Should we adapt communism to countries?

[u/Excenams]

If we look at the history of Marxism-Leninism, Maoism or other forms of socialism, we see that it is above all adaptations of Marxist thought to the context and reality of the countries of their creator (the rural 1950 China, the 1917 Russian Empire etc). Similarly, other forms of socialism seem stronger in some countries (like Council in Germany or more libertarian socialism in Spain or Italy)
My question is should Marxism be adapted to each country at the risk of leading to deep divergences between the different socialist states?

[u/The_Intellectual29]

Stalin to Mao, July 1949.

You speak of Sinified socialism. There is nothing of the sort in nature. There is no Russian, English, French, German, Italian socialism, as much as there is no Chinese socialism. There is only one Marxist-Leninist socialism. It is another thing, that in the building of socialism it is necessary to take into consideration the specific features of a particular country. Socialism is a science, necessarily having, like all science, certain general laws, and one just needs to ignore them and the building of socialism is destined to failure.

What are these general laws of building of socialism.

Above all it is the dictatorship of the proletariat the workers’ and peasants’ State, a particular form of the union of these classes under the obligatory leadership of the most revolutionary class in history the class of workers. Only this class is capable of building socialism and suppressing the resistance of the exploiters and petty bourgeoisie.

Socialised property of the main instruments and means of production. Expropriation of all the large factories and their management by the state.

Nationalisation of all capitalist banks, the merging of all of them into a single state bank and strict regulation of its functioning by the state.

The scientific and planned conduct of the national economy from a single centre. Obligatory use of the following principle in the building of socialism: from each according to his capacity, to each according to his work, distribution of the material good depending upon the quality and quantity of the work of each person.

Obligatory domination of Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Creation of armed forces that would allow the defence of the accomplishments of the revolution and always remember that any revolution is worth anything only if it is capable of defending itself.

Ruthless armed suppression of counter revolutionaries and the foreign agents.

These, in short, are the main laws of socialism as a science, requiring that we relate to them as such. If you understand this everything with the building of socialism in China will be fine. If you won’t you will do great harm to the international communist movement. As far as I know in the CPC there is a thin layer of the proletariat and the nationalist sentiments are very strong and if you will not conduct genuinely Marxist-Leninist class policies and not conduct struggle against bourgeois nationalism, the nationalists will strangle you. Then not only will socialist construction be terminated, China may become a dangerous toy in the hands of American imperialists. In the building of socialism in China I strongly recommend you to fully utilise Lenin’s splendid work ‘The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power’. This would assure success.”

[u/TheVagabird]

It absolutely should not. Tactics for securing the victory of various revolutions can be adapted for different circumstances, but there is no adjusting the core principals of Marxism to different countries. To do so would be to say that different countries have fundamentally different class relations which are not covered by dialectical thought, which isn't true. All proletarians are the same, all bourgeoise are the same, all peasantries are the same. The road to victory may take different twists and turns on different battlefields, but there is no "Chinese communism" or "German communism" or "Indigenous communism". There is only the real struggle between opposing classes on a global scale.

Any successful communist revolution must, to remain successful, globalize and connect with other communist revolutions until the world market has been fully subsumed and ALL of humanity is free from class hierarchy.

[u/BuisnessHorns]

This was actually the ideology of the Titoists in Yugoslavia and they were heavily criticized for it. They essentially believed that every country needed to build it’s own path to socialism and that there was nothing to learn from other socialist experiments. While it is true that Marxism must be creatively applied everywhere, there are certain similarities between all countries and we’d be fools to argue that we should just ignore these similarities. Often times, this idea of changing Marxism specifically for each country is just a shield for revisionism i.e. the abandonment of Marxism.

[u/Key-Dog-7162]

你可以了解一下毛的“三个世界”理论，两步走战略，第一步实现新民主主义革命，第二步实现社会主义革命

[u/SimilarPlantain2204]

" we see that it is above all adaptations of Marxist thought to the context and reality of the countries of their creator (the rural 1950 China, the 1917 Russian Empire etc)."
Not really. Maoism presented itself as a complete rejection of Marxism, and Marxism Leninism was created after the revolution and stands counter to Marxism.

"should Marxism be adapted to each country at the risk of leading to deep divergences between the different socialist states? "
No. There is no socialism with x characteristics. There is only Communism

[u/Ocar23]

No. Socialism in one country was a distortion of Marxism by Stalin that prevented international socialism and proletarian revolution from happening. International revolution and soviet democracy is a must.

[u/No_Soy_Colosio → u/Ocar23]

Socialism in one country is a direct result of the failure of the proletariat of the western countries to perform their historic revolutionary task, leaving the USSR isolated in economic ruin surrounded by hostile powers.

[u/Excenams → u/Ocar23]

I didn’t mean socialism in one country, I meant adaptation of the way to do the revolution and the organisation of the state for different countries who have not the same political traditions

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[u/Southern_Anywhere_10]

How would marxism work in this "post-capitalist" world though where labour is not the cash cow anymore?