What’s wrong with syndicalism? I was watching Thomas Sankara: the upright man, and he specifically said down with anarcho-syndicalism. They seem to be one of the more decent strains of anarchism, the USSR supported them in Catalonia, maybe it’s my bias as someone who was introduced to Marxism through syndicalism, but I can’t see much wrong with them. Is it a lack of materialist analysis?
At a certain point its just about not wanting to call yourself a communist. A majority of westerners have very negative opinions about the socialist world. It helps them maintain the, “what we have is bad, but it’s the best we have;” mindset. You can associate with anyone in order to advance your motive as long as you don’t compromise your own understanding in the process; at the same time, you should be willing to defend the socialist world and its history from our supposed allies. Their spite and prejudice towards communism is their greatest hindrance, as well as ours as a movement.
Seriously. You can say some of the tankiest shit to these people and they’ll nod along up until the point where you ask them to sympathize with AES. And then it’s like a switch gets flipped and they revert back to liberal insanity. How in the world do they expect to challenge capitalism in their first world home countries, which is centered around US empire, without supporting the nations that are resisting said empire?
Hell, we don’t need them to even “like” or be knowledgeable about socialism in other countries. We just need them to recognize the enormous fucking primary contradiction that is US imperialism and divert their energy towards challenging that. If they can’t even do that, they’ll never get their wish for whatever utopia they have in their heads.
As far as not needing them to “like” the socialist world. I don’t see why they can’t just admit they don’t know everything and it’s not their primary concern.
I have tremendous respect for China and follow all the little stories when they come up, but my knowledge of China is very limited. China isn’t an immediate concern in my life.
As you say, it’s not even about getting them to like China, the USSR, DPRK, and the like. All we really need for them to do is lay off, and just recognized the shared humanity between us and them. They aren’t cartoons.