u/RedGuard8 - originally from r/GenZhou
A critique of Vaushism
Vaush is a popular and fairly well known media personality on the left, technically a communist or an anarcho-syndicalist Vaush attempts to spread his ideals online and debate those who would disagree.
There has been a major push back against Vaush lately, because of his remarks about marginalized groups, his lack of economic and political education and his mischaracterization of famous Communist and “quote-mining” without fully understanding the context of said remarks.
Another thing which especially ticks me off personally is the so called “Red fascist tankie” not only is this mischaracterization on purpose but it denounciates the meaning of the word fascist as well to anyone who would support a state with a leader is now “fascist”, this type of language is extremely dangerous because once you validate anti-communists into such language it won’t be long until that rabbit hole leads people to thinking actual fascism is an appropriate response to communism. Anyone who wants meaningful change in a system is now a fascist, planned economy ? fascist, no unemployment ? fascist, workers soviets participating in democratic centralism ? fascist. The meaning of the word disappears, ironically all communists even Vaushites who share more traits with liberals are now being called “tankies” by neocons and neoliberals. It truly shows how damaging Vaush is to the ideal of Communism, anyone who’s read some about the Russian revolution would remember that in the path to socialism the bolsheviks faced obstacles the entire way, the white cadets, the bourgeoisie press, landlords, the middle class, the green army, the black army the mensheviks and more. The reactionary develops with socialism as socialism develops in antagonism to capitalism.
Vaush and his followers are no different to reactionaries, he even had a stream where he went over the 14 traits of Ur-Fasicsm comparing them to the modern American right wing, yet he hasn’t compared this to the traits of the Soviet Union, why ? Because Socialism practiced does not resemble fascism in any way, it is purely reactionary politics to make an ideology which brings about the emancipation of the worker and compare it to be in league to the devil himself.
When Vaush “destroys the tankies” he also eats out of the palm of the CIA. He consumes media he calls “independent” after said media is “leaked” information against China from the CIA, and when the left correctly points out that western media is incredibly biased and akin to propaganda, Vaush then smugly turns around and says “look they question media just like Nazis do” even after the media he consumes is quite literally and documentably funded by the American government. If Vaush is truly an unbiased person who rightfully calls out human rights abuses whenever he sees them, ask yourself why you have not seen a 4 hour stream digging into France, Myanmar, India, America, Saudi Arabia and Israel ? There are 60 million slaves in the world, Has Vaush denounced the Nato attack on Libya ? Libya has seen a massive resurgence in actual slavery, Vuash could never go against the attack because he would then be defending a despot and “fascist”, a despot and “fascist” who made Libya the most prosperous country in Africa. A despot and “fascist” who wanted to make Africa a self sufficient continent free from IMF loans and exploitation.
Just to show how much of this anti-China media is directed by the US government, take it from the US government themselves.
USAGM is troubled by the Chinese government’s latest move to restrict its citizens’ access to free and unbiased information.
-US Agency for Global Media (global American propaganda)
PUBLIC LAW 111–202—JULY 13, 2010 124 STAT. 1373
Radio Free Asia; also funded by the American Government, has been increasing operations since 2010. “ Radio Free Asia provides a vital voice to people in Asia” RFA currently operates $40,00000 per year. It is intended to destabilize regions in Asia because China is now a new world power which offers much less exploitative and typically imperialist deals than the world bank and IMF would. China with it’s belt and road initiative is doing what America said they would, which is to increase prosperity and democracy around the world.
There is a clear effort to villainize China, this can be seen everywhere in the media, with false stories of mass Uyghur sterilization, to stories of taking Organs and a fall in birth rates and “forced labor” for cotton picking. Continuing to attack China no matter how much you disagree with their efforts of de-radicalization only further echoes fear and war mongering and has a direct correlation with anti asian hate crimes in America.
If you are truly doubtful of China’s intentions still and believe that America is right in calling out “human rights abuses” and a propaganda campaign then why did they not do the same thing 4 years prior ?
Begining in 2016 and still occurring to this day, as you read this, in Myannmar there has been an active actual genocide against the Rohingya muslims. The primarily Buddhist country in 2016 had over 1.4 million Rohingya muslims living in it. Over 1 million Rohingya Muslims have fled to nearby countries. At least 25,000 have been killed, 116,000 have been beaten, 18,000 girls have been raped, gang raped or sexually abused, 36,000 have been thrown into fires. Take these numbers with a grain of salt as well, in reality these estimates are conservative. People have been driven from their homes, the government has killed them, raped them and burned them, as a result the international community says they are “worried” . Where is the condemnation from every single country in the west ? Where is the mass propaganda campaign ? why has Myannmars military coup garnenered more attention from western media than an ethnic, religous and cultural genocide has ? We all know the answer, Myanmar doesn’t call themselves socialist and China does. Myanmar isn’t a threat to western hegemony over the entire world, Myanmar doesn’t rightfully call out the American human right’s abuses, Myanmar doesn’t attempt to institute a 5 year plan with the intent of making their industry free from American trade.
If you disagree with China’s decision to de-radicalize a population without having to kill them fine, you don’t have to, equally call out other countries who do far worse than China as well though. Thoughtfully think about the reasons to create a smear campaign, ask yourself why there is not a mass exodus of Muslims in China like there is in Myanmar, a country with a smaller muslims population compared to Chinas but almost the entire population has left, ask yourself why there are Uyghur soldiers, Uyghur commanders, Uyghur business people, Uyhur police if there is a Uyghur genocide ? Why is there a constant barrage of extremely questionable sources, from questionable funding with evidence that cannot be shown or proven, and sources that are always anonymous ? Is teaching children 2 languages cultural genocide ? Vaush has shown he only gobbles up American and western propaganda and has directly contributed to asian hate crimes and asian fear mongering.
Next I would like to look at Vaush’s ideas on policy and socialism. Vaush advocates for Market socialism, an ideology which believes that all business in society should become worker co-ops. How would we do this ? we would “strategically” use electoralism to get policies we want passed and become a social democratic state. When the exploited or “third world” rises up our military would not be able to suppress them and then these formerly exploited peoples would magically institute the ideals of Market Socialism eventually becoming a centrally planned economy and then moving to full on communism.
Now if you’ve been a leftist for sometime you can already notice the holes in this logic. Market Socialism still operates on many of the principles of Capitalism like the reserve army of labor, the employer-employee relation, the tendency for wealth to be acquired by a small amount of co-ops thus reinstating capitalism, the lack of market growth due to capitalism being gone so capital is not invested in the same way, the profit motive and co-ops also have issues with growth and expansion. For a more detailed explanation of the problems with Market Socialism I recommend everyone who reads this to watch Paul Cockshott, he gives a very good analysis.
Next I would like to direct everyone with the idea that for socialism to be achieved that the productive forces in a nation must be met, this is typically a universally agreed upon idea, people must be employed, and have good standard of living and must be able to eat and live before any notion of Communism can be achieved, otherwise social strife will still be an issue as observed through dialectical materialism. An abundance of resources must be achieved and be able to be produced, one of the problems with Vaush’s ideology is that the exploiting western world is reliant upon the productive forces of the exploited world. I very much doubt the same relation of exploiter and exploitee will exist when there is no longer a reliance of capital from the west, the productive forces in the west must be again developed because the factories and workshops moved south. The economy of the west could never be self reliant as it currently stands, there are 2 possible paths to fix this. Either a centrally planned economy must be instituted so the productive forces can develop or Capitalism with heavy restrictions similar to China must be developed, otherwise socio-economic factors could cause another capitalist revolution like the one in France and become a global threat to socialism once more. Capitalism in a socialist world would as well be hampered because of the lack of need to trade if you are self reliant so it would seem the dreaded red fascist tankie central planning is the only viable option in reaching the productive forces.
Next Vaush thinks this all can be achieved through electoralism, for anyone who needs a history lesson, electoralism never works. When capital sees the possibility of profit in an industry which has been nationalized like the NHS for example they strip it of funding and try to end it. When an industry is no longer profitable to companies they get the government to take care of it. Where is the lesson on electoralism here ? because companies will never get on board with something that goes against their profits they will never let the government change into a tool that hampers them overall. Historically “moderates” and the “middle guy” hi-jacks every attempt for radical change with “compromises” When leftists start going with bourgeois elections and elect bourgeois candidates all they’re doing is giving into their principles, contrary to what Vaush believes Karl Marx and Lenin did not agree with voting for bourgeoise candidates and elections because you can never win when you collaborate with your enemies.
You cannot “push” Biden and elites to the left, it is against their interests, they are the tool of the capitalists, intended to protect their ideology and profits, a strong vanguard party is needed to fight liberals, not elect them. The only successful form of revolution against capitalists we have seen is Marxist-Leninism, not to say our ancom comrades have not made achievements especially in the realm of workers rights which we applaud them for, but the only revolutionary form of socialism proven to beat fascists and capitalists is our approach, and it will be the same approach from the global south as well.
If you have read this far thanks for taking your time to read my critiques of the rad-lib Vaush. I was getting tired of seeing the same old criticisms against his character, not because those criticisms are not valid but because when the only argument against someone and their ideology is personal it re-affirms his viewers beliefs that his form of socialism is the only viable one.
-Some Prole