the generous support for liberation movements, and the aid to the people of Vietnam, militant, principled internationalism differs fundamentally from the neutrality embodied in the Five Principles. The Five Principles serve a world with no injustice, a world without class struggle, a world without aggression and war.

Indeed, the solidarity advocated in the PRC constitution — “China consistently opposes imperialism, hegemonism and colonialism, works to strengthen its solidarity with the people of all other countries, supports oppressed peoples and other developing countries in their just struggles to win and safeguard their independence and develop their economies, and strives to safeguard world peace and promote the cause of human progress” — is inconsistent with the neutrality and non-intervention of the Five Principles, in any realistic sense.

Where neutrality may have borne few negative consequences during the PRC’s isolation from global markets, China’s profound economic relations with virtually every country in the twenty-first century, do have consequences, consequences of enormous moral impact.

Like other countries that engage economically or refrain from engaging economically (sanctions, tariffs, boycotts, blockades, etc.), the PRC must be judged by that engagement.

With the daily slaughter of Gazan civilians, the brutal actions of Israel cannot be separated from its trading partners: China, the US, Germany, Italy, Turkiye, Russia, France, South Korea, India, and Spain, in descending order of dollar volume of exports to Israel.

And now with the brazen, unprovoked Israeli attack on its putative “friend” Iran, the neutrality of the Five Principles is even less defensible. The “win-win” strategy of many CPC leaders and their allies is a utopian dream that social justice cannot afford.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

Why Communists Should Respect the Work of Jean Piaget
Synthesizing biology and philosophy

Without a doubt Jean Piaget is one of the greatest Western psychologists of the 20th century. By training as a biologist, he synthesized biology with his love of philosophy through the practical work of understanding human development over the life span. Piaget must have been in heaven as he got a chance to apply Kant’s categorizes of thought to how children navigated the world. He found that children’s sense of time, space, causality, chance, and numbers changed qualitatively as they got older. As children answered his questions, he found he could group their answers into 4 phases of development. Their thinking moved from the simple and homogeneous to complex and heterogeneous.

Stages of intelligence

• The sensory motor stage based on what Piaget characterized as body-action intelligence that occurred from birth to two years of age.
• The preoperational stage which occurred roughly from the age of 2-7. This might be called body-action-mind intelligence.
• The concrete operations phase covered the ages of 7 to 11. This can be called mind-body action intelligence.
• The formal operation stage occurred between the ages of 11-15. It was like the mind reflecting on the thinking process itself. It might be called self-reflection.

For Piaget these stages were not automatic. A child or adolescent could get stuck at a stage if something was organically mentally wrong with them. Thinking can also stagnate because of a destabilizing event such as experiencing war or a natural disaster. However, he believed the stages would unfold even in spite of psychological processes like neurosis.

Assimilation and accommodation
But what drives the stages? Piaget argued that just like other biological creatures children are driven to adapt to their environment. They do this by going back and forth between two processes, assimilation and accommodation. We assimilate when we take information from the world and bend it to a shape we can use by “digesting’ it in relation to culturally accumulated knowledge or past experience. We accommodate when we take our past experience and bend it to include new information coming from the physical world. What drives us up the stages is that the young child must deal with an increasingly complex environment. As the world becomes more complex the higher stages, concrete and Formal Operations, require more abstract and complex problem-solving skills.

Neither assimilation nor accommodation is a smooth for Piaget. Children can over-assimilate or over-accommodate. We over-assimilate when we hold on too tightly to past knowledge or experience and not let enough of the new world in. This translates as people being stubborn and not learning. The opposite problem occurs when we give in too quickly to new information and cave into that information, abandoning what we have learned from past accumulated knowledge or personal experience.

The dialectical nature of Piaget’s framework
Piaget saw the relationship between the child and the world very dialectically. The child has to adapt to their environment and in the process constructs their reaction to the world in a creative way. As the child matures and their thought becomes more complex, they shape reality more actively. Dialectics is also operating in the relationship between assimilation and accommodation. Each feeds the other and together they increasingly shape a more complex intelligence. Lastly, Piaget has his own version of Hegel’s qualitative leaps. He claimed his stages were undergoing qualitative leaps. There is an emergent level of a higher stage which can’t be reduced to the previous level.

Piaget was anti-reductionist. He insisted that the mind had a real part to play in the evolution of psychology (unlike the behaviorists). Yet he was not an idealist who saw the mind as a passive object of contemplation. Piaget insisted that intelligence can only be determined when the mind swings into action. It was in the process of problem-solving that intelligence was found.  Lastly, Piaget was dialectical in his methods. He held clinical interviews with children and conducted experiments with them to determine how they thought. He did not think intelligence could be found in intelligence testing.

Later modifications of Piaget’s thinking
Piaget’s theories have generally stood the test of time. Recent studies have found that the ordering of the stages still holds, but they found there was more flexibility as to when children entered the stage. Recent research has found that children are smarter and more altruistic than Piaget had proposed. Originally Piaget thought that children around the world went through all four stages. Later evidence shows (both Piaget himself and other researches) that many people in other cultures do not go through formal operational thinking. Then it was found that many adults in Western societies don’t reach Formal Operations either.

Communist Criticisms of Piaget’s Work
The dialectical nature of Vygotsky’s work
Lev Vygotsky was also an anti-reductionist, as demonstrated is his article The Crisis in Psychology, where he criticized both behaviorist and introspectionist theories. Like Piaget he emphasized the importance of action to understand individual maturation processes. The difference is that for Piaget, action was individual action. For Vygotsky action was always social as demonstrated in his stages of cooperative learning. Like Piaget, Vygotsky also used interviews as his method of investigation. He extracted the child’s or adolescent’s thinking processes through questions and answers.  Like Piaget he didn’t think much of intelligence testing. But for Vygotsky the first level of higher learning was through what he called the zone of proximal development. In this zone it was in cooperating with other people that intelligence was shown, not in thinking alone.

Underemphasis of micro social life
One of the biggest criticisms of Piaget’s genetic epistemology is his under-emphasis on social life. For Piaget intelligence is found primarily through the interaction of the physical word and psychology. Social life was a derivative and a later development in the life of the child. For Vygotsky the foundation of individual development was an immediate initiation into the socio-historical life of humanity. In fact, for Vygotsky the organism does not even become an individual until they have learned the language and tools of a culture. Biological predispositions are secondary if mentioned at all. For Piaget social life is gradually introduced to a child. Piaget doesn’t think social life became a force to speak of in individual development until the young child is in the concrete operational stage, at about eight years of age. Vygotsky believed we are social from the start and most immediately with the introduction of tools and language at about the age of two years.

Third, Piaget’s idea of social life is relatively impoverished. He thinks of social life as having an audience. In other words, being social requires other people to be present. This seems it imply that when the child is alone, they are not social. Vygotsky would say we have internalized society by the age of two and this socialization lives inside us whether anyone else is there or not. As the child matures, they begin to utilize the tools, not only of his own generation but in the accumulated history of previous generations.

Speaking, spontaneity and play
Piaget believed that coherent thinking can go onto prior learning symbolic abilities. He imagines that the process of learning symbolic forms is a product of thinking. For him, language arises spontaneously as an unfolding of thinking processes. Piaget understoof a child’s speech is an original creation and initially does not copy the speech of adults. They only overlap later in development. Furthermore, Piaget’s overall sense of children was that they were spontaneously creative and wanted to explore and experiment. Lastly, Piaget also sees play as spontaneous. Let’s pretend play is solitary. It has no rules there is no social pressure. Adults should not interfere. Piaget thought children are spontaneously curious and want to explore.

Vygotsky argues that learning language is a precondition for intelligent thinking. In fact, learning to speak acts as a mediator to complete new thinking processes. For Lev, learning language is not a spontaneous product of thought. It is driven by a new means of communication with adults when the young child’s gestures are no longer enough.Vygotsky does not think children are so creative as to make up their own speech. The child’s speech as soon as he graduates from babbling is a copy of the speech of adults. Vygotsky thought that children were not as curious as Piaget did. He thought that adults had to pose problems in order to make the child curious. The child only becomes curious once what Vygotsky called primary subjectivity is established. For Vygotsky all play is already social. In “let’s pretend” play rules may be made up and changed as they go as in the cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin and Hobbes are playing Calvinball. However, they still have social roles no matter how unstable they may be. Children want to copy adult rules and roles, not escape them and run away.

Stages of thinking and speaking (thought and speech)
Piaget allowed no room for speech in his picture of the developing child. The whole dialectical process was between thinking and physical objects. The thinking process went from autism to egocentric speech to logic. Neither speaking nor school were important. For Vygotsky the child’s speaking to adults was the key to thinking. Vygotsky divided social speech into three phases:

• egocentric speech for oneself;
• communication speech for others;
• inner speech. This is where the communication speech with others is internalized so that this social speech at a higher level than egocentric speech for oneself.

For Piaget, egocentric speech disappears once higher concrete and Formal Operations appear. For Vygotsky, egocentric speech does not disappear. It goes back and forth with inner speech. For Piaget a child’s speech is an original formation and doesn’t initially copy the speech of adults. That comes later. For Vygotsky, after babbling children’s speech is an immediate copy of adult speech.

Origins of symbolic thought and social meaning
For Piaget, symbolic thought arises out of the natural maturation of sensory motor operations. Object substitution is a consequence rather than a reason for symbolic thought. For Vygotsky symbolic thought developed as a result of the activity as of object substitution. Symbolic thought occurs in the pivot between objects, much like money becomes the symbolic mediator between one commodity and another It follows that Vygotsky does not think children are naturally curious and what to explore. He thinks adults need to provide leadership to initiate children’s curiosity.

How does social meaning arise? For Piaget, infants can gradually discover meaning through their private operations. Vygotsky would say that is this is ridiculous. The social meaning of events can only be discovered by social processes. They result from interactions with adults in cooperative learning situations.

Learning and schooling
Piaget thought that biological maturation preceded learning. Piaget thought the adult has to wait for the biological maturation process to begin for the child before teaching anything. Vygotsky disagreed. He thought learning precedes maturation with instruction leading to development. In other words, the social process of cooperative learning pushes the maturation process itself forward.

What is the impact of the presence of older and younger children on another child’s learning?  Piaget thought that having the child’s peers present is the best way to learn to solve problems. He thought that the presence of older children would have a dampening effect. The younger children would simply conform to the older kids and not use their creativity to solve problems. Vygotsky felt that the older to younger combination actually worked better because the older kids had to learned the material better since they had to teach the younger ones.

Piaget didn’t think much of school. He just didn’t think it was important to intellectual development. Even in scientific training he thought that the child should first work out the scientific process of experimentation before involvement in any discussion. For Vygotsky schooling was crucial in the development of intelligence. His colleague Alexander Luria researched the transformation of peasants psychologically during the industrial revolution in Russia in the 1920s. He pointed to schooling as crucial in moving peasants to a higher stage of cognitive development. As for learning the sciences, Vygotsky thought Piaget was naïve in thinking that children could work out the scientific method by themselves when they reached the Formal Operational stage. Adults trained in the sciences first had to present methods to adolescent Formal Operations to adolescence to complete and expand the stage.

Philosophical differences
Piaget’s biggest influences were Coleridge, Kant and Ernst Mach. From Coleridge and Kant he built up an appreciation of the inner world. For Coleridge it was imagination and for Kant the categories of thought. This affected the way he proceeded to understand development. Piaget begins with the inner world, proceeds to the outer. The outer worlds were treated as a prop occasion, a scene for operational thinking. He saw change happening in the individual from the inside out (endogenous). As a Kantian, the outer world was things-in-themselves which we can never know, (Mach agreed with this) so why bother paying much attention to it?

Vygotsky’s influences were Spinoza, Hegel and Marx. All three were more interested in the external world because they all thought reality can be known. For both Hegel and Marx, the outer world is transformable. The transformation of the outer world is what makes humanity possible at the macrolevel which is then filtered down to the micro level of the individual. For Vygotsky the movement of learning begins with the outer, moves to the inner and then moves back to the outer as the outer world is transformed. Vygotsky’s process generally moves exogenously from the outside in.

The place and misplace of contradiction in individual development
For Marxists, the words “is” and “am” should be stricken from the dictionary. Why?
Because both words are reifications of processes that are already going on and never stop going on. All processes have a shape and a set of constraints. Processes can be conflicted and sometimes lead to crisis. But are these conflicts and crisis inevitable or can they be short-circuited?  For Piaget and many others conflicts and crisis are real, but there are no contradictions. Like many philosophers, Piaget thinks that contradictions are in the minds of people, due to logical thinking fallacies and can be corrected by Formal Operational deductive logic. We Marxists say contradictions are not just the result of faulty reasoning processes. Contradictions are in the world.

In one of his books, Klaus Riegel argues that there are four dimensions of interdependent developmental progression:

• inner biological – infections, illnesses, epidemics
• individual psychological – disorder, disorientation, psychotic breaks
• cultural socialization – adaptation, acculturation, class struggle, revolution
• outer physical – extreme weather, natural disasters, asteroid impact, sun burning up

For Riegel, from the time an organism is formed these four dimensions are conflicted, they sometimes lead to crisis but fundamentally they contradict each other. For example, there will always be a contradiction between Darwinian sexual selection strategies and human moral codes that require long-term planning. So too, individual psychological processes such as living in the here-and-now will be contradicted by social processes such as class loyalty (to a union, for example) that might demand the individual repress an immediate desire for more money. So too, the social organization which pressures us to get the most of out of our technology with the least amount of effort will contradict ecological pollution and the extinction of species. In all these cases there will be conflict, crisis and temporary resolutions but the contradictions remain. It is the presence of contradictions that drives individual and social creativity.

As a biologist Piaget would recognize that biological constraints will definitely impact individual development. His four stages are the developmental process by which an individual becomes a biological-psychological being. He might see conflict and crisis operating in his descriptions of assimilation and accommodation. However, by the time the child or adolescent reaches the operational stages, conflicts and crisis grow less. He would never consider those tensions contradictions. So far as I know Piaget never mentions any conflict, crisis, let alone contradictions between the individual-psychological and cultural socialization. Piaget does not mention conflict or contradictions between cultural socialization and the outer physical environment. As a Kantian with sympathies toward Ernst Mach the cultural-physical world is of little interest to him.

Macrosocial Criticisms of Piaget
How does social class impact stages of development
I am not an expert on Piaget but have a never seen any references to how social class might affect his stages. Since he claimed his stages are universal, this implies that an upper middle-class lawyer, middle-class teacher and a forklift driver in a plant would all go through all four stages. While Vygotsky did not write about the impact of social class on stages of development, as a Marxist I am confident that he would have agreed that social class does impact the stage of development achieved. These stages of development are impacted by the proportion of the body to the mind in the work done. Lawyers makes their living mostly with their mind. The characteristics of formal operational thinking dovetails beautifully with the work activities of lawyers.  Lawyers have to self-reflect, decide on which kind of case they want to present and develop rhetorical strategies to influence the jury. Similarly, a college teacher must decide on books, plan weekly topics and decide how to implement small group work. The mind in both kinds of work is more important than the body.

But with working class jobs like driving a fork lift, it is not necessary to plan, supervise or self-reflect. What is important is the body is in shape and they can drive a stick shift. Learning Formal Operations is not necessary. This does not mean working class people will not play chess or be interested in trigonometry. It is just that this is not required for their job. Since work dominates our lives most workers will not develop Formal Operational thinking. Because workers are roughly 40% of the population two thirds of the population are not likely to learn Formal Operations.

Are Piaget’s stages universally applicable to tribal, agricultural and industrial societies
Piaget and his students seemed to think so. But anthropologist C.R. Hallpike has written a series of books arguing that Piaget’s stages emerge at different points in history. In his book Foundations of Primitive Thought Hallpike argues that people in the tribal societies he studied achieved a sophisticated version of pre-operational thinking. He also argued that full Formal Operational thinking only emerged in 17^thcentury Europe. Though Vygotsky developed different stages of cognitive development than Piaget, Vygotsky and the sociohistorical school would agree with Hallpike that the stages of cognitive development are not universal but are emergent products of history. In anthropology, cultural relativists are scandalized by Hallpike and Vygotsky’s contention because they think it implies that tribal people are not as smart as people living in industrial societies. Property understood, this is not what they claim. I completely support Hallpike and Vygotsky (and Luria’s) claim. In two chapters of my book Lucifer’s Labyrinth I argue that a sophisticated form of concrete operations emerged in between the 1500-1700 CE and that Formal Operations emerged in the 17^th century with the emergence of statistical reasoning, scientific method and the emergence of capitalism.

Are there stages beyond Formal Operations?
Piaget never proposed any stages beyond Formal Operations. Strangely, he claimed Formal Operations first appeared between the ages of 11 and 15 and then there is no further intellectual development in people. So, according to this, if the average person in the West lives to be 75, for 60 years there is no intellectual development beyond when they are 11 to 15 years of age. Marxist psychologist Klaus Riegel proposed there was a 5^th stage of cognitive development which he called “dialectical operations”. Michael Basseches did some research to support dialectical thinking as a fifth stage of cognitive development in Dialectical Thinking in Adult Development. More recently Otto Laske has also argued for a fifth stage.  Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer

Please see my article Spirals of Becoming: The Search for a Dialectical Spiral in the Individual Life Cycle for much more detail about Piaget’s stages and Michael Basseches’ research on dialectical operations.

See my table below which summarizes the differences between Piaget and Vygotsky.

Conclusion: Why We Need Vygotsky’s Socio-Historical Psychology for 21^st Century Socialism
In my previous article Building Bridges Between Vygotsky and Marx, I mentioned the three phases of cooperative learning. In 21^st century socialist societies, these stages can be applied to workers in worker cooperatives learning the processes of deciding what to produce, how to produce it, how to manage the scale of production and how to compensate themselves without using money. This will require learning to think dialectically using a 5^th stage of cognitive development beyond Formal Operations. Cooperative learning and dialectical thinking will be required in worker participation in centralized state planning projects.

Cooperative learning and dialectical operations would be active in school group learning processes under socialism. The same could be said in stimulating child development among parents and in children learning to play, in both “let’s pretend” play and organized games. Furthermore, individual development would undergo a qualitative leap in which people would craft a life mission for themselves under socialism. Lastly, today dialectical thinking would be essential for understanding the contradictions of world capitalism, its current crisis on both domestic and international levels. It would be required in understanding the nature of imperialism and the geopolitical struggles between the West and BRICS while being both sympathetic to and critical of the new world being forged by China, Russia and Iran.

Piaget vs Vygotsky

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Barbara MacLean.

Since becoming general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam has drawn international attention with his aggressive plans for cost-cutting within the government but he’s been quiet about another drain on the state budget – the ruling party itself.

After taking office last August, he has moved this year to eliminate and merge ministries and central government agencies, reduce the number of provinces and cities by half, and dismantle district-level administrative units. Tens of thousands of civil servants have already lost their jobs. The Ministry of Interior has estimated that in five years, this will have saved 130 trillion dong (US$5.2 billion at today’s exchange rate) in the state budget.

To Lam’s campaign has been likened to the drastic cuts that U.S. President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk have made to U.S. federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency.

But when it comes to making savings in Vietnam’s state apparatus, To Lam appears to have hedged his bets.

Vietnam operates under two intertwined systems: the party and the government. Although each has a separate budget, both draw from the same source — taxpayer money. The party, in power since the end of the Vietnam War and the reunification of the country in 1975, exists as a parallel structure to the government and plays the leading role in policymaking and governance.

While the government’s budget is occasionally made public, the party’s finances remain classified under Vietnamese law.

This policy predates To Lam’s leadership. However, given his sweeping efforts to streamline the state apparatus and reduce spending, his silence on the party’s own budget raises questions about how far he’s willing to go on fiscal reform.

Vu Tuong, a professor and expert on Vietnamese politics from the University of Oregon, said data shows that from 2008 to 2015, the Central Party Office’s budget increased steadily.

“Although actual spending figures are not disclosed, the Central Party Office alone saw its planned budget quadruple in seven years — from nearly US$27 million (622 billion dong) in 2008 to about US$105 million (more than 2,400 billion dong) in 2015,” he said.

The office functions as the party’s command center, where the general secretary oversees both party and government operations. From 2011 to 2015, its budget rose by 180 percent — three times higher than the increase in the government office’s budget, according to Vu Tuong. The publication of data on its spending stopped in 2015.

Budget is a secret

Zachary Abuza, an expert on Southeast Asia at the National War College in Washington, noted the lack of transparency.

“The party’s budget is a secret, so researchers must work with imperfect data,” he told Radio Free Asia. He said To Lam is mindful of ballooning recurrent expenditures and has made some attempts to rein them in. For example, the party’s foreign affairs committee has been merged into other entities. However, despite these changes, the party’s overall budget continues to grow.

“While the budgets of government agencies have shrunk or stagnated, the budget for the CPV’s bureaucracy has steadily increased over the past few years, if we count the Fatherland Front, the organization that supports the party’s activities,” Abuza said. CPV stands for the Communist Party of Vietnam.

He said more transparency could help improve the party’s legitimacy, but given its obsession with maintaining supreme power, “it’s hard to see them cutting the party’s budget,” he said.

In 2016, the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research estimated that the economic cost of maintaining public mass organizations — directly controlled by the Communist Party — ranged from 45,600 to 68,100 billion dong annually (about US$2 billion to US$3 billion at the time). These organizations are intended to fulfill roles that, in democratic countries, would be played by independent civil society groups. To Lam has not indicated whether he intends to cut their funding.

According to Abuza, To Lam’s ongoing radical restructuring of the national government, including the consolidation of five ministries and several government agencies, and the reduction of nearly 50% of the number of provinces, created a rare opportunity to further cut both state and party organizations.

However, the budgets for the party and its supporting organizations are difficult to cut because they are tied to the inherent interests of the bureaucracy, he said.

There may be a political reason behind To Lam’s reluctance to target the party’s spending.

The next National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam is approaching in early 2026, when a new generation of leaders will be elected. To Lam, 67, is believed to be seeking another term as general secretary.

“There’s only half-a-year left until the Party Congress,” said Abuza. “So there won’t be any major changes. Normally, spending and policy implementation would be completely locked down by this stage.”

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Truong Son for RFA Vietnamese.

Orientation
International political economy at a crossroads

As most of you know the world economy is peppered with fault lines. On one hand we have the rising in the East of a new economic block, the BRICS nations and their friends. On the other hand, in the West we have a rapidly declining Yankeedom and its European vassals on. What are socialists in the West to do with this malestream, this great turning point? Is it not clear whether to support BRICS or not? After all, the BRICS countries have only one clear socialist country and two countries that are Hindu fundamentalists (India) as well as a theocracy (Saudi-Arabia). So does it make sense for socialists to support Russia, India, and Saudi-Arabia that are conservative politically? This article proposes that Western socialists need to give up their purist ideologies and accept that while the BRICS countries may be lacking in socialist policies domestically,they still should be supported because of their international attempts to follow Marx and Engels’ exhortation to “develop the productive forces”. This means striving to create material abundance through technological innovation.

Who am I
I am no academic socialist nor am I a red diaper baby. In fact, reading and school for me were mutually exclusive opposites. When I was a young adult I couldn’t stand reading and dropped out of community college. I only started to care for reading after I left and began hitchhiking across the country. Because I am self-educated, I did not have the benefits of being systematically educated in all the different schools of socialism, what socialist organizations were like and where and how socialism was applied all over the world. So I eclectically dabbled with books and organizations. I eventually found my way and this article is the result of conclusions I’ve come to after 50 years. Twelve years ago my partner and I started our own website and Facebook page which now has 10,000 followers. We each work 20-25 hours per week in various aspects of this work. Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism is our baby!

What do I Mean by Socialist Purist?
By the term socialist purist I mean someone who holds out for the most extreme, utopian form of socialism, whether it is defined by Marx, Engels, Lenin or an anarchist hero like Kropotkin. For Leninists socialism means no capitalism with the state which controls all economic transactions, the society is classless and does not use any currency. For the anarchists the ideal is no state, no capitalism, no classes and no money. If actually existing socialism has any of these things it is treated, not as part of a long process of development, but as a sign of a) betrayal of the party or a bureaucracy (Trotskyists) and b) corruption or some kind of pollution from the original source. That source is most often treated like a bible. It is more or less the same as the old ruling law in Louisiana that if a person had 1/32 of what was considered African American blood, they were considered black.

China
If I support China, I will be told that China isn’t really socialist or communist. If the state-controlled enterprises compose 60% of the Chinese economy I will be told that the 40% of the economy that is in private hands matters more. It will also be pointed out that in China strikes are outlawed and independent labor unions are illegal. I would prefer that strikes in China were legal and workers were allowed to form unions. There are labor unions in China but under the auspices of the state. Also, there are plenty of strikes in China. But for the purists this is enough for the entire country to be dismissed as a socialist project. For me it is not. Where do the purists get their definitions? I will be told that Marx and Engels defined socialism and communism in a particular way and that is the definition we should work with despite the fact that the definitions were intentionally sketchy and they were written over 150 years ago. If I point out China’s great work on the Belt and Road Initiative of building infrastructures and harnessing energy all over the world, I would be told they are still deriving a profit from them. Profits are bad! From anarchists for whom all states are bad, I will be told that China is really just continuing Western imperialism. For anarchists, helping to develop the productive forces in another country is nothing more than a “debt trap”. For them all capitalist and state socialist societies are imperialist the moment they engage with a country on the capitalist periphery.

Russia
There is no country in the world which has been more brutally and tenaciously demonized than Russia and that was so before, during and after the Russian Revolution. If we post a story on our website or social media pages about the Russian economy now being the fourth strongest in the world, we will be told by Trotskyists or Social Democrats that Russia is, after all, a capitalist country, as if that should end all discussion. Anarchists will tell me that Putin is a dictator. These folks don’t understand that Russia has at least four or five parties and that in the last election, Putin’s party got 49% of the vote and the Community party got 20%. I will be told by other purists that much of Russia’s spending is on its own and others’ military, not so much on producing goods and services for a better life for its citizens. The anarchists will tell me that anarchists and other dissidents are rotting away in Russian prisons. For them it doesn’t seem to matter that Putin has 80% approval ratings and Russia has built up its domestic economy even more since US sanctions. For socialist purists, the fact that Russia has been investing in the northern Arctic Silk Road which will increase trade in regions that have not been connected seems not to matter to them. The domestic economy is first and geopolitics is second. I believe the reverse to be true.

The International Proletarian Revolution Around the World at the Same Time

For anarchists any power at a national level is against socialism. So what do they advocate? An international revolution of workers’ councils that overthrows all states and is linked up locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. How realistic is this? As we stand now in the history of the United States we have never had a general strike that encompassed more than one local state. If we face this fact it is ludicrous to propose that workers’ councils are going to spontaneously arise, spread across an entire country then link up to other countries until the whole system is global. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous to assume this is going to happen in the near future? In Europe, the English, French and German heads of state are hated. Germany is de-industrializing, the French and English living standards have declined, still we have yet to see a general strike among the working classes of all countries that can drive them from power. It has struck me that:

• Since these European rulers are all bitterly against Russia;
• Russia possesses that cheap natural gas which could improve working class living standards; and
• the working classes could unite against their rulers and demand to have cheap Russian gas shipped to them.

How likely is even this semi-continent alliance? Unfortunately, not very. It has taken the rulers of states and capitalists roughly 300 years to convince people that their nation-state deserve more loyalties than their previous loyalties to provinces, principalities, regions and city states. How likely are the citizens today to give that national loyalty? Marx and Engels naively thought that workers would give up their fatherland for the international loyalty of the working class. All socialists found out the hard way through the results of two world wars that workers of the world uniting is not something workers across states have any intention of doing. So whether we like it or not, the real fight for the foreseeable future is between the rulers of capitalist states and their working classes. That is the best we can do for now and in the near future.  

World-Systems Theory and the Long View of Capitalism
In Giovanni Arrighi’s great book The Long Twentieth  Century, in world systems terminology, over the last 500 years capitalism has jumped all over the world from Italy, Holland, England and to the United States. Each ‘hegemon’ has ruled from between 220 to 100 years before its decline. In every case when the hegemon has fallen it has been replaced by a country on the capitalist semi periphery. The United States has been in decline for over 50 years. What’s next? Well, China certainly qualifies as a semi-periphery country that is still rising. But something much deeper is going on. Not only China, but all the other BRICS countries – Russia, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been in the semi-periphery world system. Can it be that after 500 years in Europe, we are witnessing the world economy shifting from the West to the East? It certainly looks that way. Every member of BRICS is a country on the capitalist semi-periphery.

The Rise of BRICS
I celebrate the emergence of a block of anti-imperialist countries that have broken away from the Anglo-American Empire. China, Russia, Iran and to a lesser extent India have resisted using the dollar as a world trade currency. Further, they have insisted on using their own local currency in trade transactions. With the exception of China Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are capitalist countries, but their commitment has not been primarily to make a profit on war or forms of fictious capital such as stocks, bonds, derivatives or stock options as does the United States. Following the Chinese great Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) these countries have traded with each other in exchanges of energy systems, infrastructures such as roads and trains as well as in agricultural products and military defense.

The BRICS economic agreement between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was established as an alternative to the imperialist World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This breakaway movement is growing stronger by the day as the United States and the rest of the West sinks into decay. As a socialist I support this breakaway movement even if it is not explicitly socialist. In answer to my support of BRICS, I will be told that most of its members are capitalist and that socialism can never come from it. So how is socialism supposed to come about?

Nationalism as a Revolutionary Force in a BRICS Dominated World

For traditional socialists, nationalism has been the enemy. After all, historically it keeps workers from uniting with other workers around the world and it propagandizes them into aligning with the capitalist class rather than their own class. These are all reasons to be against nationalism. But the problem in today’s world is that we are fighting against a global capitalism that sets up continental systems such as the European Union which is organized to encourage the free flow of capitalism across the entire European continent. The EU does big business for the European capitalist class, a kind of Bilderberg economic union. The EU has no working-class representation. In my opinion, it is an advance for the working class of nation states to fight for independence from this European parasitic organization.

Conservative parties are moving towards nationalism – socialists are not

The problem for socialists is that in Europe and other parts of the world the  traditional conservative parties have taken positions of supporting the nation-state against the European Union and are not anti-Russian. This includes Le Pen in France, the AFD in Germany and Orban in Hungary. Sadly, to my knowledge there is not even an intermediate scale socialist party in Europe that has taken a nationalist stance. So am I advocating support of these conservative parties?

The linear political spectrum is bankrupt in the 21st century
In order to align ourselves with the current BRICS program we badly need a new political spectrum, one that leaves behind the current linear version. On this topic, please see my article of 2 ½ years ago which is still highly relevant.  As I said in my article, Are Socialists Going to let Neoliberals Define Fascism: Why the Linear Political Spectrum is Bankrupt this spectrum must be:

• inclusive of many more combinations than the communism-liberalism-conservative, fascist and libertarian, linearly strung out;
• economic as well as political;
• must account for qualitative leaps – which is the difference between socialism and capitalism;
• decentered so that both moderate and extreme solutions would seem reasonable under certain conditions. This means that all political tendencies would have to be seen as having pros and cons. The way it stands now liberals and conservatives are seen as virtuous and communism and fascism are seen as having vices;
• the spectrum must be flexible enough to make room for alliances between the extremes on the political spectrum such as China and Saudi Arabia or between India (fundamentalist) and China and
• not limited to ideologies that are next to each other on the political spectrum.

BRICS Leads the Way in Revolutionizing the Linear Political Spectrum                      

This is where things get messy. If we follow the lead of China, Xi Ping does not form alliances based on loyalty to socialism. He is committed to building communism but has formed alliances with a Hindu fundamentalist nationalist in India and with the theocratic state of Saudi Arabia. Putin is no socialist yet his strongest ally is to a country that wants to build communism. Modi, a right-winger is ok doing business with communist China. Cuba and Venezuela would be happy to do business with any of the BRICS countries whether they are socialist or not. So what united these BRICS countries that might make socialists of the West support them?

• They are anti-imperialist.
• They are anti-war.
• They are anti-finance capital.
• They want to develop the productive forces of the world.

Importance of Technological Innovation
Let me develop the last point. In the Communist Manifesto Marx spent a good deal of time praising the capitalist system for developing industry – building railroads and factories and upgrading the standing of living for the middle classes and parts of the working class. These are the very activities the BRICS countries are engaged in now. In Marxian terms, what is so good about this? It is based on the idea that socialism must be founded on abundance. It means increasing the ratio between freedom and necessity. This means maximizing productivity while decreasing the numbers of work hours. For me this is a more important goal to fight for even if internally the countries of BRICS suffer from class, race and gender inequalities.

Siege Socialism
Typically in the West, when socialist countries are compared to capitalist countries they are criticized in terms of standard of living, varieties of political parties and freedom of expression. In the first place, socialist countries should be measured in comparison to what these countries were like before the socialist revolution. Capitalist countries have had 300 years to develop themselves unopposed after they defeated feudalism. Socialist countries have had a little more than 100 years to develop yet they have done so in spite of constant capitalist attempts at sabotage, assassinations and betrayal. It is way too soon to make sweeping generalizations about the viability of socialism. In fact, based on the last 35 years of the “triumphant” West, when we look at the world around us, it is capitalism that is either is in deep trouble or has failed.

Secondly, capitalist critics fail to understand that Western concepts of freedom are not shared around the world. What matters to working-class people most is the ability to read and write, have low-cost health care and free education. In terms of housing, socialism either provides low-cost housing or makes it possible for people to buy their house outright. Socialist countries like China and Cuba have a higher percentage of home ownership than the United States. As far as the variety of political parties, I can well understand that the socialist leaders who have come to power may be extremely cautious about allowing many political parties to form. When we consider the ability of capitalist spies to turn alternative parties into organs of counter revolution, the concerns of socialist leaders is completely understandable. The best book I know which makes a case for actually existing socialism, is Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet
What’s wrong with anarchism?

I do not share the criticism of anarchists by Marxists and or Marxist-Leninists. For the most part they were not “petite bourgeois individualists.” Most of the 19th and 20th  century anarchists were working classpeople who were very influential during the revolutions in Russia, 1917-1921, and Spain, 1936-1939. I respect many of their leaders from Bakunin to Louise Michel to Kropotkin to Malatesta, to Emma Goldman and to Buenaventura Durruti. However socialism must be based on abundance, not scarcity. Many anarchists don’t believe material abundance is a necessity. For those anarchists who support material abundance, a decentralized economy is not going to deliver the goods. A kind of promethean socialism requires some state centralization coordination of the distribution of water, heat, gas and electricity and other infrastructural projects.

Following Pannekoek and Gorter I agree that workers’ councils should be the micro unit of a communist society. But local workers’ councils plans for production need to be linked up regionally and then nationally. Centralization is necessary but it must be open so that there is a dialectical relationship from workers’ councils to the top and from the state back down to the bottom. Anarchists are hostile or cynical about centralization. The way political organs are organized today, a political body has to be a state in order even gain recognition. What do anarchist expect to do? Dismantle the entire state system founded at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648? It’s completely unrealistic.

Secondly, anarchism and workers’ councils have always been hostile to parties. The heart of politics is to steer, to develop social policy. Workers’ councils or radical unions cannot be solely economic organizations. Whatever their production goals they have to be coordinated by social needs outside of work. This includes consumer groups with community needs, family needs, social and psychological needs where there is an ongoing dialectic in which plans are first made and monitored. Political parties are necessary for both directing our future and learning from our past.

Lasty, there needs to be room for markets. As many of you know markets are much older and much different than capitalist exchange. They go all the way back to horticultural societies and even existed among complex hunter-gatherer societies. Markets will continue to exist among small traders who do not hire workers for wages. The possible relationship between workers’ councils, the state and markets is well laid out in David Schweickart’s  book After Capitalism.

What is Wrong with Stalinism
By themselves workers can only achieve trade union consciousness (more money and better working conditions)
I do not share Trotskyist evaluations of Stalin as some kind of bureaucratic madman implying that Trotsky wanted more party democracy. Neither do I share anarchist dismissal, not only of Stalin, but also equating Stalin, Lenin and even Marx as all authoritarian. My criticism of Stalin as a political leader can be broken down into the following parts. As far back as 1905 with the founding of the Bolshevik party, they claimed that left to their own devices working class people can attain only a trade union consciousness. They ignored what the workers did during the Paris Commune which went way beyond trade union consciousness. Workers  created revolutionary organs of self-management without much, if any, input from any socialist or socialist parties at the time. This leads me to my second criticism.

This is that the Communist Party, not just Stalin, but also Lenin never trusted the workers’ councils that formed in Russia. They did not trust workers’ own creativity. “All power to the Soviets” was a slogan the Bolsheviks used before they came to power. After that the factory committees in the cities and the self-organization of the peasants were treated as rivals rather than comrades. In addition, Stalin actively destroyed workers’ councils during the Spanish revolution when he saw he could not control them. Devoted Leninists will state that it was the war against Western capitalist parties that forced the communist parties into a narrower, heavy-handed approach. I agree with this up to a point, but I don’t think it could explain all the more repressive behavior. The anarchists have every right to despise the Communists for what happened to them and their comrades.

The limits of vanguard parties
Marx and Engels never talked about vanguard parties. In fact, they made fun of the secret revolutionary societies of August Blanqui. However, it makes sense to me that a secret party was necessary in Russia in the early 20th century, a society without even a liberal party, no constitution and a monstrous secret police. But Leninist parties that continued to build vanguard parties that operated under relatively liberal stable conditions in the West, where a legal party was possible and political activity could be public is just mechanically holding  onto a theory that longer fits in Western conditions. In their hands Leninist theory became a dogma.

The scholastic treatment of the sciences and philosophy

There were a number of areas where dialectical materialism became dogmatic rather than scientific. I will mention two. In anthropology, Marxist-Leninist, with or without Stalin preserved Marx and Engels’ stage theory of social evolution for 100 years in spite of real empirical data from anthropologists that challenged Marxism. There were new stages of simple and complex horticulture societies that came between hunter-gatherers and the emergence of the state. In addition, slavery and feudalism were not  universal stages of social evolution. Also, in the field of psychology, the communist psychology of Vygotsky was banned in Russia for 20 years. One his most creative followers, Evald Ilyenkov was forbidden to publish and was harassed to the point of committing suicide.

Every school in the history of philosophy was crammed into the categories of objective idealism, subjective idealism or materialism. See my article which shows philosophy can be grouped into six different schools: Out on a Limb With Dialectical Materialism. Lastly the various schools of 20th century philosophy are crudely labelled based on whether the school of philosophy – pragmaticism, logical atomism, analytical philosophy – was for or against imperialism. In addition to which class the school represented. This was the case even if the school of philosophy never made any political statements.

Lastly it was very short-sighted for Stalin to insist on controlling all communist parties of the world in the service of Russia. In the case of the United States, the American Communist Party lost many opportunities to move the Yankee working class towards communism because the American communist leaders were never allowed to adapt communist theory to their own conditions. It makes complete sense to me that on a world scale, smaller communist parties should defer to the party that had achieved state power. But that doesn’t mean the party that achieved state power should dictate the strategies and tactics of countries with different political and economic conditions. We need a mass socialist party, not a secret vanguard party.

What Stalin did right
Internationally Stalin was a great politician. For 25 years the Communist Party outfoxed the entire Western world of the United States, England, France and Germany that were all in cahoots to destroy state socialism in Russia. Also the Communist Party practically single-handedly defeated the Nazis. Nationally Stalin raised the standard of living for workers and peasants compared, not to Western societies, but under the conditions of that existed under the czars until the Revolution.

There are issues that in the West Stalin is regularly attacked about:

• the treatment of peasants on the collective farms;
• the famines in Russia;
• the notion that Stalin was a dictator;
• that Russia operated in totalitarian way and
• the political trials of the 1930s.

Ludo Martens in his book Stalin: Another View, talks about each of these issues and exposes the typical Western ideology about this. It is important to remember that the statistics about the collective farms and famines were mostly written by CIA agents. Further, Martens does not take the position of idealizing everything that Stalin did. He simply presents facts that show Western propaganda as either wrong at worst or exaggerated at best.

So What are Messy Transitions?
The world of BRICS is a messy world. As I said before, China is the only country moving in a clear socialist direction. It has to work with two right wing countries – Hindu fundamentalist India and a theocracy in Saudi Arabia. Russia and Iran are clearly locked in with China but they are not socialist. Secondly, there is the class struggle going on within BRICS countries. None of these countries are supporting radical labor unions so the class struggle will go on within BRICS. Thirdly, workers cooperatives are a growing but small movement around the world. They represent potential dual forms of power. It is unclear how the heads of the BRICS countries will deal with worker co-ops as radical forms of economic exchange. Fourthly there are the ecological problems of extreme weather, accumulation of toxins, desertification and species extinction that the human species face. BRICS countries will deal with this in various ways. Lastly, there is the collapsing empire of the United States whose ruling class will fight to the death to keep it from slipping even to a minor power status. It will take all the ingenuity to navigate in, around and through this ruling class before it takes down half of the world with them.

Over many years organizations such as the United Nations have developed world programs for abolishing poverty and world hunger, increasing political participation and many other improvements. Those plans continue to gather dust because the world capitalist class is dead set against them. These plans can be potentially put into practice by some of the more progressive members of BRICS. In short it will be a messy bitches’ brew for the next century. We socialists have to accept messes and attempt to be more dialectical, not only in how we deal with the messes but also the bitterness of all socialists groups to each other.

Cooling Out the Socialist Family Feuds

For the past 170 years socialist groups have fought each other bitterly, sometimes justified and sometimes not. But we might do better if we understand each other as having various tensions that were there from the beginning, specifically:

• What is the role of the state?
• What is the role of a socialist party?
• What is the role of self-organizing workers? and
• What is place of markets?

To begin with, Leninists of all types need to face the fact that they don’t have the answers to everything. In fact, workers’ councils have shown that workers are far better at co-creating than they have been given credit for. On the other hand, anarchists and Council Communists need to come to terms with the fact that the state is a necessary part of socialism and for socialists to compete with capitalism on a world scale, some infrastructural industries require a state. In addition, council communists and anarchists cannot exist by themselves in economics organizations with no party. We need socialist parties to navigate political direction. Lastly, both anarchists and Council Communists need to appreciate that what the USSR, Cuba and Venezuela have achieved with their population is to be admired, not just criticized.

Finally, all these groups have to respect what the social democratic parties in the Scandinavia countries achieved domestically, at least before the rise of neoliberalism. They made some real improvements domestically for the populations in terms of standard of living, wages, health care and housing.  On the other hand Social Democrats internationally should be roundly condemned for actively or passively not standing up to the imperialist powers of the West with a sense of international solidarity with other socialist countries against capitalists. Finally, while Social Democrats have given far too much power to capitalists domestically in their own country, they have also shown that local markets can be productive contributors to socialism and that markets are not synonymous with capitalism.

What is the Opposite of Purity?
Throughout this article I have criticized socialist purity. But the opposite of purity is enmeshment. In psychological terms, enmeshment is a process by which a person cannot easily tell where their boundaries end and another’s begin. The worst example of enmeshment politically are the actions of the social democratic parties of the world since the end of World War II. They allowed themselves to become entangled with capitalism. Their boundaries were enmeshed. They couldn’t tell the difference between domestic socialism and international imperialism

The worst example of socialist enmeshment is the Democratic Socialists of America. This organization for 60 years has been devoted to “moving the Democratic Party to the left”. In reality the Democratic Party has been moving right despite whatever interventions they’ve made. The Democratic Party has continuously moved to the right, today being a center-right party. Yet the leaders of the Democratic Socialists of American continue to support the Democratic Party. Today it is difficult, if not impossible to tell the difference between Social Democrats and left liberals.

Conclusion
I began my article by defining what I meant by socialist purity. I said it could apply to both the anarchist as well as the Leninist left – Trotskyists, Stalinists or Maoists. At the end my article I said that the opposite of socialist purity was socialist “enmeshment”. It is the Social Democrats in Europe and the Democratic Socialists in the United States that are the best example of this. I pointed out examples of socialist purity in attitudes towards two countries, China and Russia. I argued why BRICS holds the best hope for a socialist future and I based this partly on World Systems Theory of the history of capitalism. I pointed out the Utopian nature of the wish for a workers’ revolution all over the world at the same time. I argued that based on how they behave today, workers fighting for socialism within their nation-states is the best we can do. I also claimed that these days nationalist loyalties in the West is an advance against regional institutions like the European Union on the one hand  or global institutions like the IMF or the World Bank on the other. I proposed that nationalism is an advance, whether it comes from countries such as Cuba or Venezuela on the left or European nationalists on the right including Le Pen’s party in France, the AfD in Germany or Orban in Hungary.

I attempted to be dialectical in weighing both anarchism and the varieties of Leninism for their pros and cons. I defended what has been called siege socialism against the purists, using Michael Parenti’s book Black Shirts and Reds and Ludo Martens book, Stalinism: Another View as two sources.

For over 50 years I have drawn from some very unlikely bedfellows. Some of these groups I joined and some I was on the periphery of and only knew them from their writings:

• beginning with historical anarchists culminating with Murray Bookchin (2 years);
• The Situationists of Raoul Vaneigem and Guy Debord culminating in Pannekoek and Gorter’s council communism (3 years);
• National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) converging in Lyndon Larouche’s book Dialectical Economics (1 year). More recently I’ve been influenced by William Engdahl, Matthew Ehret and Cynthia Chung, also in the Larouche orbit;
• world-systems theory following the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Giovanni Arrighi;
• communist psychology of the Soviet Union whose main practitioners were Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev. Also one year’s involvement with Social Therapy founded by Fred Newman and Lois Holtzman in New York City;
• in 2000 the anti-war movement headed by ANSWER (8 years);
• the Occupy movement from 2011-2012;
• the founding of our own organization Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism from 2012 to today; and
• one year with anarchists from Olympia Assembly and the Industrial Workers of the World.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

The termination of RFA’s grant is a reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked in the information space. RFA has been foundational in helping U.S. policymakers understand the reality of what’s happening in China and other closed countries, bringing transparency and accountability where there is none. RFA’s breakthrough reporting in Xinjiang led the first Trump Administration to make its declaration of genocide against the Chinese government.

Today’s notice not only disenfranchises the nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA’s reporting on a weekly basis to learn the truth, but it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense. We plan to challenge this short-sighted order and pursue whatever means necessary to continue our work and protect our courageous journalists.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA.

Summary of Part I

In Part I of this article I contrasted sixteen ways in which communist macro-psychology differs from liberal micro-psychology as it is practiced in the United States. I described communist psychology in action in the field of eating habits and the impact of advertising on the public’s emotional life. I discussed the reasons why my readers might have a difficult time appreciating what communist psychology has to offer and I used the science fiction book Flatland as an analogy to show that using communist psychological concepts is like living in the third dimension of a two-dimensional world of capitalist micro-psychology.

In Part II of my article, I will describe how even when communist psychology books are translated from Russian into English, they are unconsciously or consciously distorted or censored by those Ratner calls neoliberal psychologists to fit better with the structure and dynamics of capitalism. As an example of macro-cultural psychology in this article I will also use an example of how capitalism is connected to mental illnesses, specifically in schizophrenia and the pressure to be thin.

What is Neoliberal Activity Theory?
As many of you know, neoliberalism in the field of economics and politics hit the United States and England full-force with the election of Reagan and Thatcher. It was characterized by economic policies designed to hollow out of the technological infrastructure, attack unions and the wages of workers. Neoliberalism is also connected to the rise of transnational, financial capitalism. It would appear that these conditions would breed a kind of pessimistic psychology with individuals seen as more or less determined by socio-structural forces. But that did not happen in the field of psychological activity theory in the United States. In fact the opposite happened.

It was in early 1980s that Vygotsky’s work was brought to the United States thanks to the educational psychologist Michael Cole. But Cole’s presentation of Vygotsky’s work played down the fact that Vygotsky was a communist set on building a Marxist psychology. Instead, Vygotsky’s interest in learning, education and his work on “defectology” (social education of blind and deaf children) was emphasized. The main problem is that neoliberal psychologists want to eclectically use Vygotsky’s work in education while either intentionally or unintentionally leaving out the fact that Vygotsky and his colleagues were trying to build a communist psychology. Ratner writes that this is akin to writing about Darwin and holding conferences about his ideas yet never exploring his concept of evolution. As American psychologist Carl Ratner writes:

Eighty years later, under much less social pressure, and with many more resources, contemporary activity theorists have generally regressed from the limited concrete emphasis in Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev’s theories. (Page 240)

In addition, almost as a reaction formation to the hard neoliberal economic times, these psychologists emphasized the active nature of individuals in relation to social structure (with a romantic conception of individuals as free as birds – see image at beginning of article). For example, they selected peer group cooperative learning as opposed to learning through an individual instructor. They emphasized language and conversations in cooperation as opposed to Leontiev’s emphasis on collective tool use. Neoliberal Vygotskians were more interested in the cooperative settings of school and play and less in work settings. Some of them caught the postmodern bug and questioned scientific objectivity as the ultimate aspiration of psychologists.

The Fear of Macro-Cultural Psychology
Ratner points out that in world neoliberal psychology the subjects of consumer capitalism, commodification, alienation, exploitation and ideology are never mentioned in their leading journals on culture. For example, he tells us these subjects are not mentioned in the 17-year history of Michael Cole’s journal Mind, Culture and Activity, supposedly sympathetic to Vygotskyan work. Neither did these subjects ever appear in the Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology over a period of forty years. The Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology mentions the word capitalism twice in 850 pages. Ratner explains that the most famous social psychology text ever, The Social Animal, never once mentions social class. There is a neglect of macro social factors involved in mental illness – for example the link between psychological depression and capitalist economic instabilities (to be covered shortly). Why is this? Drug companies want patients to use their products and not question the economic system that might be ultimately the reason these patients have these problems. Ratner says that every one of the authors of DSM manual’s  sections on mood disorders and schizophrenia had financial ties to drug companies

Qualifications About Micro Neoliberal Psychology
These journals and books fail to discuss in detail exploitation, alienation, commodification, ideology, mystification, hegemony or social class. Social class is rarely mentioned, yet research proves that it affects mortality, diseases, opportunities, privileges, health care, literacy, vocabulary and working memory. Neoliberal psychology admits that the micro-level reflects effects of these macro events, but it does not reveal the power and depth of macro cultural factors in their full complexity which go beyond the level of face-to-face interaction. Neoliberal psychologists sometimes acknowledge the effect of exploitation – poverty, stress, anxiety, prejudice – but they attribute them to factors other than an exploitive political economy. For example, instead of blaming the political economy of capitalism we hear of the “corruption of individuals”, “rotten apples”, “rogue criminals”, “greedy businessmen” or “disturbed individuals”. These are all vices of individuals. Structures get away scot-free. Lastly, it is not enough that cross-cultural psychologists point out that most Americans have more individualistic self-concept and North Koreans have a collectivist orientation. It is necessary to analyze the political character of the individualistic self-concept.

Macro-Cultural vs Micro-Cultural Activity Theory

Socio-historical activity theory says it is a collectivist, mediated and object-oriented activity system which is the prime unit of analysis. Secondly, the activity system is always a community, not a dyad or triad. Thirdly, contradiction has a central role as sources of change and development. In other words, conflict in real objective systems is the mother of change. Fourthly, these activity systems get transformed over long periods of historical time – centuries.  Lastly, it is collective-creative activity such as new inventions like the printing press, the telescope and the microscope, qualitative changes that drive psychological changes in the individual. An example is the need for merchants to develop insurance policies for their ships that led  to the emergence of formal operational thinking among 17^th century merchants and scientists.

In the case of neoliberal theorists of Vygotsky it is the local group, not the collective  which is the mediated form of activity. The collective institutional framework in which activity takes place – whether the society is feudal, capitalist or socialist – is ignored. Secondly, the places where Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development takes place are usually among peers. If teachers are involved, they are teaching in a permissive way and less in a way wherein the teacher takes the lead. Thirdly, liberal Vygotskians usually don’t pay much attention to the changing historical contexts in which activity takes place. In the macro activity case, Luria conducted studies shortly after the Russian Revolution about how peasant life psychologically changed as peasants were introduced to the industrialization process. He tracked how peasants’ sense of perception, cognition and personality were transformed. Neoliberal activity theorist rarely delve into the history of activity in their own country. Fourthly, in liberal theory contradictions are not usually understood as opportunities for transformation. They are seen as problems that need to be worked out to re-achieve stability. They might also be dismissed as the products of faulty reasoning. Lastly, activity theory is not often presented as having undergone major changes due to the phases of capitalism, the invention of the telescope, microscope or changes in industry. Rather, activity engagements might be contrasted to before or after the internet, Facebook, texting or Twitter.

Micro Cultural Activity Theory reduces the activity process to simple, small, personal, casual, apolitical and spontaneous interactions. But as Ratner says, whole societies are not re-formed on the model of someone helping a neighbor turn off the gas. The telecommunications industry does not operate by individuals broadcasting from their home radios. The macro conditions of the Wall Street 2008 crash and what bankers got away with cannot be understood by a cooperative meeting between an individual client and their financial planner.

Individuals do not spontaneously categorize artifacts with personal meanings. If they did there would be no commonality to individuals’ psychology. Each would imbue artifacts with different idiosyncratic meanings. Terms like “cultural factors” and “cultural context” are lifeless abstractions that exclude the political and economic driving forces that design and maintain these factors in the face of competing intersections for other classes. The term “context” obscures the active way capitalists and their politicians create context and make and structure our behavior in the service of their political interests. Without these macro institutions, Ratner points out that there would be tremendous slippage in micro interactions from the first dyad to the last – as studies of rumor transmission document. Macro-institutions already inform any micro social interactions and hold them together.

Micro-cultural psychologists treat verbal language and symbolic culture as at least equal to the material culture of work. In macro-cultural psychology work is the center of human activity and symbols and language were first used to assist the work process. Language and symbols do not arise spontaneously. Lastly, micro-cultural psychologists do not pay enough attention to the existence of the core, periphery and semi-periphery nations in the world-capitalist system. Countries in each of their zones had unique political economic institutions that produced a unique psychology. Grouping these societies as individualist or collectivist tells us nothing about their political economy. Collectivist societies can be tribal or agricultural and this kind of collectivism is very different from the collectivism of socialist societies. So too, there were some individualist selves in the commercial civilizations of the Minoans, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. But this proto-individualism is a far cry from the individualism of industrial capitalist societies.

Examples of Neoliberal Micro Cultural Psychology in the Workplace
Ratner argues that Barbara Rogoff redefines society in novel, abstract terms such as a list of scattered, abstract “community routines”. There are no exploitation, alienation, market forces, profit motives, commodification, bureaucracy or ideology at all here. Here “culture” is a surface mix of bedtime stories, trips to school, and show-and-tell narratives. Rather than mention social class she called them depoliticized terms like “participation status”. So the only difference between the president from Exxon Mobil and a migrant peasant are positions in a conversation. Life imprisonment, coal mining, working in a slaughterhouse, and the obliteration of one’s country by an invading army is a no more than a “format”.

Jann Valsiner engaged in a conceptual watering down of social reality by re-naming “cultural factors” to “social suggestions”. So being terminated from your job, having your country invaded, being imprisoned, having your pension cancelled are “social suggestions”. Ratner adds we cannot remake the Federal Reserve Bank by altering a few words. Neither can the institution of slavery be abolished by changing a word such as calling it “racism”. There need to be workers’ self-organization and strikes to have a chance for a deep change. Valsiner and Litvinovich claim that individuals continuously changed culture through the simple act of dialoguing. It takes a lot more than conversations to do that.

Another problem for these neoliberal micro-psychologists is that subjectivity and psychology are treated as dichotomous to culture rather than dialectically related with macro culture as the leading edge. Culture is treated as a tool that an individual decides how and when to use. The current purposes of the participants always seem to trump established macro cultural structures. Micro-cultural psychologists define social life in whatever area seems to be within our personal control as individuals. Ratner says this is like looking for a lost key under wherever the streetlight is. Micro-cultural psychologists “zoom in” on individuals so much that they lose sight of mega social conditions that inform them.  Consequently, the individual appears to be acting on his or her own because these larger conditions have been cut out of the picture.

For example, in the case of Abu Ghraib the torturers seem to be acting on their own and the state of military elites are only too happy to blame working class soldiers. However, Ratner tells us, when we zoom out we see that entire chain of command encouraged the guards. Six hundred military and Blackwater personal were on hand to abuse 460 Iraqi detainees. This was a spontaneous eruption by the personal decision of 600 six hundred soldiers. The neoliberal micro-psychologists theory would seem to think so.

Lastly,  any attempt at objectivity is looked upon skeptically by many micro-cultural psychologists who insist on glorifying their subject’s subjective experience as the subject matter of psychology. Any objective interpretation that superseded theirs and critically evaluates subjective experience as possibly being due to illusions, short-sightedness or narcissism is condemned as elitist and coercive because it does not emanate from the individuals themselves. Ironically, a denial of objectivity traps people more because it tells them that nothing outside of them is really going on.

See the table at the end of the article below to view the contrasts between macro-cultural activity theory and micro-cultural liberal theory.

Example of Macro-Cultural Psychology Regarding Mental Illness
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia has been defined as the disorganization of thinking processes, emotional states and the inability to plan and carry out actions. But for macro-cultural psychology this state is not separate from the conditions of modern life. Ratner quotes T.S. Eliot as saying that in modern life there is also a separation between thought, emotion and sensation and a failure to reach what he calls a “unity of sensibility”. The symptoms of schizophrenia – withdrawal, highly idiosyncratic and abstract patterns of thinking and behaving and a preoccupation with hidden meanings – bare an unmistakable congruence with the broad social relations and concepts of capitalism (individualism, privacy and privatized meaning).

Ratner points out that catatonia was not described until after 1850. Even more telling is the absence of schizophrenia, at least of the chronic, autistic form, either in medical books or general literature prior to the 19^th century. Detachment, being naïve, cynicism, subjectivism and other psychological mechanisms of mental illness were not spontaneously constructed by mental patients. Psychological constructs emerge from macro-level forces that are widely known in a population. They were reported on by novelists and in painting styles of the time.

Ratner says that the experience of the individual feeling worthless is also historically recent. It used to be in the past that under Christianity an individual felt guilty from a sense of sinfulness. But with the relative decline of religion in the 19^thcentury, personal inadequacies were less hinged to religion and more simply a personal problem, a self divided against itself.

But this “divided self” emerged only in the late 19^th century in conjunction with the increased number of roles the individual was expected to play. In earlier times individuals might be conflicted between the soul and the body, but the individual was still pulled in only two directions. The 19^th century marked a new conception of different selves or personalities within one individual. The extreme case of this is  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), but there were also reports of multiple personalities within a single individual.  Psychological processes generally have followed changes in the history of capitalism. In the activist 1960s the psychic disorders were linked to social factors like poverty and migration. In the lean and mean times of neoliberalism these social factors disappear and the social environment shrinks to the nuclear or extended family, which is blamed for almost everything.

Tyranny of bodily slenderness
In the worst case scenario it appears that disorders like anorexia or bulimia are simply sudden eruptions of pathology that don’t have any social rhyme or reason. More socially oriented psychologists might say these disorders have something to do with advertising or movies that want women to be thin. Evolutionary psychologists will point out that a desire to be thin goes against evolutionary psychology principles and tell us that convincing adult women to be thin will sell a lot more products than showing voluptuous women on the cover of magazines. This is because after a couple of children, most woman naturally become voluptuous and there are more limits on the products that advertisers can sell them. Evolutionary psychologists call the intervention of advertising into Darwinian sexual selection “evolutionary mismatches”. All these points have some merit but they still ignore capitalism.

Here is what Ratner has to say about this:

Slenderness is represented in sleek thin light consumer products such as cell phones, flat panel televisions and thin, lightweight laptop computers. It is reflected in architecture that emphasizes sleek lines and sharp angles… Slenderness symbolized as agility and the ability to move and change directions quickly, free of encumbrances, independently. These attributes are important to modern capitalist society.

What kind of capitalism is this? Why, it’s finance capitalism, liquid capital. Ratner continues:

The investor is nimble in shifting his capital to maximized profit. The employer is nimble in anticipating production demands and increasing or decreasing his or her labor supply to prepare. The manager is nimble in shifting work to low wage areas and shifting suppliers to lower costs.

Sleekness and slimness represent nimble capital. They represent finance capital on a psychological plane. Anorexia or bulimia is like a crisis in finance capital visited upon psychological disorders. On the other hand, overweight or even voluptuousness is antithetical to these sleek qualities. Ratner says it is slow, ponderous, inertial, regulated and weighted down. Hence it is looked down upon. There certainly are Darwinian reasons for rejecting corpulence, but that is not the end of the story. What does full body or voluptuousness represent in the field of capitalism – industrial capitalism – in which capitalists invest in infrastructure, repair, goods and services? It is heavy capitalism.
So:

Sleekness = finance capital

Voluptuousness or chubbiness = industrial capital

Since we are living in the heyday of neoliberal finance capital it would make complete sense that being overweight is looked down upon just as investing in industry is something neoliberal capitalists in Yankeedom don’t want to do.

Ratner concludes:

Sleekness does not require waiting, preparing, thinking or training. It is always moving to a new location, getting away, diversifying, expanding horizons and novelty… The tyranny of slenderness that defines the female body is an element of the general lightness of being…This is the cultural root of eating disorders.

On the other hand:

In collectivist society life is slower, more integrated, more committed more encumbering with considerations for a large community. One sticks around, consults with others, sacrifices for others, accedes to others, supports others over the long hall.

This is why in collectivist societies there is little in the way of eating disorders except for perhaps within the upper middle classes. On the other hand, a hunter-gatherer may look at an anorexic person in the United States and wonder, “has there been a famine”?

Historical Underpinnings of Macro-Cultural Psychology

In reviewing the history of macro-cultural psychology Ratner says the first theorist was Abu Al-Biruni, a Muslim scholar who conducted an extensive ethnology of Indian psychology and mentality in 1017. In the west tenets of macro-cultural psychology originated in the cultural movement in Germany in the 1770s. They considered the texts of Moses, Homer and Plato not to be the wisdom of an individual sage but the expression of a nation’s achievement at a particular stage in its cultural development. They wanted to understand the collective development of the human mind in society, a process these scholars came to describe as culture. Herder and Vico were interested in this.

The term Völkerpsychologie was coined by Wilhelm Humboldt at the turn of the 19^th century. Its use was continued by Wilhelm Wundt in his cross-cultural psychology writing. Another cornerstone was the historical school known as Annales. It arose in France in the 1920s under the leadership of Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch. Febvre was interested in how the impact of the printing press affected sense ratios. Henri Corbin studied the history of smell (The Fowl and the Fragrant), hearing (Village Bells) and the impact of the sea on perception (The Lure of the Sea). Philippe Aries, as many of you know, studied the history of childhood.

Macro-cultural psychology has a promising history, but it was taken to new heights by communist psychologists in Russia in the 1920s and 1930. Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev left us a rich legacy. It is up to us to keep Vygotskyan psychology communist and not let it become watered down and truncated by neoliberal micro-cultural psychologists, however well-intentioned they may be.

Macro-Cultural Communist Activity Theory vs Micro-Cultural Neoliberal Activity Theory

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

“The implication that the American citizens working at your local VA hospital or Social Security office are worse than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao—history's most despicable masterminds of genocide and mass murderer—is totally disconnected from reality. That's obvious to every American.

“That this baseless accusation comes from the single most influential person in our government should alarm every citizen.

“His intent doesn’t matter. His actions, disregard for the truth, and utter contempt for the patriotic Americans serving their country—a third of whom are veterans of the armed forces—does matter. It has no place in American government.

“It's time for President Trump to step up, end the chaos that's harming the country and his own administration, and tell Elon Musk ‘You’re fired.’”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Orientation
This article is about the differences between the micro psychology of liberals and the macro psychology of communists. Differences include: how society and the individual is configured; the impact of capitalism on personal life; how the mind-body relationship is conceived; how the objective and subjective worlds are integrated; how politics impacts personal life and how research should be conducted. These differences are not self-evident or easy for liberals to understand. In order to attempt a breakthrough, I describe the story of Flatland, Edwin Abbot’s great 1884 science fiction book of why two dimensional beings on Flatland fail to understand the Spaceland dimension of some of its creatures. I’ve included a link to a video of the story. This will conclude Part I.

In Part II we will discover that even when liberals find out about the Russian activity theory led by Lev Vygotsky, they interpret him in a bourgeois fashion. By this I mean they focus on educational reform and play, rather than work, while ignoring social class, exploitation, alienations as well as what an anti-capitalist individual might look like. To explore both parts of this article will referring to a great book by Carl Ratner: Macro Cultural Psychology: A Political Philosophy of Mind. In my opinion more than any other individual in the United States Carl has remained the most uncompromising in presenting the communist psychology of Vygotsky to the Yankee public.

Hard Facts About Political Economy in Mordor
The US has the highest percentage of children living in poverty in the industrial world – 23% and climbing. We have the second highest infant mortality rate among wealthy countries. Mordor has the highest incarceration rate in the world (spending is three times the amount that is spent on education). We are something like 125th in the world of 200 countries in literacy. American Association for the Advancement of Science discovered that one third of American’s population believes that human beings have existed in their current form since the beginning of time. In absolute numbers we easily have the highest obesity rate in the world. We have a political party, a party that imagines itself as liberal, complicit in the production of genocide in Palestine while propping up dictators the world over. The highest paid individual in John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October 2008 was Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist. Her salary was higher than McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser. The so-called program “War on drugs” program does nothing to stem the use of drugs in the US. The 400 wealthiest people in the world own as much wealth as the poorest 400 million.

Sixteen years after the near collapse of the global financial system, the US Congress still has adopted no new rules to re-regulate financial institutions. The financiers and politicians who created the financial implosion of the early 21^st century have foisted greater harm on the US than all the country’s enemies. Why aren’t these problems fixed? We have no mass political party that might address these problems in a systematic way. We have political debates that are sponsored by a private organization, Commission on Presidential Debates. No other political parties are allowed to participate unless the two major parties agree.

In a Degenerating Society the Need for Propaganda is Essential
The ruling powers try to rationalize and legitimize their power by inventing ideologies that paint them as more capable and harder working than they really are. One part of their ideology is that there is no ruling class as a social formation. Class is simply the position that separate individuals occupy as a result of their individual competencies and effort. The “free market” is infinitely flexible, open to all comers. In this capitalist ideology there is no relationship between social classes. Capitalists appear to acquire their wealth as a completely separate process from what workers do or don’t do. What is really going on is that upper class wealth is dependent on their exploitation of the working class in the form of surplus value.

The ruling class does not invent its ideology by itself. The upper middle class perpetuates the ideology not only in economics, but in philosophical, artistic and scientific fields. Presidents of community colleges work for capitalists to dampen the expectations for working class students. Their commission institutes are specifically charged with developing ideological tools for legitimizing capitalist practices such as the RAND Foundation. Also on the ground floor is the Hoover Institution and American Enterprise Institute. All three hire intellectuals to do their bidding by giving talks and writing papers and books. These institutions play hard ball. For example, the RAND corporation installed its academic agendas through the leadership of RAND intellectuals who were by then in powerful university administrative positions. Thomas Schilling was one of the key figures in established rational choice theory, probably the most direct enemy of communist psychology.

Propaganda supporting individualism such as social contract theory has kept social scientists from solving complex social problems by refusing to understand these problems as structural and due to capitalism. Instead, the psyches of individuals are blamed. It enlists a massive social apparatus to block the truth and reality of exploitation as the real source of most psychological problems today.

Being mystified by this propaganda does not mean people are blind to every aspect of society. It only means they do not fundamentally understand how their society works. They are ignorant of the following deep issues of how power is distributed: the infrastructural relationships between the Deep State and particular political regimes; how capitalism operates and why it gets into crises roughly every seven years. The Mordor public, whether liberal or conservative, may know about lobbying, corruption, lying and cheating. They may be aware of inequality, poverty and discrimination. However, propaganda keeps them from not understanding the basis of these, or how these problems are interrelated and macro cultural in both form and content. Propagandists do not have to directly intervene in an institution in order to bend it to its will as Stephen Lukes points out in his third dimension of power. Furthermore, these propagandists can commit evil and be agents of oppression without themselves being perverted, sadistic or psychotic.

Consumer Psychology
Ratner writes that  consumer spending accounts for 70% of Mordor’s GDP. For capitalists, it is vitally important for the population to not only consume a great deal but to do so quickly. He writes that for capitalists, the natural cycles of growth of animals  are too slow for the profit motive so cows are fed hormones to speed up that growth. Fish  are also farmed in conditions that speed their growth. The same is true for people.  Capitalists do not want people to eat according to when they are hungry. This takes hours to peak. Instead, the act of eating has to be decoupled from hunger and coupled with fun because no other consumer activity can be performed as continuously as eating. We cannot wear new shoes all the time, but one can eat food every hour when watching TV, going to the movies or attending ball games because they require the rapid turnover to generate profit. It includes getting to work faster, working faster and spending money faster when these same workers consume.

Wholesome food takes a long time to digest, and afterword the person is sated and has no desire for more. Added to the headaches of capitalists, some wholesome food can be cheap to buy and generates low profit. On the other hand, junk food is digested quickly and its fat, sugar and salt provide instant gratification without real satiation while stimulating new cravings.  Ratner refers to Jules Henry’s book Culture Against Man who uses the adjective “pecuniary” to describe various aspects of consumer psychology. Pecuniary is synonymous with commodified. Furthermore, enjoyment and desire have to be shifted from use to acquisition. For many consumers the process of shopping becomes more enjoyable than using the product. Many compulsive consumers never use the products they buy. We can go window shopping and browse catalogues and ads without any particular object in mind. Obsessive shopping can become a pathology. One researcher, H. Dittmar found that compulsive shoppers have a larger discrepancy between their present self and their ideal self than others.

Sensationalism is rampant in modern culture, in popular music, in entertainment with car crashes, special technical effects and plenty of sexual suggestion. There is minimal, trivial content with little character development or substantive plot. Sensationalism offers no continuity between people and product. Throw-away products are deliberately designed for the short term and wear out quickly. They are unrepairable and replaced by new purchases. Capitalist intervention into the emotional life of the consumer with advertising campaigns is fueled by mass market psychologists. Capitalists can’t admit what they are doing to anyone else, let alone to themselves so they invent a theory that is the opposite of what they are doing.

A rational choice theory of economics ignores the emotional and sexual appeal of the advertising industry that posits the consumer as having a natural rationality where you know what you need, you gather information and weigh the pros and cons of purchasing. Rational choice theory was developed at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and 60s. Rational choice theory is a mainstay of bourgeois ideology because it construes society as an outcome of interpersonal negotiations. It is the mother of contemporary individualistic social theory, one of whose forms is micro-cultural psychology

Why Can’t We See Through The Hard Facts of Political Economy, Propaganda and Consumer Psychology?
In order to penetrate below the surface of capitalist society and analyze what is going on, we need a communist psychology which requires more than a liberal or conservative understanding of what is what is happening in the political economy. Understanding communist psychology requires:

• understanding infrastructural and structural dynamics of capitalism that are invisible to the naked eye;
• understanding that these factors may contradict common sense. Because reality is complex and expanding we cannot experience its totality through sense impressions. We must use sense impressions to infer and deduce unobservable properties of reality on which science is based;
• understanding society as a kind of verb in motion, not a noun, an unchanging thing.

Carl Ratner gives three examples from the sciences which show that they have to move beyond their senses and beyond common sense in order to make new discoveries.

Astronomy is concerned with the immense, broad system of factors beyond the earth that bear on earth and bring it into being. Just as the characteristics of earth are unintelligible if one doesn’t understand the astrophysics of the sun, other planets, distant galaxies and the big bang, so characteristics of psychology are unintelligible without first understanding macro-cultural factors.

Secondly, Darwin could have never discovered how species evolved from changing environmental circumstances if all he had to go on was the plant and animal life in Britain in the 19th century. He had to travel half-way around the world to discover fossils of plant and animal life thousands of years old. He needed the geological work of Lyell in order to familiarize himself with ages much larger than human history to begin to understand the gradualness of bio-evolutionary change. He had to refuse the easy and infantile explanations of theologians who could not imagine that matter was self-organizing and not a passive lump molded by the will of God.

Lastly, in the atomic structure of steel beams:

Cultural factors in psychology may be analogized to atoms in steel: they are constituents which areinvisible to the naked eye, are difficult to accept from the perspective of common sense. Looking at a steel beam it seems inconceivable that it is composed of atomic particles which are in motion…. Macro cultural psychology is analogous to atomic science in revealing constituents that are invisible to the naked eye, …macro cultural psychology changes our way of understanding psychology just as fundamentally as atomic theory changes our way of understanding steel beams.

Macro cultural psychology is also like unseen distal sun in Plato’s cave. Everyday life in capitalist society with its villains and heroes in the movies, sports, music and politics are like the shadows cast by the sun’s light on the back of the cave. When we get involved in the puppet show of the shadows on the wall we ignore the capitalist sun that is responsible for the whole show. People act on the basis of their needs, interests, aims, passions and thoughts based on the shadows on the wall in the hopes of achieving satisfaction. However, behind these subjective experiences lies a macro cultural, political economic logic of the sun that structurally patterns them unconsciously in particular ways to remain focused on the puppet show rather than the light behind them.

From Flatland to Spaceland
Another way to capture the difference between liberal psychology and communist psychology is to imagine that each inhabits different dimensions of reality. In his mathematical science fiction book Flatland Edwin Abbot tells a story of life in the two-dimensional plane of Flatland. The people on Flatland take their world as self-evident. The higher functioning ones get around quite well just as working or middle-class people get along in capitalist society. What they don’t understand is that there is a third dimension of height. By accident, one of the Flatland inhabitants is visited  by someone from the third dimension which is called Spaceland. The third dimensional being can get along in the two-dimensional world, just as communists can get along in a capitalist world but their full life is more complex, living in the third dimension.

When the three dimensional being tells the Flatlander (a square) about the existence of Spaceland, the Flatlander is cynical. Finally the Spacelander challenges the square to ride with him into the dimension of height. The Flatlander is both frightened and delighted to find the real existence of Spaceland. In our time, the Flatlander being drawn into Spaceland would be like a Flatlander living through a socialist revolution. The square returns to Flatland to proselytize about the existence of Spaceland but he finds their resistance to the existence of Spaceland remains entrenched. Below is the link to a 30-minute video about the story.

What is Macro Cultural Psychology?
From the political to the economic to the psychological
Infrastructural macro cultural psychology posits that psychology is rooted in political and economic institutions that are neglected by neoliberal psychology. They include the state, the army, the stock market, the Catholic Church, corporate farms, banks, pharmaceutical companies, the healthcare industries, capitalist media and their impact on psychology. From this flow capitalist relations like commodification, alienation, surplus value, consumerism, class structure and possessive individualism. Lastly, these influence the familiar psychological expression such as emotion, perception, motivation, reasoning, self, sexuality and the senses. Interpersonal relations must be congruent with these macro factors if they are to function effectively. Whenever people express themselves psychologically, they mostly express and promulgate macro cultural factors embodied within it. Vygotsky writes that mental structures are inseparable from a social structure and that there is a social structure designed just for psychology.

Invisible levels in deep time beyond the senses
For macro cultural psychology nature is both outside and inside us. Culture mediates both outside and inside. Macro culture mediates our external interactions with nature (earthquakes, food sources, trees, animals, air, water, oil) and it mediates our internal relation to our own biology (our hormones, sense organs, motor organs, and cortical processes). This structure is invisible, yet implicit and outlasts the lives of the individuals who shape it. Macro culture imposes constraints as more than a mere sum of individual acts as claimed in liberal micro psychology.

Macro cultural factors cannot be known or managed by sensory impressions by themselves. One cannot see or hear the full dynamics of the stock market or a transportation system over time and around the world. Culture and communication are the most immediate bases for mental and psychological life. Without the symbolic duplication of objects over deep social space and time there would be little freedom to imagine variations in our choices. The freedom to imagine new things is a cultural product. Far from stifling imagination and freedom, macro culture provides the mechanism for making anything in culture psychologically possible. In Ratner’s conical model, every phenomenon is a complex of three qualities:

• its own distinct quality (family as a distinct institution);
• the qualities that are imparted from structural forces such as the state, laws, educational practices;
• the political economy – the stability of the stock market, as work opportunities and the cost of goods and services.

All layers of macro culture are not equal. The economics of manufacturing are more influential in society than painting or sculpture. For example, automobile production employs hundreds of thousands of workers. In its success or failure, it affects the steel, oil and transportation industries.

Beyond mind-body problems
Ratner argues that the so-called the mind-body problem of how the physical body-brain produces mental life is the wrong way to frame the origin of consciousness. It is culture that produces the mind, not brain circuitry. If nature is world one and culture is world two, consciousness/psychology is world three. Culture does not influence some primordial consciousness and then adds certain extrinsic elements to it. Rather, culture forms consciousness. A major difference between human and animal cognition it’s that animals perceive relations of observable features of immediately present entities (first order relations). With the exception of chimps dolphins, ravens and crows, for humans, the socio-cultural world mediates their relations. For the rest of the animal kingdom, present sensuous relations are all there is.

Interpersonal micro relations vs interpenetrating macro relations
Neoliberal micro psychology finds it roots in the social contract theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. It assumes that individual relations with society are associative, contractual and voluntary. Furthermore, society is confined to sensual relations between people in Everyday life.  Macro cultural psychology is grounded in the interpenetrating, interdependent relations of Hegel and Marx. It assumes individual relations with society are organic, necessary and involuntary. Society includes not just personal relations in everyday life, but structures and networks beyond sensuous interpersonal relations that impact an individual whether we like it or not.

For neoliberal capitalist psychology, psychological functions evolve on the individual level in order to realize individual agency or expression. For neoliberal psychology agency is usually touted as independent of macro culture – as expressing the individual resisting culture or recasting culture in more fulfilling personal terms. But this championing of individual agency breaks down. A good example of why this doesn’t make sense is early advertising campaigns to get women to smoke. Women’s “agency” did not create the demand to smoke out of personal choice. It was the macro culture of advertising agencies that began and sustained the process. Micro cultural society ignores macro cultural socialization such as various types of propaganda which are necessary to spread common cultural psychological signification throughout the population. Interpersonal socialization would be too fragmented and idiosyncratic to accomplish this massive, common socialization.

Overcoming Conventional Methodology
From idealism and mechanism to political practice
It is important not to restrict macro cultural psychology to conventional methodology. We should not conceptualize macro principles to terms that are amenable to simple, superficial, fragmental statements on a questionnaire or fragmented behavioral observations. But how are the objective and the subjective integrated? Because in liberal micro psychology the objective and the subjective are kept separate, their studies always are either overstressing the objective, resulting in mechanism or reification, such as behaviorism. The other possibility is they overstate the subjective which results in idealism, like humanistic psychology. In macro cultural psychology, the ultimate integration of the objective and the subjective is collective political practice of a party, union, or social movement in which individuals engage in attempting to change the world. This practice enriches and changes the objective world while transforming subjective experience. This collective political practice avoids the twin dangers of mechanism and idealism, reification and subjectivism.

Individualism in liberal micro psychology research methods
Individualism in research methods  are designed to validate subjects by:

• allowing them to speak freely;
• accepting their point of view uncritically;
• renouncing systematic interview and analytical methods that constrain the spontaneous subjectivity;
• ignoring cultural pressures that constrain the spontaneous subjectivity.

A central political issue in capitalist society as in all class societies is exploitation. Micro liberal psychology avoids the reality of exploitation marginalizing by:

• reducing it to personal meanings;
• interpersonal negotiations;
• discourse symbols;
• fragmenting it into variables.

Macro Cultural Psychology Qualitative Research

A phenomenon’s function is revealed when it answer at least these four questions:

• why it exists in the sense of why it is necessary for that particular constellation of elements;
• what role the element plays in the capitalist or socialist system;
• what it reciprocally contributes to the system;
• why the system needs it.

Ratner identifies primary questions for research which include:

• How can it conceptualize these elements as parts of a system?
• Which system are they part of?
• What are the other elements of this system?
• How do they depend upon and support one another?
• What features do each element acquire through its role in the system?
• How are the elemental features distinctive to or particular to this system?
• How might the features of the elements change if they played different roles

in this system or if they were transposed to a different system?

• What kinds of methods must be used to elicit answers to these questions?
• What kinds of probing questions must we ask to extract these answers?

Please see Table 1 at the end of Part I for a summary of the differences between micro and macro cultural psychology.

Let us close out Part I of this article with a discussion of the emotions.

Macro Origin of Emotions
The starting point of human emotions is not internal private experiences based the individual’s private history. These emotions are already always housed in macro cultural emotions. Ratner names love of country, anger at capitalists or racial minorities, hatred of socialism, national shame, dejection about political trends, fear of economic depressions, fierce loyalty to professional baseball, football, basketball or hockey teams or devotion to certain kinds of music or dance. Anger that culminates in violence exists on the macro cultural level in the form of a working-class person who fought in wars has PTSD and is homeless. Other working-class people are competing for jobs and whose union is not treating them well. Others face low wages and lack of medical benefits. These macro cultural emotional states are environmental, not outside private emotions. The macro-cultural environment is already inside of psychological private states.

Personal and interpersonal behaviors do not exist on their own. What appears to be individual behavior is only the immediate, apparent appearance that masks a deeper macro culture of emotions as a window into it. The same is true of memory. Personal memories are embedded in collective memories that involve systematically remembering favorable aspects of political life while forgetting other events as a result of political propaganda. These unify people whether they are based on reality or illusions. Whether individuals are conscious or not of having been internalized, these collective memories are the soil for private in which memories to grow or die.

It used to be thought in the 50s and 60s that advertising propaganda influenced people in a very heavy-handed way, implying the public was passive (Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders).  Then it was found by Michael Schudson in his book Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion that people were less snowed by advertisers than researchers thought. What I want to bring to your attention is the way advertisers directly impact the public emotions by fragmenting emotional experience during a television program.

Advertisements are strategically placed immediately before or after an intense emotional scene. This emotional fragmentation is built into the formatting of television scenes. One must wait for the ad to pass in order to complete the emotion. It does not permit long, continuous development and resolution of our emotions (168-169)

Ratner says this emotional format is recapitulated by people in their personal relationships. Individuals get used to experiencing fragmented emotions because cell phones, text messages, Twitter and Instagram break up a full emotional expression. Ratner says that individuals get so used to this that grow uncomfortable with extended continuous emotional responses.

Coming Attractions
“But” you might say, “I’ve heard of this Vygotsky you speak of. He worked in the field of cooperative learning and developed something called the zone of proximal development. So Vygotsky’s communist ideas are here in the United States.” The problem is this assumes that the communist ideas of a theorist can be directly translated into a capitalist society with no distortion, exaggeration or even censorship. In part two of this article, I will show 11 differences in how Vygotsky is interpreted by those whom Ratner calls “neoliberal” Vygotskyan psychologists.

Differences Between Micro and Macro Cultural Psychology

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

forty hard years of lobotomizing, dumbdowning, infantilizing, and deploying this multilayered PSYOPS of direct and covert operations have been brought to us, partially, by the Edward Bernays of the World … now we are here: Fear and Loathing in Our Delusional and Self-Incriminating Selves! (Haeder, May 28, 2023)

Versus:

Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.

But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.

Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up (source)

Now now, I know we can’t in PC/PAEC (Politically Approved by Elites Correct) society point out a spade from a diamond. Ahh, even after Nakba 75? Who stopped it, a celebration-remembrance-sadness of that genocide?

Sorry, but it does matter who controls the levers of power, the narrative, the engines of Press-Propaganda-Entertainment. As well as, politics, marketing, education? Nakba is a lie. You don’t see a pattern here?

In a statement Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, “We will fight the ‘Nakba’ lie with full strength and we won’t allow the Palestinians to continue to spread lies and distort history.”

Ahh, this commemoration, by the UN, of all organizations, is despicable, according to another Jew, and that is a-okay language, no?

In a recorded statement, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, said that the organization’s decision was “shameful” and would harm any efforts to find a peaceful solution to the generations-old conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people.

Asking other U.N. representatives to boycott the commemoration, he said, “[A]ttending this despicable event means destroying any chance of peace by adopting the Palestinian narrative calling the establishment of the state of Israel a disaster while ignoring Palestinian hate, incitement, terror and refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.”

“UN Recognition of Palestinian Displacement Angers Israel” — One headline, and just replace, “…angers Israel” with, “…. angers Christians, Zionists, Israel-Firsters, Members of Congress, Members of the MSM, politicians, AIPAC, etc., et. …”

Shit, recognition of that Liberty, that United States SHIP, and more poison arrows launched by the Isra-Hellions:

Shit, that crime memorial is coming up, June 8 = The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War.

Ahh, can we protest that other anniversary? By virtue of General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 11 May 1949.  In the three years following the 1948 Palestine war , about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, residing mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands.

Can we remember June 8 without being smeared?

For more information on Israel’s crimes, and the USS Liberty, go here: IAK.

Now transitioning to more racism and bigotry and Big Brother-ism by Jewish leaders, ZioCryptos, and the like, let’s scour the WWW for those attacks on Pink Floyd’s front man: Jews will attack Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, and they will get countless thousands of lies published in countless broken media outfits immediately. Just Google-Gulag search: “Roger Waters and Berlin Fascism.” Hate, pure lies, and the hasbara and powerful Jewish hatred of thinking Rogers is an antisemite!

Again, a concert, and Israel speaks up.

Israel’s foreign ministry later criticized Waters on social media, tweeting on May 24: “Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”

 

I am sorry to say that the Jewish folk I have been reading about, listening to, and researching throughout my decades, even from day one of college onward, many (not all)  are indeed a clear and present danger to straight-up research and critical thinking. Then, just move over to the fact in my humble opinion, many powerful Jews hate Russia, Russians, and anyone who might dare question the UkroNazi Proxy War with Russia, started, oh, hell, way before 2014.

Self-proclaimed Jewish criminal, Kolomoyskyi is the dirty banker and the dirty funder of Zelensky:

 

[Photo: On the left, Zelensky in circle behind Kholomoisky. On the right, Zelensky on the campaign trail is followed by one of Kholomoisky’s bodyguards.]

But, read this Jewish rag in Isra-Hell, Haaretz | World News/

“Ukraine Enlists Jewish Leaders to Lobby Israel for Arms”

Ukraine recently requested air defense systems and training from Israel, saying that Iran would use the deployment of its weapons systems in Europe to refine their capabilities. Still, Israel maintains that it would not send military assistance to Ukraine

A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world Jewry to push Jerusalem to arm his country with defensive weapons on Wednesday, only two days after Moscow warned Israel that supplying military equipment to Ukraine would “destroy the political relations between the two countries.”

Of course, I am disgusted by any racist group calling on “all Jews worldwide to continue the murder of Russians and Ukrainians in Donbass, and now, throughout Ukraine and into Russia.

This is merchant of death war mongering, and it has to stop, stop first by beginning to call a Jewish Fascist a Jewish Fascist when you come in contact with him or her or them: Here, more lies, blatant valorizing of a corrupt and criminal man, Zelensky!

1. The most important Jewish leader in the world (source)

The past week has turned us all into experts on Ukraine, now at the center of every conversation. Did you know how big it is? (When you lay it over the U.S. map, it stretches from New York to Chicago.) Who knew that we were actually using the Russian city names and not the Ukrainian ones (it’s Kyiv, not Kiev; Lviv, not Lvov; and Kharkiv, not Kharkov). And their president—did you know that he is Jewish?

Volodymyr Zelensky is probably the most admired Jewish leader the world has to offer right now. Before entering politics in 2018, Zelensky was a popular comedian (and you can’t get any more Jewish than that); he does not often speak about his Jewish identity, but he has never tried to hide it. In a country like Ukraine, which is still struggling with a painful legacy of antisemitism, Zelensky’s Jewishness has always been present.

For Jews across the world, Zelensky is now a source of pride: a young, inexperienced leader who is putting his life at risk for his people by leading a nation of 40 million people in opposing a ruthless Russian aggressor.

In his inauguration speech, Zelensky famously told lawmakers not to hang his portrait on their walls. “I do not want my picture in your offices: The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”

True to form, Zelensky maintained his unassuming, direct style when crisis hit. His video messages, posted several times a day, have been helping reassure the Ukrainian people. He spoke from his office and from the streets of Kyiv, even as Russian troops closed in on the capital, and when the fighting intensified, Zelensky candidly shared with all Ukrainians the fact that he has been marked by the Russians as “target number one” and that his family is “target number two.” But when the U.S. offered to evacuate him from Kyiv to somewhere safer, he responded: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

I’m writing this column on Sunday, as Russian forces, bogged down and weakened by courageous Ukrainians armed with AK-47s, Molotov cocktails, or sometimes just a large pole they picked up on the side of the street, still threaten the capital. Zelensky is leading the effort to save his nation, though most foreign intelligence services still think he’s fighting a losing battle.

So, this POS war crimes leader, Zelensky, *elensky because the letter “Z” has been outlawed, and Ukraine and Zelensky with the one-two-three punch of US and UK, with their Kill List, you have to imagine that in the USA and Canada and UK and EU and Europe, all brains have been thrown out the window, or the voice of reason has gone where?

Read Caitlin: “Most Propaganda Looks Nothing Like This”

Propaganda is administered in western nations, by western nations, across the political spectrum — and the really blatant and well-known examples of its existence make up only a small sliver of the propaganda that our civilization is continuously marinating in.

The most common articles of propaganda — and by far the most consequential — are not the glaring, memorable instances that live in infamy among the critically minded. They’re the mundane messages, distortions and lies-by-omission that people are fed day in and day out to normalize the status quo and lay the foundation for more propaganda to be administered in the future.

[…]

One of the forms this takes is the way the western political/media class manipulates the Overton window of acceptable political opinion.

It’s propaganda in multiple ways: it excludes voices that are critical of the established status quo from being heard and influencing people, it amplifies voices (many of whom have packing foam for brains) which support the status quo, and, most importantly, it creates the illusion that the range of political opinions presented are the only reasonable political opinions to have.

Then there’s the ideological herding funnel we discussed recently, which herds the population into two mainstream factions of equal size which both prevent all meaningful change and serve the interests of the powerful.

Maybe the most consequential of all the mundane, routine ways we’re propagandized is the way the mass media manufacture the illusion of normality in a dystopia so disturbing that we would all scream our lungs out if we could see it with fresh eyes.

Another of the mundane, almost-invisible ways the public is propagandized from day to day is described in a recent video by Second Thought titled “You’re Not Immune To Propaganda“. We’re continually fed messages by the capitalist machine that we must work hard for employers and accept whatever standards and compensation they see fit to offer, and if we have difficulty thriving in this unjust system the fault lies with us and not with the system. Poor? That’s your fault. Miserable? Your fault. Unemployed? Your fault. Overworked? Your fault.

Another related method of manipulation is agenda-setting — the way the press shapes public thinking by emphasising some subjects and not others. In placing importance on some matters over others simply by giving disproportionate coverage to them, the mass media (who are propagandists first and news reporters second) give the false impression that those topics are more important and the de-emphasised subjects are less so.

But then, this is another form — of propaganda . . . denial, and denigration and plain ignoring alternative views, even those that are consistent and repeated:

But it’s the 74th Anniversary of an illegitimate state, apartheid and ethnic cleansing one albet>  This is how ZioAzovLensky rolls, and even the corrupt CIA-controlled Wikipedia has some facts here on the murderous Jews, Zelenksy’s mother ship, historical grounding, who called themselves Zionists, but I know very few Jews who are not ZIONISTS, overtly or covertly:

A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.

The Haganah, the largest of the Jewish underground militias, which was under the control of the officially recognised Jewish leadership of Palestine, remained cooperative with the British. But in 1944 the Irgun, an offshoot of the Haganah, launched a rebellion against British rule, thus joining Lehi, which had been active against the authorities throughout the war. Both were small, dissident militias of the right-wing Revisionist movement. They attacked police and government targets in response to British immigration restrictions. They intentionally avoided military targets, to ensure that they would not hamper the British war effort against their common enemy, Nazi Germany.

The armed conflict escalated during the final phase of World War II, when the Irgun declared a revolt in February 1944, ending the hiatus in operations it had begun in 1940. Starting from the assassination of Baron Moyne by Lehi in 1944, the Haganah actively opposed the Irgun and Lehi, in a period of inter-Jewish fighting known as the Hunting Season, effectively halting the insurrection. However, in autumn 1945, following the end of World War II in both Europe (April–May 1945) and Asia (September, 1945), when it became clear that the British would not permit significant Jewish immigration and had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state, the Haganah began a period of co-operation with the other two underground organisations. They jointly formed the Jewish Resistance Movement.

The Haganah refrained from direct confrontation with British forces, and concentrated its efforts on attacking British immigration control, while Irgun and Lehi attacked military and police targets.^[6] The Resistance Movement dissolved amidst recriminations in July 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing. The Irgun and Lehi started acting independently, while the main underground militia, Haganah, continued acting mainly in supporting Jewish immigration. The Haganah again briefly worked to suppress Irgun and Lehi operations, due to the presence of a United Nations investigative committee in Palestine. After the UN Partition Plan resolution was passed on 29 November 1947, the civil war between Palestinian Jews and Arabs eclipsed the previous tensions of both with the British. However, British and Zionist forces continued to clash throughout the period of the civil war up to the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.

Within the United Kingdom there were deep divisions over Palestine policy. Dozens of British soldiers, Jewish militants, and civilians died during the campaigns of insurgency. The conflict led to heightened antisemitism in the United Kingdom. In August 1947, after the hanging of two abducted British sergeants, there was widespread anti-Jewish rioting across the United Kingdom. The conflict caused tensions in the United Kingdom–United States relations.

Putin and Russians and those of us who actually want Russia to have a safe border, peace, and zero NATO interference, see Zelensky and his Jewish Lords — Kagan Familias, Nuland, Blinken, Yellen, Sherman, Garland, and hundreds of others in the Biden White House and thousands of others in the Military Industrial Expanded (finance, computing, surveillence) Complex and millions more in the world of turning a dollar on death — as the ENEMY. Murderous, conniving, hateful, slick enemies numero uno, those espousing war with China and war with Russia.

I know Dissident Voice is reluctant to publish voices that might lean toward a Pepe Escobar critique of the Israel Hell unleashed on the world. I get it. But, the fact is violence and terror, those are right up Zelensky’s alley, and this war that UK and USA and Five Eyes and EU have unleashed will not end soon, because Ukraine in the minds of many is Israel 2.0. An added “benefit” for these monsters: Expect those weapons that USA taxpayer footed the bill for to bring down some commercial airlines in a neighborhood near-by soon.

 

We are a soiled Western Culture, and we have seeded the rest of the world with our feces — high tech, low tech, money, land theft, pollution, exploitation, consumerism, throw-away mentality, sanctions, blood lust, coups, supporting despots, money laundering and gold theft and assets removal. Loans from Hell, and alas, here we are, in a putrid world, a day before the big Monday Holiday, Memorial Day, and we are straddled by syphilitic monsters running the world and our own populous generally marked for death, marked as marks, these, the billionaires, the fleecers and many left and right, Jewish or not, they are Zionists and Israel-Firsters who have sold us down the Ukrainian toilet.

Israeli newspapers point out the victories?

 

 

These are THEIR graphics, and by me point these out, I am deplatformed, stopped from teaching, pushed to the excrement posts of publishing my books anywhere

But leave it to the Paranoid Former Nazis and the disgusting ADL and AIPAC and Mossad loving Israelis to attack us all attacking them:

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters says Berlin gig controversy a ‘smear’

“The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1980,” Roger Waters said.

“I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression where I set it… My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price,” he said.

“Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.”

Waters is a well-known pro-Palestinian activist who has been accused of holding anti-Jewish views. He has floated an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts. The singer denies the anti-Semitism accusations, saying he was protesting against Israeli policies, not Jewish people.

Ah, those old days, which now would be both considered hate speech and also ground down by the ugly media and the uglier mainstream fools in college, in towns, every where.

Yep, it is a piece of shit piece of cloth for many, representing so so much death, murder, hate, and racism. Cloth, man, and alas, a symbol, for those who cry crocodile tears when they hear the National Anthem, and then for others, it is the greed and murder and Empire of Chaos-Lies-Terror in every red and white strip, every star and bar:

 

This stuff is not allowed on campuses, and not just Guantanamo Desantis’s Florida.

 

This is not anti-DIsney, but it is the Dsneyification of the world, and this is the outcome: bones, immolation, worldwide.

Old school, but you can’t get college students to analyze this without being charged with a Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT.

I doubt you can loosely call for the execution of Corporations, CEOs, what have you. Again, Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT on Haeder.

Ahh, if we are the biggest war profiteers, then we’ll be letting China take first place. Yep, that’s the modern college student’s response.

Ahh, I have been warned that telling my students that I was rapped on the head by cops, in Portland, El Paso, Seattle, and elsewhere, and that protest is dangerous but necessary, and that I would dare use the ACAB as an opening to discuss that Defund the Police Movement — who, what, where, when and WHY — as well as my own work as a police reporter and what I think of cops/pigs, all verbotten! Call SWAT on Haeder.

Hell, you can look this one up in Wikipedia. And babies? 

Read the transcript: with the reason the poster was made, the soldier who was in the massacre!

Oh, no, trigger warnings, vicarious PTSD, verboten.

Partial transcriptof the Mike Wallace interview with Paul Meadlo in which Meadlo describes his participation in the My Lai massacre:

Q. So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?

A. Right.

Q. And you killed how many? At that time?

A. Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t – You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ‘cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.

Q. Men, women, and children?

A. Men, women, and children.

Q. And babies?

A. And babies.

Ahh, loyalty oaths in how many state legislatures on never saying a bad word about Israel, and no push for boycotting Israeli goods, that’s the power of Jewish Extremism in the USA: But not enough, not enough BDS around the world.  17 BDS resolutions considered and 11 passed at US colleges last year, per ADL report

It is a well-oiled, well-placed, complex, 3-D kind of chess machine, and it is pure killer, pure killer, and most campuses utilized Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, DoD, BOrder Patrol, CIA, FBI, ATF, MONEY. Some of the nation’s most elite universities are deep into defense lobbying, often hiring Washington-based firms to press Congress and the Pentagon to fund their science projects.

Asked whether students or professors ever have ethical objections to working on projects funded by the Defense Department, Zuber said that “no professor has to take money from DoD.”

“We’re a bottom-up organization,” she said. “Professors make those choices.”

She also said that “if there are students who have a feeling that they don’t want to work on defense-related issues, they certainly don’t have to.” But, she added, “a whole lot seem to want to.”

Like MIT, the Association of American Universities, an alliance of 62 of the leading research institutions in the United States and Canada, advocates defense research funding.

 

[Photo: Universities chase defense dollars]

 

The end result is that BABIES, kids, NEWBORNES, women, SENIOR citizens, disabled, PATIENTS in hospitals, youth on PLAYGROUNDS, are mudered, and killed, and imploded, so, then, BABY Killers is just a limited sigh — wedding parties, goat herders, and entire families at gravesites, murdered by universities, colleges, think tanks, corporations, marketing firms, law firms, retail services in the EMPLOY of the USA.

This sign? These youth? Their message? Their no war and stop the escalation and disarmament now, ahh, then, of couse, it’s triple bad, since they are free thinkers and align with New York Young Communist League.

Hood Communist?

 

 

So many more organizations working on it, working on it — no more NATO, no more Arms.

Back to the Jewish thing in Ukraine: And, well, and, who writes the narrative of Ukraine, of Zelensky, of the Jewish Apartheid State supporting the Nazis under Zelensky?

There is no way in hell you will read this story, objectively, anywhere:

The Jews are the ones behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their goal is to create a new Jewish state to replace the failing Zionist project of Israel, Palestinian Islamic scholar Mraweh Nassar has claimed, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Nassar, whom MEMRI identified as the secretary-general of the Jerusalem Committee of the International Union of Muslims Scholars, made his claims on March 22 while speaking with Channel 9, an Arabic-language TV station in Turkey that the media watchdog says is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

Now now, Dan Shapiro (New Atlanticist, err, Atlantic Council) wrote this one, and again, it’s the NARRATIVE and the MEDIUM is the MESSAGE driver, and then who gets to tell the stories and how the algorithms benefit the propagandists, shit dog, need we look further?.

Speaking to reporters this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the future he sees for his country in unusual terms: as “a big Israel.”

Gone, he said, are hopes for “an absolutely liberal” state—replaced by the likely reality of armed defense forces patrolling movie theaters and supermarkets. “I’m confident that our security will be the number-one issue over the next ten years,” Zelenskyy added.

With Russian forces having withdrawn from around Kyiv, suggesting that Ukraine successfully repulsed the first phase of the Kremlin’s invasion, the time is right for Zelenskyy to contemplate how to prepare for the next—and potentially much longer—phase of this conflict.

But what does he mean by “a big Israel”? With a population more than four times smaller, and vastly less territory, the Jewish state might not seem like the most fitting comparison. Yet consider the regional security threats it faces, as well as its highly mobilized population: The two embattled countries share more than you might think.

So if Zelenskyy really does have Israel in mind as a model for Ukraine, here are some of the key features he might consider for adoption (some of which are already applicable today):

• Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.

• The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrific

I ask, “Will one vapid bought-and-brainwashed media person get on with some rejiggering their knowledge:

Here, over at Dissident Voice: “Journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Crimea” by Dan Kovalik and Rick Sterling / May 25th, 2023

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

On Nov. 26, Vietnam’s government enacted Decree 126, which makes it more difficult to establish an association and gives the government more power to control and monitor the activities and funding sources of associations once they are up and running.

Decree 126 replaces an earlier decree known as Decree 45 and grants the government the power to suspend and dissolve associations in Vietnam — a power it did not have previously.

Ben Swanton, co-director of human rights group Project 88, said in a statement accompanying an analysis of the new decree that it is part of “a new wave of repression that is shaping policymaking in a way that will further suppress civil society.”

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In issuing Decree 126, Vietnam’s government said the additional restrictions were needed to “ensure party control over associations,” “prevent foreign influence on domestic affairs,” and “clarify the role of associations in policymaking.”

“Taken together, the government’s reasons for replacing Decree 45 paint a picture of paranoid leaders who want to tighten their chokehold on associations in the country,” Project 88 said.

On July 13, 2023, the Communist Party issued Directive 24, which labels foreign influence a threat to Vietnam’s national security and orders further restrictions on local organizations. The Ministry of Home Affairs named Directive 24 as a driving force behind the need to replace Decree 45 with Decree 126.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, as of December 2022, there were 71,669 registered associations operating in Vietnam. Student groups, community organizations, and civil society advocacy coalitions, as well as artistic collectives and social clubs, fall within the parameters of the decree, Project 88 said.

Contradictions

Project 88 said in its analysis that the new decree contradicts both Vietnam’s constitution and international law.

“Vietnamese citizens have a constitutional right to free association, which is also guaranteed under international law,” the group said. “But Decree 126 grants the government unfettered authority to stop people from forming associations and to stop associations from operating independently.”

The new decree also introduces new controls over the activities of associations, which “can only engage in policy advocacy at the request of the state.”

“They must abide by all government regulations, and cannot do anything to harm national security, social order, morality, or the cultural identity of the nation,” Project 88 said. “None of these terms are defined by the decree, leaving it up to the discretion of public officials to determine what precisely constitutes a harm to one of these government interests.”

Project 88 said that Decree 126 establishes a database to track the members and activities of all associations permitted to operate in the country, and gives authorities the right to request unlimited information of associations.

Latest policy targeting associations

The decree is the latest in a series of policy measures targeting associations in Vietnam, Project 88 said.

In addition to Directive 24, earlier policies imposed onerous requirements for those that receive foreign funding and required government approval to host a conference related to national sovereignty, security, human rights, ethnicity, or religion.

“The fears of the communist party towards an independent civil society have been known for some time,” the report said. “In various fora, the party has expressed concern about the potential for an independent Vietnamese civil society to interfere with the [party’s] control over the country’s internal affairs, particularly with regards to setting government policy.”

The group said that a major goal of Decree 126 is “to ensure that associations in Vietnam will remain under state control.”

“A related objective is to tighten control over associations as the country further integrates with the international community,” it said.

Project 88 called on the Vietnamese government to repeal Decree 126 and Directive 24, and “stop enacting policies ... that impose onerous requirements on associations.”

The group also urged the government to stop forcibly closing associations, ensure that associations can engage in policy advocacy without fear of intimidation, and develop training programs to improve the knowledge of officials about freedom of association.

Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

“We are deeply shocked and outraged by Rapid Support Forces’ brutal killing of journalist Hanan Adam and her brother in al-Gezira state, which further illustrates the extreme conditions journalists and their families currently face in Sudan,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian, from Washington, D.C. “Sudanese authorities must launch an immediate and thorough investigation into Adam’s death, and all parties involved in the conflict must uphold their obligation to protect journalists who risk their lives to report the truth.”

Adam also worked at the Ministry of Culture and Information in al-Gezira state. Two journalists who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said they believed the RSF targeted Adam for her work for al-Midan and the Ministry.

The Sudanese Journalists’ Union condemned the killings in its Tuesday Facebook statement and said it held the RSF fully responsible for their deaths. CPJ was unable to confirm other details about the killing. 

Since the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF began in mid-April 2023, the RSF has killed at least five journalists.

CPJ’s Telegram messages to the RSF requesting comment on Adam’s death did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Vietnam has jailed five party members for feeding information to Duong Van Thai, a blogger who is believed to have been abducted in Thailand last year and resurfaced in Vietnamese custody, the human rights group 88 Project reported, citing sources inside the government.

The report sheds new light on the case of Thai, who fled Vietnam in 2019 fearing political persecution for his many YouTube and Facebook posts criticizing the government of corruption and over its policies.

Thai disappeared in April 2023 in what his supporters and rights advocates say was an abduction. Shortly thereafter, he turned up in Vietnamese custody.

It turns out that after Thai’s arrest in April 2023, Vietnamese police arrested seven people for giving Thai information for his critical social media posts, the 88 Project report said.

In October, at the same closed-door trial where Thai was convicted and sentenced to 12 years for disseminating information harmful to the state, five party members and two others were also convicted and given sentences ranging from 30 months to 5.5 years for giving him information, the report said.

RFA Vietnamese confirmed the sentences with a source inside the government.

The convicted party members were:

• Truong Cong Dai, the former director of the Sub-Department of Environmental Protection under the Bac Giang provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment
• Vu Anh Tuan, the head of the Organizational and Inspection Division of the Bac Giang Youth Union
• Nguyen Van Van, the former chairman of the Board of Directors at the Gia Nguyen Group Joint Stock Company
• Bui Thi Khanh Phuong and Nguyen Thanh Tung, two Party members whose specific titles were not disclosed.

The other two convicted people were Tran Quoc Khanh, the former director general of the G7 International Investment Consulting Joint Stock Company and Nguyen Thiet Hung, a freelance engineer.

Hanoi has not confirmed that Thai was abducted, but Vietnam has in the past abducted its own citizens from Thailand and elsewhere.

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The information these people provided to Thai was embarrassing for the government, because it reveals a lack of ideological conformity among officials, said Ben Swanton, The 88 Project’s co-director in an email with RFA.

“It seems that the government decided to hold a closed trial to prevent information about the case from getting out,” he said. “This case reveals that Hanoi is not only willing to criminally prosecute bloggers and journalists for exercising their right to free speech, but also the sources who provide them with information.”

RFA contacted the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the 88 Project’s report, but did not receive a response.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

In February 1985, Nelson Mandela was informed by his captors, after a quarter of a century of confinement, that he was free to leave Robben Island.

He rejected their pardon. He alone, he said, would choose when he left his captivity, and he would not do so merely so his captors could gratify themselves and not until all the regime’s other political prisoners had been released.

In that act, power shifted hands, and Mandela made it obvious to all that an illegitimate government couldn’t pardon him for a crime he never committed.

Remembering this, it was heartening to read that Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, a Vietnamese political prisoner “released” early from prison in late September after 16 years in confinement, had refused to accept a presidential pardon when his jailors told him that he was free to go.

“I immediately protested, saying that I was not guilty and had no reason to accept the pardon, and that I would not go anywhere,” Thuc later recounted.

It took 20 prison officers to “forcibly carry me out of the prison gate amidst protests from political prisoners there, then put me in a car and took me to [an] airport.”

He added: “I was forced to accept amnesty, an unprecedented event in this country.” To him, it was a “forced pardon.”

And he also knew why he was being released eight months early: “I became an important supporting act for the president’s visit to the U.S..”

Thuc and Hoang Thi Minh Hong, a climate campaigner, were pardoned and released from jail the day before the Vietnamese Communist Party chief and then state president, To Lam, boarded a flight to New York to talk at a United Nations summit and meet Joe Biden, the U.S. president.

Down payment for Biden

Quite clearly, the prisoner releases were a down payment from the communist government in Hanoi for goodwill in New York.

The U.S. government did not directly comment on the matter, nor did the Vietnamese government officially give a reason for the releases.

But Hanoi thinks Washington likes what it sees.

Thuc and Hong were not the first political prisoners the Communist Party offered up as human gifts to appease the Americans. Some, like Tran Thi Nga, were sent off into exile in the United States after their pardon.

Perhaps Washington has made it known, at least privately, that it is pleased by these events. It hasn’t suggested otherwise.

The Vietnamese people must form their own opinion of their government trading its citizens and degrading the justice system to appease a former enemy.

This sordid deal is not what Ho Chi Minh was imagining when he said his “ultimate desire is to make our country completely independent, our people completely free.”

The exchange showed Washington’s myopia over the Vietnamese Communist Party’s oppressive behavior. Biden probably would have still told Lam in New York that “there’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together” even without the release of a couple of political prisoners.

Washington should not be in the business of accepting prisoners from the Communist Party, whose control of the courts allows it to imprison anyone who dares challenge its authority.

Judge and jury

Being able to prosecute and then arbitrarily release prisoners for political purposes puts the Communist Party above the law, acting as judge and jury and often the sole absolver of sin.

Someone imprisoned for standing up for their rights can at least maintain their innocence against their oppressor.

But a prisoner is only released early through a pardon, and, by being forced to accept a pardon, the prisoner must at least appear to accept their guilt.

This is not an exculpation; it’s a gift of freedom from an oppressor. The Communist Party’s pardon legitimizes its earlier tyranny.

By not discouraging pardons of political prisoners and by not condemning these in the same manner as it would condemn the unfair arrest of an individual exercising their rights, the U.S. helps undermine Vietnam’s rule of law.

The U.S. would be more helpful if it were to say that it only welcomes the release of political prisoners if the Vietnamese Communist Party acquits them, not pardons them.

The Communist Party could pardon all political prisoners and empty its cells tomorrow, as some demand, but that act will make it easier to double the prison population the next day.

Only the proper rule of law would prevent that. And Washington must not allow that to be debased by Vietnam to boost bilateral relations.

David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.

Trong, who state media said died of “of old age and serious illness,” served for 13 years as the most powerful leader in the Southeast Asian country’s one-party political system, and spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that some critics say has been used to settle factional scores. 

President To Lam, who took over Trong’s duties the day before his death was announced, led mourners at the National Funeral Hall in the Vietnamese capital, alongside Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Trong’s coffin was bedecked with his medals and a portrait as his family greeted mourners, who were asked not to bring flowers or envelopes of cash, media reported.

Flags flew at half mast across Vietnam, with somber services also held in Ho Chi Minh City and Trong’s home village of Lai Da in Hanoi’s Dong Anh district.

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The state funeral will last for two days, ending with Trong’s burial at the Mai Dich cemetery, where he will be laid to rest alongside many of the country’s old leaders, on Friday afternoon.

Cambodia’s Senate president and former prime minister Hun Sen and South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo were among the foreign officials attending but many countries sent lower-ranking representatives rather than their top leaders. 

“The general secretary had strengthened the enduring brotherly friendship with Cambodia and persistently strived over the years to enhance close cooperation not only between the Cambodian People’s Party and the Communist Party of Vietnam but also between our two governments and peoples,” Hun Sen said in a statement.

Trong was the main architect of Vietnam’s “blazing furnace” anti-corruption drive. The campaign has netted scores of suspects including several senior Communist Party officials and business leaders. 

But it has also raised concern about political stability, unnerving some foreign investors, while also fueling complaints that some leaders have used accusations of corruption to settle scores and improve their standing.

“People remember Nguyen Phu Trong through his ‘blazing furnace’ campaigns, but it was this fight against corruption that helped expose the nature of a one-party dictatorship,” said Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group with members inside Vietnam and abroad, which says it aims to aid a transition to democracy.

“Too many communist officials sought to exploit public resources and plunder the people’s property. Not surprisingly, the burning furnace campaigns failed. After many years of rule, the Communist Party of Vietnam has made corruption endemic.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

Vietnam’s Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong died on Friday at the age of 80, domestic media reported, after serving for 13 years as the most powerful leader in the Southeast Asian country’s one-party political system. 

Party Secretary General Trong, who spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign known as the “Blazing Furnace,” had been sick for some time and had stepped back from his official duties.

“Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has passed away following a period of illness, despite the care and treatment by the Party, the state, doctors and leading health experts,” VNExpress reported.

Trong had been at the helm of the party since 2011 but had hardly been seen in public since January when he attended an extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

State media reported on Thursday that newly appointed president, To Lam, 67, had assumed Nguyen’s duties as Communist Party chief. 

Lam was named president in May. As acting general secretary, he is now Vietnam’s top leader and will oversee the work of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

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Trong was the main architect of the anti-graft drive that has netted senior party officials and business leaders but also raised new concerns about political stability in what is considered Southeast Asia’s manufacturing hub, and is heavily dependent on foreign investment and trade.

Foreign policy ‘pragmatist’

Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales, said Trong would be remembered as a staunch adherent to the Vietnamese tenets of Marxism-Leninism and socialism, and a proponent of party-building and one-party rule by the Communist Party. 

“He will also be viewed as a pragmatist in foreign policy but a stern opponent of peaceful evolution and a ‘color revolution,’” Thayer said

“Particularly in his first term, Trong reined in the sprawling complex of state-owned corporations, general corporations and state banks that flourished as a result of high GDP growth rates and aggressively prosecuted corrupt officials and their networks,” he added.

Trong was born in Hanoi in 1944. He earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from Vietnam National University and was a professor and PhD holder in political science, according to the Nhan Dan newspaper.

He worked as an editor at the Communist Review. In 1996, he was named deputy secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee and afterward ascended through the party ranks.

U.S. Ambassador Marc Knapper noted in a statement that Trong became the first Vietnamese leader to visit the United States when he traveled to Washington to meet with then-President Barack Obama in 2015.

Vietnam and the United States upgraded their relationship to “comprehensive strategic partners” during President Joe Biden’s 2023 visit to Hanoi, Biden said in a statement on Friday.

“The people of Vietnam and the United States – and people across the Indo-Pacific region – enjoy greater security and opportunity today because of the friendship between our two countries,” Biden said in the statement. “That is thanks to him.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Matt Reed.

This story has been updated to add details from Trong’s early career and statements from the U.S ambassador and President Biden.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

The party’s Central Inspection Commission announced on Tuesday that Van had “degenerated in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, self-evolution and self-transformation.”

Police detained Van on July 10 in Thai Binh province and investigated him for “taking advantage of position and power to influence others for personal gain.”

The Thai Binh Police Investigation Agency said his detention was part of an expanded investigation into former National Assembly delegate Luu Binh Nhuong, who was detained for alleged “extortion of property and taking advantage of position and power to influence others for personal gain.”

Both Van and Nhuong had spoken out strongly about national issues in Vietnam’s parliament.

A Vietnamese lawyer, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said the Central Inspection Commission was within its rights to express the party’s view on members but it must also give them the opportunity to defend themselves.

“The party believes that he has ‘evolved and transformed’ himself, so where and how has he evolved and transformed himself?” the lawyer said, using an expression to describe what authorities regard as the right course of action for those seen as critical.

“It must be clear and cannot be made in a press release.”

The lawyer added that the information about Le Thanh Van’s arrest was vague and one-sided, making it impossible for the public to know exactly what had really happened.

“With such little information, it is difficult for outsiders to assess Van’s role and responsibility in this case,” he said. “However, in Vietnam, it can be seen that it is extremely easy to attribute or accuse someone of any criminal act.”

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The expulsion comes in the midst of an anti-corruption drive known as the “Blazing Furnace” launched by Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, in which dozens of officials and business partners of politicians have been caught up.

The high-profile purges have roiled financial markets and foreign investor confidence and critics say the campaign has been used to target factional rivals.

Speaking out

Van is well-known for speaking out against state agencies and organizations. 

In May 2020, he asked the chairman of the National Assembly to consider implementing parliament’s supreme supervision over court operations, through the case of death row prisoner Ho Duy Hai. He said that the Supreme Court’s verdict on Hai’s appeal was unconvincing as there were many unclear issues that concerned the public.

In November 2022, Van said National Assembly delegates needed to discuss and debate more, not just read aloud.  

In November 2023, Van spoke about the Dai Ninh hydroelectric plant project in Lam Dong province. 

A number of government inspectors had been prosecuted for accepting bribes in connection with the project, and he said a government working group had changed its conclusion from saying in 2020 that it was illegal and should be withdrawn, to amending the project and granting an extension to investors. Van called this “completely illegal.”

Van spoke to parliament In June 2023 about officials “not daring to act and being afraid of taking responsibility,” saying civil servants who did nothing were breaking the law because legal behavior includes action and inaction, and not taking action meant not performing the duties and obligations assigned by the state, which must be handled.

Nguyen Tien Trung, a Vietnamese political observer based in Germany, told RFA he did not believe the charges against Van and Nhuong were justified.

“These are two National Assembly representatives who have made many thorny and controversial statements in the National Assembly,” he said.

“Based on the recent situation of suppressing the Vietnamese democracy movement and arresting many people, I see this as part of a general trend, a general tendency of the Ministry of Public Security to suppress all opposing voices, including opposing voices loyal to the Communist Party, such as Communist Party members like Le Thanh Van.”

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The four-day, closed-door meeting, chaired by President Xi Jinping, is expected to unveil tax system revisions and other debt-reduction measures, steps to deal with a massive property crisis, and policies to  boost domestic consumption, policy advisers have said.

Previous third plenum sessions of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee – more than 300 full and alternate members – have unveiled policy initiatives for the next five to 10 years. Some have announced significant shifts.

The 1978 plenum launched Deng Xiaoping’s historic economic reform and opening policies, while the 1984 event confirmed the reform direction in the face of resistance. The 1993 gathering pledged a recommitment to market economic reforms after the clampdown following the Tiananmen massacre.

The 12 years of the Xi Jinping era have put the brakes on market reforms as Xi consolidated power in the party, analysts said.

Xi’s third plenum 2013 “laid out a series of economic reforms, most of which have not succeeded, most of which have not been carried through,” said Barry Naughton, the So Kwan Lok Chair of Chinese International Affairs at the University of California San Diego.

“So everyone is very curious and puzzled to see what this new third plenum is going to bring,” he told Radio Free Asia Mandarin.

The previous plenum, 2018, saw Xi further consolidate power with the scrapping of presidential term limits. 

Interventionist policies

This plenum, normally held once every five years, was expected last autumn but delayed without explanation until this month.

Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at Chatham House, a British think tank, said the plans to be unveiled in coming days “are unlikely to be policies eagerly waited and favored by private enterprises and global investors.”

Instead of stimulus measures to boost growth, expect “further government intervention to channel economic resources into the strategic and innovation sectors and to guarantee minimum social welfare to the poor,” she wrote on the Chatham House website.

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The Communist Party will introduce two economic slogans during the plenum: “New quality productive force” describing making the Chinese economy a leader in technological innovation, and “new national system” of stronger centralized control allocating capital and resources to sectors with strategic significance,” Yu wrote.

“The underlying emphasis here is not on the economy but on geopolitics,” she added.

Chinese state media have tried to create an upbeat mood for the secretive gathering Jingxi Hotel in Beijing.

“Entering July, Chinese people’s expectations will be running high,” according to a June 30 commentary in the Global Times newspaper, predicting “a holistic package of new reform plans” that is expected from the meeting.

“After more than 40 years’ reform and opening-up, Chinese policymakers are becoming both astute and experienced in managing a giant economy like China’s,” it said.

Ahead of the conclave, China is ramping up its “stability maintenance” system, which kicks into high gear targeting those the authorities see as potential troublemakers ahead of top-level meetings and politically sensitive dates in the calendar.

Authorities across China are targeting dissidents and petitioners ahead of next week’s key meeting of the ruling Communist Party, placing them under house arrest or escorting them out of town on enforced “vacations,” Radio Free Asia reported this week.

Several high-profile activists including political journalist Gao Yu, rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and political commentator Zha Jianguo have been targeted for security measures ahead of the third plenary session of the party’s Central Committee, a person in Beijing familiar with the situation who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said.

Reporting by Ting I Tsai. Editing by Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Mandarin.

Li’s removal from the party came 10 months after he disappeared from public view, and was reported to be under investigation in connection with the procurement of military equipment. He was sacked without a replacement in October, amid a series of sudden firings and disappearances.

“Li seriously violated political and organizational discipline,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.

“He sought improper benefits in personnel arrangements for himself and others, took advantage of his posts to seek benefits for others, and accepted a huge amount of money and valuables in return,” the agency said in a report also carried by state broadcaster CCTV.

“Li's violations are extremely serious in nature, with a highly detrimental impact and tremendous harm, according to the investigation findings,” the Xinhua report added.

The official agency used almost identical language for the case of Wei  Fenghe, Li’s predecessor as defense minister from 2018 to 2023.

“Wei lost his faith and loyalty,” it said. 

Wei’s alleged misdeeds “severely contaminated the political environment of the military, bringing enormous damage to the Party's cause, the development of national defense and the armed forces, as well as the image of senior officials,” the agency added.

The two generals were stripped of their military ranks, and their cases have been handed to the military procuratorate for prosecution, Xinhua said.

The expulsion of Li and Wei came almost a year after Communist Party chief Xi Jinping fired two top generals of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, which controls the country's nuclear missiles. Xi also heads the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC).

In the dozen years since Xi Jinping came to power, his wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign has targeted party, state and PLA officials. Nine senior officers and at least four defense industry executives have been sacked.

In 2014, Xu Caihou, a former CMC vice chairman, was expelled from the party and the PLA for corruption. A month later, another vice chairman of the Commission, Guo Boxiong, was ousted from the party, and later given a life prison sentence.

"The signal sent to other PLA leaders is very obvious." said Ye Yaoyuan, a professor of international studies at the University of St. Thomas.

"For Xi Jinping, he hopes to set a more authoritative example before the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party Central Committee,” he told Radio Free Asia, referring to a key party meeting in mid-July.

“That is, ‘if something happens to the PLA leaders, I am really willing to take action, and my means of handling it are definitely not a simple transfer or other simple ways to end it.’" Ye said.

Thursday’s report, the first official confirmation that graft was the reason for the sudden and secretive removal of Li and Wei, made no mention of another mystery high-level purge: that of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

Qin has been absent from public view since he met with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam in Beijing on June 25, 2023. His disappearance came amid widespread and unconfirmed rumors that he was under investigation for having an affair, and possibly a child, with Phoenix TV reporter Fu Xiaotian.

Edited by Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jing Wei for RFA Mandarin.

The 720-member European legislature has largely been the handmaiden for the technocrats in Brussels, who craft the economic and social direction of the European Union. Since its inception, the EU has presented a stable, reliable face of capitalist rule organized around market fundamentalism, minimizing market intervention, and slowing, even reversing, the growth of the public sector. The broad right-center and left-center — traditional pro-business, liberal, and social democratic parties — have united in ensuring that agenda.

With the demoralization or decline of the anti-capitalist left, there has been little resistance mounted to the forward march of the EU program.

Into the breach left by a marginal or now timid anti-capitalist left, stepped a new wave of right-wing populists preparing to exploit the growing mass dissatisfaction with twenty-first-century capitalism and its political custodians. The economic setbacks, stagnant or declining standards of living, inadequate social and employment security, inequality, social strife, and displacement incurred by European workers cried out for political expression. Right opportunists gladly answered these calls with hollow nationalism, ill-aimed blaming and shaming, and cultural anti-elitism.

Throughout Europe, new and refashioned parties like Austria’s Freedom Party, France’s National Rally, Alternative for Germany, Hungary’s Fidesz Party, Italy’s Lega and Brothers for Italy, Netherland’s Party for Freedom, Spain’s Vox, and many others, vie to fill the radical oppositional space evacuated or neglected by the anti-capitalist left.

Where the European Communist Parties could always count on a far more robust protest vote beyond their core membership, the protest vote now goes to the populist right by default.

To stem the right-populist tide, various strategists devised new alliances, power-sharing agreements, even technocratic governments. New “left” populist parties — Syriza, PODEMOS, France Insoumise — sprung up to draw support from the same mass anger and frustration exploited by the populist right.

But none of these supposed answers to right-wing populism have succeeded in containing or reversing its advance. The mid-June European parliamentary elections have, in many ways, marked a new high water for right-populism. In both France and Germany — the two anchors for the Eurozone project — the right has made spectacular gains.

Most dramatically, the French National Rally (RN) — the historic party of the Le Pen family — won more than double the vote (31+%) of Macron’s ruling party. In an act of frustration and, perhaps, desperation, Macron called for early national elections at the end of June. He, no doubt, expects to cry for a “united front” against the threat of right-wing governance, as he has successfully done in the past. He assumes that his party and RN will win in the first round and the left will have no choice but to support him in the second-round run-off.

Meanwhile, Macron’s approval rate in France has reached an all-time low of 5.5%. And he has begun his campaign by attacking both the left and right (“the fever of extremes”) — hardly a formula for drawing the left in a presumed second round of voting.

But the soft leftist parties– France Insoumise, the Communist Party, the Socialist, and the Greens– have cobbled together their own shaky “united front” to make an impact in the first round. The interesting question would be whether Macron’s party would return the favor and support this effort in a second round against RN. I doubt they would. Bourgeois “solidarity” only goes so far.

In Germany, the hard right, semi-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party became the second largest party behind the Christian Democrats, garnering more votes than any of the individual parties in the governing coalition. The war-crazed Green Party took an especially hard hit in this election, losing nine seats.

While AfD has done less than RN to attempt to clean its ownership of fascistic detritus, it nonetheless draws a great deal of support from working-class protest voters. Germany’s ARD polling found that “a full 44% voted for the AfD out of disappointment at other parties.”

And that is how much of the electoral support for the populist right should be understood. The traditional right has long drawn its support from the bourgeoisie, small businesses, the professional strata: those protecting their status in a capitalist society. The populist right, taking that approach a step further — through nostalgia, misplaced blame, false anti-elitism, and the bogus promise of life-altering change — appeals to the masses: those alienated from a capitalist society. Unless one wants to cynically dismiss the people for their bad choices or pompously scold them for their bad judgment, you must conclude that the existing left parties have failed the masses, lost their credibility, and surrendered leadership on the popular issues, allowing right-populism to fill the breach.

Can one imagine Le Pen or even Macron winning the votes of France’s workers from the post-war Communist Party of Thorez, Duclos, and Rochet, the party esteemed for its role against fascism, and the party promising socialism?

Can one imagine Berlusconi, Lega, the Five Star Movement, Brothers of Italy drawing the Italian working class away from the Communist Party of Togliatti, the party that led the anti-fascist struggle, the party that offered Italian workers a dignified struggle against capital?

Can one imagine the AfD flourishing in the GDR, that part of Germany that today supplies the greatest number of votes to the AfD?

They do so today because the French Communist Party has abandoned its historic role as the champion of the working class and neither listens to workers nor puts their interests at the top of its agenda.

The Italian party dissolved itself thirty-five years ago and paved the way for decades of political farce and faux populism in Italian politics.

And the capitalist pillage of the former socialist German Democratic Republic planted the seeds of despair that grew into the AfD.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The untold story of the European parliamentary election reveals a world of possibility.

Purposely overlooked by the media were the impressive left gains in Greece and Germany. In both cases, working-class partisanship, principled socialism, and militant anti-imperialism and the promise of peace attracted voters. Where the weak-tea, decaffeinated left campaigned on fear of the right and defense of the European Union’s foreign policy, the Greek Communist Party and a new, radical German party surprised observers with significant gains.

The Greek Communist Party (KKE) nearly doubled its percentage of the vote over the previous European parliamentary election held in 2019. The results substantially exceeded last year’s parliamentary percentages as well. Its strength was shown especially in Attika and urban and working-class areas. These gains were made because of the principled stance of KKE and in spite of swimming against the EU tide of capitalism and war shared by all the other parties. KKE shows that defeating right-wing populism is possible by giving real, bold, and radical answers to the despair of working people.

In Germany, the left wing of the Die Linke Party — the working class-oriented, anti-imperialist wing — finally broke away and established a new party openly opposed to the European Union agenda, its institutionalized capitalism, and its war policies. Led by the independent-minded Sara Wagenknecht, the new party was quickly organized five months ago, yet drew 6.2% of the vote in the European parliamentary elections. The persistently compromising, centrist-orienting Die Linke was trounced, reduced to 2.7% of the vote. ARD polls show that the new party drew 400,000 votes from Die Linke, 500,000 votes from the Social Democrats, and 140,000 votes from the AfD. In some parts of Eastern Germany, the new party — yet to create a sustainable name — drew as much as 15% of the vote.

Perhaps better than any result, the new party delivered a shocking blow to the idea that one must stop the populist right by rallying to the center in defense of a moribund capitalism. As Lenin reminds us: “Two questions now take precedence over all other political questions — the question of bread and the question of peace.” Wagenknecht’s new party gave the questions precedence, attacking Germany’s economic malaise and inflation, as well as the deadly war in Ukraine. We should follow the development of the new party closely.

By attending to working-class interests, the Austrian Communist Party and the Workers’ Party of Belgium also made gains against the right-populist wave.

It should be clear that the hollow tactic of opposing right-populism by circling the wagons around mainstream centrist parties is proving to be bankrupt. The notion that voters can be shepherded away from populist poseurs with a “united front against the bad guys” approach has failed to win people from a desperate need for bread and peace.

These examples show a principled, proven approach to the problem of the populist-right, an approach that neither resorts to a retreat to the center or a bogus, unsustainable, ineffective “united front.” The thirst for change is there.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

The 720-member European legislature has largely been the handmaiden for the technocrats in Brussels, who craft the economic and social direction of the European Union. Since its inception, the EU has presented a stable, reliable face of capitalist rule organized around market fundamentalism, minimizing market intervention, and slowing, even reversing, the growth of the public sector. The broad right-center and left-center — traditional pro-business, liberal, and social democratic parties — have united in ensuring that agenda.

With the demoralization or decline of the anti-capitalist left, there has been little resistance mounted to the forward march of the EU program.

Into the breach left by a marginal or now timid anti-capitalist left, stepped a new wave of right-wing populists preparing to exploit the growing mass dissatisfaction with twenty-first-century capitalism and its political custodians. The economic setbacks, stagnant or declining standards of living, inadequate social and employment security, inequality, social strife, and displacement incurred by European workers cried out for political expression. Right opportunists gladly answered these calls with hollow nationalism, ill-aimed blaming and shaming, and cultural anti-elitism.

Throughout Europe, new and refashioned parties like Austria’s Freedom Party, France’s National Rally, Alternative for Germany, Hungary’s Fidesz Party, Italy’s Lega and Brothers for Italy, Netherland’s Party for Freedom, Spain’s Vox, and many others, vie to fill the radical oppositional space evacuated or neglected by the anti-capitalist left.

Where the European Communist Parties could always count on a far more robust protest vote beyond their core membership, the protest vote now goes to the populist right by default.

To stem the right-populist tide, various strategists devised new alliances, power-sharing agreements, even technocratic governments. New “left” populist parties — Syriza, PODEMOS, France Insoumise — sprung up to draw support from the same mass anger and frustration exploited by the populist right.

But none of these supposed answers to right-wing populism have succeeded in containing or reversing its advance. The mid-June European parliamentary elections have, in many ways, marked a new high water for right-populism. In both France and Germany — the two anchors for the Eurozone project — the right has made spectacular gains.

Most dramatically, the French National Rally (RN) — the historic party of the Le Pen family — won more than double the vote (31+%) of Macron’s ruling party. In an act of frustration and, perhaps, desperation, Macron called for early national elections at the end of June. He, no doubt, expects to cry for a “united front” against the threat of right-wing governance, as he has successfully done in the past. He assumes that his party and RN will win in the first round and the left will have no choice but to support him in the second-round run-off.

Meanwhile, Macron’s approval rate in France has reached an all-time low of 5.5%. And he has begun his campaign by attacking both the left and right (“the fever of extremes”) — hardly a formula for drawing the left in a presumed second round of voting.

But the soft leftist parties– France Insoumise, the Communist Party, the Socialist, and the Greens– have cobbled together their own shaky “united front” to make an impact in the first round. The interesting question would be whether Macron’s party would return the favor and support this effort in a second round against RN. I doubt they would. Bourgeois “solidarity” only goes so far.

In Germany, the hard right, semi-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party became the second largest party behind the Christian Democrats, garnering more votes than any of the individual parties in the governing coalition. The war-crazed Green Party took an especially hard hit in this election, losing nine seats.

While AfD has done less than RN to attempt to clean its ownership of fascistic detritus, it nonetheless draws a great deal of support from working-class protest voters. Germany’s ARD polling found that “a full 44% voted for the AfD out of disappointment at other parties.”

And that is how much of the electoral support for the populist right should be understood. The traditional right has long drawn its support from the bourgeoisie, small businesses, the professional strata: those protecting their status in a capitalist society. The populist right, taking that approach a step further — through nostalgia, misplaced blame, false anti-elitism, and the bogus promise of life-altering change — appeals to the masses: those alienated from a capitalist society. Unless one wants to cynically dismiss the people for their bad choices or pompously scold them for their bad judgment, you must conclude that the existing left parties have failed the masses, lost their credibility, and surrendered leadership on the popular issues, allowing right-populism to fill the breach.

Can one imagine Le Pen or even Macron winning the votes of France’s workers from the post-war Communist Party of Thorez, Duclos, and Rochet, the party esteemed for its role against fascism, and the party promising socialism?

Can one imagine Berlusconi, Lega, the Five Star Movement, Brothers of Italy drawing the Italian working class away from the Communist Party of Togliatti, the party that led the anti-fascist struggle, the party that offered Italian workers a dignified struggle against capital?

Can one imagine the AfD flourishing in the GDR, that part of Germany that today supplies the greatest number of votes to the AfD?

They do so today because the French Communist Party has abandoned its historic role as the champion of the working class and neither listens to workers nor puts their interests at the top of its agenda.

The Italian party dissolved itself thirty-five years ago and paved the way for decades of political farce and faux populism in Italian politics.

And the capitalist pillage of the former socialist German Democratic Republic planted the seeds of despair that grew into the AfD.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The untold story of the European parliamentary election reveals a world of possibility.

Purposely overlooked by the media were the impressive left gains in Greece and Germany. In both cases, working-class partisanship, principled socialism, and militant anti-imperialism and the promise of peace attracted voters. Where the weak-tea, decaffeinated left campaigned on fear of the right and defense of the European Union’s foreign policy, the Greek Communist Party and a new, radical German party surprised observers with significant gains.

The Greek Communist Party (KKE) nearly doubled its percentage of the vote over the previous European parliamentary election held in 2019. The results substantially exceeded last year’s parliamentary percentages as well. Its strength was shown especially in Attika and urban and working-class areas. These gains were made because of the principled stance of KKE and in spite of swimming against the EU tide of capitalism and war shared by all the other parties. KKE shows that defeating right-wing populism is possible by giving real, bold, and radical answers to the despair of working people.

In Germany, the left wing of the Die Linke Party — the working class-oriented, anti-imperialist wing — finally broke away and established a new party openly opposed to the European Union agenda, its institutionalized capitalism, and its war policies. Led by the independent-minded Sara Wagenknecht, the new party was quickly organized five months ago, yet drew 6.2% of the vote in the European parliamentary elections. The persistently compromising, centrist-orienting Die Linke was trounced, reduced to 2.7% of the vote. ARD polls show that the new party drew 400,000 votes from Die Linke, 500,000 votes from the Social Democrats, and 140,000 votes from the AfD. In some parts of Eastern Germany, the new party — yet to create a sustainable name — drew as much as 15% of the vote.

Perhaps better than any result, the new party delivered a shocking blow to the idea that one must stop the populist right by rallying to the center in defense of a moribund capitalism. As Lenin reminds us: “Two questions now take precedence over all other political questions — the question of bread and the question of peace.” Wagenknecht’s new party gave the questions precedence, attacking Germany’s economic malaise and inflation, as well as the deadly war in Ukraine. We should follow the development of the new party closely.

By attending to working-class interests, the Austrian Communist Party and the Workers’ Party of Belgium also made gains against the right-populist wave.

It should be clear that the hollow tactic of opposing right-populism by circling the wagons around mainstream centrist parties is proving to be bankrupt. The notion that voters can be shepherded away from populist poseurs with a “united front against the bad guys” approach has failed to win people from a desperate need for bread and peace.

These examples show a principled, proven approach to the problem of the populist-right, an approach that neither resorts to a retreat to the center or a bogus, unsustainable, ineffective “united front.” The thirst for change is there.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

Nearly five years after democratic Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage, LGBTQ+ activism is all but extinct across the Taiwan Strait, where the ruling Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping has cracked down on anyone displaying the rainbow flag in public, members of China's LGBTQ+ community told Radio Free Asia in recent interviews.

On May 17, 2019, Taiwan passed historic legislation confirming a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry, making the democratic island the first jurisdiction in the Asia region to do so and prompting a wave of weddings amid a congratulatory tweet from democratically elected president Tsai Ing-wen.

But Chinese propaganda officials warned media organizations there not to make a big deal of the story.

While major Chinese cities once had a thriving LGBTQ+ scene, a gay millennial man born in China who gave only the nickname Haohao said he has noticed a sharp decline in support or respect for the rights of sexual minorities in China, compared with just a few years ago.

"It's become pretty clear in the past few years that they don't want us to say or do anything," Haohao said, adding that gay bars and nightspots have been shutting down, while the rainbow Pride flag is basically banned in public.

"Back in the day when a lot of singers, like A-Mei or Jolin Tsai [from Taiwan] would tour China, there would always be groups of fans waving rainbow flags or wearing rainbow accessories," he said. "But that's no longer allowed  -- they're not even allowed inside the venue ."

In August 2023, Chinese officials removed an LGBTQ+ anthem titled "Rainbow" by Taiwanese pop star A-Mei from her setlist from a concert earlier this month in Beijing, while security guards forced fans turning up for the gig to remove clothing and other paraphernalia bearing the rainbow symbol before going in, according to media reports.

Sherry Zhang, who goes by the stage name A-Mei, wrote the song for all of her lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and questioning friends, and it is frequently heard at Pride events in Taiwan. Her fans among the LGBTQ+ community often turn up and wave rainbow flags or wear rainbow clothing in a show of solidarity, confident that the song will make an appearance.

‘Very strict’ atmosphere

A month after that crackdown, authorities in the central Chinese city of Changsha removed the song "Womxnly" – which commemorates a Taiwanese teenager who was found dead in a school toilet after being bullied by classmates for his "feminine" appearance – from the setlist of Taiwanese pop star Jolin Tsai, after it became an anthem for the island's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and questioning community.

"Things are very strict," Haohao said, adding that police have started harassing openly gay, bi or transgender people in public on the pretext that they are doing something illegal.

"They may not even have broken the law, but they will still be placed under coercive measures," he said.

Liu Zhaoyang, a Gen Z gay man currently studying outside China, agreed, citing the case of a volunteer at the Beijing Gay and Lesbian Center who was detained by police on their way to attend a queer event at the embassy of a European country in Beijing, and forced to sign a document agreeing to move away from the capital.

A friend of Liu's who knew the man now fears that he'll be next, as he is a known associate, Liu said.

Another non-binary friend is now in prison, after their friends tried to break him out of a "corrective school" for transgender children and young people, he said.

"They were discovered by another parent, who called the police to report them for an illegal gathering and 'fornication'," Liu said. "He has been in jail for the past couple of years -- I think he got a five-year sentence."

While homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997, and removed from official psychiatric diagnostic manuals in 2001, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has ushered in a far more conservative attitude to sexuality than his predecessors, with organizers of the annual Shanghai Pride parade announcing it would end in 2020.

Activists have said the crackdown stems in part from the government's fear of civil organizations as a threat to party rule. 

In July 2021, the social media platform WeChat deleted dozens of accounts belonging to LGBTQ+ groups at universities, while two lesbian students at Beijing's Tsinghua University, identified by pseudonyms Huang and Li, were disciplined in May 2022 for leaving some rainbow flags on a table in the campus supermarket with the hashtag #PRIDE. The women later filed an administrative lawsuit to complain about their treatment.

‘Ridiculous’ ruling

A friend of the women who gave only the pseudonym Su Wei said the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court had contacted the women in May 2023 and told them they wouldn't be accepting their case.

"He said the reason was an interpretation from the Supreme Court, one that ... [contains a clause] relating to national security," Su said. "The other clauses weren't applicable. It seems ridiculous."

The Beijing High People's Court also refused to accept their administrative lawsuit in June, she said.

Huang has been unable to go overseas as previously planned because of the incident, while the women have since been harassed by police for attending a memorial for a transgender friend who took their own life, Su said.

Huang has since chosen to marry a sympathetic male friend in the hope that there will be someone in her corner if she runs into further legal trouble, she said.

"If you are married, for example, your partner can hire a lawyer for you. There will be someone to help you," Su said, adding that the rainbow flag case had "made everyone realize how bad this environment is, how they're going backwards."

Wu Wei-ting, director of the Institute of Gender Research at Taiwan's Shih Hsin University, said Xi likely views LGBTQ+ issues as being the result of "Western" or "foreign" ideologies.

"The crackdown includes the party-state machinery taking the lead in attacking or discriminating against gender diversity," Wu told RFA. "So I would say it's a pretty comprehensive one."

"The whole gender diversity movement in China is finding it increasingly difficult to survive," she said.

Making life intolerable

She cited guidelines from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television in 2021, which banned "sissy" characters from TV shows, while the authorities also banned the online sale of gender reassignment hormones in 2022, making life intolerable for trans people in China.

"Last year, there were actually several cases of transgender people choosing to commit suicide because they couldn't get hormones," Wei said.

Haohao believes that part of the backlash against queer and transgender identities has to do with the Xi administration's obsession with falling birth rates.

"Young people in China aren't really having kids nowadays," he said. "The fertility rate has dropped off a cliff, and the population is falling."

"They are trying everything to try to get people to give birth ... that's why they are suppressing [us]," he said.

Marriage rates in China are continuing to fall in spite of policies from the ruling Chinese Communist Party aimed at encouraging people to have more children amid a shrinking population, suggesting that the next generation of young people in China has other things on its mind.

Liu Zhaoyang said the crackdown seems to be focused on banning any public expression of sexual minority identities.

"They want to ban all assemblies and parades, whether they're pride parades or some form of protest against the government," Liu said. "The space we once had is getting slowly smaller, like boiling a frog in water that's still only warm."

For Haohao, the legalization of same-sex marriage by democratic Taiwan five years ago is still a distant dream.

"We can only pray that they will turn a blind eye and not interfere with us too much," he said. "That would make us very happy. We would be at peace."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stacy Hsu for RFA Mandarin.

The meeting on Thursday with the head of the party’s Foreign Relations Agency and 15 other officials follows President Vo Van Thuong’s trip to the Holy See in July.

Relations between Hanoi and the Vatican dissolved when communist leaders took over Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. After the country’s reunification, they placed restrictions on the Catholic Church and jailed several Catholic leaders who opposed the new government. 

After years of negotiations, the Vietnamese government announced in June that it would allow the Vatican to appoint a resident representative in the country.

About 7% of the country’s population of roughly 97 million people are Roman Catholic, partly as a result of evangelism by missionaries from Portugal and Spain beginning in the 16th century.

‘Keen to go’

Pope Francis, who is 87 and hasn’t traveled much in recent years, accepted the invitation to travel to Vietnam and requested that collaborative efforts be made to arrange the visit, according to online newspaper Vietnam Plus. 

The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, told reporters that “there are a few further steps to be taken before” a trip could be scheduled. 

“But I think the Holy Father is keen to go and certainly the Catholic community in Vietnam is very happy to want the Holy Father to go. I think it would send a very good message to the region,” he said, according to Reuters.

Gallagher said he would visit the country in April, and Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin Pietro Parolin will likely travel there later in 2024.

Vietnam’s 2016 Law on Religion and Belief gives the government significant control over religious practices and contains vague provisions that permit restrictions on religious freedom in the name of national security and social unity. 

Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The meeting on Thursday with the head of the party’s Foreign Relations Agency and 15 other officials follows President Vo Van Thuong’s trip to the Holy See in July.

Relations between Hanoi and the Vatican dissolved when communist leaders took over Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. After the country’s reunification, they placed restrictions on the Catholic Church and jailed several Catholic leaders who opposed the new government. 

After years of negotiations, the Vietnamese government announced in June that it would allow the Vatican to appoint a resident representative in the country.

About 7% of the country’s population of roughly 97 million people are Roman Catholic, partly as a result of evangelism by missionaries from Portugal and Spain beginning in the 16th century.

‘Keen to go’

Pope Francis, who is 87 and hasn’t traveled much in recent years, accepted the invitation to travel to Vietnam and requested that collaborative efforts be made to arrange the visit, according to online newspaper Vietnam Plus. 

The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, told reporters that “there are a few further steps to be taken before” a trip could be scheduled. 

“But I think the Holy Father is keen to go and certainly the Catholic community in Vietnam is very happy to want the Holy Father to go. I think it would send a very good message to the region,” he said, according to Reuters.

Gallagher said he would visit the country in April, and Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin Pietro Parolin will likely travel there later in 2024.

Vietnam’s 2016 Law on Religion and Belief gives the government significant control over religious practices and contains vague provisions that permit restrictions on religious freedom in the name of national security and social unity. 

Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The meeting on Thursday with the head of the party’s Foreign Relations Agency and 15 other officials follows President Vo Van Thuong’s trip to the Holy See in July.

Relations between Hanoi and the Vatican dissolved when communist leaders took over Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. After the country’s reunification, they placed restrictions on the Catholic Church and jailed several Catholic leaders who opposed the new government. 

After years of negotiations, the Vietnamese government announced in June that it would allow the Vatican to appoint a resident representative in the country.

About 7% of the country’s population of roughly 97 million people are Roman Catholic, partly as a result of evangelism by missionaries from Portugal and Spain beginning in the 16th century.

‘Keen to go’

Pope Francis, who is 87 and hasn’t traveled much in recent years, accepted the invitation to travel to Vietnam and requested that collaborative efforts be made to arrange the visit, according to online newspaper Vietnam Plus. 

The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, told reporters that “there are a few further steps to be taken before” a trip could be scheduled. 

“But I think the Holy Father is keen to go and certainly the Catholic community in Vietnam is very happy to want the Holy Father to go. I think it would send a very good message to the region,” he said, according to Reuters.

Gallagher said he would visit the country in April, and Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin Pietro Parolin will likely travel there later in 2024.

Vietnam’s 2016 Law on Religion and Belief gives the government significant control over religious practices and contains vague provisions that permit restrictions on religious freedom in the name of national security and social unity. 

Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Luu Binh Nhoung was expelled for allegedly aiding and abetting extortion. He was arrested last month for his connection to the case of convicted criminal Pham Minh Cuong. 

At the time of his arrest, he was the deputy head of the National Assembly’s People’s Petitions Committee – a role in which he had received public praise for investigating the cases of people seeking justice.

During the November 2018 National Assembly session, Nhuong criticized the Ministry of Public Security and said the police had made “terrible mistakes.”

He also spoke out against the execution of Le Van Manh, who had protested his innocence in a rape and murder case, claiming the police had beaten him to force him to confess.

Being expelled from the Communist Party is the ultimate disgrace for a member of Vietnam’s elite class because they no longer have the privileges and protection that party membership confers, and they can be in more legal jeopardy if suspected of crimes. 

The decision to expel Nhuong was made during the 34th meeting session of the CPV Central Inspection Commission in Hanoi, held Dec. 18-20, 2023, state media reported.

On Nov. 14, 2023, Thai Binh Provincial Police’s Investigation Agency issued a decision to prosecute and arrest Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong and a warrant to search his home and office on the charges of “extortion” under Article 170 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

According to the website of the Thai Binh Provincial Police, Nhuong allegedly interfered in responsible agencies’ work to help Pham Minh Cuong carry out extortion activities.

He was also a member of the 14th National Assembly of Vietnam for the 2016-2021 term and a member of the National Assembly’s Social Affairs Committee. 

He was not recommended for re-election as a member of the 15th National Assembly because at age 60 he was said to be too old.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Throughout the last one hundred six years, a Communist Party’s size or influence has been reflected in the force or violence to which they are met. That, too, comes as no surprise.

Of course Communists resist the repression that inevitably ensues from capitalism’s defenders. In some cases and on some rare occasions, a deeply embedded sense of fair play or principled belief in liberal values among the masses ensures that Communists enjoy a modicum of permitted activity in spite of the ruling bourgeoisie’s wishes.

So it should come as no surprise that the bourgeoisie in Venezuela would like to bury the Communist Party, consigning it to the political margins or worse. Over the course of the Venezuelan Communist Party’s long and determined history of the defense of Venezuela’s workers, it has been attacked, repressed, and banned by bourgeois politicians or the military. In fact, since its birth in 1931 until 1969, the Party has known little more than five years of legality.

It should come as no surprise, either, when a popular movement wins electoral victories against the established bourgeois parties, promising to defend Venezuela’s independence and to implement a people’s program, that Venezuela’s Communist Party would enthusiastically offer conditional support. With its own program based on revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, the vigorous support the Communists offered to the government of Hugo Chavez was necessarily conditional, though supportive.

The Chavez program was vaguely socialist– drawing on Christian ethics, utopian socialism, and a motley assembly of enthusiastic volunteer academic advisors from around the world. Nonetheless, it drew the enmity of US imperialism and its allies for its foreign policy and resource independence. While it defied the influence of the domestic bourgeoisie, the Chavez government did not establish workers’ power or eliminate the bourgeoisie’s economic base.

Despite these weaknesses, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) continued to defend the government and support it against US intervention and counter-revolutionary intrigue. The PCV continued its conditional support in the post-Chavez era– with Maduro’s election– but with emerging differences over domestic policy, especially with regards to the working class and corruption.

Over the last decade, the differences grew sharper. In the eyes of the PCV and in its own words: “It is on the reality of total rupture with the Unitary Framework Agreement [an agreement proposed before the 2018 election] and with the programmatic bases of the Bolivarian process initiated by Hugo Chavez that the PCV distanced itself from the Maduro government.”

Of course the distancing does not mean abandoning joint patriotic resistance to US and other foreign intervention.

In the wake of these political differences– a common enough feature of center-left and left electoral formations– the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice imposed a new leadership on the PCV on August 11, a wildly arbitrary and unjust move with no possible motivation other than to weaken and disable the PCV. Venezuela’s highest court summarily ruled that a new leadership– composed of renegades, dissidents, and non-members– should constitute a new leading body, negating the democratically elected leadership of the PCV from its last Congress in November of last year.

Venezuelan Communists were denied serious participation, due process, and the right to appeal this attempt to disable a historical instrument of the Venezuelan working class.

Some might dismiss this as a rogue court attacking the PCV, but the fact that the Venezuelan government had sought to deny electoral participation by the PCV earlier and that a prominent leader of the leading political party had mounted a campaign against the PCV, demonstrate that Maduro’s party was complicit in the court’s maneuvers.

Certainly the government, Maduro, and Maduro’s party have had every opportunity to denounce or resist the blatant attempt to disarm the working class’s most dedicated advocates, the Venezuelan Communists. They have not.

Clearly, this is an instance of raw anti-Communism, updated to the twenty-first century. Others can probe the reasons that Maduro and his party have succumbed to anti-Communism, but succumb they have. If they believe that creating a bogus Communist Party will deflect criticism or improve their electoral opportunities, it will not be the first time that fear of Communism leads to the suppression of political choices and dishonors the perpetrators.

But the PCV will endure. Its cadre will find their way through this thicket of distraction and continue to fight for working people.

Many Communist and Workers’ Parties have rallied– along with many other honest people– in defense of the PCV and the cause of Venezuelan workers. They understand the cost of anti-Communism on the fate of working people.

But many on the left have failed this moment. Their reasons constitute a basket of opportunism. They stare at their shoe tops, equivocate, plead ignorance, or soil the banner of solidarity. History will judge.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

Summary of Part I

In Part I of my article, we began by distinguishing the social self from two forms of identity that are often confused with it: temperament and personality. The focus of part one is to show how very social (or even socialist) was the work of social psychologist George Herbert Mead. We discussed in detail the thirteen building blocks necessary for creating the social self. This self must construct both an objective and subjective identity. From here even by the age of eight the child must learn to navigate routine, mild-problematic and crisis situations. They do that by learning how to role-take and role-make. Furthermore,learning to play in improvised and designed ways are rehearsals for role-making and role-taking. Lastly, all selves must always face a tension between weighing individual and social self-interest in making decisions. Creating internal I-Me dialogues is the manner in which these selves decide what their course of action should be.

However, we must include a larger, cross-cultural and historical perspective. Mead was writing about a social self as it existed in a capitalist society during his time. In Part II we explore what kind of self an individual has in a collectivist society. An even bigger challenge is that both capitalist and individualist selves emerge in relatively stable conditions. What happens to the self in unstable times when social movements are afoot? As we shall see, the requirements of building a self in the heat of social movements are also necessary conditions for developing a world-historical, communist self of the future.

Collectivist or Individualist Selves

Horizontal and vertical collectivists: vertical individualists

Just as different social formations have very different technologies, economies, political and sacred systems, these different kinds of societies also have very different concepts of the self. We shall see that broadly speaking, individuals in egalitarian hunter-gather and horticultural societies had “horizontal collectivist selves” while people in Bronze Age agricultural states had “vertical collectivist selves”. (Rank societies such as simple chiefdoms are a transition between the two).  It is only in the late Iron Age (600 BCE) that we see the first signs of a “vertical individualist self”.

With the rise of capitalism in Europe roughly 500 years ago, the vertical individualist self takes on a life of its own. Calling selves “horizontal” refers to the communal anti-hierarchical nature of the way the self interacts with others. Calling the self “vertical” refers to the stratified way in which a self relates to other selves. While a collectivist can be either horizontal or vertical, an individualist can only be vertical. There has never been a self that is a horizontal individualist. Please see my article Three Strikes You’re Out for Western Psychotherapy: The Dark History and its Shortcomings With Collectivists for more details about the differences between collectivists and individualists.

The division of social selves into individualists and collectivists has a long history in the West and has recently been researched by a number of psychologists (Triandis (1995, Segall, Dasen, Berry and Poortinga, 1990, Smith and Bond-Harris, 1994). While individualism and collectivism exist to some degree in all societies, for purposes of our work we are interested in how this difference is connected to the building blocks of the self together with the forces of socialization. We are also interested in how these cross-cultural psychological studies apply to the concept of the self developed by Mead.

Defining collectivist and individualist selves

What exactly do we mean by “collectivism” and “individualism?” We will begin with how each identity orients itself in relation to society and nature. Individualism is a set of beliefs and practices which assumes that: a) the individual is separate from kin-groups and the biophysical environment and identifies more easily with strangers; b) the inner world is more a source of identity than objective actions; and c) the individual is more important than the group.  Collectivism is a set of beliefs or practices which assume the reverse: a) the individual is interdependent with kin groups and nature; b) the outer world of objective actions matters more than does inner experience; and c) the kin group is more important than individual.

The technological, political and economic structure of society creates forces for socializing the individual to work and reproduce in these societies. These forces of socialization will teach individuals the building blocks of the self in either a collectivist or individualist way that will create and sustain the dominant social relations.

Forces of Socialization Under Collectivism and Individualism

Collectivists are conservative. The forces of socialization, the extended family, the clan or the neighbors are more or less giving the same congruent message. “Things have always been this way. Do what you are told and make your ancestors proud”.

In an industrial capitalist society, it is likely that the messages of family and mass media will conflict; the messages of friends may conform to neither while the state and the churches could be at odds based on the separation of church and state. Identity crisis questions like “who am I?” and “what is my place in society” are unique to societies that promote individualism. All individuals in all societies do not ask this question because it would not even be raised unless a variety of answers were possible. For a variety of answers to be possible there would need to be in place socialization forces that give different answers to these questions

In industrial capitalist societies there is a vast division of labor. In part this means there will be a variety of possibilities of what the individual imagines they can be. Further, even if all of the socializing forces are individualist, they are competing over the individualist’s choices of identity – soldier, rock musician or family person – they still may be causing confusion because they are all suggesting that any one of these identities is possible. As Berger (1967) points out, it is because a person sees a conflicting number of choices that they come to see: a) relativity of all social institution; b) the individual is prior to the group; and c) the constraints on an individual are not as great as the possibilities.

Collectivists and the thirteen building blocks

The first four of Mead’s building blocks are more or less the same for all societies. However, developing a conscience is somewhat different. If we look at Freud’s system, because collectivists have stronger group ties, the conscience of collectivists will be weighted more on the side of the superego. Egoic, and id structures would be more repressed than in industrial capitalist societies. As we shall see shortly, collectivists will be better at learning routine situations, be more at home with role taking, prefer designed play and be more at home with the Me side of the I-me dialogue. What is a significant difference between collectivist and individualist that I will comment on here is learning to think abstractly. For Mead the importance of thinking abstractly has to do with the power that comes from being able to think about the past and the future. Both individualists and collectivists can do this.

However, the uniqueness of a merchant society in Greece taught the middle and upper middle classes in the West to use what Piaget called early formal operational thinking. This can be seen in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Democritus and others. Later, thanks to the revolution in scientific methodology in the 17th century, scientists, merchants and other professionals learned to think in a formal operational manner. Collectivists were content with what Piaget called concrete operational or even a sophisticated form of pre-operational thinking. See the work of CR Hallpike, Foundations of Primitive Thought.

Collectivists and the objective and subjective selves

Collectivists will be especially socialized to cultivate an objective self over a subjective self. Collectivists are concerned with what is expected in their extended families, clans or village neighbors. If they live in agricultural civilizations, they will be preoccupied with what the castes above them will expect. Collectivists will not support interest in their unique biography or their personal aspirations. Such preoccupations are considered selfish and inconsequential.

Collectivists in routine, mild-problematic and crisis situations

As most of us know, the individualist self in industrial capitalist society is expected to manage mild-problematic and crisis situations as a way of life. But historically in collectivist societies the pace of life is slower and the amount of change a collective self is expected to deal with is small. Collectivists do not like change and want to keep things as much the same as they’ve perceived they have always been. Collectivist selves are usually not prepared to deal with mild-problematic or crisis situations.

Collectivists in role-taking and role-making

Anyone in a routine situation will get used to the position of role-taking. In other words, the role is already intact, has existed for years and the individual simply steps into it. Role-making is what people are forced to do when they face a mild-problematic or crisis situation. They have to make up a role on the spot to stabilize the mild-problematic or crisis situation. Collectivists have less experience with this.

Collectivist identification of status groups

At least in agricultural civilizations, there are class and even caste relations. It is very important for collectivists to know what is expected of them and what to expect from others.  People often live and die in the same status group. Staying within your caste has high moral value. You can’t afford to make mistakes. Among individualist selves in industrial capitalist societies, especially in Yankeedom, people imagine they can shift social classes. They do not pay as much attention to what is expected of them in a status group. In fact, in Yankeedom, upward mobility is a virtue and imagining you can mix the values of different social classes is thought of as normal or even virtuous.

How collectivists play: designed and improvised play

As Mead points out, how humans play is not some frivolous cultural pastime. It is dead serious. First you learn “let’s pretend” games and then you graduate to what Mead calls “the game”. As I’ve said before, designed play is practice for learning routine situations. Improvised play comes in handy as rehearsals for mild-problematic and crisis situations. For collectivists, let’s pretend games will not be taken as seriously as organized games because organized games are preparation for role taking in routine situations. Let’s pretend games will seem less important because the number of times collectivists are in non-routine situations which might require improvisation is infrequent.

Collectivists in I-Me dialogues

As might be expected by now, the internal battle of weighing individual against social self-interest is lopsided on the side of social self-interest. Collectivists will constantly be asking themselves what others expect of me in situation after situation. Individual self-interest, or what Mead calls the “I part” is weakly developed because the group is more important than the individual. For individualist selves, the internal battle is more robust because it is expected that individuals are entitled to sometimes put their self-interest before the group.

Towards a Communist Self

The Self and Social Movements

When we discussed the individual self in social evolution we talked about the individual essentially reacting to changes in social structures by developing collectivist or individualist selves and all that follows from it.But this presents social change as essentially involuntary. However, groups of people occasionally do try to collectively change social evolution in a particular direction. The seeds of collective action, specifically socialist are rooted in many of the skills the self is expected to build when participating in a social movement.

Social institutions produce both order and conflict and this tension is expressed in the types of skills people are socialized to learn as selves. As we saw earlier in Part I, when children are socialized to play games they are taught to follow rules and roles and to exercise their creativity within social constraints. These skills translate into non-play circumstances in everyday life. Learning how to master routine situations means sizing up a circumstance, identifying its spatial and temporal setting and the power bases and norms for conforming or obeying. At the same time these individuals have to be able to negotiate mild problematic and crisis situations which happen frequently in social movements. They must  be capable of re-organizing spatial and temporal settings and restructuring power bases.

My point is that the skills required to participate in social movements are rooted in the skills learned in play and non-play circumstances in everyday life. Without this understanding the study of social movements, how people come to be involved and how they sustain their involvement, will be mystified. We will have social movements without concrete individuals.

The self in social movements as rooted in world history

The self in social movements would gradually learn to see themselves as world-historical individuals acting within a larger system that is composed of multiple societies and cultures.  What exactly does this mean?  Earlier we said that part of developing a generalized other was to learn to understand that the world is bigger than the individual in time – beyond their individual biography – and in space – beyond their domestic household. To become a world-historical individual means to push these boundaries beyond where most people normally go. Individuals would develop world-historical selves if they came to comprehend the fact that their own identity and cognition is as rooted in civilizational and global institutions and the arena of action occurs on the stage of world historical evolution. The internet and the electronic revolution is intensifying both human problems and human capacity to solve them because of the global scale in which they occur. It involves knowledge about the roles and occupations that are historically specific to the 21st century. It involves a sense that in world history and long-term social change some roles and occupations emerge and others wither away.

A world-historical self understands that its location in the core, periphery or semi-periphery of the global capitalist world-system both constrains and invites ways of living that may not be possible in other parts of the system. A world-historical individual does not privatize their individual biography as their own and dissociate him or herself from world history. Rather the biographical self, ones’ goals and plans and actions are part of world history in-the-making. Using the comparative world-systems perspective, a world-historical individual would comprehend contemporary social movements both in space – around the world – and in time – in the historical evolution of the world-system in which they are a part.

Ways in Which the Communist Self is Different From the Collectivist Self

It is not far-fetched to imagine that the communist self would be a lot like the collectivist self because both prioritize the group over individuals. There are some superficial similarities between the horizontal selves of hunter-gatherers and what would be the horizontal selves in communist society. However, the vertical collectivist selves of the great agricultural civilizations were caste or class stratified. This meant that the relationship between the vertical collectivist peasants and the upper classes would be deferential and obedient. This would not be the case with the communist self.

Furthermore, despite what might seem as diametrically opposed interests between communists and capitalists, communists also came out of the Enlightenment. This means that communists are for creating abundance based on a championing of science against religion and creating a high standard of living for everyone through technological innovation. These are not projects the vertical collectivists share. Finally, communists value change over stability. We see change taking the shape of a dialectical spiral. Vertical collectivists understand change has been happening in cycles with the past being more valued than the future. There are more differences, but I think you get my point.

Where Might a Communist Self Arise and Over How Long a Time Period?

It is perfectly reasonable to expect that my picture of a communist self would be grounded in particular nation-states within a particular window of history. It would make sense to name places like China, Cuba or Venezuela as the most likely places where a communist self would begin to take hold. However, I am not knowledgeable enough of those countries to make intelligent speculation about what a communist self, using the work of George Herbert Mead, would look like. Unfortunately, the country I know best, Yankeedom, is one of the last places we can imagine a socialist country flourishing, at least in this century. Nevertheless, I will try making some reasonable guesses of what a communist self might look in Yankeedom in 100 years, or three generations.

Communist Self: Agents of Socialization

As a reminder, the forces of socialization include the family, religion, sports, the state (nationalism), education, peer group, mass media and the internet. As far as the family goes, they would be under much less pressure because under communism day-care centers would help to raise children and parents would come to understand that day-care workers know more than parents about how to raise children because they deal with many kinds of children. The same is true in the field of education. Children would be taught using Vygotsky’s method of cooperative learning. In school the subjects in school would resume teaching the arts, music and philosophy. A liberal arts education would be valued because it produces the most well-rounded citizens.

In a communist society, religious fundamentalism would wither because the desperation, self-deprecation and longing for an afterlife would no longer be in evidence. Yet the number of atheists would continue to grow because the scientific world view would have more prevalence. However, people’s ideas of the spirit-world would be more earthly and less transcendental because life on earth will come closer to heaven. I further predict the continued rise and flourishing of Neopaganism, especially among women since people’s appreciation of the natural and cosmic order will be heightened. Professional sports will still be of interest mostly among men for Darwinian reasons. There would not be a hysterical mania coming from people who are desperate for a large scale community because they have no local community. Nationalism will go the way of religious fundamentalism. The blind loyalty of nationalism will be replaced by a patriotism that will defend its land but will not be imperialist as so many western countries are today.

Peer groups will be grounded in local community groups and teenagers and in vocational training groups working with adults rather than separated from adult life as they are now. Mass media will still be a draw, but the violence, sex and horror will be integrated with the story line rather a non-stop bombardment. I have not studied the internet enough to say anything about trends that might support a communist self.

Communist Self: Thirteen Building Blocks

Having a conscience would not involve appeals to abstract morality or religious duty. The conscience would be a secular appeal to tap into for how to best apply oneself to the world-historical situation of one’s country. Knowledge of status entitlements would be based on achieved skills rather than fossilized entitlements based on social class. In reasoning powers, communist individuals would achieve a new level of abstraction beyond Piaget’s formal operation, called dialectical operations (Riegel and Basseches). As for the I-Me dialogues members of a communist society would develop a new voice, a “we dialogue” (see below). 

Communist Objective and Subjective Selves

Mead made much of developing an objective self, what he called a generalized other. However, his generalized other was insensitive to the constraints of what social class, race and gender loyalties might have in limiting the range of their identity. Secondly, his generalized other lacked a historical identity. Under a communist society, for the first time, Mead’s generalized other might become real since class, race and gender identities would be far less in operation. As for the subjective self, it would become less private, as the individual biographies would have a life-mission which would be identified by psychologists and vocational counselors as being far more powerful. Unlike bourgeois psychologists, now communist psychologists would link world-historical identity to life-mission.

Communist Navigating Routine, Mild Problematic and Crisis Situations

The communist self would certainly be more capable than the collectivist self in dealing with mild-problematic and crisis situations than the collectivist self. However, crisis situations would be far less of an issue because society would be less riddled by class, race and gender conflicts. In addition, routine situations would be malleable and less subject to reification and alienation because communist selves have confidence that they can change situations as necessary.

Communist Role-taking and Role-making

It follows that in communist societies role-making would be far less of an ordeal than for collectivist selves because in communist societies people are relatively free to shape roles as necessary. At the same time, role-taking would not be a mindless duty since it is most often treated among collectivist selves. This is because the communist self is part of the process of taking roles in the first place. On the other hand, role-taking would be met with joy rather than with animosity and resentment as they often are among individualists in capitalist society. For communist selves, playing a role is not a mask, as a necessary evil that represses the “real self” as in the humanist psychology of capitalist society. It is a role that is gladly taken on because it could be taken on and challenged when necessary.

Communist Identification of Status Groups

As mentioned earlier, in a society with minimum class differentiation, knowing the status of others would be based on status-achievement (mostly from work skills) rather than ascribed status. The communist self would be more sensitive to what the individual has to offer or based on a reputation rather than any kind of deference.

Communist Improvised and Designed Play

Typically among individualists in capitalist society, improvised play is supported at an early age more so that among collectivists. However, by adulthood, at least in working class households, pretend play is discouraged or thought to be frivolous or unimportant. In Yankeedom, this can be seen throughout grammar school, high school and college.  Art and music classes, the place where improvised play is part of the creative process, is cut. Capitalists ask us, “ what does this have to do with your work, once out of school?”. Something similar happens with designed play.

Games are fine through childhood and even adolescence (Dungeons and Dragons) are supported. But by adulthood, in capitalist society, participatory designed play in minimum. The best they have to offer is the spectacle of designed play in professional sports, where spectators live in a vicarious world where they can criticize the players in how they play their roles. For the communist self, both improvised and designed play are both integrated into the work life of individuals.

Communist I-Me Dialogues

In Mead’s I-Me dialogues, the Me is the internalized expectations of what significant others want from us. Mead says that with maturity the internalized me stretches beyond significant others to communities. From the view of the communist self this generalized other, lacks body, depth and breadth of participating in a communist society. At its best, communist self would replace the I-Me dialogue “I-We” dialogue in which the building of communist society is both the product and co-producer of the world historical individual.

Conclusion

In Part I of my article, I introduced the work of process social psychologist George Herbert Mead. I introduced the importance of learning the difference between how to take and make roles in order to deal with three kinds of situations, routine, mild-problematic and crisis. In order to learn these skills the child must practice, using pretend play and organized games. But before this, over the course of the first eight years of life the child must cultivate an objective and a subjective self. It is imperative that the child make the objective and subjective selves create an internal dialogue (I vs Me) in order to navigate the unending tension between individual and social self-interest. Behind all situations, roles, play, internal dialogues are the cultivation of thirteen building blocks.

Mead’s construction of the self was set in the industrial capitalist society of the early 20th century. Since then, cross-cultural psychologist have discovered that roughly 70-80 percent of the world are collectivist. No one to my knowledge has applied Mead’s work to the collectivist self. In part II I attempt to do this. Lastly, over the past hundred years Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela, among other countries, have developed communist selves. After I distinguish the difference between collectivist and communist selves I again apply Mead’s work to the emergence of a communist self. I am aware of no other books or articles that have attempted to do this, so I have attempted my own synthesis.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

"Risk prevention and control" were highlighted as "the eternal theme" of financial policy amid spiraling local government debt and a burst property bubble, according to an official report on the five-yearly Central Financial Work Conference that ran behind closed doors in Beijing from Oct. 30-31.

The conference, chaired by President Xi Jinping, also sent the message that the central government in Beijing under Xi will be taking back control of financial policy that had until recently been left to local governments.

The communique "emphasizes the need to adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the party Central Committee over financial work," state news agency Xinhua reported.

The conference, delayed by a year due to COVID lockdowns, comes after a major government restructuring by Xi, who now heads the powerful Central Financial Commission, regulating the central bank and all of China's financial markets.

The communique also alluded to "contradictions and problems" in the financial sector in recent years, suggesting that Xi is now presiding over what he sees as a clean-up operation, restoring top-down order to an unruly and unpredictable sector of the economy.

The report said better governance and political awareness is needed to ensure that the financial sector is made to serve the "real economy."

"There are still many hidden economic and financial risks, the quality and efficiency of financial services to the real economy are not high, and financial chaos and corruption problems continue to occur," it said. "Financial supervision and governance capabilities are weak."

"The financial system must effectively improve its political position ... and contribute to the construction of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation," the conference communique said, vowing to "severely crack down" on illegal financial activities.

‘Standardized’ sale of stocks and bonds

To that end, the ruling party plans to engage in the overall management of real estate financing, with a view to building more affordable housing amid a "new model" of real-estate development, according to Xinhua.

The issuance of shares and debt on financial markets will be "standardized" while management of foreign exchange markets will be strengthened, with the renminbi exchange rate maintained "at a reasonable and balanced level," the communique said.

"[We must] defuse risks, resolutely punish illegal, criminal and corrupt behaviors, and strictly prevent moral hazards ... and improve the early correction mechanism of financial risks with hard constraints," it said.

The report also indicated that Xi has included financial management in his personal brand of political ideology, calling it "an important innovative achievement of Marxist political economics on financial issues" that will serve as a basis for his "new era."

The theory states that financial operations must be geared to serve government goals, including the Belt and Road outreach, supply chain and infrastructure program, boosting domestic demand and funding new technologies.

"All regions and departments, especially the financial system, should further unify their thoughts and actions with the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech and the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee ... and solidly implement them," the conference report said.

Signals

Chen Chung-hsing, director of the New Economic Policy Research Center at Taiwan's National Dong Hwa University, said the meeting is signaling that all financial authority will now stem from the Central Committee under Xi.

"This is somewhat doubtful, as Xi Jinping doesn't know much about finance," Chen said, adding that some of the conference's goals seem self-contradictory.

"Regarding the problems of financial management in the past, if they are keen to fight corruption, then a lot of banks are going to tighten their lending," he said. "But in practice, they will need to relax lending to help the economy."

Chinese financial commentator Si Ling agreed, saying supervision needs to be looser rather than tighter to stimulate growth.

"The contradiction lies with the fact that Xi Jinping regards finance as a tool with which to maintain political, economic and social stability," Si said. "He is continuing to emphasize that everything is controlled by the party."

But exerting too much control over the financial sector could backfire, he said.

"The more financial supervision they engage in, the more vitality is lost," he said, adding that the emphasis on control would likely scare off foreign and domestic investors.

"Foreign and private companies who may have been thinking about flexing their muscles [again] may now be forced to think again," Si said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

Party Chairman Lin Te-wang and Vice Chairman Chen Chien-hsin were accused on Oct. 3 of accepting funds and other benefits from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They were indicted under the Anti-Infiltration Act and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act. 

Lin was a member of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang (KMT) and a representative of the Taiwanese Business Party in mainland China, according to the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office. In 2016, he was expelled from the KMT and stood as an independent candidate for Tainan City Council. He founded the TPCP the following year and served as its chairman. Currently, the party has more than 2,000 members. 

It is alleged that since 2017, Lin has been in contact with a number of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) officials in order to solicit financial assistance from China for business purposes. He also invited them to Taiwan or led a delegation to China for amusement. According to the prosecutor’s office, Lin and Hu Chunguang, deputy director of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the CCP’s Central Committee, have been in contact for more than a decade. 

According to the CCP, the job of the UFWD in Taiwan entails “implementing the CCP Central Committee's work on Taiwan, adhering to the ‘One-China principle,’ and uniting Taiwan compatriots at home and abroad.”

The prosecutor’s office also discovered that Lin received instructions from Zhang Chaode, director of the TAO in Yunnan, to run as a candidate for the TPCP in the Tainan City Council election. Following further CCP instructions, in 2022 Lin nominated Chen to run for Taipei City councilor. During the campaign, he received NT$30,000 (US$927) and NT$10,000 in funding from the Taiwan Affairs Office; he also hired individuals at a cost of NT$500 per person to initiate over 20 protests during the visit of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

In a 2022 interview to explain his reason for running for office as a TPCP candidate, Chen said: “After years of pushing for Taiwanese independence by the Democratic Progressive Party, the KMT doesn’t dare promote the concept that they are Chinese [people]. You can see that from the elections in recent years – from Ma Ying-jeou to now – the use of [the Chinese characters for] China in the narrative is slowly disappearing.”

The prosecutor noted that the TPCP, the only legally registered political party in Taiwan with a communist ideology, has become a Chinese agent in recent years, threatening and influencing elections with the use of armed unification in an attempt to undermine Taiwan's sovereignty and free, democratic and constitutional order. Lin and Chen have both denied the allegations. 

In an interview with Radio Free Asia, the chief executive officer of the Taiwan Inspiration Association, David Lai, said China’s fastidious approach of using a small party over an elaborate campaign to catch the public off guard while being able to infiltrate every level of the society thoroughly, was evident as seen in the case of the TPCP.

“By disseminating [information] through various small groups, they were able to better target people’s psychology to achieve breakthrough effects. This is the current methodology – fake news and use of a small party. Through different grassroots groups, they connect the dots with money, and then from dots to a complete picture, from the countryside to the urban areas.”

Lai added that in recent years, there have been numerous instances of communist spies and Taiwanese individuals disseminating propaganda on behalf of China. In addition to the fact that the relevant laws are inadequate and the penalties are less severe than in other countries, the lack of adversary consciousness among the Taiwanese is a significant problem. 

He also noted that it is still possible to establish a communist party in Taiwan, despite the fact that the CCP is considered an enemy of Taiwan, since the Constitution guarantees the freedom of association and the government does not impose additional restrictions. 

According to the Ministry of the Interior, a political party’s name cannot be conflated with that of a government agency, and there are no additional restrictions. As long as there are 100 members, a political party can be established in accordance with the procedure, but members must be recommended to compete for public office within four years of the party’s formation or the party will be dissolved. Currently, there are 92 political parties in Taiwan, while as many as 293 have been dissolved or abolished.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Mandarin and Taejun Kang for RFA.

"The Chinese Communist Party will again be indoctrinating and spying on students on American college campuses this academic year in an organized effort known as 'cognitive warfare,’" according to an online seminar run by the Hudson Institute.

"Its objective is to suppress criticism of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his policies, promote Chinese Communist Party propaganda, spy on and intimidate Chinese exchange students, shape American views about the United States, and steal scientific, technological, and military research," the institute said.

Recent pushback over Beijing-funded language and cultural centers – known as Confucius Institutes – embedded on American university campuses has prompted many schools to terminate these agreements, and the number of Confucius Institutes has plummeted from more than 100 to around a dozen, it said.

But experts told the seminar that the Chinese government has switched up the bureaucracy and continued its influence operations in other guises, including via the government-backed Chinese Students and Scholars' Associations, which the State Department has warned engage in the monitoring of international students from China, and in political mobilization on U.S. soil.

"Not all college administrators act to stop Chinese Communist Party interference on their campuses," the Institute warned in a summary of the seminar.

Varied motivations

Chinese infiltration can be motivated by anything from wanting to project a positive image of China and its government to getting hold of technology that has potentially military applications, said Ian Oxnevad, Senior Fellow, Foreign Affairs and Security Studies at the National Association of Scholars.

"Part of it is also access to American universities more broadly, for fundamental research purposes, because that has an impact on China's ability to obtain dual-use technologies," Oxnevad said. "Those are technologies that have uses for military or commercial purposes."

There is also a longer game in play, he said.

"You also have sort of an elite capture issue, ... looking at shaping the views of future policy-makers and key individuals in America in the future by shaping the views of students today," he said, adding that Confucius Institutes were just one phase in an ongoing overseas influence operation by Beijing.

"Since there's been a massive pushback on Confucius Institutes, [many] have basically shut down. Oftentimes, they're being rebranded as different programs, in a non-systematic way [though] it is systematic on the Chinese side," he said, warning: "They erode intellectual freedom."

He said the institutions "have in some cases allowed China to continue to monitor dissidents abroad and continue ... soft power initiatives."

Military ties

Meanwhile, the Hanban, the body under the State Council that was responsible for the centers, has been renamed.

Oxnevad said China is now focusing more on bilateral cooperation agreements with universities that attract defense or security funding, noting a clear correlation between universities engaged in government-funded research and the number of cooperation agreements with Chinese universities.

"What's happening is that many schools in the U.S. are forming bilateral ties with Chinese universities that have military ties to the People's Liberation Army in China," he warned.

"Oftentimes, these are coincidentally American universities that have some sort of defense-related program or department involved. That's what's happening now."

Oxnevad cited the recent case of Alfred University in upstate New York, which recently shut down its Confucius Institute.

"It had received a multimillion dollar contract from the U.S. government to help perfect hypersonic missile technology, and some of the same individuals involved in the engineering ceramics program at Alfred University were also tied to the Confucius Institute," he said.

U.S. campuses that receive Department of Defense or National Security Agency funding or government funding to expand their cybersecurity programs also seem to attract more ties with China, he said.

There are also implications for anyone with ties back in China who does anything – even on U.S. soil – that Beijing doesn't like, according to Cynthia Sun, a researcher for the Falun Dafa Information Center linked to the spiritual movement that has been banned in China as a "cult."

"We saw a lot of physical and digital surveillance by Chinese proxies," Sun said of a recent survey of transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners on U.S. campuses.

"Nationwide, there are at least 45 universities and colleges with students or faculty who practice Falun Gong on campus," she said. 

Falun Gong persecution

Campus Falun Gong clubs typically host events, petition signings, film-screening and exhibitions, to try to raise awareness about 24 years of persecution at the hands of the Chinese state, Sun said.

"Some are second-generation, American citizens who have family, elderly relatives back in China, and then there's also Chinese international students who have to go back to China after their studies," she said.

"Out of this pool of people, 20% said they felt uncomfortable self-identifying as a Falun Gong practitioner because of the reprisals that they faced, and because of all of the fear they have, the indoctrination, and the propaganda surrounding their practice."

She quoted a Chinese international student in California as saying: "Family members in China were called regarding my whereabouts, my phone number, or where I was studying or working."

Several other students reported feeling watched, and their families were harassed due to their activities in the United States, Sun added.

"So they're using that as blackmail to threaten and intimidate these students to try to get them to stop holding these activities, holding these events," she said.

"It's the control of what the [Chinese Communist] Party wants people to think and say, through controlling the activities of Falun Gong practitioners, Hong Kong activists and ... ethnic minorities," Sun told the seminar. "And it's possible for them to also bring that here, to bring the surveillance, the slander, the censorship, to the United States of America."

Sun described Chinese Students and Scholars Associations as "funded by the local Chinese consulate, and they receive direction also, from the Chinese consulate."

"They carry forward this message of continued self-censorship, of continued surveillance," she said.

"It's really hard to fathom how this could be happening in American universities, but through the CSSAs and through the presence of Confucius Institutes, it's very much alive, this continued party thought," she said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jing Wei for RFA Mandarin.

Students led by Wang Hanzheng, who is studying in London and uses the Instagram handle "Qiyue" painted over the colorful layers of graffiti left by previous artists in white paint, before daubing key words linked to ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's political ideology on the walls in red paint, using a style similar to propaganda slogans on buildings back home.

"Prosperity," "Civility," "Harmony," the characters blared out, although indecipherable to many passers-by. "Patriotism," "Integrity," "Friendship," they read, in a reference to Xi's "core principles of socialism."

一些中國留學生日前在英國倫敦紅磚巷（Brick Lane），先清除別人的塗鴉作品，再用紅色噴漆寫下「富強、民主、文明、和諧、自由、平等、公正、法治、愛國、敬業、誠信、友善」等中國社會主義核心價值觀的24個大字。 pic.twitter.com/XhpUldNgUQ

— RFA 自由亞洲粵語 (@RfaCantonese) August 7, 2023

Within hours, people started arriving and adding their own graffiti to the wall, much of it linked to Beijing's human rights record, and referencing recent protests.

In front of the characters for "democracy," someone wrote "No," while the words "404 Not Found" appeared underneath.

"Xi Jinping step down!" said another slogan, while others called for freedom for Tibet and Xinjiang and "Glory to Hong Kong," referencing the banned anthem of the city's 2019 protest movement.

"F**k communism," read another comment, while a sticker on the wall read "No Xi dictatorship." Above characters proclaiming "Equality," someone scrawled "but some are more equal than others," in a reference to George Orwell's dystopian novel Animal Farm.

Under the slogan "Freedom," someone had added "No freedom in China," while another slogan reminded people: "Never forget June 4," in a reference to the 1989 massacre of unarmed civilians by the People's Liberation Army following weeks of pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen Square.

In a post on his Instagram account, Wang claimed that there was no political meaning to his work, which was criticized in the comments section for totally erasing the work of earlier artists.

But he also claimed it was a Marxism-inspired attempt at "decolonizing the false freedoms of the West," later saying he had been the target of cyberbullying and declining to meet up with Radio Free Asia's reporter for a prearranged interview.

"The original intention was to trigger discussions on different environments and different people's attitudes," he said in an Instagram statement about his graffiti. "I love my country very much."

'No political stance'

Wang was widely criticized on social media for painting over the work of graffiti artist Benzi Brofman, which in turn commemorated late graffiti artist Myartis Frank.

He claimed on Instagram that he had obtained Brofman's consent before painting over his work.

Instagram user @elianpace dismissed Wang's claim that the slogans weren't political.

"Why do people who claim to have 'no political stance' use such strong political symbols as their creative material?" they wrote.

Council workers moved in on Monday to paint over Wang's work, but more people turned up to write and paint anti-Chinese Communist Party slogans.

"The struggle against totalitarianism is the struggle between memory and forgetting," wrote one person, quoting late Czech-French author Milan Kundera, listing a number of dates that are still marked by pro-democracy activists in mainland China and Hong Kong, including June 4, 1989 and June 12, 2019, when police first cracked down on unarmed protesters in Hong Kong with tear gas at the start of a mass movement against extradition to mainland China.

Someone else spray-painted a wall with a depiction of two hands holding up a blank sheet of paper, referring to the "white paper" movement of November 2022 in cities across China that saw scores of activists detained, but which was followed by the end of three years of grueling zero-COVID restrictions.

Some of the counter-graffiti was made by a pro-democracy group called China Deviants.

"There are also many people [here] who, like us, uphold the values of freedom and democracy, and hope to maintain them on British soil," one member of the group, who gave only the pseudonym Gonki for fear of reprisals, told RFA.

"At the same time, we hope that freedom and democracy will become a reality in China one day."

'Trampling on someone's epitaph'

Another group member who gave only the nickname Nuomici said Wang's daubing of Communist Party slogans had upset many Chinese people living in the United Kingdom.

"My friend's first reaction when he saw it was one of trauma," she said. "Because there are already so many walls in China with these socialist values painted on them, and so many different voices and artwork have been erased by the censorship system back home."

"I had hoped that coming to a foreign country would mean more space for self-expression, but now this is like an invisible red thread, binding us [to China]," she said.

She said Wang shouldn't have covered over Brofman's commemorative artwork.

"It's a bit like going to a cemetery and trampling on someone's epitaph," she said.

China Deviants said in a statement it would reach out to Brofman in the hope of finding a way to restore his work through crowdfunding.

Eventually, the council workers came back and painted over the second wave of counter-slogans too, according to photos posted by London freelance photographer Kit Y.

"Gone, gone, gone," the account tweeted on Tuesday morning local time, with photos of white walls, with just one slogan commemorating the Tiananmen massacre still visible.

Chinese Communist Party commentator Hu Xijin tweeted: "Chinese students who covered London’s Brick Lane with socialist core values graffiti are facing death threats."

"These students’ original intention was probably to test the true limits on Western 'freedom of speech.' And here are the limits," Hu wrote.

Exiled Chinese artist Badiucao countered on Tuesday: "A group of rich n privileged Chinese nationalist students from elite art school like Royal college of Art went to destroy entire street art scene by local grassroots artists from Brick Lane under the name of Marxism and de-colonization."

"Can it get more hypocritical and brutal？"

X user @jajia said Wang's account on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu suggests he is a "Little Pink" nationalist.

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Amelia Loi for RFA Mandarin.

With over 20 million inhabitants each, Shanghai and Beijing are among the “hypercities” of the Global South, including Delhi, São Paulo, Dhaka, Cairo, and Mexico City, far surpassing the “megacities” of the Global North like London, Paris, or New York.¹ Walking the streets in China’s cities, you will however, quickly notice one marked difference – the absence of large slums or pervasive homelessness that is so common to most of the rest of the world.

Slums were not uncommon in Chinese cities a few decades ago, from the precarious working class districts of 1930s Shanghai to the shanty towns of British-occupied Hong Kong in the 1950s onwards. How did China manage to develop in a way that decreased mass housing precarity?  What are the structural reasons behind it?

This issue of Dongsheng Explains looks into how the Chinese government deals with homelessness, how this issue relates to socialist construction, and how China confronts the challenges posed by rapid economic development, urbanization, and the migration of recent decades.

Why did mass urbanization not create large slums in China?

When reform and opening up began in the late 1970s, 83 percent of China’s population lived in the countryside. By 2021, the proportion of the rural population had fallen to 36 percent. During this period of mass urbanization, over 600 million people migrated from rural areas to cities.

Today, there are 296 million internal “migrant workers” (农民工, nóngmín gōng), comprising over 70 percent of the country’s total workforce.² Migrant workers became the economic engine of China’s rapid growth, which created the world’s largest middle class of 400 million people.

This historic migration came with many challenges, including the emergence of “urban villages” that had poor living conditions and inadequate infrastructure. Although basic amenities – such as running water, electricity, gas, and communications – were provided, sanitation, public services, fire safety, and other such amenities resembled that of rural villages. Due to lower rents and the lack of other affordable housing, urban villages are largely inhabited by migrant workers.

With the acceleration of urbanization in the 2000s, the Chinese government began to promote large-scale transformation of the old areas of the cities, focusing on renovation of historically deteriorated neighborhoods and the removal of dangerous housing. Between 2008 and 2012, 12.6 million households in urban villages were rebuilt nationwide.Migrant workers are workers whose household registration is still in rural areas and who are engaged in non-agricultural industries or leave their hometowns for work in another part of the country for at least six months of the year.³ At the same time, efforts were made to construct public rental or low-rent housing. For instance, in Shanghai today, families of three or more people with a monthly income of less than 4,200 yuan per person can apply for low-rent housing, with the monthly rent being just a few hundred yuan (or five percent of monthly household income). In 2022, the central government announced the construction of 6.5 million units of low-cost rental housing in 40 cities, representing 26 percent of the total new housing supply in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025).⁴

Indeed the explosion of rural-to-urban migration in recent decades is not a phenomenon unique to China. While understanding that there are different definitions of “slums” used by countries and international organizations, they all point to the same tendency:  since the 1970s, slum growth outpaced urbanization rates across the Global South. China’s efforts to upgrade existing precarious housing or build new affordable housing does not, however, explain why China did not develop slums like in so many other countries. Urbanization in China, therefore, must be understood within the context of socialist construction.

What is the “hukou” system and what does it have to do with socialism?

One unique characteristic of China’s urbanization process is that, although policies encouraged migration to cities for industrial and service jobs, rural residents never lost their access to land in the countryside. In the 1950s, the Communist Party of China (CPC) led a nationwide land reform process, abolishing private land ownership and transforming it into collective ownership. During the economic reform period, beginning in 1978, a “Household Responsibility System” (家庭联产承包责任制 jiātíng lián chǎn chéngbāo zérèn zhì) was created, which reallocated rural agricultural land into the hands of individual households. Though agricultural production was deeply impacted, collective land ownership remained and land was never privatized.

Today, China has one of the highest homeownership rates in the world, surpassing 90 percent, and this includes the millions of migrant workers who rent homes in other cities. This means that when encountering economic troubles, such as unemployment, urban migrant workers can return to their hometowns, where they own a home, can engage in agricultural production, and search for work locally. This structural buffer plays a critical role in absorbing the impacts of major economic and social crises. For example, during the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s export-oriented economy, especially of manufactured goods, was severely hit, causing about 30 million migrant workers to lose their jobs. Similarly, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when service and manufacturing jobs were seriously impacted, many migrant workers returned to their homes and land in the countryside.

Beyond land reform, a system was created to manage the mass migration of people from the countryside to the cities, to ensure that the movement of people aligned with the national planning needs of such a populous country. Though China has had some form of migration restriction for over 2,000 years, in the late 1950s, the country established a new “household registration system” (户口 or hùkǒu) to regulate rural-to-urban migration. Every Chinese person has an assigned urban or rural hukou status that grants them access to social welfare benefits (subsidized public housing, education, health care, pension,  and unemployment insurance, etc.) in their hometown, but which are restricted in the cities they move to for work. While reformation of the hukou system is ongoing, the lack of urban hukou status forces many migrant parents to spend long periods away from their families and they must leave their children in their grandparents’ care in their hometowns, referred to as “left-behind children” (留守儿童 liúshǒu értóng). Though the number has been decreasing over the years, there are still an estimated seven million children in this situation. Today, 65.22 percent of China’s population lives in cities, but only 45.4 percent have urban hukou. Although this system deterred the creation of large urban slums, it also reinforced serious inequities of social welfare between urban and rural areas, and between residents within a city based on their hukou status.

How does the Chinese government deal with homelessness?

In the early 2000s, the issues of residential status, rights of migrant workers, and treatment of urban homeless people became a national matter. In 2003, the State Council – the highest executive organ of state power – issued the “Measures for the Rescue and Management of Itinerant and Homeless in Urban Areas.”⁵ The new regulation created urban relief stations providing food rations and temporary shelters, abolished the mandatory detention system of people without hukou status or housing, and placed the responsibility on the local authorities for finding housing for homeless people in their hometowns.

Under these measures, cities like Shanghai have set up relief stations for homeless people. When public security – the local police – and urban management officials encounter homeless people, they must assist them in accessing nearby relief stations. All costs are covered by the city’s fiscal budget. For example, the relief management station in Putuo District (with the fourth lowest per capita GDP of Shanghai’s 16 districts and a resident population of 1.24 million), provided shelter and relief to an average of 24.3 homeless people a month from June 2022 to April 2023, which could include repeated cases.⁶

Relief stations provide homeless people with food and basic accommodations, help those who are seriously ill access healthcare, assist them to return to the locations of their household registration by contacting their relatives or the local government, and arrange free transportation home when needed.

Upon returning home, the local county-level government is responsible to help the homeless people, including contacting relatives for care and finding local employment. For a very small number of people who are elderly, have disabilities, or do not have relatives nor the ability to work, the local township people’s government, or the Party-run street office, will provide national support for them in accordance with the “method of providing for extremely impoverished persons”, which is stipulated in the 2014 “Interim Measures for Social Assistance”. The content of the support includes providing basic living conditions, giving care to impoverished individuals who cannot take care of themselves, providing treatment for diseases, and handling funeral affairs, etc.

This series of relief management measures ensure that administrative law enforcement personnel in the city do not simply expel homeless people from the city, but must guarantee that they receive proper assistance, in terms of housing, work, and support systems.

What are the current challenges of urbanization, migration, and inequality?

While creating relief centers is an important advancement, it is clear that shelters are not a structural solution and they alone cannot meet the needs of a metropolis like Shanghai of 25 million people, let alone the country’s 921 million urban residents. The government has been implementing many structural reforms to address inequality, and to make the cities and the countryside more liveable.

In his report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC, President Xi Jinping said: “We have identified the principal contradiction facing Chinese society as that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life, and we have made it clear that closing this gap should be the focus of all our initiatives.”⁷ The unbalanced and inadequate development points to the gap between the countryside and cities, between underdeveloped and industrialized regions, and between the rich and poor.

On a broader scale, the anti-poverty campaigns – highlighted by the eradication of extreme poverty in 2020 – and the rural revitalization strategy have helped alleviate the pressure of migrant workers moving to the cities. The government has invested substantial funds and resources, using diversified ways to alleviate poverty beyond income-transfer schemes, including developing rural industry, education, health care, and infrastructure.⁸ These measures fundamentally improved the living and employment environment in rural areas and created more opportunities so that people have the option to stay and work in the countryside. For example, every year, more migrants are returning from cities back to their hometowns, which increased from 2.4 million (2015) to 8.5 million people (2019).

Over the last decade, China has implemented reforms to balance the easing of hukou residency requirements and to improve the social welfare of migrant workers, while ensuring that urbanization and population distribution responds to the country’s needs. Since 2010, major cities have gradually relaxed the household registration restrictions for school admission, allowing children of migrant workers to attend public schools like children with local hukou. Furthermore, according to the 2019 Urbanization Plan, cities with populations below three million people are required to remove all hukou restrictions, while bigger cities (under five million) can begin to relax restrictions. The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the country’s economic strategy until 2035 focus on redistributing income through tax reform, reducing the gap between the rich and poor, and removing the barriers that prevent millions of migrant workers from enjoying the full benefits of urban life. In 2021, the government invested US$5.3 billion to relax the hukou residency rules, and to also boost urban migrants’ spending power as part of the country’s “dual circulation” policy.⁹

These efforts to tackle the “three mountains” of the high cost of housing, education, and health care faced by all Chinese people, including migrants, is at the center of the government’s vision and policy reforms towards “common prosperity” for all its citizens and the building of a modern socialist society.

ENDNOTES

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

Reporters Without Borders described China as "the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and one of the biggest exporters of propaganda content." The People's Republic of China fell to 179th place on the index, just one place above bottom-of-the-class North Korea.

“Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report ‘sensitive’ information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured,” said the group, which uses its French acronym RSF.

The report noted that the Asia-Pacific “continues to have some of the world’s worst regimes for journalists.” But press conditions around the world are deteriorating, including in the United States, which dropped three places to 45th amid legal challenges and widespread threats of violence.

"The last three places are occupied [by] Vietnam (178th), which has almost completed its hunt of independent reporters and commentators; China (down 4 at 179th) ... and, to no great surprise, North Korea (180th)," RSF said.

In Vietnam – like China, a one-party state that adapted its media governance model from the Soviet Union – “traditional media are closely controlled by the single party” and “independent reporters and bloggers are often jailed,” RSF said.

“The many topics subject to censorship include political dissidents, cases of corruption involving senior officials, the single party’s legitimacy, relations with China and, of course, human rights issues,” the report said, calling Vietnam the world’s third largest jailer of journalists, with 40 now behind bars.

Strongmen in Cambodia, Myanmar

North Korea, a near perennial bottom dweller in the index, is “a totalitarian regime that bases its power on surveillance, repression, censorship and propaganda,” said RSF.

“North Koreans can still be sent to a concentration camp for looking at an online media outlet based outside the country,” it said.

RSF said the strongmen rulers of Cambodia, which slid five places to 147th, and Myanmar, which edged up three slots to 173rd, played a key role in their countries’ low rankings with attacks on their critics.

“The democratic transition that started at the end of the 1980s allowed the emergence of a press that flourished until the long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a ruthless war against independent journalism before the 2018 elections,” the report said of Cambodia.

“Radio stations and newspapers were silenced, newsrooms purged, journalists prosecuted – leaving the independent media sector devastated,” said RSF, adding that Hun Sen has used similar tactics ahead of elections this year.

The Myanmar military junta formed by Senior Gen. Ming Aung Hlaing after coup d’état on Feb. 1, 2021, “obliterated the fragile progress towards greater press freedom that had been seen since the previous military junta disbanded in 2011,” the watchdog group said.

The junta “tolerates no alternative to its narrative” and has revived prior censorship policies toward local media, while “Min Aung Hlaing openly promotes a policy of terror towards journalists who do not toe the junta’s line,” said RSF.

Quitting journalism in China

The index was released as journalists in China told Radio Free Asia that many in the business are now changing careers, at least in part because of all-encompassing controls on media reporting by the propaganda arm of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

"My former classmates in journalism school and all of my colleagues from when I was a reporter [have changed jobs]," Fudan University journalism school graduate Zhang Jia said.

"One reason is that you don't make enough, as the media has gone into decline," Zhang said. "Another is that there is no longer any freedom of the press.

"Journalists tend to go and work in corporate public relations, or marketing departments, or live streaming," Zhang said.

"I was a journalist in the 1980s," Zhao said. "When I first started working in news, I felt that I was still allowed to say stuff, that I was still in the game” despite existing censorship at the time.

Zhao said the media environment went rapidly downhill in the political crackdown that followed the 1989 Tiananmen massacre that ended weeks of student-led mass protests in and around Tiananmen Square and in other Chinese cities.

"Two general secretaries later, it's all gone," he said in a reference to former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, who practiced a less comprehensive form of censorship than the current leadership under Xi Jinping.

Hong Kong press freedom ‘extinguished’

Xi, in power since 2012, “has restored a media culture worthy of the Maoist era, in which freely accessing information has become a crime and to provide information an even greater crime,” the RSF report said.

“China’s state and privately owned media are under the Communist Party’s ever-tighter control, while the administration creates more and more obstacles for foreign reporters,” it added.

State media made no visible mention of World Press Freedom Day, which comes as Wuhan citizen journalist Fang Bin was released from a three-year jail term for reporting on the emerging COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Fellow citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, also sentenced for reporting on pandemic-struck Wuhan, is still serving a four-year jail term in Shanghai.

The campaign group Hong Kong Media Overseas called on the international community to pay attention to the ongoing criminalization of independent journalism in the once-freewheeling city under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

"Once home to one of the freest media centers in Asia, Hong Kong has joined the dismal roll call of places where press freedom has largely been extinguished," the group said in a statement.

It said 28 journalists have been arrested and charged with offenses, some carrying heavy penalties, since the crackdown began in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

Hong Kong journalists are frequently subjected to "physical intimidation ... by unidentified persons, which contributes to the atmosphere of fear surrounding the practice of journalism," said Hong Kong Media Overseas.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Additional editing by Paul Eckert and Jim Snyder.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin and Chingman for RFA Cantonese.

Fang, who disappeared for three years after filming from hospitals and funeral homes early in the COVID-19 pandemic from the city of Wuhan, was sentenced in secret to three years in prison, Radio Free Asia reported last week.

Now, documents released online and verified by people familiar with the case have revealed the source of that decision – the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission in Beijing, the ruling party's law enforcement arm.

According to one secret document titled "Special Report of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China," the Wuhan court that tried and sentenced Fang in secret was following orders from the very top.

It also reveals that Fang was found guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," for "publishing false information through giving interviews to foreign media and shooting videos" after top officials rejected "subversion" charges to avoid hitting international headlines. 

Both charges are frequently used to target peaceful critics of the regime.

‘Man-made disaster’

Fang, who is scheduled for release on April 30, was among a number of high-profile bloggers who tried to report on the emerging and little-understood viral outbreak from Wuhan. His reports described the pandemic as a "man-made" disaster, calling on people to resist government "tyranny."

He went incommunicado after a Feb. 1, 2020, livestream from Wuhan healthcare facilities, and made a couple more videos in the days that followed about his interrogation by police, before falling silent for three years, with no news of his fate.

The secret document is dated April 7, 2022, and signed by commission member Chen Yixin, and includes the opinion that Fang's actions constituted "incitement to subvert state power."

It also orders local authorities to ensure that his prosecution wasn't "used by hostile forces" – a reference to international media organizations and foreign governments – and rejects the charge of "incitement to subvert state power" in a bid to "de-politicize" Fang's case. It also orders a jail term of three years, which is what Fang received.

A person in Wuhan familiar with the case confirmed that the documents were genuine, and said the city's judiciary had leaked them to show that Fang's sentencing – and the secrecy with which his case was handled – was out of their hands.

"They wanted it to be known that they didn't deliberately withhold the verdict," the person said, referring to the fact that Fang's family weren't informed of the charges against him.

"The behind-the-scenes tussling over this is very complicated," the person said, adding that Fang was placed under residential surveillance by police on Feb. 9, 2020, and not sentenced until the following year.

32 YouTube videos

A second document – an Aug. 26, 2022, judgment issued by the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court rejecting Fang's appeal of the original sentence from a district-level court – was released online by the Weiquanwang rights website. 

It shows that the prosecution's case against Fang was based on 32 YouTube videos posted from Feb. 4-8, 2020, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

"The court finds that the defendant, Fang Bin, fabricated false information, disseminated it on the internet, causing disturbances and serious confusion in public order," the judgment reads. "[He] is sentenced to three years in prison for the crime of picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

The person familiar with the case said it was no accident that the documents appeared online shortly before Fang is due to be released.

Rights activist Lin Shengliang, who was the first to receive the leaked documents and confirmed their authenticity to Radio Free Asia, said there is a group of people within the judicial system in Wuhan who are unhappy with the system itself.

"This was the action of a group of insiders, people inside the system who are unhappy with it," Lin said. "They are leaking this to the public as a way of passing the buck." 

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin.

Chew was appearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in long-awaited testimony that was first announced Jan. 30, and which arrived after months of bipartisan and White House support for legislation to ban TikTok on national security grounds.

Testifying to the committee, Chew, who lives in Singapore, described TikTok as “a private company” that operates without oversight from its China-based parent, which he argued should not be characterized as a Chinese company but rather as “a company that is now global.”

“ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government,” he said in his opening remarks. “It’s a private company: 60% of the company is owned by global institutional investors, 20% is owned by the founder and 20% owned by employees around the world.”

The committee members accused the TikTok CEO of being disingenuous in trying to draw a distinction between his company and its parent, and queried how ByteDance could skirt strict Chinese legal requirements to provide requested data to Chinese authorities. 

Project Texas

Chew, in turn, repeatedly referred back to TikTok’s “Project Texas,” an ongoing effort to move data on its 150 million U.S.-based users to servers on American soil, which he said could be audited and put to rest concerns that ByteDance or Beijing can access the data.

“All protected U.S. data will be under the protection of U.S. law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team,” Chew said. “This eliminates the concern that some of you have shared with me that TikTok user data can be subject to Chinese law. This goes further, by the way, than what any other company in our industry has done.”

But lawmakers from both parties said they did not trust such assurances, and pointed out TikTok had in the past been caught lying about collecting keystroke data and “spying” on journalists.

They also noted that Chew had previously served as chief financial officer of ByteDance between March and November 2021 and was appointed as the chief executive officer of TikTok in April 2021, briefly serving in the two roles across the companies simultaneously.

During his five-hour testimony, the CEO repeatedly fended off claims TikTok was not honest about its links back to mainland China.

Rep. Janice Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, noted a BuzzFeed article from September 2021 quoting an anonymous former U.S.-based TikTok employee saying that “everything is seen in China.” Chew said “he disagreed with the statement,” and argued that Project Texas, when implemented, would in any case prevent that happening.

But few lawmakers were convinced.

Rep. Bill Johnson, a Republican from Ohio, said his background in information technology led him to believe TikTok would always be able to skirt auditing of U.S.-based servers, and that ByteDance would be able to interface with TikTok’s servers without leaving a trace.

“TikTok’s source code is riddled with backdoors and CCP censorship devices. Here's the truth: In a million lines of code, the smallest shift from a zero to a one … will unlock explicit CCP censorship,” he said.

Rep. Jay Obernolte, a Republican from California, said he, too, did not believe it was “technically possible to accomplish what Tiktok says it will accomplish through Project Texas” due to the ease at which engineers, he argued, could insert hard-to-detect “backdoors.”

He also raised a leaked dossier from TikTok obtained by technology news website Gizmodo last year that tells company officials in public hearings to, among other things, “downplay the parent company ByteDance, downplay the China association, [and] downplay AI.”

Bipartisan support

Chew found few sympathizers on the committee during his testimony, with committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, setting the tone for proceedings with her bluntness.

“TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation. Your platform should be banned,” McMorris Rodgers said, arguing that “ByteDance is beholden to the CCP, and ByteDance and TikTok are one in the same.”

She described TikTok’s popularity – it’s the fifth-most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store and the third-most popular in Google’s Play App Store – as worse than “allowing the Soviet Union the power to produce Saturday morning cartoons during the Cold War.”

When lawmakers weren’t focussed on the national security implications of Beijing surveilling 150 million Americans, they were excoriating Chew for content they said harmed teenagers by promoting car theft, suicide and body-image problems and would be banned in China.

“The Chinese Communist Party is engaged in psychological warfare through Tik Tok,” said Rep. Buddy Carter, a Republican from Georgia, before listing viral “challenges” on the app, including the milk-crate challenge, the blackout challenge, the “NyQuil chicken” challenge, the Benadryl challenge and the “Dragon's Breath liquid nitrogen trend.”

Chew said he was dismayed by reports of teenagers dying due to TikTok trends, but said content moderation was always improving and “the majority of people on the platform get a good experience.”

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said of the deaths.

China links

Yet the majority of the hearing was spent cross-examining Chew’s claims that TikTok is independent of ByteDance, and that ByteDance is able to operate independently in China as a private company.

“I'm one that doesn't believe that there is really a private sector in China,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California, pointing to article 7 and 10 of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which compel secretive cooperation with Chinese intelligence agencies.

“So I think that there is a real problem relative to our national security about the protection of user data,” Shoo said. She added it was therefore hard to believe any pledges Chew made about siloing U.S. data: “The Chinese government is not going to give that up.”

Many members also noted a Wall Street Journal article published hours before the hearing that quoted Chinese Commerce Ministry spokeswoman Shu Jueting saying Beijing would oppose a proposal from the Biden administration for TikTok to be sold to U.S. owners.  

That demonstrated, lawmakers argued, that the Chinese government itself believed it has an element of control over TikTok, even if Chew did not acknowledge that. “I do disagree with that characterization,” Chew responded, declining to comment further on the claim.

“I cannot speak on behalf of a Chinese government official,” he said.

But Chew did acknowledge he was in recent contact with ByteDance, after being asked by Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, if he had talked with TikTok’s parent company about how to testify.

“Congressman, this is a very high profile hearing. My phone is full of well-wishers,” Chew replied, adding that “a lot of people around the world were sending me wishes and unsolicited advice.”

Burgess then asked Chew if “attorneys representing ByteDance” were also representing TikTok. “Yes, I believe so,” he replied.

Censorship accusations

During the hearing, PEN America, a group that advocates for freedom of speech, also released a statement with a dozen other rights groups calling on Congress not to ban TikTok, which it said “would have serious consequences for free expression in the digital sphere.”

A group of TikTok users also held a press conference on Wednesday evening outside the Capitol calling for Congress to end its campaign to ban TikTok, led by Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York, who said TikTok was no worse than American-owned social media.

“Why the hysteria and the panic and the targeting of TikTok?” Bowman said at the event. “It poses about the same threat that companies like Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Twitter pose.”

But it was the alleged control of China’s government over TikTok that occupied the minds of most lawmakers on the energy and commerce committee on Thursday, with nearly all appearing convinced that ultimate control over TikTok’s U.S. operations lies in Beijing.

Chew was firm, though, when asked directly if TikTok was censoring, on Beijing’s behalf, any content about issues like China’s genocide of the Uyghur ethnic minority or the 1989 Tiannanmen Square massacre. 

“We do not remove that kind of content,” he said. “That kind of content is available on our platform. You can go and search it.”

In the end, few of the committee members were swayed. “Quite frankly,” said Rep. Linda Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, “your testimony has raised more questions for me than answers.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.

The Tibetan Buddhist Institute in Sichuan province has made abiding by the CCP’s ideology and opposing those who advocate splitting the Tibet Autonomous Region from the rest of China conditions for being admitted to the school, which educates Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. 

“Though the institute claims that its aim is to provide an opportunity to study Tibetan Buddhism, in reality, the Chinese government is using such institutions as a tool to Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism,” said Pema Gyal, a researcher at London–based Tibet Watch, a rights group.  

“So, from a human rights perspective, this is a violation of basic rights to education and determination.” 

 China maintains a tight grip on Tibet, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity as Buddhists. Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at wiping out their national and cultural identity.

“These days the Chinese Communist government has started implementing these kinds of despotic guidelines in not just high schools, but also for those in middle and elementary schools,” Gyal said. “It’s obvious their intention is to forcibly Sinicize Tibetans.”

Additionally, imposing Tibetan monks and nuns to follow and respect communist ideology is against the customs of Buddhism and the law of causality that Buddhists follow, said Tibetan rights analyst Sangey Kyap, who lives in Spain. 

“And whatsoever it is, these requirements basically are intended to force Tibetans to disrespect the Dalai Lama,” he said, referring to the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists who resides in Dharamsala, India, with members of the Tibet government-in-exile.

The Sichuan Tibetan Buddhist Institute was founded in 1984, though it was initially situated in the Tibetan town of Kardze and later moved to Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital, in 2017. It offers religious instruction as well as instruction in Chinese socialist tradition and China’s history.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sangyal Kunchok for RFA Tibetan.

Party leader Xi Jinping told a high-level political meeting in Beijing on Tuesday that the upcoming session of China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, would see the party strengthen "unified leadership" over scientific and technological institutions, as well as over the country's financial institutions and over "government responsibility." The announcement suggests further internal crackdowns to come within the government and party.

A draft institutional reform plan is currently under discussion that will "be more relevant, more intensive, have a broader reach and touch on deeper interests" than previous structures, state broadcaster CCTV quoted Xi as telling the meeting.

While officials have yet to make public the exact details of the restructuring, Japan-based China commentator Hong Xiangnan said the plans will likely include bringing the ministry for public security, which governs the police system, and the ministry for state security, which governs the state security apparatus and overseas intelligence operations, under the aegis of the party.

"The only way this will go is the strengthening of the party at the expense of the state," Hong said. "It will turn government departments into administrative offices, tasked with running errands and doing the gruntwork."

"They will carry out the basic administrative work, but the core of policy-making will be taken away, and go to strengthen the leadership of the party," he said. "We're not talking about a merger of party and state here."

He said the reforms will likely include the setting up of a powerful internal affairs committee under the central leadership of the Communist Party in Beijing.

Unlike other committees and commissions, it's unlikely that local governments will be called upon to set up their own local branches of the internal affairs committee, which will be run top-down from Beijing, Hong said.

"There won't be any need to have branches at different levels of government," he said.

If the reforms do implement such a plan, the internal affairs committee could look fairly similar to the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs under the former Soviet Union, which was responsible for ensuring internal revolutionary order and the security of the state, as well as the internal safeguarding of state property, the guarding of national borders, and the registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorces, according to a July 11, 1934 report in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia.

Unprecedented official control

Such a plan, if implemented, comes at a time of unprecedented official control over people's personal and political lives, with the transfer of law-enforcement powers to local neighborhood committees and the setting up of local militias to boost "stability maintenance," a system of law enforcement aimed at forestalling dissent and nipping protest in the bud.

Hong said it was significant that Xi was only now mentioning these plans, on the eve of the National People's Congress in Beijing, and that they hadn't gotten an airing at the 20th party congress in October.

"Then suddenly they hold a second plenary session of the Central Committee and announce institutional reforms, just before the parliamentary sessions," he said. 

"It shows that it hasn't been possible to implement whatever was decided at the first plenary session [in the wake of the party congress], or at least that's likely," Hong said.

The pro-China Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao newspaper reported "rumors that there may be relevant reforms in the financial system and the political and legal system."

"In addition, the ministries of human resources and social security may integrate with the ministry of civil affairs," it said.

The paper also quoted analysts as saying that the reform "will further highlight the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and weaken the power of the government."

‘Taking China back to the 1950s’

The Chinese state is already subordinate to the political power of the ruling party, but Xi Jinping has sought to amplify that principle still further in his own brand of political ideology, a move analysts warn is already creating a personality cult around China's leader, who is now serving a third term with no formal requirement to step down.

Prior to Xi's rise to supreme power, government departments typically served as a useful drag on leaders' personal projects, ensuring at least some measure of internal checks and balances on the power of individuals within the party-state.

Veteran journalist Ma Ju said the theme of the reforms appeared to herald more aggressive party control over every aspect of people's lives, a concept that is in line with reforms that have already taken place under Xi.

Since taking power in 2012, Xi has already boosted his own personal power at the expense of other high-ranking leaders, particularly his premier, from whom he has taken back responsibility for running the economy in recent years.

As early as January 2014, Xi had taken over the task of steering the "working group" that will implement reforms from premier Li Keqiang.

"Now we're seeing that they need to sharpen their knives, for use both externally and internally," Ma said. "They'll be taking China back to the 1950s by setting up the Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or rather putting China back on a wartime footing."

"They will control everything, plan everything and order everything," Ma said. "It's more important than ever for them to have control of their own fundamentals."

Ma said the talk of efficiency is likely linked to the time lag between a top-level political decision being taken in Beijing, and its implementation on the ground.

"The ministry of public security has always been obedient to the party, but now it's going to need to cooperate with decisions passed just a couple of days earlier, as part of a military-led system engaged in the mighty struggle," he said, in a possible reference to Xi's threat to invade democratic Taiwan.

Merging party and state

The Lianhe Zaobao quoted Lu Xi, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, as saying that the restructuring will further blur the distinction between party and state.

"It is a reform that goes in the opposite direction from the separation of party and state," the paper quoted Lu as saying. "The status of the State Council and the importance of the prime minister in the country's operation and decision-making process will be further weakened." 

This year's restructuring is being widely seen as the second wave of reforms launched by Xi at the National People Congress in March 2018, according to the Lianhe Zaobao.

The congress is likely to see Xi Jinping re-elected as President, or head of state, Li Qiang succeed Li Keqiang as premier of the State Council, and Zhao Leji succeed Li Zhanshu as Chairman of the National People's Congress, the paper said.

Wang Huning will replace Wang Yang as chairman of the national committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, while Ding Xuexiang will replace Han Zheng as executive vice premier. 

It is widely believed that Han Zheng will succeed Wang Qishan as the next vice president, the paper said.

The English-language Global Times newspaper said "timely reforms can push for more scientific party leadership of party and state institutions," citing Zhang Shuhua, director of the institute of political sciences at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"China is gearing up for the new development era [under Xi's leadership] while facing complicated domestic and international situations," it said.

The 14th National People's Congress will open in Beijing on March 5.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin.

On Wednesday, Deputy Head of the Central Committee for Internal Affairs Nguyen Thai Hoc told the Tuoi Tre Newspaper the party had met its goals in 2022 and would tackle more long-standing cases in 2023.

Last year, the party’s Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat disciplined 47 officials under the supervision of the Politburo and Management Secretariat, 15 more than the previous year.

The Central Committee also dismissed two deputy prime ministers, three ministers and many other senior officials in connection with COVD-19 scandals such as Viet A and the ‘rescue flights’ affair.

Hoc did not talk about the Central Committee’s decision to ask President Nguyen Xuan Phuc to resign on Jan. 17 “after realizing his responsibility before the party and the people,” for the bribery scandals that took place during his time in office.

The ‘rescue flights’ case involved officials taking bribes for allowing airlines to jack up the price of tickets in order to repatriate nationals stranded abroad during the COVID pandemic

The Viet A scandal involved the company’s chief executive officer bribing officials the equivalent of U.S.$34 million to win contracts to sell substandard kits to hospitals at a 45% markup, earning his company U.S.$172 million in profits.

Some Vietnam watchers interviewed by RFA said that the Party was not transparent in forcing Phuc’s hasty resignation without disclosing the specifics of his violations. 

In a recent commentary for RFA, Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington called the move a “power play” saying the days of collective leadership in Vietnam are over.

He said, with Nguyen Phu Trong likely to resign this year, the party General Secretary wanted Phuc to step down to pave the way for his favored candidate National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue to take his job.

Another reason for Phuc’s resignation could be the social media rumors that his family and friends were involved in the Viet A scandal. RFA has not been able to independently verify these claims.

Talking to the Tuoi Tre newspaper, Nguyen Thai Hoc said that the new thrust of the “blazing furnace” crackdown on corrupt cadres is to encourage them to quit if they are disciplined and see their reputation decline.

Hoc said this year there needs to be a more coordinated and determined effort from central to the local level to find corrupt officials and deal with them promptly, no matter how small the violations.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Oh dear! A man failing to dismiss a political group on the basis of their description or political leaning! Where will it all end?

I am a communist in the traditional sense that I aligned myself to the Communist Party of Ireland for many, many years only to discover that either most of them – or me – are not the type of ‘communists’ that should keep each other company. Eventually, I was expelled for – to keep a long story very short – disobedience!

Now, how many of you readers are still with me? How many of you have now instantly made one decision or another based on what you have read so far or are you prepared to read on?

First, I will contend that in the ‘west’, liberals, progressives, left, socialists, communists, etc are so far away from achieving any political power that many of the differences between them, the historical animosities, the petty squabbles, the inflated egos, the personal disputes, are completely and utterly ridiculous. And, that many people see us that way and is why so many people will not touch us.

By all means indulge ourselves in establishing or maintaining historical or current differences. But, as is frequently the case, our fractious nonsense is only a thin veil that covers our organisational and political failures within our ever-decreasing circle. It does nothing to create any possibility for progress whatsoever. Mostly, it provides a cheap, ignorant platform to help us escape having to answer so many awkward or pertinent questions. And it certainly contributes nothing to resolving deeper fundamental issues that will inevitably arise at a later level of organisational development.

Frankly, an objective look at many organisations, including communist parties, must conclude we that have long since descended into pathetic cultish outfits. There are plenty of individuals and organisations in most ‘western’ countries that could form the basis of a united Left challenge to the prevailing and very successful ruling bodies. Many, especially in the Americas, have been successful or have made considerable progress despite overwhelming odds.

Now, look at the comfortable ‘western’ record. Take Europe. There is barely a handful of relatively successful organisations and even fewer successful communist parties. The left, the progressive forces have been chewed up and spat out for the most part, though many ‘survive’ in insular and constant states of delusion.

Discussion of revolution and communism in the English-speaking world is just fantasy role playing unless it begins and ends with the cold hard reality that the left has been completely neutralized and marginalized here and the numbers are nowhere close to what they need to be. Moving revolutionary leftism out of the farthest margins and closer to the mainstream should be your first and foremost objective before you talk about anything else, because otherwise you’re just LARPing. You’re arguing about a political movement that has no actual movement.

You can do this by outreach and activism. You can also do this by finding ways to make socialism and communism look so fucking cool that people start knocking each other over to be a part of it. Finding clever ways to make it shiny and attractive in a very indoctrinated society.
— Caitlin Johnstone, Australian journalist

Where to start? At least, acknowledge that the capitalistic and imperialistic forces, organisations and political parties have excelled themselves compared to the Left despite their differences. Acknowledge that they have utilised every means available to them — especially the media — in spectacular fashion particularly in relation to their struggle with the Left. The enormous imbalance in our access to the broad media does not absolve us of the requirement to at least try to counter or circumvent that imbalance.

Nothing does more to fracture the Left than the Left itself. The establishment, along with the media (and frequently with the media and their armies) plant the seeds of division and the Left grows those seeds to maturity with unrelenting eagerness and astonishing success.

I am sorry that this little peep into the Left is largely concentrated on Europe. Despite decades of engagement in solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela (chiefly), my practical political experience is in Europe.

I have watched (and marched with) people being led to the top of the hill so many times in my lifetime on so many issues only to find that everyone had to find their own way home with nothing more than either the satisfaction that they had done ‘something’ about something or the feeling that they had been led astray – completely astray by leaders who had no sense of direction.

For now, in the ‘west’, we have lost the battle with the capitalists and our prospects of changing that trajectory are slim. However, to improve those odds, to prepare for the coming confrontations we have to be better organised than in the past. That is self-evident:

Stop living in the past

Stop accepting mediocre leadership

Stop listening to ‘leaders’ whose only response to any issue is to ‘organise’ a picket or a march

Stop relying on so-called liberals whose only purpose in life is to let you down when you need them the most

Stop believing that governments who do not respond to any democratic demands will be intimidated into accepting the demands of some pathetic picket outside (always outside) some government department or other

Stop everything and reassess and learn from our past failures

Stop responding to each and every provocation thrown at us by our governments, or blocs or employers – they are laughing out loud at us. It is so hilarious for them that they feed us on a constant drip diet of provocation and watch as hundreds of separate organisations respond in hundreds of separate ways – none of which threatens them in the slightest

Stop and try to work out how and why we have lost the argument when our message could be and should be so attractive – how can this be?

Stop believing that when a government retreats on some particular issue that that has been a victory for the opposition. At best, it may be a tactical retreat. If only the Left would engage in a tactical retreat from failed tactics, we might make some progress on some front

Stop accepting any financing from your government or local authority to ‘assist’ in running some social organisation or other, some quasi-educational project, some ‘human-rights’ outfit, there are literally hundreds of examples. The state funding organisations that often engage in campaigns against the government! Do you think that the governments are stupid?

Stop accepting leadership from rogues and charlatans – if you take the time to look, they will expose themselves, and usually the only cover they have is a compliant membership

Stop evading our responsibility for ensuring the effectiveness of our organisation

Stop embracing all sorts of side-issues – race, religion, gender, etc and stick to the only thing that can resolve these issues – class unity and class victory

Stop strangling discussion: at the same time stop analysing issues to death at the expense of any form of organised response

Stop showing how small we are, how little support we have. The governments, the capitalists and unfortunately the people already know this, mostly because in case they missed it, we insist on reminding them at every opportunity!

Stop thinking that every defeat is somehow a victory – skip the self-delusion and start to learn the real difference between the two concepts

Stop and accept that especially in the English-speaking world and in Europe generally we lost and are continuing to lose more every day and try to figure out why that is the case and try to figure out what to do about it

Stop and consider why there are so many separate groups with separate approaches on issues that most other organisations would hold some degree of sympathy with. There is no question that many of the leaders of these, let’s call them specialised or sectional groups, have been driven out of other groups or had failed to make any progress or even see any prospect for progress on some issue within some larger group. There is a lot of talent out there, a great number of people with specialist knowledge yet all, including the larger groups, are running round like headless chickens and failing to recognise the basic principle that unity, or even co-operation, is strength

Stop and consider the issue of unity being strength (for the most part): If unity is strength, then disunity is weakness. Weakness inevitably leads to failure. Who is responsible for the disunity of forces on the Left?

Stop and consider how we are rated, not necessarily in terms of success or failure, as these concepts are subject to wild variations according to our environment, but in terms of how we are perceived: how does our government rate us in terms of being a threat, how do other organisations rate us (for all manner of reasons), how do the people we appeal to rate us?

“Street activism reinforces the negative public perception”

“Street activism is more about cops, “symbolic” arrests, and social media”

“Street activism gives us the illusion of being a threat”
— Mickey Z

Stop behaving as if we just represent ourselves. By our own declarations we take on to represent the working class. Yet, carrying that responsibility we expose ourselves variously as disorganised, violent (sometimes), incompetent, tiny, fractious, vulgar, arrogant or cult-like outfits presenting ourselves as glorious defeated heroes and/or marked with an obvious outcast mentality. If you don’t recognise yourself then ask anyone in the street and they will set you straight. Even if you are not one of the above, even if you are one of the few stalwarts, you will be lumped in with the above either because people are not able to distinguish one from the other, or you will be deliberately so labelled by the media, etc

Stop and look to see if there is one thing we do well: any one thing that we do well that makes us indispensable in the wider or narrower scheme of the political reality you inhabit

Just Stop. Consider for one moment what would be the consequence if your particular organisation ceased to exist. Would such a disappearance even be noted within the great scheme of things? Be honest with ourselves. The fact is that most left political organisations would not be missed. That does not mean that they should go away. Indeed, they are needed more than ever. However, it does mean that most of them do have to completely reassess their situation. Instead of wasting time doing the same futile things time after time, take a look at ourselves and develop some self-respect for our image.

Considering that the capitalists have outgunned the Left — in every sense of the word — how can it be possible that we continue to use every method that we know does not work. What is the matter with us?

The Left has no credibility, for the most part and in most instances. It is not only the governments and the capitalists that ignore us but also the very people we try to appeal to. They deserted us in droves and continue to do so.

“But that’s the magic of ‘activism,’ isn’t it? We rebels loyally follow the time-worn script and then pat ourselves on the back for being so badass that the ‘pigs’ have no choice but to come after us.”

“Imagine if those who are passionate about living in a more sane, equitable, and compassionate society, took steps that actually contributed to that noble goal.”

“It’s never too late to try something new…”

— Mickey Z

What is to be done? There is no alternative to good organisation — it is the key to everything. Solid political and organisational structures will transform any group no matter what it is. Rejecting all the previous methods that did not work — and will not work — is the first step to being forced to consider alternative approaches. That can only happen when the organisation itself is nourished with clear plans and strategies. When we skip that step, we are doomed and so is anything we touch. Building the organisation and promoting policies are distinct activities which, although related, require separate attentions and expertise.

Look at the real world, the world of capitalist successes and outright victories in pursuing and achieving their goals for themselves. Capitalism itself is a disaster but the people who oversee that disaster are first-class organisers and strategists. They have not secured and cemented their grip on most of the world on a wing and a prayer.

We cannot lead others until you know where we are going ourselves. We have to recognise that too many people have been led up blind alleys and are no longer willing to be fooled again. We have to take responsibility for having been the cause of that disastrous outcome and take steps to make sure there is no continuation or re-occurrence of that disaster. Think quality, not quantity. Just like the 1% does. Think organisation. Just like the 1% does. Think strategy. Just like the 1% does. Or, do we consider ourselves (from a broad organisation and strategic perspective) to be better at the job than they are?

“Using no way as way. Having no limitation as your only limitation.”
— Bruce Lee

Leaving the futility behind will be no loss but seriously reassessing our internal situation just might sow a seed of our choice that we could learn to nourish and develop. Is that proposition so hard to understand? After we have achieved some organisational and leadership capacities, we might just be able to look at the next step: how to cooperate with others and then achieve unity. We have nothing to lose but our own self-imposed chains!

It is likely that I may be wrong on some of the points I have raised. It is just as likely that I have missed many other important points. In any event, can you correct me or enlighten me without attacking me? At least, try.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Declan McKenna.

Some commentators expressed surprise and regret over the Dec. 30 decision, which effectively ended Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam’s roles as deputy prime ministers. Minh was also excluded from the Politburo, the Party’s most powerful body.

Germany-based lawyer Nguyen Van Dai told RFA: “People consider these two men to be the last two decent people in the current Vietnamese Communist regime.” He said he didn’t see their removal as a fight against corruption but rather “a struggle for power.”

Vu Duc Dam served for seven years as secretary and assistant to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet before going on to work as deputy director of the government’s international relations department and head of its ASEAN department.

When the COVID-19 pandemic tore through Vietnam in 2021 many blamed Dam -- as deputy prime minister in charge of healthcare -- for the deaths of tens of thousands of people locked down in southern provinces. And while the Communist Party never gave a reason for removing him from the Central Committee last month, he is widely-seen as the fall guy for the Viet A COVID test kit scandal. Viet A’s chief executive officer admitted to bribing officials the equivalent of U.S.$34 million in order to win contracts to sell substandard kits to hospitals at a 45% markup, earning his company U.S.$172 million in profits.

Pham Binh Minh followed the career of his father, the late Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach (real name Pham Van Cuong). Before becoming deputy prime minister Minh was in charge of foreign affairs and later took on some responsibility for domestic affairs.

As the deputy prime minister focusing on international issues, Minh was blamed for the ‘repatriation flights’ scandal, where Vietnamese officials were accused of taking bribes to repatriate citizens stranded abroad during the COVID pandemic.

“Pham Binh Minh is said to have not closely monitored the repatriation flights of Vietnamese citizens stranded abroad due to COVID-19,” Carl Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra told RFA.

“An extensive network of foreign affairs officials has been implicated in accepting bribes in exchange for seats on these planes,” said the Vietnam expert, adding that Minh should be disciplined if he benefited personally and should also be held responsible if he knew nothing or did nothing about the bribery.

Vietnam’s National Assembly is expected to elect to new deputy prime ministers at its next scheduled meeting on Thursday.

Former head of the Central Committee for Mass Mobilization, Nguyen Khac Mai, told RFA the big question is whether the Party will dare to carry out radical reform in its selection of senior leaders or whether it will give the public more say in the selection of decision makers.

Article 4 of the Constitution stipulates that "The Communist Party of Vietnam is the sole force leading the State and society," but Mai said there is no regulation forcing the Party to make decisions in isolation.

"Even when the Central Committee of the Party are responsible for Article 4 of the Constitution, they must be responsible to the people, to the nation,” he said. “All the people should have a voice in the election of state officials."

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The decision to expel Nguyen Van Trinh was made at a meeting of the Politburo and the Secretariat at Party Central Committee headquarters on Dec. 16 under the chairmanship of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Trinh was detained and investigated by the Ministry of Public Security at the end of November for his role in the Viet A COVID-19 test kit scandal.

"Nguyen Van Trinh, Assistant to the Deputy Prime Minister, took advantage of his position … influencing responsible units and individuals at the Ministry of Health to grant Viet A Company a circulation registration number for COVID-19 test kits in contravention of the law, helping Viet A Company to sell COVID-19 test kit products at units and localities, and causing serious damage to State property,” the ministry said at the time.

“Nguyen Van Trinh is guilty of abusing [his] position and power while performing his official duties."

Trinh was appointed assistant to incumbent Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam in Dec. 2018. As minister in charge of healthcare, Dam spearheaded the government’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Dam was in charge of healthcare when Viet A Joint Stock Company won a license to produce COVID-19 testing kits. They were sold at a 45% markup, earning $172 million in profits for the company even though the kits were found to be substandard. Viet A’s chief executive officer admitted bribing officials around VND800 billion (U.S.$34 million) to ensure the kits were used in hospitals,

Police questioned almost 100 people including eight officials from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and Technology. In June the Vietnam Communist Party expelled then Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, and the Hanoi Mayor at the time Chu Ngoc Anh for their roles in the scandal. Anh was Minister of Science and Technology when the government approved the Viet A test kits.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Duman, a former editor for the socialist Turkish weekly Atılım, has denied the charges and the Committee to Protect Journalists, which reviewed the available court records of her trial, believes them to be unsubstantiated. Turkey’s Constitutional Court found that her right to a fair trial had been violated and twice ordered a retrial. Duman, meanwhile, remains at the Bakırköy Women’s Prison in Istanbul and holds out little hope that the retrial – already several hearings in – will bring her freedom.

In November, Beril Eski, a lawyer and journalist, spoke to Duman on behalf of CPJ about her conviction, her life in prison, her hope of returning to journalism – and her reaction to a recent raid where prison officials confiscated coats, blankets, books, her radio, the personal diary she has kept for 20 years, court documents regarding her trial, and even her desk and blank pieces of paper. Duman said she and other prisoners were dragged on the floor during the raid and that she spent four days in isolation afterward.

The interview, translated from Turkish, has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Eski: Tell us about your arrest, interrogation, trial, and conviction process? Were you mistreated or tortured? 

Was it really a court of law or was the verdict already decided? The trial lasted for 10 years. The sentencing was done three months shy of 10 years because the statute of limitations would have come into effect, and we would have been released if 10 years were past [with no conviction]. Then the case went back and forth to the Constitutional Court of Turkey (AYM). 

I was kept awake for four days in [police] custody. The interrogation lasted day and night. I had hallucinations. I was conscious, there was no physical torture, but they did not let me sleep; [they] probably drugged me. I asked for a blood test from the medical staff. My stomach was hurting a lot [and] was making sounds. But the medics insistently refused to do a blood test.

I did not testify during [police] custody. They wanted me to sign a statement they had prepared; I refused. It was the same at the prosecutor’s office, too. I refused the prosecutor, he punched me, attacked me. I still did not sign. We filed criminal complaints to the court but did not get any results. 

What is the status of your retrial?

Three hearings were held since the AYM ordered the second retrial. I wanted to attend the sessions in person, but my request was denied. I attended through teleconference [and] my request to be released was denied anyway. 

My conviction needs to be overturned but it does not get done. I have served 20 years; my family is waiting for me to be released. I offered my defense [to the court] but I’m not sure if it was looked at. They are trying to have me identified by witnesses about events I had nothing to do with. I do not have a hope for being released anymore. I do not get my hopes up because otherwise I couldn’t manage to carry on in prison.

[Editor’s note: The fourth hearing of Duman’s retrial, which included several defendants, was heard by the 12^th Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes on December 9. It lasted two-and-a-half hours and did not address any of the charges against her. Duman who attended by teleconference, told the court that the confiscation of her legal documents during the prison raid had violated her right to prepare for her defense. The court denied her request to be released pending trial and set the date for the next hearing for March 31.]  

You have been convicted on very serious charges of terrorism. Why do you think you were targeted?

I’m a socialist journalist. The only evidence in the case against me is the testimony of my ex-husband. They made him testify by telling him that they would rape me otherwise. He [later] renounced his testimony, told [the court] that I was not involved [in what I was accused of.] The evidence supported what he said, but the court disregarded it. We were given the harshest sentences. Police have told me that I wouldn’t leave the prison [until I was old enough] to walk with a stick if I didn’t sign their prepared testimony. [Under Turkish law, a life sentence without parole is 30 years.]

Describe Atılım to us?

Atılım is a socialist magazine that I was reading since my college years. I started to work as a reporter there after college and then made news editor. We always have been systematically oppressed. I was taken into [police] custody during my first field assignment. Being taken into custody and oppression never stopped. I was in court every week. I continued to write [about politics] for Atılım [from prison] until I stopped because of other work. I’m also facing charges of writing [terrorist] propaganda for two of my latest articles.

How is your health?  

I suffer from hypertension and arrhythmia. They are currently giving me my medicine but there is no regular monitoring [or] follow-up. I have not been given a device to measure my blood pressure. I have had hypertension for 20 years; [authorities] were more concerned [about the prisoners] 10 years ago. My [blood] pressure has increased, especially in the last five years [but] there has been trouble with going to the infirmary. For example, I have trouble with my ear and I experience balance problems. However, I cannot get examined for that. Hospital visits are made in handcuffs and the soldier [who accompanies the prisoner] enters the exam room. You cannot get examined because the soldier is there. It is not just about being naked, there is an ethical understanding about privacy in doctor-patient relations.   

How do you spend an ordinary day in prison? 

I don’t have much of a routine although I want to have one. I have breakfast in the morning. I listen to the news from Açık Radio. I do work; I read books. We exercise during meal breaks, sometimes we play volleyball. Birthday celebrations happen, sometimes I help arrange activities. I wanted to take a calligraphy class, but I wasn’t allowed. We all wanted to take a Zumba [dance] course but they do not allow us any such activities, I don’t know why. The ordinary prisoners [those not convicted on terror-related charges] are allowed to attend concerts and activities. There was an activity organized for the ordinary prisoners on the day of the raid. They were playing music to them while raiding us. 

How are your prison conditions?

We’re a 36-prisoner ward and there have been times that we’ve had 36 people here. We are 12 now. This used to be a jail [as well as a prison], which meant those already convicted were with people still awaiting trial. I was able [then] to connect with different people from the outside. It was good because otherwise I would forget about the outside. But jailed people do not come here anymore, so I don’t have that now.  

What do you want to do when you’re free? Do you want to practice journalism again?

I would want to practice journalism very much. Twenty years in prison is a very long time. I am very angry at the system. But I would want to do journalism. 

I get forgetful about the outside. For example, I missed photography a lot. I asked for my camera many times, they won’t give it. I don’t even have a desk, let alone a camera. I would do things that I have missed the most when I’m out. Unless my family locks me in (laughs).

I would be me when I get out, as I am here. I cannot stand inequity and injustice. I’m studying. I have graduated from [an] international relations [course], now I’m studying Islamic sciences at the open university. However, there is a problem about books and resources. We have a limit of seven books at a time and you wait two months for a new book.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Özgür Öğret/CPJ Istanbul Correspondent.

Orientation

History of the emotions

“Emotions” are one of those words that everyone thinks understand until you press them with questions. Broadly speaking, Western philosophers have not thought well of emotions. It was not until the time of the Romantics at the end of the 18^th century that the tide turned in favor of the emotions. Here is a history of how the leading lights of the West thought of emotions. For most of Western history:

• Emotions were thought of as coming from supernatural forces outside the psyche. It was only in the second half of the 19^th century that emotions were thought about as physiological
• Emotions had no separate categorization of its own. It was rolled up into temperament and passions.

Plato was as distrustful of emotions as he was of pleasure. Emotions were part of appetite and a lower form of humanity. Rationality and mathematics were believed to be true. Aristotle, as he often did, struck a balance and said that reason and emotion went together. The Stoics, including Seneca, understood the passions to be dangerous and the cause of imbalances. Reason should put passions in their place. St. Augustine distinguished emotions of human frailty from emotions of God. Reason was separated from emotions since emotions could not be trusted. For Hobbes, the passions are bodily sensations and are the primary sources of action, which prompt both war and peace. Passions could go in two directions. One way was towards an object which was appetite and the other was away from object, which was aversion. Respite from passions make rational decisions possible and the basis for a social contract. Descartes, as most of us know, separated the mind from the body and believed emotion had no place in the mind, which was rational and mathematical.

The status of the emotions began to improve with Spinoza who wrote that both the mind and the emotions were part of nature. Locke added that emotions could be positive as well as negative and added the empathy people have with each other. Hume warned against the rising tide of passion, saying that passions controlled reason. Hume did not think that reason drove emotions. Rather, reason was just a calculator for a way out of predicaments that the passions had created. Rousseau championed natural feelings as more reliable than reason and despised “factious or sham feelings produced by civilization”.

How well do you know what emotions are?

To demonstrate how people’s understanding of emotions can be more confusing than you might suspect, try responding to the following statements below. Except for the eighth bullet, try to decide if each statement is mostly true, conflicted or mostly false. Don’t take more than a minute to answer each one, as my point for this article is to examine your spontaneous answers to these statements. After you’ve marked the bullets true or false, give a reason or two which justify each answer. Then answer bullet eight with a paragraph. The first part of this article is designed to address your answers before discussing other topics. Here are the statements:

1. Feelings and emotions are the same thing.
2. Emotions are irrational and are the opposite of thoughts.
3. Emotions are biological and out of our conscious control.
4. Emotions happen first and thoughts follow in order to explain them.
5. Negative emotions such as hostility and venting (screaming and throwing things) get those emotions out of your system so they don’t build up.
6. Changing your interpretations of thoughts about events that happen to you can change your emotions.
7. A two-year old cannot feel angry.
8. What kind of conditions might exist in which you wouldn’t know how you feel?
9. In general, women are more emotional than men.
10. Emotional ranges are universal regardless of one’s social class.
11. Non-verbal body language, like gestures and postures, are truer expressions of emotions than what people tell you about their emotions.
12. Regardless of the type of society, if a heterosexual woman finds her husband in bed with another women it is natural to feel jealous.

A Cognitive Theory of the Emotions

Are feelings and emotions the same thing?

Usually people use the terms “feelings” and “emotions” interchangeably. I think this is a loss of a great opportunity to differentiate physiological states of arousal (feelings) from cognitive interpretation of events (emotions). While most feelings are biological and out of our control, (fight-flight, pleasure-pain; frustration-contentment), our emotions are under our control. But what do I say, as a counselor, when a member of my Men Overcoming Violence support group says to me “but my anger is out of my control. What do you mean I have control of them?”. Feelings like dry mouth, sweaty palms, headache simply start the process. Which emotion results from these bodily conditions depends on how the physiological state is interpreted. One interpretation is a panic attack. Another is anxiety while still another is anticipating the happy unknown of a wedding ceremony.

Emotional reactions from thick to thin

In order to have interpretations, the person has to give meaning, and in order to do that the person has to think.  “Wait a minute” the participant in Men Overcoming Violence, says “when I get angry it happens very fast, I don’t think about which emotion to have, I just have them. How do you explain that?”. The problem is many of us think of thinking as thick – weighing the pros and cons of buying a pair of pants or trying to understand what is causing a leak in the pipe. We have less practice imagining thinking that is thin and happening quickly. How do we account for differences in the speed in which we think?

A child is not given a universal set of emotions which, like buttons, the child pushes on and off. She has physiological states of arousal and the child is slowly taught how to translate that state of arousal into emotions like hurt, confusion, or sadness. The time it takes to have an emotion is mediated by the set of interpretations the parent socializes in the child. As the child reacts to situations, the situations become more familiar, so both the thinking process and the emotional go faster. Soon the emotion is unconscious and automatic. It becomes so habitual that it seems “natural, that is, biological. No emotion is biological. Feelings are biological, emotions are ontogenetic (part of individual development), social, cultural and historical, as we shall see.

Emotional reactions from thin to thick

In the last section I said there that as people are presented with situations that are familiar and predictable their emotional reaction speeds up and eventually becomes unconscious. But what are the conditions under which your emotional reactions will slow down? This can happen when a person is put in an increasingly unusual situation. For example, suppose I broke up with someone I loved after five years. We had differences over wanting children, where we wanted to live and how much money we expected each other to make. So we break up. It is a relatively small town and we are at the point that the last thing either of us wants to do is run into each other. But errands are errands, so I head for downtown. In the distance about three blocks away I think I see her. I duck inside a storefront and watch as the figure moves towards me. How do I feel? Sad, disappointed, angry but relieved. I am frozen in place. Then I see another figure is joining her and they hold hands. Now I am filled with new emotions. Outrage, as I decide not enough time has passed by to justify this. Was she seeing this guy while we were still together? What the fuck?? It gets worse. About a block away I see her partner is a woman. Now all the gaskets are blown. Fortunately, the store front was a clothing store that I can enter to possibly avoid running into them. Fortunately for me she and her girlfriend don’t come in. I flee the scene for home. Do I know how I feel? There is only so much complexity that can be integrated. I friend calls later in the afternoon to see how I am doing. He asks, “how are you feeling?”. My true answer is that I don’t know how I feel. It will probably take me a few days to answer a question like this coherently.

Are emotions irrational and the opposite of thoughts?

Emotions are not irrational and the opposites of thoughts. There are rational and irrational thoughts, not rational or irrational emotions. Irrational thoughts are things like, “my boyfriend is cheating on me because he is talking to a female neighbor for 30 minutes. I am jealous”. The thought is irrational because the woman is jumping to specific conclusions without much evidence. Being jealous is only irrational because the thought is irrational. If the same woman claims that her husband is flirting with the neighbor and might be sleeping with her because she has many experiences of her husband having had casual sex is rational. Here, in this situation, the emotion of jealousy is rational. All emotions follow thought. Emotions are rational or irrational just as thoughts are. Feelings are biological and prerational but only emotions can be irrational or rational

Are emotions biological and out of our control?

Emotions are neither biological nor out of our control. Emotions are ontogenetic, social cultural and historical. Having a particular emotional reaction may be hard to change but that does not mean they are out of our control. As an Italian American man, I am socialized to express anger rather than hurt, sadness or confusion first. Can that be changed? Yes, but it requires a great deal of psychological work. Many men in the Men Overcoming Violence program learned how to do that, but it took them 40 weeks of meeting once a week for two hours. On the wall we had a large list of emotions on a 5×10 foot piece of butcher paper. At the top were seven kinds of emotion. But underneath each emotion there were seven other emotions going from strongest to weakest intensity. Every time a man in the program said he was angry, we would insist that he include at least 2-3 other emotions so he could become aware of the emotional variety of his emotional states that he was unaware of up to that point.

Thoughts precede and create emotions

As is probably obvious by now emotions don’t come first and thoughts follow. First comes interpretation of what events mean and then the emotion follows. The order is:

• Interpretation of what the situation means – dangerous/safe; structured/loose;
• Feelings sweaty palms, dry-mouth, heart racing;
• Emotion – fear, anger, disappointment.

Does the hydraulic theory of emotions work?

Allowing yourself to vent—yell, scream and throw things does not make you have less emotion. What it does is help you form a habit of escalating to the point where it gets easier and easier. “Getting it of your system” is part of an old way of looking at emotions called the “cathartic theory of the emotions” that goes all the way back to Aristotle. It has been called the “hydraulic” theory because it pictures emotions as rising up like water in a bathtub which will overflow if it is not drained. Freud had this theory and so did humanistic psychologists like Fritz Perls during the early 1970s. Reichian therapists would give people tennis rackets and have them flail the couch of the therapist, hoping to get their anger out of their system. It was not until the 1980s when cognitive psychologists argued that emotions don’t work that way (see Carole Tavris, Anger, the Misunderstood Emotion).

Emotions emerge over the course of ontogenesis moving from simple to complex

Is anger present from birth or is it the product of a developmental process that only arises at a certain age level? Some theorists of emotion claim that there are universal emotions such has surprise, disgust, love, hurt, sadness. My point here isn’t to claim what the right batch is. Rather it is to say whatever the right batch is, it takes time for them to emerge. So to the question can a two-year old express anger, my answer is no. Let me give an example. If you are watching a two year old child play with a toy and you get up and put a barrier in front of the toy and you watch the child try to figure out how to get around the barrier to the toy the child may be frustrated, but they are not angry at you. In order to be angry the child has to perceive that there are a certain social roles and rules that are normal. Anger comes over the violation of these rules. If the child was six years old and you again placed a barrier between them and their toy, chances are good they would be spending more time challenging why you put the barrier up than they would trying to overcome the barrier. Why? Because as the child’s parent, it is highly unusual for you to behave in such a sadistic way. There are complex emotions like jealousy, envy and revenge which require the mastery of rules and roles before they make sense.

How Emotions are Socialized  

Are women more emotional than men?

At least in Yankeedom, it is common to say that women are more emotional than men. This is really not the case at all. Socially, women and men are given a range of emotions that it are safe to express and another set that is more or less forbidden.

If we start out with straight women and straight men we can say, women are taught to express a wider set of emotions such as sadness, hurt, fear, confusion, humiliation and love. Men are socialized to be angry, brave and courageous. What is interesting is that if a woman crosses the line and expresses forbidden emotions, she is threatened by being called gay or a lesbian. We all know that when a woman is assertive at work she is called a bitch. On the other hand, can you imagine how a male attendant at a gas station would feel if after finally agreeing with his wife that they were lost came into the store and said:” I feel embarrassed, humiliated and confused because I can’t figure out how to get to such-and-such a place”? The guy might not give him the correct directions right away. He may first say “Get hold of yourself, man”.

There are at least two ways to think about having an emotion. The first is emotional impression and the second is emotional expression. An emotional impression is when an emotion is registered internally. An emotional expression is whether you decide to express the emotion to someone else. Often, women may express emotions more. But that does not mean women are more emotional than men.

Expression of emotions and social class

It is not true that all classes in capitalist societies have the same range of expression of emotions. In the first place, it matters what kind of religion the social class is committed to. If we consider the differences between men and women and we examine Catholic working-class women and men we will find they will express a greater range of emotions than the Protestants will. The protestant working class (at least the white working class) tend to be shut down emotionally.  Working-class men and women generally have a hard life and it makes sense they will have thicker skins.

Middle class men and women have better jobs which requires less armoring. They will be more open emotionally than the working class. This is amplified by how committed middle class people are to therapy. Out-to-lunch, class-oblivious, humanistic psychology proclaims that the more open the person, the healthier they are. They fail to understand that if you live in rough neighborhoods, attend rough schools and take orders from a boss all day long, it pays to have a thick skin.

Upper-middle class men generally are the happiest in their work. Woman in upper middle-class positions at work have to be more careful, since they are in danger of being called a bitch for asserting their authority. They also have to be careful about being labelled as too emotional at the slightest turn.

The upper classes are generally old money conservatives. Both men and women tend to repress emotions and they generally feel that the very expression of emotion is bad taste. They carry on an aristocratic tradition which prides itself in never breaking down, whether in love or war.

Happiness and social class

Socialists would be very happy with the results of research about which social classes are happy and which aren’t and why. It seems intuitive to say that the upper classes are happier than the working class because they have an easier life. But research shows that this isn’t quite the case. What we know for sure is that money does bring happiness when money delivers the working class into a middle-class position. However, there is no necessary correlation that money buys happiness as one moves from middle class to upper class. It is not predictable that upper class people will claim to be happier than those who are middle class. All this means is that when money provides the foundation for a good life, people respond well. But beyond middle class there is no correlation between money and happiness. To say money can’t buy happiness is not true. Happiness can increase as we ascend from poor to middle class. A formula for a good economic social policy is that if you want happier people, try to make all workers middle class.

Differences between classes in becoming civilized and becoming disciplined

As we will see shortly when we discuss the history of emotions, the process of becoming civilized brought with it a whole different range of social and psychological emotions. But for now we want to ask, does the process of becoming civilized apply to all social classes from the 17th through the 19th centuries? In my book Forging Promethean Psychology I argue that the working class and the poor in absolutist states or nation-states never became civilized, but they did become disciplined.

How was becoming disciplined different from becoming civilized? The first difference had to do with the population in question. Becoming civilized was the psychogenetic socialization process of the middle and upper classes. Being disciplined mostly applied to the working class and the poor. The second difference was in the types of influences used. The process of becoming civilized involved softer influences such as rhetoric, charisma, symbolic power, and legitimacy. Discipline, at least initially, involved hard influences such as physical force, the threat of force (coercion), economic deprivation, politics, and later, legitimation.

The third difference was the direction of the class forces operating. Becoming civilized, as Norbert Elias writes was a competitive process for status among classes who were roughly equal – aristocrats, merchants, and intellectuals. Becoming disciplined initially involved top-down orders. Poor or working class people had to obey the authorities or face consequences. Discipline came from the top: Calvinist and Lutheran theologians to their parishioners; from military authorities to their soldiers; and from the state to its subjects.

Following Elias, becoming civilized in the courts of Europe involved a new set of emotions for aristocrats such as shame, embarrassment, superiority and envy. For the working class under disciple, they had another set of emotions; fear, suspicion, paranoia and guilt. It is easy to think classes in other societies had the same set of emotions, but this is not true. Elias says that the situation in 16^th and 17^th century Europe was unique.

Cross-Cultural Emotions: How They vary from society to society

Collectivism vs Individualism

In his book Cultural Psychology, Steven J. Heine reports that broadly speaking individualists of industrial capitalist societies are more likely to express emotions than collectivists and they are certainly more likely to express negative emotions. This is not hard to understand. People in collectivist societies are interdependent upon each other and consider most as extended kin at work and in their villages. They cannot afford blow-ups. On the other hand, because the relationships between individuals in industrial capitalist societies are short-term and appear voluntary (following social-contract theory), they are more likely to tolerate a falling out.

Another common distinction is between cultures of honor (herding societies) and cultures that are not (farming societies). As has been pointed out in the book Cultures of Honor herders are far more suspectable to insult because: a) their wealth is mobile rather than stable; b) their population is sparse; and c) they have no protection from the state in terms of land disputes. Farmers are more likely to tolerate insult because their wealth in land is stable, they can count on the state for intervention and the land is densely populated. They are less likely to settle disputes with duels or shoot-outs. The differences between southerners and northerners in the United States follows.

Finally, Ruth Benedict characterized the difference between shame cultures and guilt cultures. Shame is embarrassment at letting the group down. Guilt has little to do with groups. Guilt is remorse over a volition of a law, or a holy book. Puritans show a great deal of guilt. She also made a distinction between Dionysian cultures which are expressive and Apollonian cultures which were more reserved.

Analogical messages: gestures, postures 

Most people well understand that it is necessary to do emotional work on the job and at home. Emotional work means a) showing emotions you do not have and; b) hiding the emotion you do have. This is especially true in customer-service work. However, people also imagine that their analogical communication (gestures, postures) is somehow less deceptive and imagine they are a more reliable gage than verbal expression of emotions. But cross-cultural research shows this is not the case. For example, Yankees may think that the A-Okay sign is universally recognized when among Southern Europeans, it is a crude gesture. In our Men Overcoming Violence group, a Yankee man innocently propped up his feet on a stool in front of an Iraqi man sitting across the way. He soon found out the showing the sole of one’s foot to someone from Iraq is the greatest insult. If there are gestures and postures that are universal, they are few and far between. They may be harder to hide than the verbal expressions but their origins lie deep in the local context of the culture which vary from region to region.

Cross-cultural nature of jealousy

The following is paraphrased from the textbook Invitation to Psychology by Carole Wade and Carol Tavris. A young wife leaves her house one morning to draw water from the local well, as her husband watches from the porch. On her way back from the well, a male stranger stops her and asks for some water. She gives him a cupful and then invites him home for dinner. He accepts. The husband, wife and guest have a pleasant meal together. In a gesture of hospitality, the husband invites the guest to spend the night with his wife. The guest accepts. In the morning the husband leaves early to bring home breakfast. When he returns, be finds his wife again in bed with the visitor. At what point in this story will the husband feel angry? The answer depends on the culture.

• A North American husband would feel very angry at a wife who had an extramarital affair.
• A North American wife would feel very angry at being offered to a guest as if she were a lamb chop.
• But a Pawnee husband of the 19^th century would be enraged by any man who dared to ask his wife for water.
• An Ammassalik Inuit husband finds it perfectly honorable to offer his wife to a stranger, but only once. He would be angry to find his wife and guest having a second encounter.
• A century ago, a Toda husband in India would not feel angry at all because Todas allow both husband and wife to take lovers. However, both spouses would feel angry if one of them had a sneaky affair, without announcing it publicly.

 In most cultures people feel angry in response to insult and the violation of social rules. But they often disagree about what an insult is or what the correct rule should be. Here we have four different cultures lined up on the political spectrum in their attitudes towards hospitality and sexuality.

The most extreme right wing is the Pawnee Indian who draws the line at talk at the well. In the center right is a Yankee husband who is outraged at his wife having a martial affair. But on the liberal side of the spectrum we have the Inuit who draws the line not at having an affair, but at having sex twice. The Toda, the most radical has no problem extramarital sex. The problem is if it is done in an underhanded manner.

History of the Emotions

Broadly speaking, it used to be that emotions were experienced as being invasion from the sacred world given to us by the goddesses and gods. It was only at the beginning of the 18^th century that emotions were thought of as originating from some part of the mind or the body. After 1860 emotions were seen as cultural, universal, inclusive of all species, biological, physiological and hard-wired.

What does it mean that emotions have a history? Does it mean that new emotions emerge in different historical periods? To say this is to challenge universalis ideas of emotions being static or possibly circulating in different historical periods. In my book Lucifer’s Labyrinth I follow Elias’ description of how differences from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Europe produced new sets of emotional reactions.

Emotions in the Middle Ages

As Elias says, people in the Middle Ages lived a life that was intense, brutal and short. They lived life to the fullest with the time they had. Their psychological life alternated between sensory saturation and religious mortification about what they had done. Middle Age people were more violent and could tolerate more pain. As Elias said, they live their life between the super-ego and the id. The ego was less developed.

The warrior class in the Middle Ages could be characterized as courageous, impetuous, wild, cruel and living in the present. But when these warriors were forced into the courts by the king and the merchants, they had to adapt themselves to court life. Above all, they needed to control themselves. Now their characteristics included being prudent, restrained, self-contained, timely, refined, more humane and more gossipy. Their every mood required foresight for the future, hindsight into the past (people they may have offended) and insight and self-reflection to make sure their behavior was not offensive. So within a century, the emotional life of one class significantly changed.

Emotional life in the Baroque and the 18^th century

There are also major differences in the emotions between the Baroque 17^th century aristocrats and the 18^thcentury merchants during the Enlightenment. The aristocrats of the 17^th century had superiority complexes, were preoccupied with “keeping up with the Jones” and cultivated a cool nonchalant attitude. On the other hand, some 18^th century merchants strove openly to be happy, and were motivated by their quest for serenity. Their emotions were controlled by reason, not so much by what was expected of them. The emotional life between the aristocrats and merchants differed in many other areas such as attitude toward the senses; attitude towards pain; attitude towards animals; bodily conduct; sleeping patterns and attitude towards dying.

From honor and glory to avarice and ambition: warriors vs merchants

As we’ve said, the values of aristocrats in Europe were honor and glory. But for the merchants in the 18^thcentury these values would not do. As Albert Hirschman traces a movement from glory and honor to “interests” in his book Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, Alexander Murray tells the story of how these values were undermined by two new values: avarice and ambition. Both these motivations were despised by all classes in the Middle Ages. But with the rise of merchants there was a slow process by which avarice and ambition were changed from vices to virtues, which supported merchant capitalism

Emotional life of Romantics: late 18^th to mid 19^th century

Lastly, in the 18^th century with the rise of romanticism, early romantics had a new attitude toward the emotions which differed drastically from the Enlighteners. Lionel Trigger in his book Sincerity, points out that with romanticism came new emotions: the importance of being sincere and the importance of being authentic. Being sincere was the exact opposite to the aristocratic of haughtiness and masquerading. It meant saying what you meant and meaning what you said. Being authentic came out of the romantic notion that everyone had a true self as opposed to the roles both aristocrats and merchants had to play. Being authentic meant showing people your true self. Sincerity and authenticity were hugely important to humanistic psychology in the 1960s and 1970s.

Summing Up: Evolution to an Emotion

We are now finally in a position to describe the evolution to an emotion. The first step, or point zero, is an external event that triggers the emotion. Let’s say you work as a cook in a restaurant and your ex shows up for dinner with her new boyfriend.

• Physiological state of arousal:
  • Physiological – sweaty palms, racing heart, dry mouth
  • Feelings – confusion, frustration, pain, discomfort
• Internalized socio-cultural, class and historical forces
  • Type of society – industrial capitalist
  • Social class – all working class
  • Cross-cultural – Mexican American; Italian
  • Gender – heterosexual – man – woman
  • Point in history – 21^st century crumbling Yankee empire
• Cognitive appraisal
  • Automatic thoughts; cognitive interpretations; explanatory styles
  • Assumptions – all this from the cognitive psychology of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck
• Analogical messages
  • Gestures, posture, clothing
• Situational constraints
  • You are working and you can’t leave
• Display rules and emotional work
  • What feelings do you have to show that you don’t have?
  • What feelings do you have that you can’t show?
• Emotional impression
  • Hurt, anger, fear, jealousy, disappointment, relief
• Emotional expression
  • Optional
  • Act like you don’t care

Under normal circumstances which are routine, all eight of these steps could be processed in less than ten seconds because of years of practice. But because of the unusualness of this particular circumstance, our poor cook may take days to process what the situation means and what array of emotions he has.

As we have seen, the cognitive theory of the emotions has revolutionized the theory of emotions by arguing that emotions come from thoughts. But cognitive psychology implies that the individual makes up their own mind about which emotions they have. In the evolution to an emotion steps, the second step is entirely missing. A communist theory of the emotions would have social, cultural, class and historical mediators in place.

The hardest step for people in capitalist society to understand about this evolution is the second step. How could internalized socio-cultural, historical and class forces be inside of people rather than outside? Wouldn’t these forces come later, at the end?

The inclusion of step two attacks the idea that emotions are private, inside people and under their control. A communist theory of the emotions says that emotions are not private. They are products of a particular type of society, a particular social class, a particular kind of culture existing in a certain point in history. All these forces exist prior to the time you were born and they are socialized into you by your caretakers mostly unconsciously, especially in the first five years. The initial internalized socio-cultural, class and historical conditions are inside you whether you like it or not. That is our fate.

Later, as we mature, we become more active in dialectically reciprocating with these forces so that our class status might change. We might go to live in a different country (culture) or go to live in a socialist society. We might work as economic advisors to contribute to the world historical economy shifting Eastward in the 21^st century. Whereas fate are the conditions that we are given when we are born, destiny is what we make of those conditions. However, even if you are active on all these fronts, step two is the infrastructural plumbing of all emotions and its creates and sustains all the steps that follow. The content of the infrastructural plumbing may change, but the presence of a plumbing infrastructure will not.

What Capitalism Can Do to Our Emotions

Capitalist psychology splits the individual from his social, cultural, historical and class identity. Then it takes the stripped-down, isolated, alienated individual as human nature as its point of departure. Most every psychological problem is rooted in the chaotic and contradictory interactions of the four systems as they interact.

Alienation Under Capitalism

Alienation is the inversion of subject and object, creation and creator. It is a reversal of ends and means so that the means acquire a life if their own.

Members of capitalist society are alienated in:

• the products of their labor;
• the process of producing the products;
• the other people they are producing with;
• the power settings in which the product is distributed;
• the biophysical environment; and
• their self-identity

The products of their labor: commodity fetishism: hoarding, manic consumption

Marx talked about how under capitalism commodities acquire a life of their own, and become disengaged from the situation which produced them. Commodities, rather than becoming a means to an end for living, become an end in itself. Erich Fromm defined a particular kind of pathology which he called the hoarding mentality and the marketing pathology in which people are obsessed with the accumulation of commodities. The emotional life of a consumer is anxious and destabilized because their identity is centered around the acquisition of new commodities, whether they need them or not. Most capitalist psychologists treat accumulation of commodities and capitalist mania for accumulation as not worth identifying as a pathology as it’s not even in the diagnostic manual.

The process of producing the products: insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion             Under capitalism, the workday has lengthened from 40 to at least 50 hours of work in the last 50 years. There is less security about having a job and the average worker is more likely to have two jobs with no benefits. For workers a job is just something to put up with. Life begins when an individual has leisure time. Work under capitalism still possesses a religious root as a way to repent from original sin. This adds extra distress for workers during a recession or a depression when workers cannot find a job but blame themselves for not having a good “work ethic.”

Other people they are producing with: competitive anxiety anti-group mentality Almost a hundred years ago neo-Freudian Karen Horney claimed that it was competition between workers and between workers and other social classes that produced anxiety. As I mentioned in my article What is Social Psychology Part II, that groups under capitalism are treated as:

• no more than the sum of individuals;
• less than the sum of individuals;
• an entity that has a super-personally separate life from individuals.

To give you an example of the third framework, when people join a group at work, they often dissolve into it. They reify the group. They make the group a thing, above and beyond anything they can control. When an individual withdraws from the group, the group is renounced as a resource, as the individual believes their problems are so precious that no one could possibly understand them.

When the individual tolerates the members of a group, the individual renounces the capacity of the member being tolerated to change. The tolerating member does not consider that other members might be restless also, and they are not alone in putting up with members who are hard to manage. When individuals rebel against the group, they assume that other group members are conservative, never change or are stuck in their ways. If the individual tries to dominate the group, the dominating individual renounces their ability to get what they want through the collective creativity of the group. What withdrawing, toleration, rebelling or dominating have in common is that they are zero-sum game, with winners and losers.  The best example of a group that is treated as less than the sum of individuals, is in the Lord of the Flies novel. A group being less than the sum of individuals exists in the hyper-conservative imagination of Gustave Le Bon in his books about crowds, or in mass media’s depiction of mass behavior during natural disasters where crowds develop a hive mentality.

The power-setting in which the product is distributed: apathy, myopia

Unions in the United States gave up a long time ago providing a vision for workers in terms of having a say in the decision making on the job. This leads to apathy. In addition, the specialization of labor discourages understanding what is going on in the entire production process. People do their job over and over and know nor care what is going on in other parts of the production process. “That’s none of my business”.

Alienation from nature: physical deterioration shortening life-span

This form of alienation under capitalism has reached a currant volatile form in the areas of pollution extreme weather. John Bellamy Foster has called this a “metabolic rift” between humanity and nature. Air pollution worsened breathing for people with lung problems and added new physical problems. Extreme weather has made both winter and summer conditions hazardous almost everywhere in Yankeedom. The lack of state planning over Covid has either killed millions of people or given them Long-Covid. The United States life span has declined 2.7 years since Covid began. The US is the worst at managing Covid, having the highest number of infections and deaths. Environmental psychologists have long known that getting out into nature reduces stress and has long-term benefits. But thanks to capitalism, communing with a nature which is unpolluted is getting harder and harder to find.

Alienation from self: the illusion of free will under capitalism – depression

Capitalist psychology assumes people are fundamentally selfish, as if we individuals are like Hobbes’ atoms, greedy, insensitive, grasping and mindlessly crashing into each other. Whether it is Freud’s ego or the behavioral motivation of pain or pleasure, individuals’ primary motivation is self-interest.

Under capitalism individuals have supposed “free will”, meaning they may more or less freely choose their situations.  Religious institutions, educational expectations, economic and political propaganda, legitimation techniques, mystification and collusion in the end have no bearing on what happens. In spite of everything, free will wins over the type of society we are raised in, our social class, our culture or the historical period in which we live. With these unrealistic expectations about freedom, the individual is likely to internalize the real-life constraints and blame themselves for their less than idyllic life.

For a communist psychology, all these forms of socio-political control affect free will. While none of these processes by themselves or even all together determine a person’s free will, the options people choose to exercise are significantly constrained.

Capitalists eternalize capitalist relations                                                       Capitalists eternalize alien relations under capitalism and treat them as if they were always there. They project how people learn, think, emote and remember under capitalism into other historical periods. For example, they present narcissism, attention-deficit disorders or manic-depression as present in tribal or state civilizations just as much as they are under capitalism.

Emotions under Communism                                                                   Everything that follows is based on the real experience of workers in worker cooperatives, behavior in natural disasters and workers’ experiences in revolutionary situations. These emotional states represent communists at their very bestrather than all the time. Under communism people are seen as primarily collectively creative. This is demonstrated in practice when workers are given the opportunity to operate cooperatives, create workers’ councils in revolutionary situations or even how they behave during natural disasters. Selfishness is a product of capitalism and not the primary way human beings operate. Consuming commodities are a means to an end. There is no hoarding or manic consumption in communism since the primary identity of a worker is fulfilled on the job because they love their work.

Workers are not anxious or insecure about work because there is more than enough work for everyone. The number of hours of work per day will shrunk because technology, no longer controlled by capitalist, is available to do mechanized part of the work, leaving people more time for the creative parts of the job.

Social unconscious: recalling the great moments in revolutionary situations

For a communist psychology, what is unconscious, at least for the working class is a “social” unconscious. It is the repressed memory of the human past, dead labor, that causes this individual to have “social amnesia” and not care about their own history. However, when the collective-creative memory is revived, out pours the wisdom that has accumulated from revolutionary situations: the heroic stance of the Paris Commune; the heroism of Russian factory councils and the workers’ self-management experiments in Spain from 1936-1939.  To make this social unconscious conscious is to make the working class shapers of history rather than just being a product of it.

Pro-group basis of communist psychology 

In all these examples the group attitude under capitalism is a whole never more than the sum of its parts. The goal of communist psychology is to cultivate a “social” individual who gradually comes to see the activity of building and sustaining groups as the key to emotional health. Even though in socialist psychology, the group as a whole is more than the sum of its parts, the group is still the creation of concrete individuals. The group has no mystical identity floating above individuals. While there is no group without individuals, through the collective creativity of members, the group acquires a synergy whose products are more than what any individual can do by themselves. A communist psychology creates these win-win situations through cooperation.

A socialist psychological group challenges people who withdraw or dissolve into the group by asking what the group can do to give then what they want. The group confronts those who tolerate others by asking them why they are putting up with other members – what would need to happen for things to be different. To those who rebel the group asks “what are you rebelling against and how could we change things to make the group more attractive to you?”. To those who try to dominate the group, socialist group therapy does not moralize against dominators. We simply say that you are losing out on the collective creativity of others by trying to subjugate them.

Our job involves exposing the unconscious commonalities between people that lie beneath our individual differences. It means making a long-term commitment based on the belief that the commonalities between most working-class and middle-class people far outweigh our differences.

The idea is that if you learn to build the collective power of a one group, you can then go out into the world and change it by your newfound capacity to change groups wherever we go, now and into the future. Learning how to change groups through the collective creative capacity of the group moves us from being products of history to being co-producers of it. A rich, co-creative group life is the key to emotional well-being under communism.

Conclusion

Under capitalism we have an emotional life with elements that include hoarding, manic consumption, narcissism, short-attention span, insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion, apathy, myopia, unnecessary physical deterioration, a shortened lifespan and depression. Under communism people are relaxed, serene, enthusiastic, creative, and happy and that goes with the research on happiness described earlier in this article.

Xi's tour took in the former communist base of Yan'an, home to Mao Zedong and the communist leadership in the 1930s, as will as the Red Flag Canal, a 44-mile-long irrigation dug by hand through mountainous terrain near the central city of Anyang.

"Yan'an was Xi's first destination for his inspection tour after the conclusion of the 20th [party congress]," the ideological journal Qiushi said of the visits. 

"The Red Flag Canal is a monument inscribing the heroic spirit of the unyielding and valiant local people who dare to fight to change their fate," the journal said.

"China's socialism is won by hard work, struggles and even through the sacrifice of lives. This was not only true in the past but also true in the new era," it said.

In an indication that Xi's preference for traditional Chinese culture over Western values is still setting the political agenda, the journal also reported on Xi's visit to an archaeological site near Anyang, "where he observed ... samples of animal-driven carts and remains of a Shang Dynasty road [as well as] oracle bone inscriptions."

"I came here for a deeper study and understanding of Chinese civilization so that we can … make the past serve the present," Xi said. "Chinese characters [the written language] are extraordinary and serve as a tie in the forming and development of the Chinese nation."

"We should stay confident in our culture and be more confident and prouder to be Chinese," Xi was quoted as saying.

Reviving reverence

Hu Ping, U.S-based former editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring magazine, said Xi's tour appears to be a way of reviving reverence for Communist Party history, through the performance of unnecessarily hard labor or other sacrifices, that is later used as a model in government propaganda.

He said it was unnecessary to focus on sheer brute force and heroic physical effort, or "model" villages like Dazhai, rather than through the development of new technology.

"It's ridiculous to ask people to learn from Dazhai again," Hu said. "China shouldn't be learning its agricultural water conservation practices from Mao."

"It should use science, technology, and mechanized production instead of physical strength," he said. "It's absurd."

Hu said Xi's pilgrimages are a bid to boost the cult of personality around himself as "core" party leader.

Taiwan-based Chinese dissident Gong Yujian said successful Chinese leaders -- even in imperial times -- are typically seen as able to contend with vast forces of nature, find solutions and protect people from the elements.

"There are so many spirits in the Chinese Communist Party lexicon," Gong told RFA. "In terms of place-names, there's the spirit of [the] Daqing [oilfield], and the Dazhai spirit. When it comes to people, there's also the spirit of [former soldier and model worker] Lei Feng."

"There are far too many of these figures, which are impossible to emulate," he said.

‘Decoupling from the rest of the world’

Gong said Xi's visit to the Red Flag Canal came at a time when many Chinese officials are under sanction by the U.S. government over the country's human rights record, with import bans imposed on high-tech components that might have a military use.

"Xi Jinping is preparing the ground for decoupling from the rest of the world," Gong said. "Back when we were isolated from the world during the Mao era, there was also a lot of talk about this or that 'spirit'."

He added: "The Chinese government should try to develop China's high-tech and automation sector, instead of going back to the cumbersome and utterly exhausting practices of the Mao era."

Xi's "pilgrimage" to the iconic sites of Chinese communism has set off a wave of copycat visits from regional leaders, with Anhui provincial party chief Zheng Shajie and Shanghai party secretary Chen Jining turning up at the Red Canal museum near Anyang along with their entire leadership teams last week, the Anhui Daily newspaper reported.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, municipal party chief Huang Kunming turned out with his leadership team in a pilgrimage to the city's Mao-era monuments to revolutionary heroes, the Nanfang Daily newspaper reported.

Hunan-based journalist Gao Cun said the rush is now on to demonstrate loyalty to Xi, who begins a third and indefinite term as general secretary of the party and "core" leader.

"The fact that senior party officials are doing this shows that there is no room for any change of direction from within the party," Gao told RFA. "Chinese society is regressing."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hwang Chun-mei and Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.

The amendments, the final version of which was published on Wednesday, describe Xi Jinping’s thought as "the essence of Chinese culture and the spirit of the times" and endorsing Xi's ideology and tasking the party's 90 million members with "safeguarding" his position as "core" leader.

Former Communist Party school professor Cai Xia said the amendments effectively turn the party into Xi's personal "gang," as its members are obliged to uphold his leadership.

"This concept of the 'two safeguards' actually reduces the party to a gang," Cai told RFA. "Why? Because political parties are about coming together and cooperating to achieve common political goals. The relationship between members is one of comradeship and equality," she said. 

"But now that he has enshrined [these amendments] in the party constitution,... it's no longer a political party when you have 90 million people in the party all revolving around a single person," she said.

"The Communist Party has become a gang organization with him as its gang boss," said Cai, who now lives in the United States.

Xi began a third term in office on Sunday, packing the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with his close political allies, in a consolidation of personal power not seen in Beijing since the personality cult surrounding Mao Zedong, political commentators told RFA.

The Central Committee reselected Xi as general secretary, breaking with decades of political precedent by granting him a third term after his predecessors were limited to two, prompting speculation that he may now stay in post indefinitely given the lack of an obvious successor.

Baked in

Political analyst Chen Daoyin said the constitutional changes bake in Xi Jinping's absolute leadership through the party machine.

"We hadn't yet seen [this insistence on] the absolute leadership of the party over the armed forces ... which is effectively putting the gun ... in Xi Jinping's hands," Chen said.

"They also emphasize that, in the organizational line of the 'new era,’ that the evaluation and appointment of party officials is also in his hands," he said. "It turns maintaining [Xi's leadership] into an obligation for every member of the party."

"This means absolute power for Xi Jinping ... because of that binding power on party members and officials,” Chen said.

Ming Chu-cheng, honorary politics professor at National Taiwan University, said the "two safeguards" refers to "resolutely safeguarding general secretary Xi Jinping's position at the core of the party."

Xi's smooth transition to an unprecedented third term in office was marked by rare public protest, including against his zero-COVID policy, both at home and overseas.

On the eve of the congress, a lone protester dubbed “Bridge Man” unfurled a banner with anti-Xi slogans on a highway overpass before quickly getting carried off by police. Chinese authorities were quick to shut down social media accounts circulating images of the banner, but photos and videos of the incident got wide attention among Chinese living overseas.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Mandarin.

Liu Mung-chun, head of mainland China research at Taiwan's Chung-Hua Institute for Economic Research, said Xi Jinping views the "real economy" of labor and industry as more important than the digital economy, which he sees as a form of "opiate" for the masses.

Xi doesn't see mobile and computer gaming, and the entertainment industry in general, as a legitimate form of economic activity, and is promising to reform the education system, medical care and real estate sectors to improve the lives of ordinary people, Liu told RFA.

"It's actually about the pressures faced by ordinary people ... and also about Xi Jinping's ideas about economic value," he said. "He is a Marxist who believes that people who make money through labor should be respected."

Whole-process democracy

The claim that there exists under CCP rule a form of consultative, and therefore democratic, process with input from stakeholders and citizens. 

Under Xi, this has also led to the setting up of CCP committees in major companies, including foreign enterprises, tight media controls and censorship, and the widespread study of Xi Jinping Thought in universities and mass surveillance of ordinary citizens.

The great struggle

The huge amount of work needed to achieve national rejuvenation and party leadership, as defined by Xi's ideology. Contains echoes of the political "struggle sessions" of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

U.S.-based veteran democracy activist Wang Juntao said many of the terms presented at the party congress are simply "containers," or code, for Xi's supreme leadership over party and country.

"They're using a new set of vocabulary, but it's still all about that power relationship," Wang told RFA. "[It's still about Xi] having the final say over the affairs of 1.4 billion people ... and about the use of violence to force them to obey."

"The great struggle and party leadership are just containers [for that principle]."

Red country

According Xi Jinping, the country is the people and the people are the country. According to Baidupedia, the "red country" concept denotes ideological unity, of the kind that will likely be needed for the "great struggle" to be a success. The need to achieve ideological unity can also give rise to class struggle, the entry says, adding that the color red also carries connotations of the joy and happiness felt by workers and farmers after overturning their oppressors. The idea also appears to echo the lyrics of revolutionary anthems from the Mao era, like "Chairman Mao is the red sun in all of our hearts."

Since Xi took power, millions of people have been playing a game testing their knowledge of Xi Jinping Thought via a mobile phone app, which has also been adapted for use in private cars. Analysts say the Xuexi Qiangguo app is a modern-day equivalent of the once-ubiquitous "Little Red Book" of sayings attributed to Mao.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jing Wei and Hwang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.

Likely women candidates

Women's rights worse under Xi

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jing Wei for RFA Mandarin.

Videos and images spread on social media showed a cloud of smoke drawing attention to anti-party banners on a highway bridge, one of which read “Depose the Traitorous Dictator Xi Jinping.”

The protest comes just before Sunday’s opening of the 20th Congress of Chinese Communist Party, a once-every-five-year event at which Xi is expected to win an unprecedented third term in office, solidifying his influence on the party and making appointments to important posts. 

The Wall Street Journal quoted store owners in the vicinity of the protest near the Sitong Bridge in Beijing’s affluent Haidian district as saying police quickly arrived on the scene, near where some of China’s top technology firms and academic institutions are based. 

被称为“新坦克人”的北京拉横幅的人士，还同时动用高音喇叭广而告之#北京四通桥 #横幅 pic.twitter.com/KrxFAUJmBM

— 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) October 13, 2022

Beijing police did not comment on the incident or on the identity of those involved. The incident came amid heightened security in the capital ahead of the congress.

One officer went door to door to ask shopkeepers about the incident, and a number of police vehicles were also stationed in the area, the Journal reported. 

Three shopkeepers also denied seeing any banners, smoke or any unusual activity. One woman shook her head “no” without even looking up from her sewing machine, the AP reported. 

Another banner attacked President Xi Jinping’s “zero-COVID” strategy, which has forced thousands of residents into mandatory quarantine nationwide as authorities scramble to control any small-scale spread of the virus. 

“We Don’t Want Nucleic Acid Tests, We Want Food; We Want Freedom, Not Lockdowns,” the banner read. 

After the protest, censors quickly rushed to remove hashtags and references to the Sitong Bridge or Haidan district. A song named ‘Sitong Bridge’ was also removed from online music platforms in China, the Journal reported.

Protests opposing the Party’s rule or attacking ladders by name are rare in China, and are met with heavy punishment.

【大陆全网封杀 “四通桥反习横幅事件”】
【牆内网民转发即”永久封号”】
北京四通桥出现反习、反封控横额后，牆内网络全面封刹相关消息，有网民在微信群转发该消息，只数分钟后就被”永久封号”。
在最新流传的视频可以看到桥面的情况，看到有杂物被燃烧，消防和公安人员到场，把一名男子带上警车。 pic.twitter.com/6AVOyo77xW

— 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) October 13, 2022

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

Author Jeff Brown wrote that China is “history’s most successful socialist and communist country.”

This conflation of communism and socialism is common but inaccurate. It fudges that, according to Marxist thought, socialism is an earlier stage in the process of reaching the end goal of communism.

That writer Ron Leighton asserts in his piece that “China is Capitalist” is rather simplistic. Laissez faire capitalism, neoliberalism, and exploitation of other nations are antithetical to Chinese political-economic practice.

Dictionary Definitions

Socialism: “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.”

Communism: “a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.”

Capitalism: “an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.”

Is there an extant purely capitalist society? What do hospitals, schools, the fire department, the police, military, etc represent? The fact is that capitalism, because of its proclivity to concentrate wealth in a few hands, could not survive in a society without wealth redistribution.

The Communist Party of China prioritized pulling all its citizens out of absolute poverty and achieved this in late 2021. What “capitalist” country has achieved this? The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — despite a scorched earth bombardment by the US, climatological disasters suffered, and continuous sanctions against it — has achieved tuition-free education for all, kindergarten through university; free preschool; universal healthcare; full employment; and universal housing. What capitalist countries have achieved this? In fact, my North Korean guide proudly opined that the DPRK was more socialist than China.

China now strives toward becoming a xiaokang society, a moderately prosperous society — basically a society where almost everyone has attained a middle class level. This is hardly what one would expect to be prioritized under capitalism’s law of the jungle.

Unhindered, a system of socialism should function without need for capitalism.

Nonetheless, arguing about whether China is communist or capitalist is futile. China is neither.

If one wants to know what political-economic system China adheres to then check in with China’s chairman Xi Jinping. He states clearly in his book On the Governance of China that China follows and applies Marxist-Leninism to the Chinese context and that China is currently in the early stage of socialism, what Chinese call Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The “Communist” in the Communist Party of China indicates the end goal, as Xi also makes clear in his book.

China emphasizes peace, the freedom for each nation to choose a system which best suits it, win-win commerce, and an improved life for people of all nations. It does not seek to impose a political-economic system on others, and it does not emphasize profit over people.

Sounds quite distant from capitalism.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Orientation

History of the emotions

“Emotions” are one of those words that everyone thinks they understand until you press them with questions. Broadly speaking, Western philosophers have not thought well of emotions. It was not until the time of the Romantics at the end of the 18th century that the tide turned in favor of the emotions. Here is a history of how the leading lights of the West thought of emotions. For most of Western history:

• Emotions were thought of as coming from supernatural forces outside the psyche. It was only in the second half of the 19th century that emotions were thought about as physiological
• Emotions had no separate categorization of its own. It was rolled up into temperament and passions.

Plato was as distrustful of emotions as he was of pleasure. Emotions were part of appetite and a lower form of humanity. Rationality and mathematics were believed to be true. Aristotle, as he often did, struck a balance and said that reason and emotion went together. The Stoics, including Seneca, understood the passions to be dangerous and the cause of imbalances. Reason should put passions in their place. St. Augustine distinguished emotions of human frailty from emotions of God. Reason was separated from emotions since emotions could not be trusted. For Hobbes, the passions are bodily sensations and are the primary sources of action, which prompt both war and peace. Passions could go in two directions. One way was towards an object which was appetite and the other was away from object, which was aversion. Respite from passions make rational decisions possible and the basis for a social contract. Descartes, as most of us know, separated the mind from the body and believed emotion had no place in the mind, which was rational and mathematical.

The status of the emotions began to improve with Spinoza who wrote that both the mind and the emotions were part of nature. Locke added that emotions could be positive as well as negative and added the empathy people have with each other. Hume warned against the rising tide of passion, saying that passions controlled reason. Hume did not think that reason drove emotions. Rather, reason was just a calculator for a way out of predicaments that the passions had created. Rousseau championed natural feelings as more reliable than reason and despised “factious or sham feelings produced by civilization”.

How well do you know what emotions are?

To demonstrate how people’s understanding of emotions can be more confusing than you might suspect, try responding to the following statements below. Except for the eighth bullet, try to decide if each statement is mostly true, conflicted or mostly false. Don’t take more than a minute to answer each one, as my point for this article is to examine your spontaneous answers to these statements. After you’ve marked the bullets true or false, give a reason or two which justify each answer. Then answer bullet eight with a paragraph. The first part of this article is designed to address your answers before discussing other topics. Here are the statements:

1. Feelings and emotions are the same thing.
2. Emotions are irrational and are the opposite of thoughts.
3. Emotions are biological and out of our conscious control.
4. Emotions happen first and thoughts follow in order to explain them.
5. Negative emotions such as hostility and venting (screaming and throwing things) get those emotions out of your system so they don’t build up.
6. Changing your interpretations of thoughts about events that happen to you can change your emotions.
7. A two-year old cannot feel angry.
8. What kind of conditions might exist in which you wouldn’t know how you feel?
9. In general, women are more emotional than men.
10. Emotional ranges are universal regardless of one’s social class.
11. Non-verbal body language, like gestures and postures, are truer expressions of emotions than what people tell you about their emotions.
12. Regardless of the type of society, if a heterosexual woman finds her husband in bed with another women it is natural to feel jealous.

 A Cognitive Theory of the Emotions

Are feelings and emotions the same thing?

Usually people use the terms “feelings” and “emotions” interchangeably. I think this is a loss of a great opportunity to differentiate physiological states of arousal (feelings) from cognitive interpretation of events (emotions). While most feelings are biological and out of our control, (fight-flight, pleasure-pain; frustration-contentment), our emotions are under our control. But what do I say, as a counselor, when a member of my Men Overcoming Violence support group says to me “but my anger is out of my control. What do you mean I have control of them?”. Feelings like dry mouth, sweaty palms, headache simply start the process. Which emotion results from these bodily conditions depends on how the physiological state is interpreted. One interpretation is a panic attack. Another is anxiety while still another is anticipating the happy unknown of a wedding ceremony.

Emotional reactions from thick to thin

In order to have interpretations, the person has to give meaning, and in order to do that the person has to think.  “Wait a minute” the participant in Men Overcoming Violence, says “when I get angry it happens very fast, I don’t think about which emotion to have, I just have them. How do you explain that?” The problem is many of us think of thinking as thick – weighing the pros and cons of buying a pair of pants or trying to understand what is causing a leak in the pipe. We have less practice imagining thinking that is thin and happening quickly. How do we account for differences in the speed in which we think?

A child is not given a universal set of emotions which, like buttons, the child pushes on and off. She has physiological states of arousal and the child is slowly taught how to translate that state of arousal into emotions like hurt, confusion, or sadness. The time it takes to have an emotion is mediated by the set of interpretations the parent socializes in the child. As the child reacts to situations, the situations become more familiar, so both the thinking process and the emotional go faster. Soon the emotion is unconscious and automatic. It becomes so habitual that it seems “natural”, that is, biological. No emotion is biological. Feelings are biological, emotions are ontogenetic (part of individual development), social, cultural and historical, as we shall see.

Emotional reactions from thin to thick

In the last section I said there that as people are presented with situations that are familiar and predictable their emotional reaction speeds up and eventually becomes unconscious. But what are the conditions under which your emotional reactions will slow down? This can happen when a person is put in an increasingly unusual situation. For example, suppose I broke up with someone I loved after five years. We had differences over wanting children, where we wanted to live and how much money we expected each other to make. So we break up. It is a relatively small town and we are at the point that the last thing either of us wants to do is run into each other. But errands are errands, so I head for downtown. In the distance about three blocks away I think I see her. I duck inside a storefront and watch as the figure moves towards me. How do I feel? Sad, disappointed, angry but relieved. I am frozen in place. Then I see another figure is joining her and they hold hands. Now I am filled with new emotions. Outrage, as I decide not enough time has passed by to justify this. Was she seeing this guy while we were still together? What the fuck?? It gets worse. About a block away I see her partner is a woman. Now all the gaskets are blown. Fortunately, the store front was a clothing store that I can enter to possibly avoid running into them. Fortunately for me she and her girlfriend don’t come in. I flee the scene for home. Do I know how I feel? There is only so much complexity that can be integrated. A friend calls later in the afternoon to see how I am doing. He asks, “how are you feeling?” My true answer is that I don’t know how I feel. It will probably take me a few days to answer a question like this coherently.

Are emotions irrational and the opposite of thoughts?

Emotions are not irrational and the opposites of thoughts. There are rational and irrational thoughts, not rational or irrational emotions. Irrational thoughts are things like, “my boyfriend is cheating on me because he is talking to a female neighbor for 30 minutes. I am jealous”. The thought is irrational because the woman is jumping to specific conclusions without much evidence. Being jealous is only irrational because the thought is irrational. If the same woman claims that her husband is flirting with the neighbor and might be sleeping with her because she has many experiences of her husband having had casual sex is rational. Here, in this situation, the emotion of jealousy is rational. All emotions follow thought. Emotions are rational or irrational just as thoughts are. Feelings are biological and prerational but only emotions can be irrational or rational

Are emotions biological and out of our control?

Emotions are neither biological nor out of our control. Emotions are ontogenetic, social cultural and historical. Having a particular emotional reaction may be hard to change but that does not mean they are out of our control. As an Italian American man, I am socialized to express anger rather than hurt, sadness or confusion first. Can that be changed? Yes, but it requires a great deal of psychological work. Many men in the Men Overcoming Violence program learned how to do that, but it took them 40 weeks of meeting once a week for two hours. On the wall we had a large list of emotions on a 5×10 foot piece of butcher paper. At the top were seven kinds of emotion. But underneath each emotion there were seven other emotions going from strongest to weakest intensity. Every time a man in the program said he was angry, we would insist that he include at least 2-3 other emotions so he could become aware of the emotional variety of his emotional states that he was unaware of up to that point.

Thoughts precede and create emotions

As is probably obvious by now emotions don’t come first and thoughts follow. First comes interpretation of what events mean and then the emotion follows. The order is:

• Interpretation of what the situation means – dangerous/safe; structured/loose;
• Feelings – sweaty palms, dry-mouth, heart racing;
• Emotion – fear, anger, disappointment.

Does the hydraulic theory of emotions work?

Allowing yourself to vent—yell, scream and throw things does not make you have less emotion. What it does is help you form a habit of escalating to the point where it gets easier and easier. “Getting it of your system” is part of an old way of looking at emotions called the “cathartic theory of the emotions” that goes all the way back to Aristotle. It has been called the “hydraulic” theory because it pictures emotions as rising up like water in a bathtub which will overflow if it is not drained. Freud had this theory and so did humanistic psychologists like Fritz Perls during the early 1970s. Reichian therapists would give people tennis rackets and have them flail the couch of the therapist, hoping to get their anger out of their system. It was not until the 1980s when cognitive psychologists argued that emotions don’t work that way (see Carole Tavris, Anger, the Misunderstood Emotion).

Emotions emerge over the course of ontogenesis moving from simple to complex

Is anger present from birth or is it the product of a developmental process that only arises at a certain age level? Some theorists of emotion claim that there are universal emotions such as surprise, disgust, love, hurt, sadness. My point here isn’t to claim what the right batch is. Rather it is to say whatever the right batch is, it takes time for them to emerge. So to the question can a two-year old express anger, my answer is no. Let me give an example. If you are watching a two year old child play with a toy and you get up and put a barrier in front of the toy and you watch the child try to figure out how to get around the barrier to the toy the child may be frustrated, but they are not angry at you. In order to be angry the child has to perceive that there are certain social roles and rules that are normal. Anger comes over the violation of these rules. If the child was six years old and you again placed a barrier between them and their toy, chances are good they would be spending more time challenging why you put the barrier up than they would trying to overcome the barrier. Why? Because as the child’s parent, it is highly unusual for you to behave in such a sadistic way. There are complex emotions like jealousy, envy and revenge which require the mastery of rules and roles before they make sense.

How Emotions are Socialized 

Are women more emotional than men?

At least in Yankeedom, it is common to say that women are more emotional than men. This is really not the case at all. Socially, women and men are given a range of emotions that are safe to express and another set that are more or less forbidden.

If we start out with straight women and straight men we can say, women are taught to express a wider set of emotions such as sadness, hurt, fear, confusion, humiliation and love. Men are socialized to be angry, brave and courageous. What is interesting is that if a woman crosses the line and expresses forbidden emotions, she is threatened by being called gay or a lesbian. We all know that when a woman is assertive at work she is called a bitch. On the other hand, can you imagine how a male attendant at a gas station would feel if after finally agreeing with his wife that they were lost came into the store and said:” I feel embarrassed, humiliated and confused because I can’t figure out how to get to such-and-such a place”? The guy might not give him the correct directions right away. He may first say “Get hold of yourself, man”.

There are at least two ways to think about having an emotion. The first is emotional impression and the second is emotional expression. An emotional impression is when an emotion is registered internally. An emotional expression is whether you decide to express the emotion to someone else. Often, women may express emotions more. But that does not mean women are more emotional than men.

Expression of emotions and social class

It is not true that all classes in capitalist societies have the same range of expression of emotions. In the first place, it matters what kind of religion the social class is committed to. If we consider the differences between men and women and we examine Catholic working-class women and men we will find they will express a greater range of emotions than the Protestants will. The protestant working class (at least the white working class) tend to be shut down emotionally.  Working-class men and women generally have a hard life and it makes sense they will have thicker skins.

Middle class men and women have better jobs which requires less armoring. They will be more open emotionally than the working class. This is amplified by how committed middle class people are to therapy. Out-to-lunch, class-oblivious, humanistic psychology proclaims that the more open the person, the healthier they are. They fail to understand that if you live in rough neighborhoods, attend rough schools and take orders from a boss all day long, it pays to have a thick skin.

Upper-middle class men generally are the happiest in their work. Woman in upper middle-class positions at work have to be more careful, since they are in danger of being called a bitch for asserting their authority. They also have to be careful about being labelled as too emotional at the slightest turn.

The upper classes are generally old money conservatives. Both men and women tend to repress emotions and they generally feel that the very expression of emotion is bad taste. They carry on an aristocratic tradition which prides itself in never breaking down, whether in love or war.

Happiness and social class

Socialists would be very happy with the results of research about which social classes are happy and which aren’t and why. It seems intuitive to say that the upper classes are happier than the working class because they have an easier life. But research shows that this isn’t quite the case. What we know for sure is that money does bring happiness when money delivers the working class into a middle-class position. However, there is no necessary correlation that money buys happiness as one moves from middle class to upper class. It is not predictable that upper class people will claim to be happier than those who are middle class. All this means is that when money provides the foundation for a good life, people respond well. But beyond middle class there is no correlation between money and happiness. To say money can’t buy happiness is not true. Happiness can increase as we ascend from poor to middle class. A formula for a good economic social policy is that if you want happier people, try to make all workers middle class.

Differences between classes in becoming civilized and becoming disciplined

As we will see shortly when we discuss the history of emotions, the process of becoming civilized brought with it a whole different range of social and psychological emotions. But for now we want to ask, does the process of becoming civilized apply to all social classes from the 17th through the 19th centuries? In my book Forging Promethean Psychology I argue that the working class and the poor in absolutist states or nation-states never became civilized, but they did become disciplined.

How was becoming disciplined different from becoming civilized? The first difference had to do with the population in question. Becoming civilized was the psychogenetic socialization process of the middle and upper classes. Being disciplined mostly applied to the working class and the poor. The second difference was in the types of influences used. The process of becoming civilized involved softer influences such as rhetoric, charisma, symbolic power, and legitimacy. Discipline, at least initially, involved hard influences such as physical force, the threat of force (coercion), economic deprivation, politics, and later, legitimation.

The third difference was the direction of the class forces operating. Becoming civilized, as Norbert Elias writes, was a competitive process for status among classes who were roughly equal – aristocrats, merchants, and intellectuals. Becoming disciplined initially involved top-down orders. Poor or working class people had to obey the authorities or face consequences. Discipline came from the top: Calvinist and Lutheran theologians to their parishioners; from military authorities to their soldiers; and from the state to its subjects.

Following Elias, becoming civilized in the courts of Europe involved a new set of emotions for aristocrats such as shame, embarrassment, superiority and envy. For the working class under disciple, they had another set of emotions: fear, suspicion, paranoia and guilt. It is easy to think classes in other societies had the same set of emotions, but this is not true. Elias says that the situation in 16th and 17th century Europe was unique.

Cross-Cultural Emotions: How They vary from society to society

Collectivism vs Individualism

In his book Cultural Psychology, Steven J. Heine reports that broadly speaking individualists of industrial capitalist societies are more likely to express emotions than collectivists and they are certainly more likely to express negative emotions. This is not hard to understand. People in collectivist societies are interdependent upon each other and consider most as extended kin at work and in their villages. They cannot afford blow-ups. On the other hand, because the relationships between individuals in industrial capitalist societies are short-term and appear voluntary (following social-contract theory), they are more likely to tolerate a falling out.

Another common distinction is between cultures of honor (herding societies) and cultures that are not (farming societies). As has been pointed out in the book Cultures of Honor herders are far more susceptible to insult because: a) their wealth is mobile rather than stable; b) their population is sparse; and c) they have no protection from the state in terms of land disputes. Farmers are more likely to tolerate insult because their wealth in land is stable, they can count on the state for intervention and the land is densely populated. They are less likely to settle disputes with duels or shoot-outs. The differences between southerners and northerners in the United States follows.

Finally, Ruth Benedict characterized the difference between shame cultures and guilt cultures. Shame is embarrassment at letting the group down. Guilt has little to do with groups. Guilt is remorse over a volition of a law, or a holy book. Puritans show a great deal of guilt. She also made a distinction between Dionysian cultures which are expressive and Apollonian cultures which were more reserved.

Analogical messages: gestures, postures

Most people well understand that it is necessary to do emotional work on the job and at home. Emotional work means a) showing emotions you do not have and; b) hiding the emotion you do have. This is especially true in customer-service work. However, people also imagine that their analogical communication (gestures, postures) is somehow less deceptive and imagine they are a more reliable gage than verbal expression of emotions. But cross-cultural research shows this is not the case. For example, Yankees may think that the A-Okay sign is universally recognized when among Southern Europeans, it is a crude gesture. In our Men Overcoming Violence group, a Yankee man innocently propped up his feet on a stool in front of an Iraqi man sitting across the way. He soon found out the showing the sole of one’s foot to someone from Iraq is the greatest insult. If there are gestures and postures that are universal, they are few and far between. They may be harder to hide than the verbal expressions but their origins lie deep in the local context of the culture which vary from region to region.

Cross-cultural nature of jealousy

The following is paraphrased from the textbook Invitation to Psychology by Carole Wade and Carol Tavris. A young wife leaves her house one morning to draw water from the local well, as her husband watches from the porch. On her way back from the well, a male stranger stops her and asks for some water. She gives him a cupful and then invites him home for dinner. He accepts. The husband, wife and guest have a pleasant meal together. In a gesture of hospitality, the husband invites the guest to spend the night with his wife. The guest accepts. In the morning the husband leaves early to bring home breakfast. When he returns, be finds his wife again in bed with the visitor. At what point in this story will the husband feel angry? The answer depends on the culture.

• A North American husband would feel very angry at a wife who had an extramarital affair.
• A North American wife would feel very angry at being offered to a guest as if she were a lamb chop.
• But a Pawnee husband of the 19th century would be enraged by any man who dared to ask his wife for water.
• An Ammassalik Inuit husband finds it perfectly honorable to offer his wife to a stranger, but only once. He would be angry to find his wife and guest having a second encounter.
• A century ago, a Toda husband in India would not feel angry at all because Todas allow both husband and wife to take lovers. However, both spouses would feel angry if one of them had a sneaky affair, without announcing it publicly.

 In most cultures people feel angry in response to insult and the violation of social rules. But they often disagree about what an insult is or what the correct rule should be. Here we have four different cultures lined up on the political spectrum in their attitudes towards hospitality and sexuality.

The most extreme right wing is the Pawnee Indian who draws the line at talk at the well. In the center right is a Yankee husband who is outraged at his wife having a martial affair. But on the liberal side of the spectrum we have the Inuit who draws the line not at having an affair, but at having sex twice. The Toda, the most radical has no problem with extramarital sex. The problem is if it is done in an underhanded manner.

History of the Emotions

Broadly speaking, it used to be that emotions were experienced as being invasion from the sacred world given to us by the goddesses and gods. It was only at the beginning of the 18th century that emotions were thought of as originating from some part of the mind or the body. After 1860 emotions were seen as cultural, universal, inclusive of all species, biological, physiological and hard-wired.

What does it mean that emotions have a history? Does it mean that new emotions emerge in different historical periods? To say this is to challenge universalis ideas of emotions being static or possibly circulating in different historical periods. In my book Lucifer’s Labyrinth I follow Elias’ description of how differences from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Europe produced new sets of emotional reactions.

Emotions in the Middle Ages

As Elias says, people in the Middle Ages lived a life that was intense, brutal and short. They lived life to the fullest with the time they had. Their psychological life alternated between sensory saturation and religious mortification about what they had done. Middle Age people were more violent and could tolerate more pain. As Elias said, they live their life between the super-ego and the id. The ego was less developed.

The warrior class in the Middle Ages could be characterized as courageous, impetuous, wild, cruel and living in the present. But when these warriors were forced into the courts by the king and the merchants, they had to adapt themselves to court life. Above all, they needed to control themselves. Now their characteristics included being prudent, restrained, self-contained, timely, refined, more humane and more gossipy. Their every mood required foresight for the future, hindsight into the past (people they may have offended) and insight and self-reflection to make sure their behavior was not offensive. So within a century, the emotional life of one class significantly changed.

Emotional life in the Baroque and the 18th century

There are also major differences in the emotions between the Baroque 17^th century aristocrats and the 18th century merchants during the Enlightenment. The aristocrats of the 17th century had superiority complexes, were preoccupied with “keeping up with the Jones” and cultivated a cool nonchalant attitude. On the other hand, some 18th century merchants strove openly to be happy, and were motivated by their quest for serenity. Their emotions were controlled by reason, not so much by what was expected of them. The emotional life between the aristocrats and merchants differed in many other areas such as attitude toward the senses; attitude towards pain; attitude towards animals; bodily conduct; sleeping patterns and attitude towards dying.

From honor and glory to avarice and ambition: warriors vs merchants

As we’ve said, the values of aristocrats in Europe were honor and glory. But for the merchants in the 18th century these values would not do. As Albert Hirschman traces a movement from glory and honor to “interests” in his book Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, Alexander Murray tells the story of how these values were undermined by two new values: avarice and ambition. Both these motivations were despised by all classes in the Middle Ages. But with the rise of merchants there was a slow process by which avarice and ambition were changed from vices to virtues, which supported merchant capitalism

Emotional life of Romantics: late 18th to mid 19th century

Lastly, in the 18th century with the rise of romanticism, early romantics had a new attitude toward the emotions which differed drastically from the Enlighteners. Lionel Trigger, in his book Sincerity, points out that with romanticism came new emotions: the importance of being sincere and the importance of being authentic. Being sincere was the exact opposite to the aristocratic of haughtiness and masquerading. It meant saying what you meant and meaning what you said. Being authentic came out of the romantic notion that everyone had a true self as opposed to the roles both aristocrats and merchants had to play. Being authentic meant showing people your true self. Sincerity and authenticity were hugely important to humanistic psychology in the 1960s and 1970s.

Summing Up: Evolution to an Emotion

We are now finally in a position to describe the evolution to an emotion. The first step, or point zero, is an external event that triggers the emotion. Let’s say you work as a cook in a restaurant and your ex shows up for dinner with her new boyfriend.

• Physiological state of arousal:
  • Physiological – sweaty palms, racing heart, dry mouth
  • Feelings – confusion, frustration, pain, discomfort
• Internalized socio-cultural, class and historical forces
  • Type of society – industrial capitalist
  • Social class – all working class
  • Cross-cultural – Mexican American; Italian
  • Gender – heterosexual – man – woman
  • Point in history – 21st century crumbling Yankee empire
• Cognitive appraisal
  • Automatic thoughts; cognitive interpretations; explanatory styles
  • Assumptions – all this from the cognitive psychology of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck
• Analogical messages
  • Gestures, posture, clothing
• Situational constraints
  • You are working and you can’t leave
• Display rules and emotional work
  • What feelings do you have to show that you don’t have?
  • What feelings do you have that you can’t show?
• Emotional impression
  • Hurt, anger, fear, jealousy, disappointment, relief
• Emotional expression
  • Optional
  • Act like you don’t care

Under normal circumstances which are routine, all eight of these steps could be processed in less than ten seconds because of years of practice. But because of the unusualness of this particular circumstance, our poor cook may take days to process what the situation means and what array of emotions he has.

As we have seen, the cognitive theory of the emotions has revolutionized the theory of emotions by arguing that emotions come from thoughts. But cognitive psychology implies that the individual makes up their own mind about which emotions they have. In the evolution to an emotion steps, the second step is entirely missing. A communist theory of the emotions would have social, cultural, class and historical mediators in place.

The hardest step for people in capitalist society to understand about this evolution is the second step. How could internalized socio-cultural, historical and class forces be inside of people rather than outside? Wouldn’t these forces come later, at the end?

The inclusion of step two attacks the idea that emotions are private, inside people and under their control. A communist theory of the emotions says that emotions are not private. They are products of a particular type of society, a particular social class, a particular kind of culture existing in a certain point in history. All these forces exist prior to the time you were born and they are socialized into you by your caretakers mostly unconsciously, especially in the first five years. The initial internalized socio-cultural, class and historical conditions are inside you whether you like it or not. That is our fate.

Later, as we mature, we become more active in dialectically reciprocating with these forces so that our class status might change. We might go to live in a different country (culture) or go to live in a socialist society. We might work as economic advisors to contribute to the world historical economy shifting Eastward in the 21st century. Whereas fate are the conditions that we are given when we are born, destiny is what we make of those conditions. However, even if you are active on all these fronts, step two is the infrastructural plumbing of all emotions and it creates and sustains all the steps that follow. The content of the infrastructural plumbing may change, but the presence of a plumbing infrastructure will not.

What Capitalism Can Do to Our Emotions

Capitalist psychology splits the individual from his social, cultural, historical and class identity. Then it takes the stripped-down, isolated, alienated individual as human nature as its point of departure. Most every psychological problem is rooted in the chaotic and contradictory interactions of the four systems as they interact.

Alienation Under Capitalism

Alienation is the inversion of subject and object, creation and creator. It is a reversal of ends and means so that the means acquire a life if their own.

Members of capitalist society are alienated in:

• the products of their labor;
• the process of producing the products;
• the other people they are producing with;
• the power settings in which the product is distributed;
• the biophysical environment; and,
• their self-identity

The products of their labor: commodity fetishism: hoarding, manic consumption

Marx talked about how under capitalism commodities acquire a life of their own, and become disengaged from the situation which produced them. Commodities, rather than becoming a means to an end for living, become an end in itself. Erich Fromm defined a particular kind of pathology which he called the hoarding mentality and the marketing pathology in which people are obsessed with the accumulation of commodities. The emotional life of a consumer is anxious and destabilized because their identity is centered around the acquisition of new commodities, whether they need them or not. Most capitalist psychologists treat accumulation of commodities and capitalist mania for accumulation as not worth identifying as a pathology as it’s not even in the diagnostic manual.

The process of producing the products: insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion

Under capitalism, the workday has lengthened from 40 to at least 50 hours of work in the last 50 years. There is less security about having a job and the average worker is more likely to have two jobs with no benefits. For workers a job is just something to put up with. Life begins when an individual has leisure time. Work under capitalism still possesses a religious root as a way to repent from original sin. This adds extra distress for workers during a recession or a depression when workers cannot find a job but blame themselves for not having a good “work ethic.”

Other people they are producing with: competitive anxiety anti-group mentality

Almost a hundred years ago neo-Freudian Karen Horney claimed that it was competition between workers and between workers and other social classes that produced anxiety. As I mentioned in my article What is Social Psychology Part II, that groups under capitalism are treated as:

• no more than the sum of individuals;
• less than the sum of individuals;
• an entity that has a super-personally separate life from individuals.

To give you an example of the third framework, when people join a group at work, they often dissolve into it. They reify the group. They make the group a thing, above and beyond anything they can control. When an individual withdraws from the group, the group is renounced as a resource, as the individual believes their problems are so precious that no one could possibly understand them.

When the individual tolerates the members of a group, the individual renounces the capacity of the member being tolerated to change. The tolerating member does not consider that other members might be restless also, and they are not alone in putting up with members who are hard to manage. When individuals rebel against the group, they assume that other group members are conservative, never change or are stuck in their ways. If the individual tries to dominate the group, the dominating individual renounces their ability to get what they want through the collective creativity of the group. What withdrawing, toleration, rebelling or dominating have in common is that they are zero-sum game, with winners and losers.  The best example of a group that is treated as less than the sum of individuals, is in the Lord of the Flies novel. A group being less than the sum of individuals exists in the hyper-conservative imagination of Gustave Le Bon in his books about crowds, or in mass media’s depiction of mass behavior during natural disasters where crowds develop a hive mentality.

The power-setting in which the product is distributed: apathy, myopia

Unions in the United States gave up a long time ago providing a vision for workers in terms of having a say in the decision making on the job. This leads to apathy. In addition, the specialization of labor discourages understanding what is going on in the entire production process. People do their job over and over and know nor care what is going on in other parts of the production process. “That’s none of my business”.

Alienation from nature: physical deterioration shortening life-span

This form of alienation under capitalism has reached a currant volatile form in the areas of pollution, extreme weather. John Bellamy Foster has called this a “metabolic rift” between humanity and nature. Air pollution worsened breathing for people with lung problems and added new physical problems. Extreme weather has made both winter and summer conditions hazardous almost everywhere in Yankeedom. The lack of state planning over Covid has either killed millions of people or given them Long-Covid. The United States life span has declined 2.7 years since Covid began. The US is the worst at managing Covid, having the highest number of infections and deaths. Environmental psychologists have long known that getting out into nature reduces stress and has long-term benefits. But thanks to capitalism, communing with a nature which is unpolluted is getting harder and harder to find.

Alienation from self: the illusion of free will under capitalism – depression

Capitalist psychology assumes people are fundamentally selfish, as if we individuals are like Hobbes’ atoms, greedy, insensitive, grasping and mindlessly crashing into each other. Whether it is Freud’s ego or the behavioral motivation of pain or pleasure, individuals’ primary motivation is self-interest.

Under capitalism individuals have supposed “free will”, meaning they may more or less freely choose their situations.  Religious institutions, educational expectations, economic and political propaganda, legitimation techniques, mystification and collusion in the end have no bearing on what happens. In spite of everything, free will wins over the type of society we are raised in, our social class, our culture or the historical period in which we live. With these unrealistic expectations about freedom, the individual is likely to internalize the real-life constraints and blame themselves for their less than idyllic life.

For a communist psychology, all these forms of socio-political control affect free will. While none of these processes by themselves or even all together determine a person’s free will, the options people choose to exercise are significantly constrained.

Capitalists eternalize capitalist relations 

Capitalists eternalize alien relations under capitalism and treat them as if they were always there. They project how people learn, think, emote and remember under capitalism into other historical periods. For example, they present narcissism, attention-deficit disorders or manic-depression as present in tribal or state civilizations just as much as they are under capitalism.

Emotions under Communism

Everything that follows is based on the real experience of workers in worker cooperatives, behavior in natural disasters and workers’ experiences in revolutionary situations. These emotional states represent communists at their very best rather than all the time. Under communism people are seen as primarily collectively creative. This is demonstrated in practice when workers are given the opportunity to operate cooperatives, create workers’ councils in revolutionary situations or even how they behave during natural disasters. Selfishness is a product of capitalism and not the primary way human beings operate. Consuming commodities are a means to an end. There is no hoarding or manic consumption in communism since the primary identity of a worker is fulfilled on the job because they love their work.

Workers are not anxious or insecure about work because there is more than enough work for everyone. The number of hours of work per day will shrink because technology, no longer controlled by capitalist, is available to do mechanized part of the work, leaving people more time for the creative parts of the job.

Social unconscious: recalling the great moments in revolutionary situations

For a communist psychology, what is unconscious, at least for the working class, is a “social” unconscious. It is the repressed memory of the human past, dead labor, that causes this individual to have “social amnesia” and not care about their own history. However, when the collective-creative memory is revived, out pours the wisdom that has accumulated from revolutionary situations: the heroic stance of the Paris Commune; the heroism of Russian factory councils and the workers’ self-management experiments in Spain from 1936-1939.  To make this social unconscious conscious is to make the working class shapers of history rather than just being a product of it.

Pro-group basis of communist psychology 

In all these examples the group attitude under capitalism is a whole never more than the sum of its parts. The goal of communist psychology is to cultivate a “social” individual who gradually comes to see the activity of building and sustaining groups as the key to emotional health. Even though in socialist psychology, the group as a whole is more than the sum of its parts, the group is still the creation of concrete individuals. The group has no mystical identity floating above individuals. While there is no group without individuals, through the collective creativity of members,the group acquires a synergy whose products are more than what any individual can do by themselves. A communist psychology creates these win-win situations through cooperation.

A socialist psychological group challenges people who withdraw or dissolve into the group by asking what the group can do to give them what they want. The group confronts those who tolerate others by asking them why they are putting up with other members – what would need to happen for things to be different. To those who rebel the group asks “what are you rebelling against and how could we change things to make the group more attractive to you?”. To those who try to dominate the group, socialist group therapy does not moralize against dominators. We simply say that you are losing out on the collective creativity of others by trying to subjugate them.

Our job involves exposing the unconscious commonalities between people that lie beneath our individual differences. It means making a long-term commitment based on the belief that the commonalities between most working-class and middle-class people far outweigh our differences.

The idea is that if you learn to build the collective power of a one group, you can then go out into the world and change it by your newfound capacity to change groups wherever we go, now and into the future. Learning how to change groups through the collective creative capacity of the group moves us from being products of history to being co-producers of it. A rich, co-creative group life is the key to emotional well-being under communism.

Conclusion

Under capitalism we have an emotional life with elements that include hoarding, manic consumption, narcissism, short-attention span, insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion, apathy, myopia, unnecessary physical deterioration, a shortened lifespan and depression. Under communism people are relaxed, serene, enthusiastic, creative, and happy and that goes with the research on happiness described earlier in this article.

• First published at Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng and Jia Ao for RFA Mandarin.

The post NPR Host and NYT Guest Stress that Russia is Communist While Vilifying Uninformed Republicans appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sam Husseini.

The Hong Kong branch of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), part of the CCP's United Front Work Department outreach and influence program, is calling on Hong Kong students in the U.K. to sign up for a "mentorship" program at several universities.

"Despite being directly connected to a government organization, [the program] promised that 'there will be no political propaganda'," a joint statement from five Hong Kong activist groups in the U.K., including Power to Hongkongers and Nottingham Stands with Hong Kong, said.

"This claim is contradictory ... We strongly oppose this program due to our deep concern over its covert political objective," the statement, which was also signed by Durham Stands with Hong Kong, Newcastle Stands with Hong Kong and the Liverpool Hongkongers Alliance, said.

"We urge the participating student societies to withdraw from this program and disassociate from this organization," the statement, carried on the Facebook page of Nottingham Stands with Hong Kong, said.

A spokesman for Newcastle Stands with Hong Kong who gave only the nickname K said Hong Kong activists are increasingly concerned about CCP infiltration of British universities.

"We also experienced a lot of infiltration of the CCP into British universities when we were studying," K said. "For example, in 2019 ,the Chinese Students and Scholars' Associations (CSSAs) directed Chinese students to suppress Hong Kong students' activities on campus in support of Hong Kong."

"The societies participating in this mentorship program are mainly established by Hong Kong people and carry a certain influence in Hong Kong student circles," K said. "We are worried that the CCP will continue to brainwash the next generation of Hong Kong people overseas by infiltrating these societies."

K said CCP propaganda, enforced by a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020, has already changed the atmosphere at Hong Kong's universities, particularly the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Polytechnic University, which resisted attacks by fully armed riot police and even an armored car on their respective campuses with Molotov cocktails and makeshift weaponry in November 2019.

"The CCP has never stopped infiltrating, and has set up ... organizations overseas to try to extend their influence to students in other countries," K said.

"Overseas governments should pay more attention to this attempt to coopt universities, so as to curb the expansion of CCP influence," they said.

Hong Kong societies at eight British universities including Kings' College London, Leeds University and Queen Mary University, London had already signed up for the "mentorship" scheme by the time the statement appeared.

Kings College London took down the poster soon after the Aug. 8 statement appeared, to be followed by other societies on Aug. 9.

But the poster remains on the Instagram accounts of the Unite UK Alliance and the Swansea University's Hong Kong society.

Benefits vs. dangers

Chu Seoi, a doctoral student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who is currently teaching in a German university, said the "mentorship" program offered some attractive benefits to participants, and urged Hongkongers to remember who was behind it.

"This program is pretty tempting," Chu told RFA. "But the problem is that it is provided by the enemy of us Hongkongers: the United Front Work Department of the CCP."

"It's being provided by the same CCP that took away our city, our home, and destroyed freedom and democracy in Hong Kong," Chu said.

"It's as if someone who just killed your family comes running up and offers to introduce you to some people ... who could help your career."

An employee surnamed Yue who answered the phone at the the Hong Kong CPPCC youth association on Wednesday said the mentorship program pairs young Hong Kong students with industry leaders in various sectors, and costs nothing to take part in.

"Students in the U.K. can participate," she said. "We will match them up with a mentor based on their wishes, and they can communicate with others in a group."

"We don't charge students money for this, but it has been postponed until October now," Yue said.

The group was set up in 2014, and consists of CPPCC members under the age of 45, and the offspring of wealthy Hong Kong business owners, to "serve our nation, serve Hong Kong, and serve our members," according to a motto on its Facebook page.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Yitong Wu and Chingman for RFA Cantonese.

On Wednesday the Ministry of Public Security said the Investigation Security Agency had decided to probe Nguyen Son Lo, 74, under Article 331 of the Criminal Code.

The ministry did not explain why the investigation had been launched, saying the Investigation Security Agency was “focusing on investigating, collecting documents, and consolidating evidence on the criminal acts of the accused and related individuals … according to the provisions of law."

Lo’s close friend Nguyen Khac Mai, director of the Hanoi-based Minh Triet Cultural Research Center, said his colleague was a highly-decorated war hero who turned to study and offered his insights on the situation of the country and ways to improve people’s lives.

"Recently he founded a think-tank on cultural research and development,” said Mai.

“He told us ‘the issue of culture has become a huge issue these days for the nation’ so he wanted to contribute to this field.”

He said his friend had written a number of books to advise the country’s leaders, offering recommendations on Vietnam’s economy and culture.

“The Central Inspection Commission [of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam] came to SENA to work with him and confirmed they had not forbidden him from expressing his opinions or making recommendations. They just asked him not to spread them widely," Mai said.

Lo was advised not to send his books to provincial Party secretaries or National Assembly deputies. He was told to send them internally to bodies such as the Central Organizing Commission, the Central Inspection Commission, the Central Commission on Propaganda and Education, the Secretariat and the Politburo of the party’s Central Committee.

According to Mai, Lo agreed to send his comments only to responsible officials but did not understand why he was being investigated.

Last year, Bach Thong district police in Bac Kan province, published an article titled "Suggestions to build the Party or act against the Party." The article referred to the SENA Institute and claimed it had written an open letter about the 13th National Congress of the Party expressing incorrect and distorted views on Party and State.

Mai said his colleague was not acting against the party.

"He only has a constructive mind. He wants to contribute, correct mistakes, improve, make this Party and government more civilized and cultured, more humane, more popular, and kinder.”

“That's his aspiration and I think 90 to 100 million people also want the same. No one wants to overthrow the regime, they just want it to be better.”

“Less corruption, more humanity, less immoral behavior, no land grabbing but negotiation and proper compensation. That is his wish like mine and others," said Mai.

On July 4, the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations issued a decision to suspend the operations of the institute and take steps to abolish it, saying its establishment and operations violated regulations.

According to Mai, SENA is a civil society organization, legally registered with the state and its members are former high-ranking cadres such as Nguyen Manh Can, former deputy head of the Central Organizing Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

Trong, who is also a member of the National Assembly for Hanoi, made the comment in a meeting in the capital Hanoi on Thursday, the reports said.

But online critics of the government expressed continued frustration with Vietnam’s leadership for not doing more to root out graft in the government and mismanaging the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trong, 78, has been general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) — the highest position in Vietnam — since 2011, and served as the country’s president from 2018 to 2021. As head of the Politburo, Vietnam’s highest decision-making body, he is the most powerful leader in the country.

On June 6, the VCP announced it had expelled Hanoi Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh and Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long from the party following accusations that they were involved in a U.S. $172 million scandal. They were paid by Viet A Technologies Company to provide overpriced coronavirus test kits to hospitals.

It is not unusual for senior government officials to apologize to the head of the VCP when they face high-profile corruption charges.

Oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was convicted of embezzling assets from units of Vietnam’s state-owned oil company, and Nguyen Bac Son, a former minister of information and communications imprisoned for accepting a U.S. $3 million bribe, both expressed remorse for their actions.

Musician Tuan Khanh from Ho Chi Minh City told RFA that the Trong’s response to the Viet A Technologies scandal has been insufficient.

“He merely performed a simple act of expressing anguish and regret when the party members and those in top positions were penalized and dismissed from the party,” he said. “That shows Trong is a figure of the party circle with no vision to lead the nation forward but to nowhere.”

Hanoi resident Nguyen Son noted that party leaders never apologize to Vietnamese citizens after they are convicted of wrongdoing.

“The fact that so far the governing party has disrespected the common people is not new,” he told RFA. “They are afraid that if they apologize or take responsibility for the wrongdoing, it would mean that their power has been diminished.

“They never publicly apologize to the people in the media,” he said. “Such a government cannot be said to be of the people, by the people and for the people. It is a government that grasps all power in its hands, so whether they apology or not, nothing can be done about it.”

Lawyer and democracy activist Nguyen Van Dai was even more critical of Trong, who he said should accept more responsibility for the actions of officials in his government.

“I cannot imagine why as a human he can lose all sense of decency,” he said. “The fact that he thinks all wrongdoing by the officials under him does not at all relate to him is unacceptable.”

Dai said their remains a disconnect between the government and the people because under the one-party communist system leaders do not need to face the voters in open elections.

Vietnam ranked in 87th place out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index, with a higher ranking corresponding to a widespread perception of corruption in the public sector.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Police at the Ministry of Public Security arrested former Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, former Hanoi Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh and former Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Cong Tac, all of whom were expelled from the Communist Party and removed from their positions Monday.

The three were implicated in a U.S. $172 million scandal in which the Viet A Technologies Company bribed officials to get its test kits made and distributed nationwide at inflated prices.

They are the latest casualties of the one-party state’s years-long crackdown on corruption, referred to as “furnace burning” by its architect, Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong.

The crackdown, intended to restore public confidence in the Communist Party, has seen several high-profile arrests of government and private sector officials over the past few months. But it has drawn mixed reviews among observers of the government.

Le Hoa, a lawyer based in Hanoi, praised the effort in an interview with RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“This is a very positive signal giving ordinary people more faith in the Communist Party of Vietnam’s fight against corruption,” he said. “The fight, led by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, is on the right track and is bearing fruit. Those are my thoughts, and I believe many others would have the same view.”

Hoa said that he hoped authorities don’t declare this the end of the Viet A scandal. He said that if police investigate further and bring in even higher ranking party officials, it would show that the party is serious about its tough stance on corruption.

Throwing mud in a pond

Justice is happening too slowly, Pham Dinh Long, a former officer in Vietnam’s military who cancelled his membership in the Communist Party in 2009, told RFA via text message.

“If the law is really strict and transparent and for the sake of justice, they should have been arrested right at the beginning of the Viet A scandal,” said Long, who lives in the central highland province of Lam Dong.

“It’s not only too late, but it is a disregard for justice that these two ringleaders weren’t arrested until this stage,” he said.

Nguyen Thong, a blogger, wrote on his Facebook account that it had taken too long for Vietnam to discipline Long and Anh.

He said that a democratic regime that respects for the rule of law would have been quicker to act and that the furnace burning campaign was largely a public relations effort to boost confidence in government and downplayed the campaign’s effectiveness.

“Some praise this anti-corruption furnace, but I despise it. It can't undo the rottening nature of this country's system,” he said. “Arresting a thousand guys then replacing them with a thousand of the same kind of guys is just throwing stones, throwing mud to the pond.”

A Hanoi lawyer, who spoke with RFA under condition of annonymity for security reasons, wondered whether the replacements to the three arrested officials would be any better. The lawyer also noted that party leaders, including Nguyen Phu Trong, supported the re-election of Long and Anh to the Central Committee at last year’s 13th Party Congress.

More arrests to come?

Uncovering corruption can be a tool for those hoping to discredit political rivals, but Vo Van Tao, a journalist from the coastal city of Nha Trang, told RFA that he doubted the arrests were political infighting. He expects further arrests.

“There are a lot of rumors on social media, saying that [Long and Anh] might not be the last catch. Perhaps even higher ranking leaders [could be arrested],” he said.

Vietnam’s agreements to buy Chinese vaccines at a higher price than Pfizer’s during the height of the pandemic last September looked suspicious, he said.

“As you may recall, the first batch consisted of 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccine and each dose cost 127,000 dong [U.S. $5.50]. However, just more than 10 days later, the prime minister agreed to the Ministry of Health’s proposal to import 20 million doses of Chinese Verocell vaccine and the price for each dose was 160,000 dong (around $7). I think something’s abnormal here.”

Hospital official implicated

As part of the same scandal, police in the northwestern province of Son La arrested Lo Van Chien, the head of the Son La General Hospital’s Pharmaceutical Department, for accepting bribes from the Viet A Technologies Company, state media reported.

According to the police investigation, Chien received kickbacks from Viet A when the hospital signed contracts worth 1.05 billion dong (about $45,000) to buy COVID-19 test kits.

Son La General bought each test kit for between 185,000 and 200,000 dong (around $8-9), considerably higher than similar test kits sold for about 140,000 dong ($6) to hospitals and medical facilities in other provinces and Ho Chi Minh City.

The State Audit of Vietnam recently announced that among the 32 provinces and cities it audited, 30 had purchased Viet A’s test kits. Vietnam has 63 provinces and centrally administered cities.

The 30 audited provinces and cities that bought Viet A test kits spent well over 2.1 trillion dong ($91.3 million) in total.

In early January this year, Lt. Gen. To An Xo, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Security, said that Viet A Director Phan Quoc Viet had admitted to inflating the price of a COVID-19 test kit by 45% and sending almost 800 billion dong ($35.2 million) in kickbacks to the company’s partners.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long and Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh are the latest casualties of the one-party state’s crackdown on corruption, which has seen several high-profile arrests of government and private sector officials over the past few months.

Long and Anh could face criminal charges for their actions in connection to the

Viet A Technologies Company scandal, during which officials were paid off so that hospitals would use overpriced COVID-19 test kits.

“It’s always a sign when the Vietnam Communist Party calls for an emergency session of its Central Committee,” Southeast Asia analyst Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, told RFA.

“Expulsion from the party is in itself a major deal... No longer protected by their elite party status, their legal jeopardy just went up a few notches,” he said. “Now that the party’s inspection has concluded, they will now be passed on the prosecutors for trial and an almost certain conviction.”

The company’s director-general, Phan Quoc Viet, faces charges of bribing health officials so that they would agree to overpay for the test kits to be distributed to hospitals and provincial Centers for Disease Control. Viet was able to make $172 million in profit and then re-channel $34 million into more bribes, AFP reported.

The Viet-A scandal was uncovered at the end of last year as part of the Communist Party’s efforts since 2016 to get tough on corruption.

The anti-corruption campaign, referred to as “furnace burning” by its architect, Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, has seen high-profile arrests of government officials over the past few months for their involvement in various scandals. For example, several Ministry of Health officials have been accused of accepting bribes for space on international rescue flights out of areas in the world heavily hit by COVID-19.

Authorities have also discovered a number of training violations at the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. The director of a military hospital was arrested for granting slots to unqualified applicants at the ASEAN Medical and Pharmaceutical College.

Vietnam also recently arrested 19 people on charges of “violating regulations on asset management and use, causing losses and waste” at an agriculture company, and seven senior coast guard officials, including the commander, for embezzling funds

Nguyen Ngoc Gia, an independent journalist, told RFA that corruption is more widespread than even the recent arrests would indicate.

“I think the big reasons are that the rule of law doesn’t exist, the rule of virtue is just a formality, and the technocracy is too weak,” Gia said.

“Meanwhile, culture and education, the two most important areas making up the soul of a nation, are widely manipulated by money. Therefore, it can be seen that the current appearance of morality is just hypocrisy,” said Gia. Totalitarianism and the one-party system have led to an overemphasis on money and power, Gia said.

The Viet-A scandal was not as large as others, but the government is paying special attention, Abuza said.

“This scandal seems to have stung the leadership a little bit more. In part there was the direct link between the firm and the senior leadership. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong had egg on his face,” Abuza said.

“Anti-corruption has been the hallmark of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s tenure. Trong has wielded anti-corruption as he believes that the country’s endemic corruption threatens the VCP’s legitimacy,” he said. “But he also has wielded it as a tool against political rivals. And many in the country will see this as just that: elite political infighting.”

Trong suffered a stroke in 2020, so there are expectations that the third-term general secretary will step down before the term is up in 2026, Abuza said.

“But as long as he believes that corruption is still reaching the senior most ranks, he’ll fight to stay on, convinced that others will take the issue of corruption as seriously.”

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

It said showed that the 2019 protest movement -- which it referred to as 'black riots' in a reference to the black clothing worn by protesters -- hadn't died out, but rather gone underground.

It accused instigators of "subliminally indoctrinating followers with various anti-government, violence-inciting messages."

The pro-CCP Wen Wei Po said the center had set up "death squad" class to teach like-minded students how to use weapons until the time was right, and they would "urge the people of Hong Kong to ... overthrow the CCP by force."

It said the center had also held ceremonies to pay tribute to people killed during the 2019 protests.

Li said police are focusing on identifying people who may go on to commit violent acts.

"With this vicious cycle, we are very worried those radicalized will go one step further and commit terrorist attacks," he said, but declined to disclose how many students Wong had managed to attract so far.

Police also accused the pair of calling on the public to resist the government's attempts to contain the current outbreak of COVID-19, including the LeaveHomeSafe tracking app and the vaccination drive.

The arrests come after Hong Kong singer Tommy Yuen and two other people were arrested after allegedly calling on people to resist the current COVID-19 restrictions on social media.

Martial arts societies in southeastern China once acted as the seedbed of an attempt to overthrow the Qing Dynasty during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901, which aimed to purge China of foreign colonial incursion and influence.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Yuk Yue.

With recent polling showing National edging ahead of Labour for the first time in two years, Jacinda Ardern’s previously strong support has eroded rapidly since winning a remarkable outright majority at the 2020 general election.

But the dip in electoral fortunes is only part of the story. It’s probably not an overstatement to say Ardern is presently one of the most reviled people in Aotearoa New Zealand, attracting vitriol that violates the bounds of normal, reasoned political debate.

During the recent illegal occupation of Parliament grounds, the apparent hatred was fully evident. There were ludicrous claims the prime minister is a mass murderer, and demands she be removed from office and executed for “crimes against humanity”.

• READ MORE: The reward for good pandemic leadership: Lessons from Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand reelection
• The extremism visible at the Parliament protest has been growing in NZ for years – is enough being done?
• Analysis shows horrifying extent of abuse sent to women MPs via Twitter

Even on the supposedly professional social networking site LinkedIn, false claims that Ardern is a “tyrant” or “dictator” have been increasingly commonplace. For those making such claims, factual, constitutional, electoral and legal realities seemingly hold no weight.

So, what fuels these levels of antagonism? I suggest three factors are at play.

Context matters
How a leader is judged and what they can achieve is never simply a reflection of their individual characteristics and abilities.

Rather, as leadership scholars have long emphasised, the expectations of followers and the wider political, economic, social and historical context influence both how they are judged and their ability to achieve desired results.

In Ardern’s case, the public’s main concerns right now — food and fuel prices, rental and home ownership costs, and the effects of the omicron outbreak — are beyond the direct control of any political leader. Some will require years of transformative effort before significant improvements are seen.

A paradox of leadership is that while followers will often hold unrealistic expectations that leaders can solve complex problems quickly, they are also quick to blame leaders when they fail to meet those unrealistic expectations.

Ardern is caught in the maw of these dynamics, and that’s one of the factors fuelling the attacks on her.

Protest over, but the flames of disinformation keep burning: https://t.co/2AagprfTqT pic.twitter.com/jJTxJuHgG4

— 1News (@1NewsNZ) March 10, 2022

Covid controversies
The second obvious reason lies in the covid-related policies — including vaccine mandates, crowd limits and border controls — that have disrupted people’s lives and been heavily criticised by vested interests such as expat New Zealanders and various business sectors.

Anti-mandate protests, in particular, have become a front for wider anti-vaccine movements and extreme right-wing conspiracists. While the prime minister must balance restrictive policies with the greater public good, detractors are not bound by such considerations.

Ironically, by demonstrating a firmness of resolve to act in the nation’s best interest — something leaders might normally expect praise for, and for which Ardern has won international admiration — leaders become open to accusations of being inflexible and unresponsive.

Echoed by opposition politicians and some media commentary, these elements combine to feed a sense of growing frustration.

Old-fashioned sexism and misogyny
But these first two factors alone, while significant, don’t explain the full extent of the violent and hateful rhetoric directed at Ardern, albeit by a minority. Rather, it’s clear this is rooted in sexist and misogynistic attitudes and beliefs, further amplified by conspiratorial mindsets.

Research shows both men and women with more traditional views desire “tough”, “bold” and “authoritative” leadership. A man displaying traditionally masculine behaviours, who is an assertive risk-taker, dominating and commanding others, is their ideal leader. This aligns with an assumption that women should follow, not lead.

Ardern’s emphasis on traditionally feminine ideals, such as caring for vulnerable others, and her strongly precautionary covid response run counter to what traditionalists respect and admire in leaders.

What’s known as “role incongruity theory” further suggests that Ardern jars with what traditionalists expect of “good women”. Overall, the sexism and misogyny inherent in these traditionalist beliefs mean Ardern is treated more harshly than a male prime minister pursuing the same policies would be.

Worryingly, the 2021 Gender Attitudes Survey (carried out by the New Zealand National Council of Women) showed such traditional views about leadership and gender are on the rise.

Abuse shouted at Ardern by anti-mandate protesters in Westporthttps://t.co/0HncAc2y7S pic.twitter.com/8dt2xJA83T

— 1News (@1NewsNZ) February 22, 2022

Traditionalist myths
Insults and abuse commonly directed at Ardern on social media reflect the generally gendered nature of cyberviolence, which disproportionately targets women. These insults translate traditionalist beliefs into sexist and misogynistic acts.

Referring to Ardern as “Cindy”, for example, infantilises her. Calling her a “pretty communist” not only reflects the sexist and misogynist view that a woman’s worth is measured by her appearance, but also suggests her looks disguise her real aims.

This plays on the traditional trope of woman as evil seductress. From there it’s a short leap to the conspiracy theories that depict Ardern as part of an evil international cabal.

Unfortunately, for traditionalists and extremists alike, the evidence shows that effective leaders do not conform to their ideal or play by their rule book. Instead, they tend to be collaborative, humble, team-oriented and able to inspire others to work for the common good — qualities women often exhibit.

Of course, Ardern’s performance is not beyond criticism. But a fair-minded analysis, free from sexist and misogynist bias, would suggest the hatred directed toward her says more about the haters than Ardern.

Dr Suze Wilson is senior lecturer in Executive Development/School of Management, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

With recent polling showing National edging ahead of Labour for the first time in two years, Jacinda Ardern’s previously strong support has eroded rapidly since winning a remarkable outright majority at the 2020 general election.

But the dip in electoral fortunes is only part of the story. It’s probably not an overstatement to say Ardern is presently one of the most reviled people in Aotearoa New Zealand, attracting vitriol that violates the bounds of normal, reasoned political debate.

During the recent illegal occupation of Parliament grounds, the apparent hatred was fully evident. There were ludicrous claims the prime minister is a mass murderer, and demands she be removed from office and executed for “crimes against humanity”.

• READ MORE: The reward for good pandemic leadership: Lessons from Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand reelection
• The extremism visible at the Parliament protest has been growing in NZ for years – is enough being done?
• Analysis shows horrifying extent of abuse sent to women MPs via Twitter

Even on the supposedly professional social networking site LinkedIn, false claims that Ardern is a “tyrant” or “dictator” have been increasingly commonplace. For those making such claims, factual, constitutional, electoral and legal realities seemingly hold no weight.

So, what fuels these levels of antagonism? I suggest three factors are at play.

Context matters
How a leader is judged and what they can achieve is never simply a reflection of their individual characteristics and abilities.

Rather, as leadership scholars have long emphasised, the expectations of followers and the wider political, economic, social and historical context influence both how they are judged and their ability to achieve desired results.

In Ardern’s case, the public’s main concerns right now — food and fuel prices, rental and home ownership costs, and the effects of the omicron outbreak — are beyond the direct control of any political leader. Some will require years of transformative effort before significant improvements are seen.

A paradox of leadership is that while followers will often hold unrealistic expectations that leaders can solve complex problems quickly, they are also quick to blame leaders when they fail to meet those unrealistic expectations.

Ardern is caught in the maw of these dynamics, and that’s one of the factors fuelling the attacks on her.

Protest over, but the flames of disinformation keep burning: https://t.co/2AagprfTqT pic.twitter.com/jJTxJuHgG4

— 1News (@1NewsNZ) March 10, 2022

Covid controversies
The second obvious reason lies in the covid-related policies — including vaccine mandates, crowd limits and border controls — that have disrupted people’s lives and been heavily criticised by vested interests such as expat New Zealanders and various business sectors.

Anti-mandate protests, in particular, have become a front for wider anti-vaccine movements and extreme right-wing conspiracists. While the prime minister must balance restrictive policies with the greater public good, detractors are not bound by such considerations.

Ironically, by demonstrating a firmness of resolve to act in the nation’s best interest — something leaders might normally expect praise for, and for which Ardern has won international admiration — leaders become open to accusations of being inflexible and unresponsive.

Echoed by opposition politicians and some media commentary, these elements combine to feed a sense of growing frustration.

Old-fashioned sexism and misogyny
But these first two factors alone, while significant, don’t explain the full extent of the violent and hateful rhetoric directed at Ardern, albeit by a minority. Rather, it’s clear this is rooted in sexist and misogynistic attitudes and beliefs, further amplified by conspiratorial mindsets.

Research shows both men and women with more traditional views desire “tough”, “bold” and “authoritative” leadership. A man displaying traditionally masculine behaviours, who is an assertive risk-taker, dominating and commanding others, is their ideal leader. This aligns with an assumption that women should follow, not lead.

Ardern’s emphasis on traditionally feminine ideals, such as caring for vulnerable others, and her strongly precautionary covid response run counter to what traditionalists respect and admire in leaders.

What’s known as “role incongruity theory” further suggests that Ardern jars with what traditionalists expect of “good women”. Overall, the sexism and misogyny inherent in these traditionalist beliefs mean Ardern is treated more harshly than a male prime minister pursuing the same policies would be.

Worryingly, the 2021 Gender Attitudes Survey (carried out by the New Zealand National Council of Women) showed such traditional views about leadership and gender are on the rise.