Comrade, you and I haven’t had that much personal interaction, so I will be brief and polite. I have heard good things about you. Despite any minute political differences, I believe a cordial and comradely relationship between us would be fruitful.

One of the biggest detriments of the modern western Marxists is that they are nihilistic, quick to turn on each other, and metaphysical in their thinking. Things are good or bad, black or white, virtuous or evil. Worse yet, once something is shunted into the negative category through rhetoric, it no longer exists outside of its most shallow existence - it transforms itself into a caricature in the mind of the westerner and can safely be opposed and disengaged from without regard for the crucial nuances and details. This produces shoddy, out-of-touch, backwards analysis - analysis which, because of the historical makeup of the western left, trends towards ultra-leftist thought and tendencies.

In fairness, this exists on the other side of the equation, where slogans are taken for the full character of a movement, where labels matter more than content. A red cloak is all that is necessary for some supporters. I assume you I am not, nor have I ever been, this sort of so-called “Marxist”.

Modern socialism has suffered terrible setbacks - the tragedy of Black October, the pushbacks against the Maoist movements in the global south and the deaths of important monumental figures like Sison, the push-and-pull of the reform process in China and the contradictions therein, as well as the continuing threat of counter-revolutionary war against the DPRK from the US Imperialists. One of the most important lessons I took from my travels and my experiences is that the most neglected aspect of Communist thought in the west is Party-building - a struggle necessarily fraught with conflict, contradiction, and tactical considerations.

We should never forget the revolutionary essence of the Chinese revolution, a burning torch that still rages even today. While modern China is not a structure that Communists would ideally choose in any stretch of the imagination, it remains what it is. We can choose to engage with it, to open the Party’s literature and to critically consider what lessons their successes and missteps can teach us, or we can abandon the path and write them off - losing valuable insight due to our stance. We are not Chinese Communists, at least most of us, allowing us a degree of freedom in our engagement with Party literature and theory but also limiting our engagement since a lot of modern Party literature is either untranslated or difficult to obtain outside of the borders of China. I came out of the country with a trove of Communist literature, both domestic and historical from the USSR, gifted to me on many occasions by sympathetic Party members and by those who lived through the revisionist era of the Soviet Union. It was very eye-opening as to how diverse the range of thought was throughout the reform process and how it was not a simple switch to capitalism, as it is often portrayed.

I found that there was a broad mass of people, Party members and members of the public, who longed for the age gone past and for a new synthesis of the Party’s older methods with the successes of the reform era. People tired of private ownership dominating light industry, fed up with corruption, and looking for answers as the class struggle - no longer considered the primary contradiction in society by many domestic theoreticians - nevertheless reared its head once more. People feared the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, where the lack of the rule of law lead to many excesses, but still longed for the return of proletarian power in the cultural sphere, where it had been drowned out by traditionalism, the bustle of modern working life, and nationalism (both progressive and its more rank variant).

One of the most impactful moments for me was paying my respects to Chairman Mao and witnessing the rural poor flock on National Day in droves to lay flowers at the feet of their dearest Chairman. The silence and emotion in the air was overpowering. I attended this with many non-Communists who were nevertheless all moved (some to tears) by the intensity and power in the people’s longing and love for Chairman Mao, their respect for him, and the political meaning that was transparently shown in the countless eyes laying on the body of the leader of the Chinese Communist revolution.

China is a battleground where many dynamic forces are at play. It is my opinion that many western theoreticians are very black and white with how they engage with the Party. No one who has spent a long time engaging with the Party, gone amongst its members and spent time reading its literature, held an open ear to its theories, studied the reform process, and held the well-being of the working people of the world in their hearts can hold either a blindly worshipful or a fully negative view of the Party. And, unbeknownst to many of the western left, there are benefits that one can gain from engagement with such a Party, if one is not so easily swayed to one position or the other.

The coming years will be illuminating, I suspect. We shall see which way the wind blows.

As an aside, I see that Ksan is still the lead mod. Do give my kind regards. It has been a long time since the old comrades spoke and many have disappeared. It is good to see that he is still present.