To those who say CCP is not the same as socialism/communism

If the same people who like to argue that China is capitalist are in the same breath arguing that Mao was a true marxist and that he was a hero, then you're being a hypocrite. Many CCP apologists and CCP admirers have either never read anything critical of the CCP, or have a superficial understanding of socialism/communism/Marxism.<br><br>They say that China is capitalist because it has market reforms, but then talk about how Mao was the "greatest anti-imperialist of all time" and that he was true to communist ideals. I've talked to supporters who called for the revolution abroad, decent people who actually believed in socialist ideals.<br><br>The thing is both<br><br>1) Mao was a dictator and the CCP was an authoritarian regime<br>2) Mao implemented socialism in China.<br><br>The two are not mutually exclusive, a socialist government can also be an authoritarian one. Many<br><br>To say that Mao was not socialist because he was a brutal dictator ignores the fact that Mao called himself a Marxist and that socialist tracts talk about the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat. To say that China now is not socialist because it is capitalist ignores the fact that a lot of its economic development was built on the back of Mao's socialist regime, and that it has a socialist constitution and trappings. <br><br>To say that China now is not capitalist because Xi Jinping today speaks about the "Chinese dream" is asinine. Literally everyone wants a better and more prosperous future for their country, that doesn't mean everyone is a socialist.<br><br>At the end of the day, the CCP is a party that both calls itself socialist and uses capitalist means to enrich itself. The CCP is a party that both calls itself socialist and is a brutal dictatorship that suppresses dissent and rolls back civil rights. The CCP is a party that is <br><br>- Literally the government of China<br>- An advocate for socialist/communist ideals in China<br>- An advocate for brutal suppression of dissent and is a party that engages in mass surveillance, mass imprisonment, and literal ethnic cleansing<br>- An advocate for capitalism and a big proponent of unfettered capitalism in the last 30 years<br><br>All of these are true.<br><br>Socialists and communists need to own up to the fact that the CCP advocates and has advocated for socialist ideals in the past. Capitalists need to own up to the fact that the CCP advocates and has advocated for unfettered capitalism in China.<br><br>At the end of the day, it's not either or, it's both. And both supporters and detractors of the CCP need to understand and admit this before having any nuanced discussion about it.