ProleWiki

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</image> <image source="screenshot"> </image> <group> <header source="website_information">Website information</header> <label>Founded</label> <label>Initial name</label> <label>Type</label> <label>Languages</label> <label>Founder</label> <label>Key people</label> <label>Active users</label> <label>Espoused ideology</label> <label>Domain</label> </group> </infobox> ProleWiki is a Dengist and Maoist-third worldist MediaWiki site founded in September 2020. The site has promoted itself as "the proletarian encylopedia". Although a self-described "communist (Marxist-Leninist)" and "anti-imperialist" project, the site militantly defends revisionist ideology, imperialism, and social-imperialism. ProleWiki is infamous among the few socialist circles who are aware of it for its exceedingly narrow range of accepted ideological trends, with most of its editors being militant Dengists and those who are not often getting banned, its extreme sectarianism (with them denouncing anti-revisionists such as Maoists and Hoxhaists as being revisionists themselves, falsely) its nearly uncritical support for the economic and political system of China, Russia, and other modern capitalist states (of which they codify their support of in their "principles," which were determined solely by the site's founder in an ad-hoc manner), its extremely closed and numerically small administration, and its support of anti-science movements. Despite claiming to maintain 95 fully active editors as of December 2023, the site in reality has less than a dozen editors who are even moderately active. The site's administration is linked with online harassment and cyber-stalking campaigns and uses their closed Discord server to link to the unrelated websites of their critics, making the site's community more a web brigade as opposed to encyclopedists. The site's vetting process has been described by its administrators as being comparable to Stasi interrogations. The site is greatly connected to other ideologically-aligned communities, such as Lemmygrad and GenZedong, and is dependent on these external sites for their recruitment of editors and preservation of the ideological line of the site, in many regards functioning as a front-organization. ProleWiki often serves as a "gateway" for Communists to be indoctrinated into chauvinistic and revisionary ideology, with the site actively promoting "Patriotic Socialist" and other social-chauvinist points of view and allowing users of those persuasions into the project. For example, the site openly defends members of the social-fascist and self-declared Patriotic Socialist "Party of Communists USA" and other far-right figures such as Gonzalo Lira.

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 2020 by Brazilian pro-CPC propagandist Felipe Forte and other users of the internet forum Lemmygrad. The initial concept for ProleWiki likely originated as a reaction to the Liberal bias found on Wikipedia, with ProleWiki initially attempting to promote itself as "the people's Wikipedia". The then-sole administrator of ProleWiki, Forte, would firstly attempt to attract editors via promoting his project to several pro-China Telegram channels and to Lemmygrad. He would also attempt to self-promote his site on Wikipedia shortly. Also at this time, the site allowed Marxist-Leninists of many distinct sub-groupings to join and freely express their views, a policy likely taken out of pragmatism. Forte would also create a number of fake accounts and spambots on the site to boost SEO engagement to make the site more visible to unknowing newcomers, however, when this action failed to be yielding regarding account creation, Forte would later falsely claim that the spambots he covertly made were unintentional and made a system of "account requests" which, supposedly, was implemented to repel future spam attacks, but in truth existed as part of Forte's plot to slowly turn ProleWiki into a pro-CPC propaganda outlet via preventing non-revisionist Marxists from joining. However, the ProleWiki administration persists in denying the nature of this policy to this day.

While the site was able to enjoy a short-lived spike of editors and general activity for the first weeks of its existence, and the sole administrator Forte delegated sysop roles to several other people. However, this activity would soon sputter out entirely after the project progressed into early 2021. In response to this setback, Forte would later restrict administrator roles to merely two editors who were fully servile to his personal ideological line - CriticalResist8 and Jucheguevara (who was a known "Patriotic Socialist" and general holder of many reactionary views) - and declare himself "supreme comrade" of ProleWiki, claiming that the previous democratized administration was suffering from "absenteeism". However, these administrators were greatly committed to their positions, and this action was truly done in order to ensure ProleWiki would become purely a propaganda hub for Dengist revisionism and ruled in a top-down manner by him personally, as the other administrators were beginning to question the pro-China ideological line of ProleWiki.

Ideological consolidation and first purge of anti-revisionists (25 November 2021 – 31 July 2022)

In response to increasing discontentment on the part of the editors concerning the extremely revisionist and anti-Marxist stance Forte had taken towards the People's Republic of China, Forte would initiate the first ideologically-motivated purge on ProleWiki on 25 November 2021, banning a total of 12 editors in the span of just 3 hours (which as at the time over 90% of all active editors on ProleWiki). In an attempt to obscure the reasoning behind this mass-banning, Forte would claim that these editors were "Khruschevites", "Trotskyists", and "Radlibs". Following this, Forte and the other administrators would openly state ProleWiki's dogmatic and permanent support for the People's Republic of China and codified it in their principles. Forte and the others in his clique would proceed to completely discard Lenin's scientific theory of imperialism (calling it "dogmatic" and "outdated") and started embracing anti-Stalinist ideology, even downplaying Stalin's contributions to Marxism. ProleWiki, from this point forth, would consistently deny the account requests of anti-revisionists and generally any Communist who failed to fanatically support China.

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

While 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 of ProleWiki, This state of internal coherence would all rapidly disintegrate in August of 2022 when, along with others things such as protestations regarding the treatment of China, 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 a then-administrator Jucheguevara, and a conflict would start between Patriotic Socialist and non-Patriotic Socialist (which included two of the three administrators) 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. Relative peace would remain in the ProleWiki community, however, this would not be long-lasting. 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 (who are major “theorists” and promoters of “MAGA Communism”) 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. The then-administrator, Jucheguevara, would be banned on 27 September 2022 upon the discovery of his actions by the other ProleWiki administrators.

This action, however, was largely done for non-ideological reasons on the part of the other ProleWiki administrators, with it being less the case that they cared about combatting social-chauvinist trends and more simply being the fact that their power within ProleWiki was increasing being compromised.

"Great purge" of anti-revisionists and total adoption of ideological orthodoxy (28 September 2022 – 23 October 2022)

In response to an increasingly militant ideological stance against anti-revisionist trends, anti-revisionist user Wisconcom and like-minded users would begin to protest this anti-Marxist stance which the administrators were increasingly propagating by August 2022. After weeks of this ideological conflict within ProleWiki, the administrators, after repeatedly losing debates within the community to the anti-revisionist faction, threatened Wisconcom and other anti-revisionist users with a ban from the project.

While this would permit some internal peace to develop within the ideological groupings of ProleWiki, ideological disputes would soon develop when the ProleWiki administrators purposefully began blocking the account requests of anti-revisionists – with them instead turning towards ultra-Dengist communities such as Lemmygrad and r/GenZedong for editor recruitment almost exclusively – and openly went on a propaganda effort against anti-revisionist figures and movements, with them openly calling Maoists, Hoxhaists, and other anti-revisionists "dogmatic", "ultra-left", "sectarian", etc. in their articles. Following this, anti-revisionist users, led by user Wisconcom, would send a petition demanding administrative transparency (of which largely did not exist, with the administrators holding secret "proceedings" to ban users, make major decisions, etc., without anybody in the editorship knowing), the allowance of anti-revisionist users into the site, the expansion of the administration to more members, and the development of a democratic centralist system, rather than the one-man rule that the lead administrator Forte had over the site.

The administration would reject this petition, despite its popularity among the ProleWiki comradeship, claiming that it was a purely "careerist", "factionalist", and "sectarian" action.

The "great purge" on ProleWiki (23 October 2022)

Immediately following this, the ProleWiki administrators would proceed to ban editor Wisconcom from the project for his ideological stance and threat he posed to the power of the administration (a decision acted upon without any consultation from the wider community, and purely from the "initiative" if the administrators alone), with him otherwise being largely supported by the comradeship of ProleWiki for an administrator role. However, the banning marked the start of a "great purge" across the project, with over 25 accounts of mostly anti-revisionist users (called by the ProleWiki administrators "Hoxhaist worms") being banned within the span of a few hours. The administrators would later deny the clearly ideologically-motivated nature of this purge on ProleWiki, with them later framing Wisconcom, along with other banned users, for "careerist" actions, even including concocting fake screenshots and messages in an attempt to discredit these anti-revisionist users.

Following this event, the ProleWiki administration would effectively prohibit any sort of anti-revisionist communists from being allowed into the project, and would codify this stance in their principles.

Recent developments (24 October 2022 – present)

ProleWiki would essentially abandon its original intention of being an ideological encyclopedia following these sweeping ideological purges. Its goals and focus has changed from the dissemination of Marxist theory and economics to generally misinformative "counter-propaganda" in favor of the actions of Russia and China, with little care for actual ideological content. The administration has taken the direct of extreme ideological pragmatism, with them starting to allow editors into the project based less upon their ideological stance and more upon the degree of their "support" for so-called "anti-imperialist" and "socialist" countries such as China, even allowing non-Marxist and right-wing nationalist elements into their project solely for being supportive of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite lacking any care or understanding for Marxist theory.

The ProleWiki administration would, at around new year's eve in 2022-2023, organize several raids against external sites which criticized ProleWiki, although similarly claiming it was part of a greater ideological struggle, despite being purely careerist in motive.

ProleWiki, a community which has harbored left-communists and other opportunists for most of its existence, began to receive criticism for this stance in January 2024. In order to draw public attention away from this policy, the ProleWiki administration soon began to concede to this criticism and ban certain left-communists from the site, although they still refuse to clarify this opposition in their principles and permit less vocal ultra-leftists to edit.[1]

Ideology

Marxism-Leninism and support for "actually existing socialism"

ProleWiki, despite claiming to adhere to Marxism-Leninism, has commonly be described as Dengist in most communist circles due to its militant, if not uncritical support for the People's Republic of China and its present economic system. Despite the common views shared by Dengists that the current state-capitalist system of China is only applicable to the conditions of that country and nowhere else, ProleWiki has taken on a more extreme view, with them making claims that (with minimal concern for Marxist theory) private property under socialism is only "half-abolished" (contrary to the views of nearly every Marxist theorist), that billionaires are a critical part of a socialist state and must retain a large degree of state power, and that "market socialism" (an oxymoron by the understanding of Marxian economics) is, in the words of the leading ProleWiki administrator, "a redundancy [in terms]. There's no socialism without markets".

ProleWiki maintains the commonly-held Dengist view of "actually existing socialism", and views China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and "People's Korea" as modern dictatorships of the proletariat. ProleWiki has expressed its uncritical support for China on many occasions, denying China's present social-imperialist and neocolonialist efforts as a mere "bourgeois propaganda effort" (despite the editors proceeding to utilize billionaire-owned Russian and Chinese propaganda outlets and references), that it is presently in the socialist mode of production and a full dictatorship of the proletariat (a stance which not even the Chinese government holds), and even a Soviet-style planned economy, with their sources being posts on pro-China subreddits which cite no sources whatsoever. (despite over 75% percent of the Chinese economy being owned by private, mostly bourgeois, entities, and even the public sector being run with a lack of workplace democracy and on a for-profit basis).

ProleWiki administrator Forte has even asserted that all socialists who are not supportive of the modern capitalist system of China, regardless of their ideological stance, are universally "without realizing it, praising the capitalist system!", indicating that ProleWiki, despite its claimed goals, values dogmatic support for "actually existing socialism" rather than actual revolutionary activities.

Sectarianism against anti-revisionists

File:ProleWiki antianti-revionist ban vote.png

Example of the sectarianism adopted by ProleWiki. They ban "Hoxhaists" and other non-revisionists for being in opposition to their "principles" (i.e. dogmatic support for Chinese revisionism).

ProleWiki, particularly since its purge of anti-revisionists 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 "nonexistent" (and proceeding to defend reactionary and imperialistic actions by the Khruschevite-Brezhnevite Soviet Union), and denounced Maoism as being "Gonzaloism". 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.

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 all in contradiction 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 originating 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 justified merely because China supposedly "forgives loans" and they are relatively more popular among China's comprador and satellite states in Africa, omitting the fact that the chief export of imperialism is not simply "loans", but finance capital.

See also

• Conservapedia, a similarly ideologically fanatical MediaWiki site which shares a comparable top-down administrative style and liberal banning policies.
• Lemmygrad, a Lemmy instance which shares ProleWiki's views and are related to each other.
• InfraWiki, a MediaWiki site which is an offshoot of ProleWiki and mostly takes on the same positions.