Today I found that my phone’s memory was not enough, so I cleared some space. While browsing through the categorized images, I came across pornographic pictures from a long time ago (2022). At first, I was tempted and had the impulse to add these pictures back to my album, but I didn’t follow my initial thoughts. I thought, what am I going to do after downloading these pictures? Do I have to rely on these to indulge in lustful pleasures to satisfy my sensory stimulation? Can’t I live without engaging in these vulgar things? Moreover, if I really do that and indulge in lustful pleasures, what kind of consequences will it bring? It’s nothing but the beginning of my personal downfall and the destruction of collective ideological struggle. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes. Don’t think that occasionally indulging in lustful pleasures is harmless or just relaxing. Every time I reconnect with lust, I am indulging in bourgeois pornographic ideas, objectification and oppression of women, which erodes my thoughts. This gradually causes the bourgeois ideology in my ideological struggle to surpass proletarian thoughts, ultimately corrupting myself and turning me into a spiritual lackey and slave of the bourgeois patriarchal society’s exploitative class! I must never hold a fluke mentality towards lustful pleasures! With this kind of thinking, I no longer hesitate and immediately deleted all those reactionary pornographic images.
Today I read Lu Xun’s “Revolutionaries Who Are Not Revolutionary,” and here are some of my thoughts:
Some so-called “revolutionaries” and “leftists” constantly talk about revolution, as if they are eager to start one immediately. They claim that they are willing to sacrifice anything for it, saying that the vast proletariat in China is already prepared for revolution and should immediately engage in armed struggle, telling workers that they need to revolutionize and overthrow the current reactionary government. They say this casually, and then expect the workers to follow them to carry out the revolution, seize factories with arms, and that victory will come quickly.
In reality, is this really the case?
The vast Chinese proletariat has been corrupted and infiltrated by reactionary bourgeois ideas from the beginning. Many among them have, for most of the time, spontaneously submitted to the oppression and exploitation of capitalist society. They often only rise in rebellion after suffering extreme exploitation and oppression that make it impossible for them to survive. Usually, they are suppressed by the concentrated violence of the ruling bourgeoisie’s power apparatus. How can it be said that the broad proletariat is already prepared for revolution? Moreover, is it enough to shout slogans and denounce social injustice? Will all workers and peasants consciously follow these so-called “revolutionaries” to occupy factories, and then quickly achieve victory? This is truly absurd. Even among workers and peasants, there are deliberate cultural and economic influences and divisions imposed by the bourgeoisie, leading to ideological differences. Even if “armed seizure of factories” is successful, without high ideological and organizational unity, internal differences will soon surface during the brief period of “victory” and peace. They will start fighting for power and benefits among themselves, and before the bourgeoisie can concentrate its forces to suppress them, they will be doomed.
These so-called “radical revolutionaries” probably do not truly act for the liberation of the proletariat or all humanity. They do not see workers and peasants as equals. They believe they are born to be great “leaders,” thinking that as long as they call out loudly, workers and peasants will be convinced and follow their “revolution.” They think they are smarter and more capable than workers and peasants. If a revolution is truly imminent or already happening, they become anxious and attack the revolution with the dirtiest and most obscene words they can think of, strongly rejecting it.
After all, what they want is a “revolution” where they can live without labor, without hard work—just smoking, drinking strong liquor, talking about love, playing with women, and gaming all day.
The so-called “radical revolutionaries” today aim to replace the exploiters and become the top of society. What they oppose is not exploitation and oppression itself, but the fact that they themselves are exploited and oppressed!
Reflections on my words and actions during these days working in the factory:
Once, Hu was talking with an old worker about foreign women, saying that women from Russia and Africa are very strong, and then he said that marrying one would mean not thinking about messing around with other women. At that time, both the old worker and Hu were laughing. I listened, and although I didn’t laugh, I didn’t say anything either. I didn’t immediately oppose their joking about women being viewed by men as private tools to satisfy their desires rather than independent individuals. I just worked indifferently, which is actually very wrong.
Hu and the old worker’s conversation undoubtedly reflected their backward thinking. They are poisoned by the reactionary ideas of the bourgeois private ownership and patriarchy, which merely regard women as family slaves to satisfy men’s desires and serve men. This is indeed a very dismissive attitude towards women. You can see this from their joking about a female worker’s body parts (saying that massaging these parts can promote blood circulation and enlarge them, or otherwise they will sag and shrink). They look at women’s bodies with a pornographic perspective.
However, I am capable of speaking out, of rebutting their incorrect bourgeois ideas about women. But I have never spoken out. It seems I even lack the necessary anger. Why is that? Isn’t it because I have unconsciously accepted and approved their discourse and thoughts that belittle women as mere tools to satisfy male desires? Or is it because I am still haunted by the residual effects of individualism, fearing trouble, and even when I see the contradictions among the three of us, I choose not to resolve them?
This is very dangerous! Not only for me personally, but also for the collective.
As a petty bourgeois intellectual still undergoing transformation in the factory, although I have come into contact with Maoist-Marxist-Leninist thought, this does not mean I will immediately become a fully revolutionary Maoist-Marxist-Leninist intellectual, an advanced intellectual standing on the revolutionary proletarian side. The transformation from backwardness to progress will be a long and painful process. After all, quantitative change leads to qualitative change. If I do not expose my backwardness bit by bit in practical reality and consciously criticize and correct it, I cannot attain the revolutionary consciousness of someone like Dazai Osamu. I cannot endure the enemy’s severe torture and remain loyal to the revolution like him. My indifference to Hu and the old workers’ mistakes is actually an indulgence of my own backward individualist thoughts and reactionary ideas that regard dominating others as normal. Letting these ideas gradually dominate my ideological struggle will suppress my proletarian consciousness, ultimately corrupting me and turning me into a reactionary bourgeois running dog. If I end up like this, I will have a bad influence on the collective of workers and the revolutionary collective. I will continue to emit the stench of bourgeois individualism, corrupting the collective spirit of the proletarian revolution. This is very dangerous!
I must struggle against the wrong ideas within the worker group. I cannot let myself be indifferent just to maintain superficial harmony and avoid losing benefits. This is not only for my personal ideological struggle, to improve my political consciousness and become useful for the revolution, but also for the collective ideological struggle, for the unity and progress of the workers and peasants, and for the revolution of the proletariat and the liberation of all humanity!
Without ideological struggle, it is fundamentally impossible to carry out propaganda among workers. Those dogmatic left circles deny the necessity of ideological struggle so desperately, or nominally admit it but actually deny it, producing garbage articles every day and considering themselves superior to the masses. It is clear that they have never done any propaganda work among workers.
Today I read an introduction to political economy and discussed it with others. Here are my thoughts:
A good can only become a commodity if it has both use value and value at the same time. For example, a wooden toy is needed by children in society outside of the laborers who produce it. It has use value, and it is produced through the long labor of a carpenter, which embodies the carpenter’s labor, thus it has value.
Because it is needed, and it shares a common value with other needed items produced by others (such as shoes), which are also the result of long-term labor by shoemakers and embody the shoemaker’s labor, toys and shoes can be exchanged for each other based on their different use values and different amounts of value in terms of quantity (temporarily ignoring currency, purely barter— for example, one toy is the result of one hour of carpentry labor, and a pair of shoes is the result of two hours of shoemaking labor. One toy embodies one hour of labor, and a pair of shoes embodies two hours of labor. Only two toys with a total of two hours of labor can exchange for one pair of shoes). When they are exchanged, the toy is used by children, and the shoes are worn by the shoemaker, and the value circulates. Both use value and value are realized. At this point, the toy and the shoes can be regarded as commodities.
And if an item only has use value but no value (no one has worked on it), it cannot be regarded as a commodity. For example, trees can be cut into timber to serve as raw materials for various wooden products, which are needed by society. However, if the laborer has not spent time felling the tree and turning it into timber, it has no value as a tree and cannot be exchanged, so it is not a commodity. When the laborer spends time felling it and turning it into timber, it gains value and also has use value, so it can be used for exchange and becomes a commodity.
As for items that have value but no use value, I cannot think of any.
Speaking of collectible antiques and such speculative items, can it be said that they have value but no use value?
No, although it is an antique, it can be used for collection to satisfy people’s spiritual needs, which is actually its utility value. For example, a porcelain bowl from the Song Dynasty, placed today, some wealthy individuals have a spiritual desire to collect ancient and rare objects to show their uniqueness and financial power. It happens to be a rare antique that meets such needs, so it has utility value.
The usefulness of an item, that is, its property of satisfying a certain need of people, is called the use value of the item. Marx said: “The utility of a commodity makes it a use value.” — Xu He, “Introduction to Political Economy”
The use value of an item is multifaceted. The common porcelain antiques, for example, can be used to hold things, but it’s just that those bourgeoisie who collect antiques wouldn’t do it that way.
应该是没有，既然有价值那就说明凝结了一定的无差别人类劳动，而这些劳动凝结在一定的具体物品上，就会赋予这个物品一定的使用价值或者增加新的使用价值。
如没有使用价值那也没人想要交换了，也就谈不上价值了
。不过劳动支出了却没有创造出使用价值的情况的确没想到合适例子，例如现在普遍在用炸药开矿时，一个人拿着矿镐搁那嗯挖就是无用功了，可能挖个好几年都挖不到矿，然后他挖出的这些碎石头估计也没人收购。这个可能合适一些。
Things that have no use value cannot have value, because use value is the material carrier of value
There is no such thing
Today at noon, I went out to eat. Because there were quite a few people, I sat at the same table with three workers from other factories. The three of them were together, sharing the same dish, which consisted of three vegetarian dishes: boiled winter melon, kelp, and salted tofu. This was a sharp contrast to my own meal, which included one meat and one vegetable, kelp and duck meat. They were chatting in dialect while eating, and I was just quietly eating alone, feeling out of place and different. This gave me a strong impulse to主动地 (proactively) tell them to include my dish in their shared food so I could also talk with them. But in the end, I didn’t do it; it was just a thought, not put into practice. What was I thinking at that moment? I spontaneously suppressed my impulse, thinking, “Oh well, I will tell them after I finish my two bowls of rice.” But by the time I finished my second bowl, they had already finished eating and left. I didn’t have another chance to turn my idea into action. This actually reflects my personal ideological problem. As a small bourgeoisie still undergoing transformation, my collective sharing mentality and personal enjoyment mentality are constantly struggling. This time, obviously, my bourgeois selfishness and self-interest took the upper hand, causing me to miss a good opportunity to communicate with the workers. I didn’t consciously think from a political height to oppose my spontaneous selfish thoughts; I just hesitated and followed that individualistic idea, becoming so-called “out of the mud but not stained.” I should not make such unconscious mistakes again in the future, or I will damage the revolutionary collective’s interests and miss opportunities for propaganda just like today!"}
519 is also probably afraid of interacting with people.
Does this selfish and self-interested specifically refer to not wanting to share food? But if it were me, I wouldn’t actually be thinking about that; I would be worried that sharing food might seem abrupt or out of place, and I would be speculating whether the other person might refuse me, so I hesitate and don’t dare to take action.
When it’s time to speak up, you should do so, and there’s no need to be afraid; workers are all very good. It reminds me of when I was in school, during public activities in front of many people or when I was fighting against Lao Jiu, there was always a conflict between the idea of following rules and the courage to fight. During this process, I would encourage myself, and even if I failed in the end, it was no big deal, so I just went for it. For example, in high school, I established a righteous alliance uniting victims of bullying. After hesitating for a long time, afraid that no one would respond and it would be a joke, I still made up my mind to write an alliance treaty, and as a result, seven or eight people joined the alliance to oppose those bullies. Another time, I argued with Lao Jiu; he clearly made a mistake on the test paper, but he insisted he was right. I directly snatched the test paper, tore it up, and threw it into the trash. Later, I was even called to the principal’s office. But it’s not a big deal. Dealing with people is like this; it’s also a kind of struggle, a struggle against my own narrow-minded thoughts of only caring about my small bourgeois personal life, and my cowardice. We Marxists must dare to fight and be good at fighting.