ProleWiki

ProleWiki "The proletarian encyclopedia" Type "Collaborative online encyclopedia" (self-declared), propaganda outlet Available in 7 languages Founded 30 September, 2020 Founder Felipe Forte Key people CriticalResist,MxAsh, Jucheguevara Users 90> (claimed) ~5 (active users) URL prolewiki.org

ProleWiki is a Marxist-Leninist collaborative encyclopedia founded in September 2020. It is based on the MediaWiki software.

ProleWiki spans several subjects, including information on history, current events, communist parties worldwide, and countries, as well as hosting a library of texts related to Marxism. The site is greatly connected to another community on the online left, Lemmygrad. ProleWiki is available in several languages, but is most active in English.

The site is controversial in many section of the left for its open support for the modern governments of "actually existing socialist" states as well as its support for the 2020 Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

History

The following is a timeline of major events and developments which have taken place on ProleWiki.

Founding and early development (30 September 2020 – 24 November 2021)

ProleWiki was founded on 30 September 2022 by a user who went by the name of Felipe Forte, as well as other users of the internet forum Lemmygrad. The initial concept for ProleWiki originated as a reaction to the liberal bias found on Wikipedia. The then-sole administrator of ProleWiki, Forte, would firstly attempt to attract editors via promoting the project on Lemmygrad. He also attempt to promote his site on Wikipedia shortly. The website faced several spam bot attacks and eventually established an "account request" system.

The site was able to enjoy a spike of editors and general activity for the first few weeks of its existence, which prompted then sole administrator Forte to delegate sysop roles to several other people. However, this strategy did not work out because of absenteeism and eventual lack of interest in the project from most of this first wave of editors. Eventually, the administration was restricted to those who continued to work in the project – CriticalResist and Jucheguevara. However, these administrators were greatly committed to their positions, and this action was done in order to ensure ProleWiki would have a stable administration.

Ideological conflicts and administrative disunity (1 August 2022 – 27 September 2022)

The internal condition of ProleWiki would remain relatively stable for most of early-to-mid 2022, with few notable conflicts within the editorship or administration, This state of internal coherence would all rapidly disintegrate in August of 2022 when the inevitable creation of the page on Patriotic Socialism happened. The page noted Patriotic Socialism (with regards to the pseudo-socialist chauvinist ideology found in the United States of America) as being opportunist and revisionist. However, certain members within ProleWiki were Patriotic Socialist, including then-administrator Jucheguevara, and a conflict would start between Patriotic Socialist and non-Patriotic Socialist elements within ProleWiki.

This conflict would result in the non-Patriotic Socialist attaining ideological victory over the Patriotic Socialist elements, with the correct anti-Patriotic Socialist viewpoint of the article persisting and relative peace would remain in the ProleWiki community. A month after the initial conflict, in September, the aforementioned administrator with Patriotic Socialist views, Jucheguevara, would, particularly following the creation of the articles on MAGA Communism and on Infrared, which similar to the one on Patriotic Socialism, made clear that “MAGA Communism” was anti-Marxist and revisionist, and the Infrared collective were chauvinist, apparently experience escalating discontent with ProleWiki itself. Jucheguevara would conspire with the Infrared community to effectively infiltrate ProleWiki and force it to adopt Patriotic Socialist ideology, and to enforce a pro-Patriotic Socialist viewpoint onto the previously mentioned articles. Jucheguevara, would be banned on 27 September 2022 upon the discovery of his conspiracy by the other ProleWiki administrators. Jucheguevara was stripped of his powers as an administrator and his account banned from the project.

Banning of Wisconcom (28 September 2022 – 23 October 2022)

Hoxhaist user Wisconcom would join ProleWiki in June 2022 and began to protest the encyclopedia's stance on China and market socialism in August of that year. After weeks of this incessant ideological conflict within the editorship, the administrators first warned Wisconcom of a ban from the project, as he was insulting others and being disrespectful to his comrades.

While this would permit some internal peace to develop within ProleWiki, ideological disputes would soon develop. After being warned multiple times about his behavior, user Wisconcom claimed he was "retired" and left the project of his own accord, but returned three days later along with a petition demanding extended user rights over ProleWiki. The administration rejected this petition as they deemed Wisconcom had not earned such privileges through his mere 5 months of being with the project, and further believed him too unstable for such a postion due to the combative behaviour he exhibited several times both on Lemmygrad and Prolewiki. Immediately following this, the ProleWiki administrators would proceed to ban editor Wisconcom from the project for his further insulting behavior when he learned that his petition was rejected, as well as his ideological position.

Ideology

ProleWiki claims to adhere to Marxism-Leninism. The site maintains at least "critical support" of so-called "actually existing socialism", and views China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and DPRK as modern dictatorships of the proletariat.

Structure

Administration

In its founding in 2020, ProleWiki has functioned under the leadership of its founder and current administrator, Felipe Forte, but currently is also managed by CriticalResist. Despite claiming to fuction on a democratic centralist structure, the project does not currently hold internal elections, and currently prefers a "top-down" leadership from the founder.

Ties with external forums and communities

The ProleWiki administration has connections with ideologically-aligned communities on the internet, which most prominently include Lemmygrad (from which both of the two ProleWiki administrators, Forte and CriticalResist, hold moderatorship on that site). The ProleWiki administration works closely with Lemmygrad, regularly engaging in correspondence between their respective administrations. ProleWiki also maintains some links with communist content creators on Twitter.

Criticism

ProleWiki has been heavily criticized by some sects of the online left and is generally hated by them for its support of China, Vietnam, Cuba, DPRK and Laos as socialist states.

Sectarianism against anti-revisionists

ProleWiki, particularly since its purge their most vocal anti-revisionist editor in October 2022, has vilified anti-revisionist trends greatly. They have denounced Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha as degrading into "dogmatic and opportunistic thinking", denounced the concept of social-imperialism as "idealist" and "nonexistant" (and proceeding to defend reactionary and imperialistic actions by the Khruschevite-Brezhnevite Soviet Union), and denounced Maoism as being "ultra-left". The site has even demonized and otherwise attacked followers of Irish Republicanism, along with other modern revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces, calling them "petite-bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionary". In many other instances, ProleWiki has even voiced their support for Soviet revisionist leader Nikita Khrushchev, denying his defamation of Marxism and social-imperialist actions against socialist states such as Albania.

Perceived defense of imperialism

One aspect which ProleWiki is infamous for is its militant support for the imperialist actions of the Russian Federation and social-imperialist actions of the revisionist Soviet Union and the modern People's Republic of China. ProleWiki completely neglects accounting for the argumentation of the modern or historical anti-revisionist movement regarding social-imperialism. This is said to be paradoxical to ProleWiki's principle of "anti-imperialism".

ProleWiki's "criticism" section on their page on social-imperialism misrepresents the nature of this concept. They refer to social-imperialism as "a reformist and revisionist idea" and a concept which is employed solely by "ultra-leftists" (despite the concept orginating from Vladimir Lenin) due to the fact that they maintain the misunderstanding that anti-revisionists believe no counter-revolution in Mao's PRC or Stalin's USSR took place, and further claim that "neither Mao nor Hoxha ever explained what the material basis of a "social-imperialist" state would be, and what the social formation of such a state looked like", despite writers such as Enver Hoxha trenchantly documenting such details in their works, such as The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal Their Traitorous Countenance, of which, clearly articulate the nature of the Soviet revisionist state and its capitalist restoration.

Defense of Chinese social-imperialism and neocolonialism

ProleWiki has entirely denied the imperialist nature of the modern Chinese bourgeois state, and claim that those who are cognizant of this fact are merely using the " liberal definition of imperialism", despite most critics of Chinese imperialism employing the Leninist understanding. They claim that China's neocolonialist Belt and Road and other imperialist efforts are justifed merely because China supposedly "forgives loans" and they are relatively more popular among China's comprador and satellite states in Africa, omiting the fact that the chief export of imperialism is not simply "loans", but finance capital.

Disregard for the proletariat in "AES" countries

ProleWiki largely doesn't document the exploitation of the working class in the countries they deem as actually existing socialism. While documenting the economic exploitation of the workers in Western countries, they seldom do so of the East Asian countries of, for example, China. ProleWiki explains this by applying the theory of the Second Cold War, which believes that the USA is waging a second Cold War against China (as opposed to the USSR in the time of the first Cold War). Under this model and learning from the praxis of communists that lived through the first Cold War, ProleWiki holds that when communists publicly criticise socialist countries, they are not giving a nuanced articulation and merely siding with "imperialist propaganda".

Anti-science promotion

ProleWiki has, in the past, allowed people of anti-science persuasions to freely edit their articles. One example of this included the article ProleWiki had on psychiatry, which is cited as being an example misinformation which the site has promoted.

See also

• Lemmygrad
• Friends of Socialist China