this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Look, I said that I can travel to China without getting arrested. That is a fact. I can't say the same about the USA. If they knew I was coming to the states they would also know what I've posted and liked with 90% certainty, and believe me, they don't want someone who's been this deep into "anti-capitalism" as me entering the country. The United States government has more than enough reasons to go full stick instead of carrot when we consider its failing economy and the rebirth of social movements.
I know what I can expect in China, I know that they won't arrest someone because they once posted a picture of a yellow umbrella or liked a John Oliver video. That is too much of a hassle and China is currently liberalising, just like Kuwait and Qatar. Plans about opening the great firewall up have been floated again and again, and authorities are seriously considering doing that.
Plus you're are completely, and I hope I don't sound too much like a stereotypical ML – which I am not despite being on lemmy.ml – ignoring the CIA and DHS. Two, as it were, secret federal agencies with powers that go well beyond what the FBI or ATF can do. These have existed for decades. States simply have secret polices.
Post about how their president resembles the Pooh on social media and try again.
I hate posting Reddit links: https://www.reddit.com/r/chinalife/comments/1h2aodg/winnie_the_pooh_sold_in_miniso_store_in_shanghai/
Winnie the Pooh is not "banned" in China, nor does posting comparison pictures to Twitter or wherever bar you from entering. This is a tiny tidbit that has been blown out of proportion by sensationalist media. Forgotten pretty much everywhere but remembered in the US and Europe. Yeah, you have die-hard China stans in the comments, but my point still stands.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50166474
Winnie the pooh being censored is absurd and I wouldn't exclude it from having happened once at any point (shit like this happens on Reddit all the time with US state interest aligned moderators), but you know what's even more absurd? Harping on about it as if it were this big thing that Chinese authorities deeply care about. The joke making a joke out of the joker is something truly unique to the media circus. Reminds me of Japanese people who literally think that London is being firebombed and looted by migrants.
Good for you.
The point still stands: i wouldn't extensively criticize China's government online (use Tibet or Tiananmen instead of Pooh then) and then expect to fly in without any eyebrows being raised at the gate.
First of all, supposing you are not posting under your government name, how are the Chinese supposed to know who is making posts if they are not made on sites controlled by Chinese firms? Secondly, do you not think that they know that a lot of Americans and Europeans flying into China have less-than-positive views? At this point the top officials who design policy are expecting it to some extent. It would be unsustainable to be repressive in that way.
I'm one of the people who always says that Lenin was a fucking monster, and that no authoritarian can ever be communist. Which includes China.
I'm 100% sure that if I ever found myself going to China, I'd be arrested for calling Xi a fascist poo bear playing pretend at communism.
I'm also quite certain that come November Trump will start working up to arresting people for things said online. I'm sure I'll be at risk for calling him a pedo and posting this link; https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/6/1578544/-The-Untold-Story-of-Trump-Model-Management-A-Daily-Kos-Exclusive-Part-1
I sense you would also moralise about Napoleon being a "fucking monster". Lenin was a historical figure and he found himself guided by forces of the time. Aside from his rhetorical skill he wasn't particularly special, nor was he a super nice person. It wouldn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things if he was.
I am not saying this to dismiss your qualms. Mistakes were definitely made. Revolutions need to be learned from and its conducive to revolutions that violence is kept at a minimum. But let's not fool ourselves into believing that we can all hold hands and dance socialism/communism into existence. This sort of change has a lot of potential to be messy. I don't need to tell you this, but the Russian revolution was deeply troubled by a strong counter-revolution.
Let's get to your point about going to China. Libertarian professors are employed at Chinese universities, there are regular expressions of protest that don't land the protester in jail, think of nail houses, and social media figures as well as journalists who have criticised China in the past have travelled there without too much trouble. I don't think the state cares all that much about your dislike, they have bigger fish to fry. The populace is also quite content, so your agitating, if you were to commit to it, would attract confusion more than anything else. Sure, you might have the cops called on you. What happens then though? At worst you'll be sent back to whence you came as China doesn't want to get into diplomatic rows. You are unlikely to become an O. Warmbier.
Lenin wasn't just "guided by the forces of his time"
His first act after couping the provisional government was the creation of the Checka, a secret police force that he used to arrest all the Socialist Revolutionaries, the people responsible for the February Revolution. Also the winners of Russia's only free and fair election.
He then wrote about how "vanguard parties" and totalitarian dictatorship were somehow part of communism.
No, Lenin was a power hungry monster who shit on Marx's dream.
You need to realise that Marx is just a guy. Marx wrote things that can be interpreted as being in support of reformism and things that can be interpreted as being against reformism. He was very racist at times and at others he was woker than 95% of BLM protesters. Marx isn't a god or a hero, nor is he someone who had a dream per-se. He went actively against dreamers and utopians because he saw it as a real danger to make promises that might not conform to reality, while of course opposing naive realism or bargain bin political realism. He was in the truest sense a scientist, a critic, someone who was much closer to a nihilist than a naive activist. He revised his views multiple times throughout his life, as he went from being a romantic to something closer to a systems theorist. To put him into diametrical opposition to Lenin tells me that you understand neither beyond a Wikipedia level reading and that is being charitable.
To say that Lenin personally created the VChK without crediting the chaos and antagonisms is absolute insanity. It's even crazier to say that he was a power hungry monster, as if it were a property that came out of a vacuum. There was a war going on. The stone you sat on while taking a break was a power hungry monster, this isn't even a discussion, nor is it telling us much.
The provisional government failed, and not by some "evil" Leninist influence but because of the PG did not want to drop out of WWI partly because they were banking on being good with capitalist nations, which is a big big big deal. The SR had been in a cul-de-sac and the Bolsheviks yanked the movement out of it. The persecution of the SR needs to be questioned, no freaking doubt. Dismissing the Leninist vanguard however, the success of the Soviet Revolution, is deeply disrespectful to the proletarians who were at the base of the movement.
I have to repeat that I am not even a Leninist. I really do not believe that he should be worshipped and there were certainly questions of organisation that could have been handled differently. You are misrepresenting things egregiously.
Please stop this narrative. Western Marxists/communists and their purity posturing is exhausting. Say what you will of the CPC but it is a party that has taken China from backwater country to world leader within 60-70 years. Do you want China to instead be "democratic" the way the US is?
Totally not a false dichotomy.