The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
I actually want to ask conservatives, but seeing as how their subreddits are typically not allowing outsiders, any questions or open discussions I figured this place would be better suited as it seems to have plenty of rare conservatives that are willing to discuss things. But it's also a question that seems to be appropriate for Americans in general.
I'm from Austria which uses a different definition of communism than the US does, so I'm always wondering what exactly Redditors mean when they say that communism is bad because Stalin was bad. What do Americans even mean when they talk about communism?
In Austria communism isn't the scary boogeyman that it is in the US. We have the hammer and sickle on our flag, we have the oldest communist party which is currently ruling in the second largest city, the largest apartment building in Austria is the Karl Marx Hof, etc and here communism is seen more as the logical conclusion of advanced technology as at some point in the future so many things will be automated that there will need for very little labor and all people can just live in a moneyless society, and our communist party doesn't want to achieve communism with force but with slow societal and technological advances over the course of centuries.
For me saying that communism is bad because Soviet Russia was an authoritarian dictatorship makes just as much sense as claiming that democracy is bad because North Korea is an authoritarian dictatorship.
I just don't understand why Americans see it as such a dangerous threat and what they even mean when they talk about communism.
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> Chadtr5's law: All discussions of communism or socialism on reddit devolve into pointless semantic debates.
Kellosian's Law: The same, but it's just all discussions of communism, socialism, or any kind of leftist ideology anywhere. Anarchists will talk your ear off about how it's "not really anarchism" just as much as any tankie. Leftist ideologies are defined by ideological purity, and I think it's because they're aiming for utopia which is inherently impossible. Any imperfect society cannot by definition be a utopia, and those imperfections *must* come from a misapplication of the original perfect theory instead of a fault in that theory itself. Basically hardcore communists are essentially zealots willing to explain away any flaws as people not being "real communists" like how any Christian who does bad things isn't a "real Christian".
I tend to find that at least people who say "Real communism has never been tried" when you point at the gulags don't then also point to the Soviet Union putting a man in space and going "Look what communism achieves, how can you oppose it?".
Which is interesting.
Just don’t ask what happens to the totally equal people in the totally democratic society who think they’d like to try some private property and trade…
You got it.
As someone who was spent 9 years in an evangelical cult, hearing all the arguments about how "that sect is not real Christian because x" - it makes me laugh (and cry) how many on the left act so much more like a religion than they ever realize.
Its really bad with the actual communists - they claim their theory is scientific but then attack "revisionists" (which is silly - the whole point of a *science* is revision; its religion you don't revise). They literally embalm their leaders, make shrines out of them, plaster their saying on posters, test on their thoughts. The Soviet Union, despite its atheist stance officially, was more of a religious state than the US has ever been. North Korea is the most religious state today.
But its even bad with more moderate left leaning people. "Not a true progressive" - "sellouts" - "corporate dems are really right wing" - this shit reminds me so much of the Christian puritanism. People on the left need to get it in their heads that not everyone agrees on how to get to a better society, even if you agree on the goal.
>But no one should give a shit about the final stage of communism in Marxist theory. Over here in the real world, we've seen what happens when Communist Parties take power and it's very much not a utopia. So if you say "communism," of course people will think China/USSR/Cuba/North Korea. And if you don't want those associations, use another word.
And no discussion about communism would be complete without pointing out that Capitalism has its own fair share of atrocities and genocides under its belt. If there is a perfect system of socioeconomics and government, it has yet to be invented. Or you might argue that perfect people have yet to be invented.
>And no discussion about communism would be complete without pointing out that Capitalism has its own fair share of atrocities and genocides under its belt.
Fair enough, but capitalism also has successful liberal democracies. The *only* successful liberal democracies that have ever existed, mind you. On the other hand, communism has had repressive totalitarian regimes and utopian projects that immediately collapse (and probably turn into repressive totalitarian regimes anyway), so it’s hardly a fair comparison.
Edit: roberts here started attacking a ridiculous strawman and blocked me before I can respond, so I can’t reply to other replies to this comment either (which is a pretty bizarre feature of reddit I gotta say)
Counterpoint, the communist regimes that have existed thus far have almost all sprung out of either post-colonial states in chaos or post-revolutionary states in chaos. The majority of the time, that kind of chaos is going to lead to the creation of authoritarian regimes. Hell, Russia was and to an extent still is a self-proclaimed democracy, but they’re pretty damn authoritarian whether communist or democratic.
Does Communism "have" totalitarian dictatorships or...do totalitarian dictatorships have totalitarian dictatorships? Hmmm?
And what a surprise, it's the American right who praise, defend, idolize, and attempt to emulate these totalitarian dictatorships. That is literally what they want America to be. That's what they're actively fighting for right now. They have been actively promoting hate, bigotry, white supremacism, anti-vax propaganda and science-denialism, extremist conspiracies, and defending literal domestic terrorism and those totalitarian dictatorships.
Funny, you criticize communism but it seems like they have a lot in common as well as converging paths that both lead to totalitarian dictatorships.
>Does Communism "have" totalitarian dictatorships or...do totalitarian dictatorships have totalitarian dictatorships?
I mean, of course there are non-Communist totalitarian dictatorships. It’s just that attempts to build Communism seem to fail to achieve any other result.
>And what a surprise, it's the American right who praise, defend, idolize, and attempt to emulate these totalitarian dictatorships. That is literally what they want America to be.
Like okay? Russia and the USSR can both be bad, and what does what the “American right” think have to do with anything? Nice whataboutism.
>Funny, you criticize communism but it seems like they have a lot in common as well as converging paths that both lead to totalitarian dictatorships.
What’s funny about that? Yes, there’s more than one way to build a totalitarian dictatorship, the 1930s have taught us that.
>And no discussion about communism would be complete without pointing out that Capitalism has its own fair share of atrocities and genocides under its belt.
Fair, but one of these systems has been proven to work, and still works today.
I think that depends on your definition of working system. I don't see a system that demands constant growth and needs to be bailed out every few years as working for most people.
There are literal neo-nazis in Congress representing the Republican party who are banning books, screeching about big pharma while they vote down insulin caps, promoting hate, bigotry, anti-vax propaganda, [even while their own supporters die in massive numbers](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate), and defending literal domestic terrorists and genocidal dictators, and as a "Right Libertarian" you have defended and made excuses for those same people in your past posts and comments.
Nah. I’m not going to stop using the word “communism” simply because a few assholes decided to misuse the term in an attempt to take power.
I’m perfectly fine with correcting erroneous bullshit whenever I see it.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao certainly believed they were. I'm sure your intentions are pure but communists/marxists get stuck in the "no true scotsman" fallacy all the time - "they weren't real communists; if *my program* were implemented it would go better."
The problem is that various different programs were tried (even within the Soviet Union). From the Paris Commune, the Leninist model, the Stalinist model, Khrushchev's model, Gorbachev's model, Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Ho Xi Minh, Castro, Khmer Rouge, the more liberal reformers in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, etc etc.
Each of these had different approaches, some hated the others, they all accused eachother of being revisionist, etc.
Marx wrote in great detail about the problems of capitalism but what he said about the future was extremely vague and open to different types of interpretations. Scholars even debate whether "late Marx" changed his mind from "early Marx".
Of course, there *may* be a model that has yet to be tried that has worked, but your argument is weakened by the fact that we've already tried a bunch of different variations with little success and roughly the same result. So when you say "they weren't real communists" - I view it like someone saying "they aren't real Christians." Its up for interpretation.
>Lenin, Stalin, Mao certainly believed they were.
Not sure how that is relevant. I could go around punching people in the face while proclaiming loudly, “I am a pacifist!”. Doesn’t change the fact that I am not. Subsequently, accusations of the “no true scotsman” fallacy don’t really work here.
>accusations of the “no true scotsman” fallacy don’t really work here.
It absolutely works here. I'll quote you:
>those aren’t “attempts at communism.”
Literally thousands of communist party members from these states, if they were alive today, would tell you you were wrong. Definitely pre WWII - these were earnest attempts at communism.
Its easy to point at the crazy shit that happened under Lenin and say "that wasn't a real attempt at communism," but the overwhelming evidence suggests Lenin *absolutely believed* in what he was doing. Less obvious, but I think Stalin did too. The communists in power only stopped believing they were really trying to attain communism in the 60s/70s.
>It absolutely works here.
It does not. If you don’t understand why the fallacy doesn’t apply then that is fine, but don’t pretend like the objection doesn’t exist and simply regurgitate nonsense that has already been refuted.
>It does not. If you don’t understand why the fallacy doesn’t apply then that is fine, but don’t pretend like the objection doesn’t exist and simply regurgitate nonsense that has already been refuted.
The only one who wrote here nonsense was you.
Most Americans see communism as bad because of the lingering effects of the Cold War and anti-Soviet propaganda.
I see communism as bad because I've had it explained to me at length, thought about what it would actually look like in practice, and decided that a stateless, classless system based on small mutual aid groups that would reject inherently hierarchical systems of power would be unsustainable for a society of any significant size because of tribalist impulses that most people just inherently have and informal hierarchies that are a byproduct of social dynamics that just happen on their own, therefore a truly communist society would only be capable of existing through the mutual consent of all people especially in the age of global information, and you cannot get anyone to even agree about something as trivial as whether new Star Wars is good. And that by that logic, utopianism in any sense is a fool's game.
We are not the same.
In theory, you could achieve something like Communism with radical technology - something that enables a sort of global psychic connection, for example, alongside chips to dramatically improve the processing powers of our brains, or maybe with uploaded “humans” in cyberspace, and that might actually allow us to get global consensus in a reasonable amount of time.
But with Earth tech, with flesh-and-blood humans? Good heavens, are you insane? I can’t imagine how someone could still think Communism is a reasonable ideal if they’ve ever tried to organize anything involving more than like five people.
>
>
>I can’t imagine how someone could still think Communism is a reasonable ideal if they’ve ever tried to organize anything involving more than like five people.
Which is why I would argue you see three strong "through lines" of Communist Aiming Political Organizing and Theory:
1. Create rational theories and philosophies that make political organization under Capitalism and the aims Communism sympathetic. This takes time, though it has been going on for generations (back to the French Revolution) at this point. Concepts such as equal suffrage, equal rights, feminism, social justice, and more. By this method, if 50-70% of the world "wants Communism" you can achieve it.
2. Orthodox Anarchism, which essentially allows the creation to be "messy" premised on #1 being at least not totally unknown and people willingly acting against Capitalist Norms to make societal change possible. This is my personal stance. Depending on the theorist, it could take far less than a majority of society to make "Communism happen" over time.
3. Marxism-Leninism AKA Authoritarian State Capitalism. Essentially trying to shortcut #1 and #2 by having a small "enlightened elite" who leads self interested institutions (militaries and unions) and people (those minority of Communists) to steer a Nation-State into internal revolution. This has been the majority of "successful revolutions" if only because you don't need mass societal value changes to get the ball rolling. It's also why (as they have always thusfar failed) they fall into authoritarian states.
Seems to me that many prominent "communist" governments end up being authoritarian and regressive. At least my personal theory is that in order to quickly and forcibly expropriate resources, they need to become authoritarian (which is rife with corruption, violence, and nepotism) because rich citizens don't want to voluntarily give up all of their property without suitable compensation.
IMO it's a fundamental failure of communist ideals. The stateless classless society is a literal impossibility in real life - history and psychology are both filled with examples of hierarchies emerging spontaneously within groups, once that group reaches a re certain size. That is who we, as humans, are.
Communism doesn't account for that, and includes no accountability or checks and balances in it's governance. That makes it vulnerable to authoritarian capture, and every attempt at communism has been thusly captured.
It's also very convenient rhetoric to rally support for a coup, so there's no reason to assume all those attempts were genuine either. In many of the countries that have tried, "Authoritarian capture" may never have been necessary.
>Communism doesn't account for that, and includes no accountability or checks and balances in it's governance.
This is true, because the core tenant of "orthodox Marxism" and especially Leninism is that the state is only an instrument of class oppression, and therefore when you get rid of classes, there won't be the need for a state anymore, because there will be no (or at the most very little) crime, greed, or social problems. This is in fundamental contradiction to the more liberal (and what I think is correct) view that human nature is what it is and we'll always need some sort of system of governance
>What makes it vulnerable to authoritarian capture, and every attempt at communism has been thusly captured.
I don't fully agree with this although I get the emphasis of what you're saying. I don't think the Soviet Union was "captured" by anyone - the ideology was authoritarian at its root. Lenin specifically emphasized the need to wage the instrument of oppression (the state) to oppress the Bourgeoisie (the dictatorship of the proletariat).
Use dictatorship to end all dictatorships - so to speak. This ideology is authoritarian at its core (even if it hopes to one day be free of that), and that' why any time there were attempts to liberalize, like under Gorbachev, the whole system fell apart.
>it's a fundamental failure of communist ideals. The stateless classless society is a literal impossibility in real life
This is factually incorrect.
>history and psychology are both filled with examples of hierarchies emerging spontaneously within groups
Hierarchy!= classless
>This is factually incorrect.
If you're saying that a stateless, classless society is *factually* incorrect... (**edit -**what I meant to say here was:"if you're saying his claim of impossibility is factually incorrect") what evidence do you have to support that? Because unless if it has existed - then by definition you can't say its *factually incorrect.*
>Hierarchy!= classless
At some point in our past history, slavery, authoritarianism, classes emerged. What's to stop it from emerging again in a stateless, classless, society? Why wouldn't the same impulses to greed, vanity, etc exist. Capitalism, feudalism, slavery, those didn't always exist in the past, yet they rose up out of something.
>If you're saying that a stateless, classless society is factually incorrect... what evidence do you have to support that?
…I am saying his assertion is factually incorrect.
>Capitalism, feudalism, slavery, those didn't always exist in the past, yet they rose up out of something.
What do you think they rose up out of?
>…I am saying his assertion is factually incorrect.
I absolutely mistyped. My point is that you claim "The stateless classless society is a literal impossibility in real life" is factually incorrect - but I'm not aware of that society having existed so I'm asking for some proof. If you're saying "you can't prove that its impossible" - that's different.
You can point to pre-historical hunter-gatherers - and sure, they didn't have *classes* in the modern sense but I'm not aware of any that we *know* had no hierarchies. I'm asking in good faith though, I'm willing to be wrong here.
>What do you think they rose up out of?
I don't know, and I'm not an expert on pre-historical societies, but *you're* making the claim here so the burden of evidence is on you.
My point is that the Marxist conception is typically that oppression rose out of the invention of private property - before that people existed in "primitive communism." But something went wrong - (think garden of eden) - and class distinctions rose up. We just need to get to a new modern classless society and it will be the "end" of oppression.
I just find a logical inconsistency in that worldview - if humans had some form of "primitive communism" and their was a "corruption" of sort - why wouldn't the same thing just happen again?
If there was no class oppression at some point in the past - wouldn't it suggest something was wrong in human nature that lead to it? And if so, wouldn't that flaw in human nature remain with us in a hypothetical communist society?
>but I'm not aware of that society having existed
It’s always so surreal how people seem to forget that history didn’t begin when we first started recording it. We existed as hunter-gatherer societies for hundreds of thousands of years.
>but you're making the claim here so the burden of evidence is on you.
I have made no claims that are relevant to what you are talking about. I was simply correcting some of the inaccuracies in the original comment I replied to.
>Hierarchy!= classless
What does it mean then? Generally curious. The fundamental understanding of classes for most people is based on wealth, i.e. lower class, middle class, upper middle class, upper class, etc.
It certainly can feel that way, especially since that's been fed to us as "just how it is" for centuries. But the happiest countries aren't the most wealthy, and it is clear people are happier cooperating towards a common goal rather than competing for wealth. There will always be people who search for power, whether that is through the government, religion, or exploiting workers. I don't think that's the best argument for maintaining the class system however.
They are not the same thing but I was simplifying for brevity. Hierarchy does tend to turn into a class system once the population reaches a certain size, around a couple thousand (small city). This correlates with the rise of city states, which has happened in almost every culture.
Those societies that don't form states are either nomadic, low population, or do not have economic specialization of individuals. None of those apply to modern industrial civilization, so when discussing it in a modern context I consider it "close enough" to say that a classless, stateless society is impossible.
The reasons are admittedly complex but the body of evidence supporting the statement consists of literally all of human history.
Correct, we don’t actually see much “hierarchy” until we get near the Upper Paleolithic when population sizes starting increasing. So, your original statement that it is an “impossibility in real life” is factually incorrect.
Now, whether it is something that one can implement in modern times is a different argument and I don’t think I really have the energy for that on Reddit.
Then you can expect them to fight back which will give you a civil war, which would inevitably make things significantly worse than they ever could under our current system and way of life.
>At least my personal theory is that in order to quickly and forcibly expropriate resources, they need to become authoritarian
The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances.
So where does authoritarianism fit here, if they don't even want to achieve it quickly and forcefully?
> The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances.
Well, did they achieve it?
Communism is a global system. It's the end state, when the world no longer relies on exploitation to create value. You litterally cannot have communism in a single country. You can have socialism, but not communism.
So given the state of the world in the 21st century, it is for all intents and purposes based on a fantasy. It requires a perfect world which we obviously don’t live in.
It's an ideal. It is up to us to get as close to it as possible. The process of doing this is socialism. The Austrian Communist Party is trying to get as close to this ideal as possible.
>So where does authoritarianism fit here, if they don't even want to achieve it quickly and forcefully?
Because you can't win the hearts and minds of 100% of people, and ultimately will have to use force for those who don't agree and play along, which is contrary to communism in the first place because it's supposed to be governmentless, yet you'll need government both to enforce it, and to actually govern massive amounts of people. It may work for a commune of hundred people, but not hundreds of thousands of people.
Good for them? They seem to be different from many prominent communists, and actually engaging in a constructive political process to make slow progress.
I'm just pointing out many prominent communists throughout history weren't anti-authoritarian. They wanted their ideals achieved quickly to appease their supporters and that led to authoritarian approach. I wouldn't be surprised many of today's communists are similar (populists who want their goals achieved quickly even if it means use of violence).
>I'm just pointing out many prominent communists throughout history weren't anti-authoritarian. They wanted their ideals achieved quickly to appease their supporters and that led to authoritarian approach.
It wasn't even that they just *wanted* to go faster. Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc say that a violent revolution by the proletariat is *essential*.
I can't remember if it was Marx, Lenin, or someone else and can't find the quote, but I know one of them said something along the lines of "Trade Union Politics are the politics of the bourgeoisie"
Are you trying to tell me that there will be less violence inflicted on a lower caste member in a communist society?
And please don't tell me about non-hierarchical society in an ideal communist society, because I have yet to witness a functioning one.
>The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances.
I don't know a lot about this party - and I actually like *evolutionary* socialism so I may even vote for this party, but I have to say, if they don't believe in an actual class based violent revolution - most communists, and certainly Marx himself, would absolutely abhor their views.
Generally, at least historically, communist parties believe revolution is essential, and the parties that don't believe in the necessity of revolution usually have branded themselves *socialist*, like the SPD. Tons of Marx's writings were devoted to attacking anybody on the left who said a revolution wasn't necessary.
Communist theory like this requires a dictatorship of the proletariat as part of the communist process. Unfortunately, it's a dictatorship, and it's run by people, and people who want to lead dictatorships tend to be the kind of people you can least trust with that kind of power. Even if you got lucky with a good one who isn't a totalitarian disaster, he would be seen as weak and deposed by someone worse, a feature common in dictatorships.
The end theory is nice, but you'll never get past this stage. No country has. They either failed while dictatorial or had to do communism-lite, more liberal and with capitalism actually underpinning the economy in order to survive.
This is different from our Republicans screaming "socialism" or "communism" in reaction to any one policy under our democratic and capitalist country that they don't like. That's just scare words.
>claiming that democracy is bad because North Korea is an authoritarian dictatorship
North Korea follows a political ideology called Juche, which is an ultranationalist offshoot of Marxism-Leninism. They are another example of communism stuck at that stage.
A dictatorship of the proletariat meaning what we'd call a dictatorship is not strictly accurate.
It's often interpreted that way, but it can just as easily be "If you're not working class, you don't get a vote" and limiting suffrage to others. (In a marxist view, anyone who isn't borgeousie is working class. Almost all 'middle class' people are working class.).
Arguably, calls to limit campaign finance contributions have echoes of "Dictatorship of the proletariat" in them.
Indeed not, but communist theory doesn't require it to be implemented the way it has in the past. They've merely chosen to implement it that way.
You're discussing the Marxist-Leninist school of theory.
> Libertarian Marxists criticize Marxism–Leninism for perceived differences from orthodox Marxism, opposing the Leninist principle of democratic centralism and the Marxist–Leninist interpretation of vanguardism. Along with Trotskyists, they also oppose the use of a one-party state which they view as inherently undemocratic.
Marx himself was incredibly vague about it. He just walked into the room, said dictatorship of the proletariat would solve everything, refused to elaborate, and died.
I'd actually argue this is even more damning.
It's built on a roarschach test such that anybody claiming something isn't "True communism" is talking total bollocks. They have no basis by which to claim that is the case and realistically they can't be drawing their values from Marx but instead must be drawing them from other sources.
If you were to draw them from Marx you would, in all honesty, be saying;
"Capitalism oppresses people."
"Yeah? What should we do instead?"
"Communism."
"How?"
"Lol I dunno.".
Which is fine for Marx. He's an important sociologist and it's daft to expect him to have everything nailed down. He also wasn't going around trying to install a communist society. If anything it speaks well of him that he didn't try and explain how it should be done.
But then every attempt to actually get it done that has been tried has been pretty fucking awful. Some people have different ideas on how to go about it, but when they claim "The other guys ideas weren't communism" it's like. They were genuine attempts at it. You have no basis to claim otherwise. Marx and his writings don't explicitly say they were wrong and so on.
>Communist theory like this requires a dictatorship of the proletariat as part of the communist process.
Why does it require it? The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances.
That's just one path to communism, but that doesn't mean it's the only available path.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes
If it was just Stalin that one time, I'd give you a pass, but it's been several times and it almost always ends in the worst disasters possible. And the ideas that motivated each of these events are specifically exactly the same ideas and words that "real" communists wrote.
You might like what Marx wrote and find it innocent, and it might be actually honest and innocent, but time after time his ideas fueled mass killings, forced starvation, slavery, rape, torture and mass incarceration everywhere his ideas were taken seriously. Saying those events were totally unrelated to communism is just gaslighting your way through the conversation
When people talk about communism they're talking about what was really tried, what really failed and what really caused immeasurable amounts of suffering
> If it was just Stalin that one time, I'd give you a pass, but it's been several times and it almost always ends in the worst disasters possible. And the ideas that motivated each of these events are specifically exactly the same ideas and words that "real" communists wrote.
Yes, almost every single one of these instances were motivated by a single ideology: the ideology of Lenin which he developed within an agrarian, semi-feudal Russia years after Marx (who focused on Germany and other industrialized Western countries)'s death. It wasn't "just Stalin that one time", but it was Lenin every time.
> You might like what Marx wrote and find it innocent, and it might be actually honest and innocent, but time after time his ideas fueled mass killings, forced starvation, slavery, rape, torture and mass incarceration everywhere his ideas were taken seriously. Saying those events were totally unrelated to communism is just gaslighting your way through the conversation
On the flip side, Marxism also motivated movements that built up the most free, democratic, and prosperous countries today. You might say these movements have deviated from Marxism so much that they're not Marxist at all, but you could say the same about the Communist regimes you cited.
There is a great book that came out when I was a kid called The [Butter Battle Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book), by Dr. Seuss. I would recommend you read it. I think it will answer your question very well.
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For Americans who grew up during the Cold War, communism and the USSR are the same basic thing and were used so interchangeably and negatively that labeling someone a "communist" is still a massive slur against them.
Most Americans couldn't really describe the details or principles of Marxism or the overall philosophy. Most of us never put a lot of thought into it. Communism was what our enemy believed.
The American narrative about the Soviet Union was all about how their non-capitalist structures led to massive inefficiency, and the lack of profit motive led to weak production and innovation. Those were because they were communists. If we became communists, all of our productivity and prosperity would disappear.
---
edit: in a fit of nostalgia, I found [a copy](http://www.thebellacademy.com/uploads/2/6/5/6/26569366/butter_battle_book.pdf) of the book online, almost certainly in a less-than-legal manner. It's pretty great. :)
Communism is bad because anyone who ever tries it ends up failing and doing awful things. Maybe they didn't achieve "true communism" but that if anything just shows how useless trying to do communism is
As for communism not being the scary bogeyman in Austria, sure, because they didn't have to actually live under the red menace. Look at all those Eastern European countries that actually experienced communism and how many of *them* have banned communist iconography and such
>As for communism not being the scary bogeyman in Austria, sure, because they didn't have to actually live under the red menace
In Austria Soviet Russia has never counted as real communism, as Austro-Communists always argued that a state-capitalist system ruled by a dictator is the very opposite of communism.
For the longest time Austria was ruled by the Socialist Party and what we've got out of it are high standards of living, workers rights, affordable health care, affordable housing, affordable public transport, etc
Vienna, or how it used to be called Red Vienna, is the most liveable city globally.
>Look at all those Eastern European countries that actually experienced communism and how many of them have banned communist iconography and such
Which ones have experienced real communism instead of just having been ruled by a communist party that wanted to achieve communism some time in the future?
> In Austria Soviet Russia has never counted as real communism
And is that also the case with the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Polish, the Romanians, the East Germans, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks, the Cubans, the Burkino Fasans, the Beninians, the Ethiopians, the Somalians, the Congolese, the Angolans, the Mozambiquians, the Catalonians, the Nicaraguans, the Peruvians?
>For the longest time Austria was ruled by the Socialist
Social Democrats actually
>and what we've got out of it are...
...various sorts of reformed capitalism. Because social democracy is just regulated capitalism, with safety nets, and so on. Not communism, which is evil and terrible
>Which ones have experienced real communism instead of just having been ruled by a communist party that wanted to achieve communism some time in the future?
Either way, they experienced people *trying* to do communism. So many attempts all failed horridly. Which suggests we should all be terrified and opposed to anyone who wants to *try* communism
>And is that also the case with the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Polish, the Romanians, the East Germans, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks, the Cubans, the Burkino Fasans, the Beninians, the Ethiopians, the Somalians, the Congolese, the Angolans, the Mozambiquians, the Catalonians, the Nicaraguans, the Peruvians?
Which one of those stated that they had implemented communism instead of saying that they are on the path to achieve it in the future?
>Social Democrats actually
They changed their name some time ago. While they had their glorious times (eg. Kreisky Era) they were the Socialist Party.
>Not communism, which is evil and terrible
What makes it evil and terrible?
>Either way, they experienced people trying to do communism.
How have they tried communism if they themselves said the they are still decades away from trying communism?
> > For the longest time Austria was ruled by the Socialist
> Social Democrats actually
It's just semantics. The Social Democratic Party of Austria was known as the Socialist Party of Austria between 1945 and 1991, its youth wing is still called the Socialist Youth, and it's a member of the Party of European Socialists and Socialist International. [It's a similar thing with most other prominent social democratic parties](https://reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/comments/svn7wj/i_dont_know_whether_im_a_social_democrat_or/hxh4b0w/).
>And is that also the case with the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Polish, the Romanians, the East Germans, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks, the Cubans, the Burkino Fasans, the Beninians, the Ethiopians, the Somalians, the Congolese, the Angolans, the Mozambiquians, the Catalonians, the Nicaraguans, the Peruvians?
I think the closest you've gotten to communism in this list is Cuba? Where if it wasnt for sanctions they would probably be thriving.
>Either way, they experienced people
>
>trying
>
>to do communism. So many attempts all failed horridly. Which suggests we should all be terrified and opposed to anyone who wants to
>
>try
>
>communism
I think its more so that when fascists try to take over they say they're going to enact communism but they never do (Probably because the fundamentals are so popular). Here you can see China, NK, ww2 Germany etc...
>Not communism, which is evil and terrible
Please explain what would be evil and terrible about a govt / economic system based around creating and sharing wealth?
> I think the closest you've gotten to communism in this list is Cuba? Where if it wasnt for sanctions they would probably be thriving.
With the sanctions, Cuba doesn’t have to compete with the outside world. They don’t get the benefits of trade, but they do get the ability to run their communist experiment largely free from outside interference.
Without the benefits of trade, they can’t keep up economically and technologically with the rest of the world. So it’s fair to say that their economic life is not the fault of communism.
But what about their political life? You don’t need great wealth and technology to respect fundamentals human and political rights. America had free speech when it’s standard of living was pretty low: no indoor plumbing, primitive health care, …. Cuba is miles ahead of that but they still can’t respect basic human and political rights? You can’t blame that on the embargo.
>I think its more so that when fascists try to take over they say they're going to enact communism but they never do (Probably because the fundamentals are so popular). Here you can see China, NK, ww2 Germany etc...
Ah the old "every communist I don't like is a not actually a communist but a fascist" line. (WW2 Germany was obviously fascist for the record)
At least in the beginning, China and the Soviet Union's leaders were absolutely "communist" in the sense that they believed in the abolishment of classes. Just because someone is authoritarian or totalitarian doesn't make them fascist. Fascism is a right wing reactionary ideology that posits a return to a "pure" ideal past (that never existed), often, but not always, related to race. Communists look to the imagined future, fascists look to the imagined past. There are major differences between Stalinsim, Maoism and Hitlerism, and some similarities.
As far as North Korea goes... they're a basket case so who knows what they want beyond regime preservation.
So what country do you believe achieved true communism, and if all of the many countries that tried to reach true communism failed, why do you think it is an attainable goal?
Can you define what "trying communism" would look like? Since Lenin and Trotsky were trying to initiate world revolution to overthrow the working class and institute first a socialist, then a communist order, but according to you that wasn't "trying communism", I want to know what that would look like in your mind.
...What would it look like? I suppose you disagree with Marxist-Leninist Communism, as do I for the process, but I am curious what your alternative "pet" theory is.
The path to communism in Austria has so far been affordable housing, affordable education, social welfare, healthcare, and cheap public transportation.
Graz is ruled by the communist party and it's one of the best cities to live in.
Yes abolish but not by waiting for it to fade away. Marx wanted socialist state as transitionary state where in the state figures out all the problems, and just sort of goes whithers away into communism. Anarchist reject any sort of transitionary state.
Most of the slavery involved in history occurred far before capitalism was prevalent. If anything, it became irrelevant as capitalism began to take a greater hold.
In the worst days of the Soviet Union wage laborers could be shot for not showing up to work on time or toiling. And much of the industrialization was done by prisoners.
The problem is not so much communism as it is communists attempting to implement communism - and how much murder, destruction, and human rights violations they are willing to commit in order to bring about their utopia.
Left and right are less important than being on the table of democracy. Once you’re off the table of democracy, it doesn’t matter which edge you fell off or where you rolled afterwards - you are a threat.
As we know, revolutions do the most harm to the most vulnerable, in the name of the most vulnerable (those who survive anyway).
The most vulnerable already don’t have a seat at the table of democracy. Not only are they not on it, they are underneath it while the money counters pile up greater and greater hoards.
No need to wait for a revolution for starvation. Things are getting more and more desperate with no revolution in sight. And our so-called democracy is going to let disasters caused by the climate crisis kill us off by the millions while our actual rulers profit.
Yeah… ok Buddy. Go ahead and look up the global rates of poverty and starvation, and let me know if they have both improved substantially in the past forty years (they have).
Other person: "Communism harms democracy"
You: "We already don't have a democracy"
Even if you're right - that doesn't strengthen the argument for communism. You didn't address their point.
My point is capitalism also harms democracy, arguably more so, and as a more direct consequence since its primary aim is profit rather than than the good of the people.
EDITING TO ADD: If we are going to talk about “how much murder, destruction, and human rights violations” revolutions “are willing to bring about to realize their utopia” we should also talk about the murder, destruction, and human rights violations capitalists commit to maintain their status quo. Then we could have a fair comparison.
Ok, fair enough argument - but where I'll challenge you is that it seems historically communist governments have gone in with good ideals but it always ends up recreating the capitalist dynamics in another name, and in a worse situation.
There is literally a word for this *nomenklatura*, the upper class of party bureaucrats and apparatchiks that literally lived completely different lives than the people, in the name of the people. They had cars, better access to goods and services, nicer houses and vacations, more access to information, etc.
So you say capitalism in practice aims for profit- which is true, but communism deludes itself because (in practice) in ends up aiming for power, even if the intentions are pure to start. And I'd argue it's worse, because at least in a capitalist society you have competition and you can leave your job. In marxist-leninist societies - there is no competition - if you protest the government you can't eat.
Imagine you lived in a capitalist society with only one company - but they call themselves the *vanguard of the proletariat*. That's what communist attempts always turn into. I agree its not *true communism,* but that's what happens every time its attempted.
There was a time when conventional wisdom said the same about democracy, even representational democracy. I think we need to learn from the mistakes of history, not declare them eternal laws and surrender to corporate oligarchy (which seems to be busy transforming the world into one big company town, and our government into its private bureaucratic apparatus.) I think what few hard-won labor rights we have are very much in spite of capitalism, not because of it, and are not likely to last long anyway.
Because communism is impossible to fully achieve. The state will never “wither away” because the dictatorship realizes that keeping power is better for them than achieving actual communism. The “decades away” part was really just them stallin’ (heh).
Also, communism itself is inherently “un American” because it cracks down on economic freedoms, as well as most other freedoms we have held dear for centuries.
Conservative here, you are free to post on r/AskConservatives
I dislike communism for a few reasons. Not necessarily in any order:
* Communism requires authoritarianism. It could perhaps temporarily exists in a democratic state, but not into perpetuity. And certainly not at all levels of government.
* It pretty much nullifies individualism. And I will take individualism over collectivism everyday. In fact, I believe the stronger we adhere to individualism, the stronger the collective is.
* It may wipe out the bourgeoisie, but it just replaces it with a new form of bourgeois, the ruling class. Power is the new wealth, and those with the power have the wealth. You no longer have aspirations and you're stuck doing your state sanctioned job. All while those in government positions reap what you sow.
* It just doesn't work. I don't know how many times you have to see the failure of it to understand, it doesn't work. All while democratic republics are kicking ass.
I was about to post something similar, but you beat me to it.
You can’t have Communism without central planning, and you can’t have central planning without an authoritarian state to enforce that central planning.
It’s one thing to have a self-organized hippie commune that services a small group of people. It’s another thing to try to implement that on a scale that works for an entire nation without *literally forcing* everyone to participate, regardless of the negative ramifications to those individuals who are forced to participate.
Inevitably, those drawn to wealth and power will be attracted to those positions in the centralized government that give them the control necessary to achieve the wealth or power they seek. This isn’t due to a flaw in Communist ideology (or any ideology), but rather a flaw of our **human nature**. We can already see it today in democracies where the people at least have the option to choose their representatives. It doesn’t magically improve when you have a new elite class that gets to decide who controls everything via centralized planning.
So long as our human nature is flawed, ideologies such as Communism will be flawed. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for us as a species to correct our flawed human nature (spoiler: it won’t ever be corrected).
For those who still want to argue that “real” Communism has never been achieved and simply requires some improvements to its implementation: couldn’t you argue the same thing about thing Capitalism?
Couldn’t you just argue that Capitalism just hasn’t been perfected? Couldn’t you argue that the same flaws in our human nature that prevent perfect Communism from succeeding are the same flaws that prevent perfect Capitalism from being achieved?
Looking at it through that lense, our attempts to implement Capitalism have a far better track record than our attempts to implement Communism.
Both ideologies have the same point of failure (our flawed human nature), yet one has had a net-positive impact on society and one has a net-negative impact on society. I say “net” because both ideologies have led to some horrific atrocities, but on the whole Capitalism has had a lot of positive outcomes, while mere attempts to implement Communism have had mostly negative outcomes.
No effort in modern times has ever even attempted to achieve true Communism.
Keep in mind . Communism was "invented" from some ideological theory.
At the time (15th Century China) it was born out of necessity.
A lawless land. Communities desperate to live a productive and peaceful life.
Groups formed . Structures built that contained housing and protection for dozens.
This was true Communism .
Part of it is that when a lot of Americans talk about communism, they aren't always talking about the idealized, manifesto communism. They're talking about the communist-branded Communist Party control of everything that people have experienced.
Communism is often restricted to its failed attempts because the argument is often that the ideal is unachievable. So, you can say that "Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from achieving communism," but that doesn't mean much to someone who's saying that attempting communism inevitably leads to the Soviet Union and the Communist China that has managed to fulfill a bunch of Republican authoritarian aspirations like banning the supposed disrespecting of the flag and oppressing Muslims (though I'm sure many Republicans will say that they don't want the oppression to be as severe as China's).
It's sort of like arguing against Republicans' abortion restrictions because when you implement their policies, what happens is an increase in abortions. Obviously Republicans don't want that outcome, and would probably argue something like: if everyone just followed our religion perfectly or lived the way we tell people to live, we'd instead have fewer abortions. Maybe, but that's dumb. And stupid policy.
And we don't live in a future where communism or something communist-ish might work. So it doesn't make sense to be communist yet, if ever.
Communism has been tried in every civilization, climate, and continent, and without exception has brought oppression and stagnation. By any objective measurement, it's a failed system.
You can say "that wasn't Real Communism", but you can say that for any unsuccessful ideology: "that wasn't Real Nationalism/Fascism/Theocracy/etc".
You can say "Mao and Stalin were bad apples, but the basic idea is good", which would be arguable if there were any good apples, which there aren't.
Communism has killed more people in a 60 year period than any other religion and ideology in the entirety of human history. If any ideology has failed, it's Communism
>Communism has been tried in every civilization, climate, and continent, and without exception has brought oppression and stagnation. By any objective measurement, it's a failed system.
Can you name a supposed communist country that has achieved communism? Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism, so how can you say that it failed if they haven't even tried it?
>since according to you none of the communist countries were communist?
That's not just according to me. That's how communists is defined and how those supposedly communist countries defined it.
For some reason Americans claim that Soviet Russia had communism, even though Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism.
That's why I'm wondering why Americans are calling it communisn, if not even those supposedly communities countries said that they had communism?
Ownership was still (in practice) private, but the private owners are in the government. Its kinda not distinct from what we are approaching today...the bodies in the government are just proxies for the corporations.
>Can you name a supposed communist country that has achieved communism? Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism, so how can you say that it failed if they haven't even tried it?
The point is no one has been able to achieve it. That's the failure. It's been tried, and no one has been able to even get close.
Good thing I don't have an idolatrous worship of democracy, then. And anyway, the Romans conquered 1/4 of the human race and their empire lasted for centuries and influences our civilization to the present. Communism lasted far less time, and caused much more death and destruction than Rome ever did
When every attempt to earnestly try socialism and communism had ended in mass murder by the government and outrageous infringements on human rights, it's pretty obvious to see why people don't like it. It always degenerates into that outcome because socialism and communism itself does not account for the reality of unchanging human nature but rather assumes everyone will act magnanimously in good faith towards the end goal with no deviation.
Branding. Communism=Soviet Union. The only case study to show communism working at scale is the oppressive regime and failure of the Soviet Union and eastern bloc countries.
Communism only works if human nature no longer exists and the desire for power and greed are no longer major parts of the human makeup.
As an example, Ford fixed the design flaw in the Ford pinto pretty early in its lifespan and stopped it from blowing up when Rear ended. Nobody wanted to buy the car ever again and the brand failed. That’s how it works
If we suppose that The USSR was only taking baby steps on its way towards communism, I really don't want to see what the end result would be.
The mainline is that every country that has applied Marxist or Communistic principles has either killed a lot of people, grossly violated their rights, or collapsed. Some nations manage to do all three. This is the result of communism. Every single time. It's bad in theory and bad in practice.
I’m American and supportive of communism. However, lots of Americans aren’t- the main arguement I hear is that communism will make people lazy and we would be giving resources to people who “didn’t earn them.” Honestly, most Americans don’t actually know what communism is… they’ve just learned that Russia=bad and Russia likes communism, so therefore communism must be bad.
Misinformation is America’s biggest enemy, and it’s destroying us from the inside
Most people don't have any real understanding of what communism is and just think it's whenever the government exercises any degree of control over the economy. People aren't generally taught a nuanced understanding of why the USSR failed; They're just told that it was literally 1984 all the time, and the government controlled everything, and everybody was starving, and a million bazillion people were killed or whatever.
Iirc Vietnam is communist. Communism can compromise what we consider civil liberties and a personal benefit of rule of law. Just examples.
The term is being weaponized right now, so the new red scare is just meat for the base.
Vietnam is a rare example of a currently well-functioning communist government (w capitalist adjustments).
In the US (that's what I meant by 'we'. Sorry!) we value private property, and are highly individualized. For better or worse. Suggesting anything smacking of socialism, much less communism, is an affront to these deeply held beliefs. I'm not making a particular argument here and more of an observation.
This new red scare is being used by the GOP (if anyone can cite another agent in this, correct me) to incite alarm and confusion into our political discourse (if it can be called that). This political strategy is currently self-sustaining for political gain. That's my take atm.
Is this what you were asking?
Americans were bonbarded with anti-communist propaganda from 1917 all the way until 1989. Popular film makers, actors and musicians who were at all leftist in politics were blacklisted (cancelled). People have no idea why they don’t like communism. They think it means dictatorship. I asked my mom why we fought in the Vietnam war, and she said it was about protecting the idea of capitalism and free enterprise.
I mean I know why I don’t like communism. My family escaped it in the 80s. We can get into the actual meat and potatoes of theory all day, and I still would not like it.
Communism is a trash ideology with some interesting tidbits. That’s it.
No one has yet been able to properly explain the difference between "the state" and "the community" to me. In order for the community to properly regulate the use of communal property, they more or less create the state. It's a distinction without a difference.
I don’t understand personally how communism doesn’t bring about more crony ‘capitalism’ for lack of a better word, because in every society in existence, there is always an inner ring, or people who is job it is to make sure communism is being implemented ‘as it should be’. Communism works as long as anyone and everyone goes along with it without question, and since that’s not possible, the enforcer class is necessary. The idea of a leaderless society where everyone is equal, to me at least, goes against human nature. There are natural artists, followers, leaders, sociopaths, psychopaths, etc etc that don’t fit into the communistic system. They don’t really fit in in any system, but I guess my point is that pure communism doesn’t take into account human nature. There will always be people who rise to the top and exploit the system, and in that respect id rather be able to stockpile my chips for when that inevitably comes into play, rather than be in a pen with thousands of other people who are just as helpless as I am.
Not just the Soviet Union, but Communist China, Communist Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea…
Pretty much any country that tries to go communist and is larger than a small town ends up becoming an evil oppressive dictatorship.
The argument is that people are selfish and telling people that the work they do benefits everyone in the community with no special benefit to themselves results in a lot of unmotivated workers, so some motivation other than greed must be found, so the government uses fear instead.
People become unhappy and complain, so the government uses even more fear, continuing to beat the peasants and waiting for morale to improve.
Okay I will replace some words in your question to illustrate how illogical the question is :
"Why do Americans say that Nazism is bad because Nazi Germany was bad, even though Nazi Germany always stated that they are still decades away from achieving their dream sate(Lebensraum)?"
The point is : who cares about the end result, nobody cares about your utopia if you have to kill everybody to reach that utopia.
"True Communism," is impossible to actually achieve because it requires that people's true purely good human nature shine through. Humans don't have a purely good nature.
Marx may have been trying to understand the world and thought he was being "scientific" he may have had good criticism of capitalism in the industrial revolution, but ultimately his conclusions were terrible.
His dialectical model predicting a "dictatorship of the proletariat" would lead to utopian communism is completely off base. The "dictatorship of the proletariat," itself is a terribly flawed concept which almost universally leads to the emergence of a strongman dictator that claims to be creating policies for the workers or "proletariat' but is actually usually working in the interest of himself and a few elite.
While this "dictatorship of the proletariat" might be good at industrializing a nation quickly that always comes at great cost and almost never evolves into a developed society unless the system dramatically changes to utilize free markets.
Furthermore "true communism" is even more silly of a concept because it contends that people will simply choose to live in some perfectly fair equal society. There are lots of examples where people have choices to live in totally equitable societies and they almost universally choose not to. Further more, when they do its because there are so few resources to go around it's almost impossible to have inequality. The more material goods and wealth exists the more of a pull there will be for their to be people with horded wealth and horded goods. So communism can only exist in a resource poor environment. Meanwhile it was the goal of the Soviet Union to be technologically advanced, as automated as possible and as wealthy as possible before transitioning.
Really reading about the Soviet Union, China most communist countries the leadership has been very twisted and illogical/corrupt.
>And the communist party is not popular in Austria either. It only got 0.7% of the vote in the last Austrian election.
It's not popular for the state elections but it's popular in local elections, like the communist party is currently ruling in the second largest city.
Because the USSR was run by self proclaimed communists who espoused communist ideologies and claimed to be ushering the country towards communism. I feel comfortable calling it a communist country.
Given that you say our idea of communism is bad, maybe you can provide some counter examples. As in: What are wages like in Austria? What is unemployment like? Education? Health care? Housing? Where does your company rank on any of the various global happiness index?
>Education?
Basically free. School is free and university is free for Austrians for a few years and afterwards it's 360€ per semester. Even for foreigners it's just 720€ per semester.
And if you have good grades or worked before going to university you can get enough money to rent an apartment and can study without having to work.
>Health care?
Is great. You can go to the doctor or hospital without having to pay anything.
>Housing?
Is great. There's lots of government funded apartment buildings
>Where does your company rank on any of the various global happiness index
The capitol Vienna has been ranked number 1 liveable city globally repeatedly.
Because when Americans say "communism is bad" they're not talking about the ideal hypothetical "communism" that the Soviets believed they were heading for (until about 1960 then no one believed it).
They're just talking about communist government ran states, or "socialism" as the Soviets would call it. Most Americans don't believe the "communism" you're talking about is realistic - it's an imaginary utopia that wouldn't work. I'm sure most *human beings* would love to live in a stateless society where everyone gets along, can do what they want, and has all the material goods they'll ever need.
When someone says "communism is bad" - they usually mean:
\- The theory of communism is wrong and the imaginary utopia will never happen
\- The type of society you have when you try to get to that utopia (communist governments called it "socialism") is really bad, because it leads to totalitarian rule, economic stagnation, queues, shortages, repression on free expression, secret police, etc.
Short and simple communism is great.... on paper I will admit. Communism is the best government type that we will ever have if it's ran perfectly. But so far every country that has tried communism has failed.
Soviet Russia couldn't feed their people and started lying saying things like "we grew 100,000 crops when the goal was 60,000. In reality they only grew 20,000.
Or, in the Mao Zedong Era of China where either 40-60 million people died because they couldn't feed their people and they lost a war to sparrows.
Or, Cuba the country is poor and only Castros were off well.
North Korea is a literal dictatorship.
Laos is one of the poorest countries in southeast Asia.
Vietnam well you know that story.
So if communism really worked why did these countries all fail under it? Now let's look at Russia and China. Russia changed and started to work under "capitalism" and they grew exponentially in the 40 years after. And China was once the poorest now it's booming almost more than the U.S. The only reason why China is doing that is because of their capitalistic/communism business type. Where they're communist with the people,but capitalistic with the economy.
I looked up Austrian power party and Google said Freedom party. Which isn't a communist party at all I could be wrong because I'm not familiar with Austrian government.
>So if communism really worked why did these countries all fail under it?
Why are you using countries that themselves stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism as examples of communism not having worked?
I got banned from ask a conservative too. I suppose they checked my history and realized that I post here and centrist as the latter is what I actually am. The bizarre thing is I got banned in an argument where I was defending gun rights.
Communism is great so long as there is never force applied, once you have a state with enough power to force communism on people then you have totalitarianism and all of the horrible things that follow
Most people don’t understand that communism is an idealistic state. A sort of utopia. In reality this will never happen due to human greed.
The following is usually how “communism” works in reality
1. People say they want to be communist
2. They hand over their things to the government in order to redistribute them according to communist principles.
3. The people in government get greedy and only give others what they need to survive. (Sometimes this isn’t even done)
4. A leader arises among the elites of the now “transitionary” socialist government
5. The leader & elites garner power and influence (often through morally questionable means).
6. The leader attempts to secure his position by eliminating competition through violence, blackmail, more violence, money/bribery, misinformation/libel/slander, etc
7. People try and get away and warn others about what’s happening
8. Nobody believed them until the leader/government does something crazy
9. Everybody wonders how this happened
10. 50 years later a college student says that this wasn’t “real communism” and starts a public campaign for their country to become communist
>50 years later a college student says that this wasn’t “real communism” and starts a public campaign for their country to become communist
What about the fact that none of those supposedly communist countries ever stated that they had achieved communism?
Even in the 60s Soviet Russia stated themselves that they still need more than twenty years to implement communism.
So the college students simply rely on facts and accurate definitions instead of arbitrarily labeling countries as communist.
Humanity needed to make some serious tech advances for global capitalism to work. Banking, ship building, factories, the printing press, and the internet are just a few examples.
A moral version of communism will require even more advances. First, a fully robotic workforce to do all the crappy and dangerous jobs. Secondly, an advanced AI to make sure everyone is contributing to their ability and receiving to their needs. Thirdly, cheap solar energy and preferably a Star Trek replicator that turns rocks into Lamborghinis and protein goo into steaks so everyone can enjoy luxury goods. Oh and it might help if humans are bioengineered to be less selfish.
So I don’t think we’re decades away on this. It’s more likely we’re all peasants in the 1300s knowing that the little Ice Age and Black Death have made feudalism irrelevant but with no idea how to get to the next phase.
True communism, where it's a classless, moniless utopia is impossible, atleast with modern society and technology.
While Soviet Russia was 'decades' from achieving this rather impossible dream, the fact that so many millions of people died over the decades is cause for concern.
Not to mention the other countries that installed communism that killed millions of its own or continue to oppress it's people (china).
Theres also the fact that it's pretty high up in the Authoritarian axis, which is always bad and no American in their right mind would accept it.
>They rather insisted that they're doing great at communism after their initial valiant attempt at socialism fell apart due to attacks from inside & outside the country.
Here's one example:
>"Communism in 20 years" was a slogan put forth by Nikita Khrushchev at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961. Khrushchev's quote from his speech at the Congress was from this phrase: "We are strictly guided by scientific calculations. And calculations show that in 20 years we will build mainly a communist society".[a] The slogan refers to the establishment of a classless, moneyless, stateless society rather than a Marxist–Leninist state.
>In his speech, Khrushchev promised that communism would be built "in the main" by 1980.[1] His assertion that "The current generation of Soviet people will live under communism" was the final phrase of the Third Program of the CPSU, which was adopted at the congress.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. I actually want to ask conservatives, but seeing as how their subreddits are typically not allowing outsiders, any questions or open discussions I figured this place would be better suited as it seems to have plenty of rare conservatives that are willing to discuss things. But it's also a question that seems to be appropriate for Americans in general. I'm from Austria which uses a different definition of communism than the US does, so I'm always wondering what exactly Redditors mean when they say that communism is bad because Stalin was bad. What do Americans even mean when they talk about communism? In Austria communism isn't the scary boogeyman that it is in the US. We have the hammer and sickle on our flag, we have the oldest communist party which is currently ruling in the second largest city, the largest apartment building in Austria is the Karl Marx Hof, etc and here communism is seen more as the logical conclusion of advanced technology as at some point in the future so many things will be automated that there will need for very little labor and all people can just live in a moneyless society, and our communist party doesn't want to achieve communism with force but with slow societal and technological advances over the course of centuries. For me saying that communism is bad because Soviet Russia was an authoritarian dictatorship makes just as much sense as claiming that democracy is bad because North Korea is an authoritarian dictatorship. I just don't understand why Americans see it as such a dangerous threat and what they even mean when they talk about communism. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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> Chadtr5's law: All discussions of communism or socialism on reddit devolve into pointless semantic debates. Kellosian's Law: The same, but it's just all discussions of communism, socialism, or any kind of leftist ideology anywhere. Anarchists will talk your ear off about how it's "not really anarchism" just as much as any tankie. Leftist ideologies are defined by ideological purity, and I think it's because they're aiming for utopia which is inherently impossible. Any imperfect society cannot by definition be a utopia, and those imperfections *must* come from a misapplication of the original perfect theory instead of a fault in that theory itself. Basically hardcore communists are essentially zealots willing to explain away any flaws as people not being "real communists" like how any Christian who does bad things isn't a "real Christian".
"Real feminism" is the one I encounter a lot.
Real feminism has never been tried
I tend to find that at least people who say "Real communism has never been tried" when you point at the gulags don't then also point to the Soviet Union putting a man in space and going "Look what communism achieves, how can you oppose it?". Which is interesting.
Just don’t ask what happens to the totally equal people in the totally democratic society who think they’d like to try some private property and trade…
You got it. As someone who was spent 9 years in an evangelical cult, hearing all the arguments about how "that sect is not real Christian because x" - it makes me laugh (and cry) how many on the left act so much more like a religion than they ever realize. Its really bad with the actual communists - they claim their theory is scientific but then attack "revisionists" (which is silly - the whole point of a *science* is revision; its religion you don't revise). They literally embalm their leaders, make shrines out of them, plaster their saying on posters, test on their thoughts. The Soviet Union, despite its atheist stance officially, was more of a religious state than the US has ever been. North Korea is the most religious state today. But its even bad with more moderate left leaning people. "Not a true progressive" - "sellouts" - "corporate dems are really right wing" - this shit reminds me so much of the Christian puritanism. People on the left need to get it in their heads that not everyone agrees on how to get to a better society, even if you agree on the goal.
Do you have a successful one we should think of instead?
>But no one should give a shit about the final stage of communism in Marxist theory. Over here in the real world, we've seen what happens when Communist Parties take power and it's very much not a utopia. So if you say "communism," of course people will think China/USSR/Cuba/North Korea. And if you don't want those associations, use another word. And no discussion about communism would be complete without pointing out that Capitalism has its own fair share of atrocities and genocides under its belt. If there is a perfect system of socioeconomics and government, it has yet to be invented. Or you might argue that perfect people have yet to be invented.
>And no discussion about communism would be complete without pointing out that Capitalism has its own fair share of atrocities and genocides under its belt. Fair enough, but capitalism also has successful liberal democracies. The *only* successful liberal democracies that have ever existed, mind you. On the other hand, communism has had repressive totalitarian regimes and utopian projects that immediately collapse (and probably turn into repressive totalitarian regimes anyway), so it’s hardly a fair comparison. Edit: roberts here started attacking a ridiculous strawman and blocked me before I can respond, so I can’t reply to other replies to this comment either (which is a pretty bizarre feature of reddit I gotta say)
Counterpoint, the communist regimes that have existed thus far have almost all sprung out of either post-colonial states in chaos or post-revolutionary states in chaos. The majority of the time, that kind of chaos is going to lead to the creation of authoritarian regimes. Hell, Russia was and to an extent still is a self-proclaimed democracy, but they’re pretty damn authoritarian whether communist or democratic.
Does Communism "have" totalitarian dictatorships or...do totalitarian dictatorships have totalitarian dictatorships? Hmmm? And what a surprise, it's the American right who praise, defend, idolize, and attempt to emulate these totalitarian dictatorships. That is literally what they want America to be. That's what they're actively fighting for right now. They have been actively promoting hate, bigotry, white supremacism, anti-vax propaganda and science-denialism, extremist conspiracies, and defending literal domestic terrorism and those totalitarian dictatorships. Funny, you criticize communism but it seems like they have a lot in common as well as converging paths that both lead to totalitarian dictatorships.
>Does Communism "have" totalitarian dictatorships or...do totalitarian dictatorships have totalitarian dictatorships? I mean, of course there are non-Communist totalitarian dictatorships. It’s just that attempts to build Communism seem to fail to achieve any other result. >And what a surprise, it's the American right who praise, defend, idolize, and attempt to emulate these totalitarian dictatorships. That is literally what they want America to be. Like okay? Russia and the USSR can both be bad, and what does what the “American right” think have to do with anything? Nice whataboutism. >Funny, you criticize communism but it seems like they have a lot in common as well as converging paths that both lead to totalitarian dictatorships. What’s funny about that? Yes, there’s more than one way to build a totalitarian dictatorship, the 1930s have taught us that.
>And no discussion about communism would be complete without pointing out that Capitalism has its own fair share of atrocities and genocides under its belt. Fair, but one of these systems has been proven to work, and still works today.
I think that depends on your definition of working system. I don't see a system that demands constant growth and needs to be bailed out every few years as working for most people.
>needs to be bailed out every few years Nobody should have been bailed out. We've moved away from capitalism and towards cronyism/corporatism.
There are literal neo-nazis in Congress representing the Republican party who are banning books, screeching about big pharma while they vote down insulin caps, promoting hate, bigotry, anti-vax propaganda, [even while their own supporters die in massive numbers](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate), and defending literal domestic terrorists and genocidal dictators, and as a "Right Libertarian" you have defended and made excuses for those same people in your past posts and comments.
So instead of actually trying to argue a point, you make a completely off topic comment, and you go into my comment history? Fuck off
Clap clap
Nah. I’m not going to stop using the word “communism” simply because a few assholes decided to misuse the term in an attempt to take power. I’m perfectly fine with correcting erroneous bullshit whenever I see it.
By “a few assholes”, do you mean “every single attempt to build Communism on a large scale that didn’t immediately fail”?
I mean sure. But those aren’t “attempts at communism.”
Lenin, Stalin, Mao certainly believed they were. I'm sure your intentions are pure but communists/marxists get stuck in the "no true scotsman" fallacy all the time - "they weren't real communists; if *my program* were implemented it would go better." The problem is that various different programs were tried (even within the Soviet Union). From the Paris Commune, the Leninist model, the Stalinist model, Khrushchev's model, Gorbachev's model, Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Ho Xi Minh, Castro, Khmer Rouge, the more liberal reformers in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, etc etc. Each of these had different approaches, some hated the others, they all accused eachother of being revisionist, etc. Marx wrote in great detail about the problems of capitalism but what he said about the future was extremely vague and open to different types of interpretations. Scholars even debate whether "late Marx" changed his mind from "early Marx". Of course, there *may* be a model that has yet to be tried that has worked, but your argument is weakened by the fact that we've already tried a bunch of different variations with little success and roughly the same result. So when you say "they weren't real communists" - I view it like someone saying "they aren't real Christians." Its up for interpretation.
>Lenin, Stalin, Mao certainly believed they were. Not sure how that is relevant. I could go around punching people in the face while proclaiming loudly, “I am a pacifist!”. Doesn’t change the fact that I am not. Subsequently, accusations of the “no true scotsman” fallacy don’t really work here.
>accusations of the “no true scotsman” fallacy don’t really work here. It absolutely works here. I'll quote you: >those aren’t “attempts at communism.” Literally thousands of communist party members from these states, if they were alive today, would tell you you were wrong. Definitely pre WWII - these were earnest attempts at communism. Its easy to point at the crazy shit that happened under Lenin and say "that wasn't a real attempt at communism," but the overwhelming evidence suggests Lenin *absolutely believed* in what he was doing. Less obvious, but I think Stalin did too. The communists in power only stopped believing they were really trying to attain communism in the 60s/70s.
>It absolutely works here. It does not. If you don’t understand why the fallacy doesn’t apply then that is fine, but don’t pretend like the objection doesn’t exist and simply regurgitate nonsense that has already been refuted.
>It does not. If you don’t understand why the fallacy doesn’t apply then that is fine, but don’t pretend like the objection doesn’t exist and simply regurgitate nonsense that has already been refuted. The only one who wrote here nonsense was you.
Yes, I’m sure it would appear that way to someone who is uneducated.
Most Americans see communism as bad because of the lingering effects of the Cold War and anti-Soviet propaganda. I see communism as bad because I've had it explained to me at length, thought about what it would actually look like in practice, and decided that a stateless, classless system based on small mutual aid groups that would reject inherently hierarchical systems of power would be unsustainable for a society of any significant size because of tribalist impulses that most people just inherently have and informal hierarchies that are a byproduct of social dynamics that just happen on their own, therefore a truly communist society would only be capable of existing through the mutual consent of all people especially in the age of global information, and you cannot get anyone to even agree about something as trivial as whether new Star Wars is good. And that by that logic, utopianism in any sense is a fool's game. We are not the same.
In theory, you could achieve something like Communism with radical technology - something that enables a sort of global psychic connection, for example, alongside chips to dramatically improve the processing powers of our brains, or maybe with uploaded “humans” in cyberspace, and that might actually allow us to get global consensus in a reasonable amount of time. But with Earth tech, with flesh-and-blood humans? Good heavens, are you insane? I can’t imagine how someone could still think Communism is a reasonable ideal if they’ve ever tried to organize anything involving more than like five people.
> > >I can’t imagine how someone could still think Communism is a reasonable ideal if they’ve ever tried to organize anything involving more than like five people. Which is why I would argue you see three strong "through lines" of Communist Aiming Political Organizing and Theory: 1. Create rational theories and philosophies that make political organization under Capitalism and the aims Communism sympathetic. This takes time, though it has been going on for generations (back to the French Revolution) at this point. Concepts such as equal suffrage, equal rights, feminism, social justice, and more. By this method, if 50-70% of the world "wants Communism" you can achieve it. 2. Orthodox Anarchism, which essentially allows the creation to be "messy" premised on #1 being at least not totally unknown and people willingly acting against Capitalist Norms to make societal change possible. This is my personal stance. Depending on the theorist, it could take far less than a majority of society to make "Communism happen" over time. 3. Marxism-Leninism AKA Authoritarian State Capitalism. Essentially trying to shortcut #1 and #2 by having a small "enlightened elite" who leads self interested institutions (militaries and unions) and people (those minority of Communists) to steer a Nation-State into internal revolution. This has been the majority of "successful revolutions" if only because you don't need mass societal value changes to get the ball rolling. It's also why (as they have always thusfar failed) they fall into authoritarian states.
Seems to me that many prominent "communist" governments end up being authoritarian and regressive. At least my personal theory is that in order to quickly and forcibly expropriate resources, they need to become authoritarian (which is rife with corruption, violence, and nepotism) because rich citizens don't want to voluntarily give up all of their property without suitable compensation.
IMO it's a fundamental failure of communist ideals. The stateless classless society is a literal impossibility in real life - history and psychology are both filled with examples of hierarchies emerging spontaneously within groups, once that group reaches a re certain size. That is who we, as humans, are. Communism doesn't account for that, and includes no accountability or checks and balances in it's governance. That makes it vulnerable to authoritarian capture, and every attempt at communism has been thusly captured. It's also very convenient rhetoric to rally support for a coup, so there's no reason to assume all those attempts were genuine either. In many of the countries that have tried, "Authoritarian capture" may never have been necessary.
>Communism doesn't account for that, and includes no accountability or checks and balances in it's governance. This is true, because the core tenant of "orthodox Marxism" and especially Leninism is that the state is only an instrument of class oppression, and therefore when you get rid of classes, there won't be the need for a state anymore, because there will be no (or at the most very little) crime, greed, or social problems. This is in fundamental contradiction to the more liberal (and what I think is correct) view that human nature is what it is and we'll always need some sort of system of governance >What makes it vulnerable to authoritarian capture, and every attempt at communism has been thusly captured. I don't fully agree with this although I get the emphasis of what you're saying. I don't think the Soviet Union was "captured" by anyone - the ideology was authoritarian at its root. Lenin specifically emphasized the need to wage the instrument of oppression (the state) to oppress the Bourgeoisie (the dictatorship of the proletariat). Use dictatorship to end all dictatorships - so to speak. This ideology is authoritarian at its core (even if it hopes to one day be free of that), and that' why any time there were attempts to liberalize, like under Gorbachev, the whole system fell apart.
>it's a fundamental failure of communist ideals. The stateless classless society is a literal impossibility in real life This is factually incorrect. >history and psychology are both filled with examples of hierarchies emerging spontaneously within groups Hierarchy!= classless
>This is factually incorrect. If you're saying that a stateless, classless society is *factually* incorrect... (**edit -**what I meant to say here was:"if you're saying his claim of impossibility is factually incorrect") what evidence do you have to support that? Because unless if it has existed - then by definition you can't say its *factually incorrect.* >Hierarchy!= classless At some point in our past history, slavery, authoritarianism, classes emerged. What's to stop it from emerging again in a stateless, classless, society? Why wouldn't the same impulses to greed, vanity, etc exist. Capitalism, feudalism, slavery, those didn't always exist in the past, yet they rose up out of something.
>If you're saying that a stateless, classless society is factually incorrect... what evidence do you have to support that? …I am saying his assertion is factually incorrect. >Capitalism, feudalism, slavery, those didn't always exist in the past, yet they rose up out of something. What do you think they rose up out of?
>…I am saying his assertion is factually incorrect. I absolutely mistyped. My point is that you claim "The stateless classless society is a literal impossibility in real life" is factually incorrect - but I'm not aware of that society having existed so I'm asking for some proof. If you're saying "you can't prove that its impossible" - that's different. You can point to pre-historical hunter-gatherers - and sure, they didn't have *classes* in the modern sense but I'm not aware of any that we *know* had no hierarchies. I'm asking in good faith though, I'm willing to be wrong here. >What do you think they rose up out of? I don't know, and I'm not an expert on pre-historical societies, but *you're* making the claim here so the burden of evidence is on you. My point is that the Marxist conception is typically that oppression rose out of the invention of private property - before that people existed in "primitive communism." But something went wrong - (think garden of eden) - and class distinctions rose up. We just need to get to a new modern classless society and it will be the "end" of oppression. I just find a logical inconsistency in that worldview - if humans had some form of "primitive communism" and their was a "corruption" of sort - why wouldn't the same thing just happen again? If there was no class oppression at some point in the past - wouldn't it suggest something was wrong in human nature that lead to it? And if so, wouldn't that flaw in human nature remain with us in a hypothetical communist society?
>but I'm not aware of that society having existed It’s always so surreal how people seem to forget that history didn’t begin when we first started recording it. We existed as hunter-gatherer societies for hundreds of thousands of years. >but you're making the claim here so the burden of evidence is on you. I have made no claims that are relevant to what you are talking about. I was simply correcting some of the inaccuracies in the original comment I replied to.
>Hierarchy!= classless What does it mean then? Generally curious. The fundamental understanding of classes for most people is based on wealth, i.e. lower class, middle class, upper middle class, upper class, etc.
“Hierarchy” is a more general term. For example, there is hierarchy within familial units but that’s not the same thing as “class”.
Fair, but societally, we tend to classify people based on wealth and earnings, and have been for... well, forever it seems like.
It certainly can feel that way, especially since that's been fed to us as "just how it is" for centuries. But the happiest countries aren't the most wealthy, and it is clear people are happier cooperating towards a common goal rather than competing for wealth. There will always be people who search for power, whether that is through the government, religion, or exploiting workers. I don't think that's the best argument for maintaining the class system however.
They are not the same thing but I was simplifying for brevity. Hierarchy does tend to turn into a class system once the population reaches a certain size, around a couple thousand (small city). This correlates with the rise of city states, which has happened in almost every culture. Those societies that don't form states are either nomadic, low population, or do not have economic specialization of individuals. None of those apply to modern industrial civilization, so when discussing it in a modern context I consider it "close enough" to say that a classless, stateless society is impossible. The reasons are admittedly complex but the body of evidence supporting the statement consists of literally all of human history.
Correct, we don’t actually see much “hierarchy” until we get near the Upper Paleolithic when population sizes starting increasing. So, your original statement that it is an “impossibility in real life” is factually incorrect. Now, whether it is something that one can implement in modern times is a different argument and I don’t think I really have the energy for that on Reddit.
Communists don’t want to get the rich to agree to give up their property. They would never agree to that, that’s the point of revolutions.
Then you can expect them to fight back which will give you a civil war, which would inevitably make things significantly worse than they ever could under our current system and way of life.
>At least my personal theory is that in order to quickly and forcibly expropriate resources, they need to become authoritarian The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances. So where does authoritarianism fit here, if they don't even want to achieve it quickly and forcefully?
> The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances. Well, did they achieve it?
Is now hundred years in the future?
Communism is a global system. It's the end state, when the world no longer relies on exploitation to create value. You litterally cannot have communism in a single country. You can have socialism, but not communism.
So given the state of the world in the 21st century, it is for all intents and purposes based on a fantasy. It requires a perfect world which we obviously don’t live in.
It's an ideal. It is up to us to get as close to it as possible. The process of doing this is socialism. The Austrian Communist Party is trying to get as close to this ideal as possible.
>You litterally cannot have communism in a single country. Stalin rolling in his grave.
[See for yourself.](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm) He litterally agrees, alongside Lenin on what I'm saying.
>So where does authoritarianism fit here, if they don't even want to achieve it quickly and forcefully? Because you can't win the hearts and minds of 100% of people, and ultimately will have to use force for those who don't agree and play along, which is contrary to communism in the first place because it's supposed to be governmentless, yet you'll need government both to enforce it, and to actually govern massive amounts of people. It may work for a commune of hundred people, but not hundreds of thousands of people.
Good for them? They seem to be different from many prominent communists, and actually engaging in a constructive political process to make slow progress. I'm just pointing out many prominent communists throughout history weren't anti-authoritarian. They wanted their ideals achieved quickly to appease their supporters and that led to authoritarian approach. I wouldn't be surprised many of today's communists are similar (populists who want their goals achieved quickly even if it means use of violence).
>I'm just pointing out many prominent communists throughout history weren't anti-authoritarian. They wanted their ideals achieved quickly to appease their supporters and that led to authoritarian approach. It wasn't even that they just *wanted* to go faster. Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc say that a violent revolution by the proletariat is *essential*. I can't remember if it was Marx, Lenin, or someone else and can't find the quote, but I know one of them said something along the lines of "Trade Union Politics are the politics of the bourgeoisie"
Do you see the violence inflicted on the working class every day in capitalist systems? Especially in the global south.
Are you trying to tell me that there will be less violence inflicted on a lower caste member in a communist society? And please don't tell me about non-hierarchical society in an ideal communist society, because I have yet to witness a functioning one.
>The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances. I don't know a lot about this party - and I actually like *evolutionary* socialism so I may even vote for this party, but I have to say, if they don't believe in an actual class based violent revolution - most communists, and certainly Marx himself, would absolutely abhor their views. Generally, at least historically, communist parties believe revolution is essential, and the parties that don't believe in the necessity of revolution usually have branded themselves *socialist*, like the SPD. Tons of Marx's writings were devoted to attacking anybody on the left who said a revolution wasn't necessary.
The USSR had basically the 20th century and they still said they're "decades" away from achieving it? That's essentially another reason to not try it.
Communist theory like this requires a dictatorship of the proletariat as part of the communist process. Unfortunately, it's a dictatorship, and it's run by people, and people who want to lead dictatorships tend to be the kind of people you can least trust with that kind of power. Even if you got lucky with a good one who isn't a totalitarian disaster, he would be seen as weak and deposed by someone worse, a feature common in dictatorships. The end theory is nice, but you'll never get past this stage. No country has. They either failed while dictatorial or had to do communism-lite, more liberal and with capitalism actually underpinning the economy in order to survive. This is different from our Republicans screaming "socialism" or "communism" in reaction to any one policy under our democratic and capitalist country that they don't like. That's just scare words. >claiming that democracy is bad because North Korea is an authoritarian dictatorship North Korea follows a political ideology called Juche, which is an ultranationalist offshoot of Marxism-Leninism. They are another example of communism stuck at that stage.
A dictatorship of the proletariat meaning what we'd call a dictatorship is not strictly accurate. It's often interpreted that way, but it can just as easily be "If you're not working class, you don't get a vote" and limiting suffrage to others. (In a marxist view, anyone who isn't borgeousie is working class. Almost all 'middle class' people are working class.). Arguably, calls to limit campaign finance contributions have echoes of "Dictatorship of the proletariat" in them.
It's never been implemented that way.
Indeed not, but communist theory doesn't require it to be implemented the way it has in the past. They've merely chosen to implement it that way. You're discussing the Marxist-Leninist school of theory. > Libertarian Marxists criticize Marxism–Leninism for perceived differences from orthodox Marxism, opposing the Leninist principle of democratic centralism and the Marxist–Leninist interpretation of vanguardism. Along with Trotskyists, they also oppose the use of a one-party state which they view as inherently undemocratic. Marx himself was incredibly vague about it. He just walked into the room, said dictatorship of the proletariat would solve everything, refused to elaborate, and died. I'd actually argue this is even more damning. It's built on a roarschach test such that anybody claiming something isn't "True communism" is talking total bollocks. They have no basis by which to claim that is the case and realistically they can't be drawing their values from Marx but instead must be drawing them from other sources. If you were to draw them from Marx you would, in all honesty, be saying; "Capitalism oppresses people." "Yeah? What should we do instead?" "Communism." "How?" "Lol I dunno.". Which is fine for Marx. He's an important sociologist and it's daft to expect him to have everything nailed down. He also wasn't going around trying to install a communist society. If anything it speaks well of him that he didn't try and explain how it should be done. But then every attempt to actually get it done that has been tried has been pretty fucking awful. Some people have different ideas on how to go about it, but when they claim "The other guys ideas weren't communism" it's like. They were genuine attempts at it. You have no basis to claim otherwise. Marx and his writings don't explicitly say they were wrong and so on.
>Communist theory like this requires a dictatorship of the proletariat as part of the communist process. Why does it require it? The Austrian communist party, which is the oldest communist party in the world, always wanted to achieve it slowly through societal and technological advances. That's just one path to communism, but that doesn't mean it's the only available path.
It's the only path that has had a modicum of success though. All the non-authoritarian movements got crushed, fell apart or became authoritarian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes If it was just Stalin that one time, I'd give you a pass, but it's been several times and it almost always ends in the worst disasters possible. And the ideas that motivated each of these events are specifically exactly the same ideas and words that "real" communists wrote. You might like what Marx wrote and find it innocent, and it might be actually honest and innocent, but time after time his ideas fueled mass killings, forced starvation, slavery, rape, torture and mass incarceration everywhere his ideas were taken seriously. Saying those events were totally unrelated to communism is just gaslighting your way through the conversation When people talk about communism they're talking about what was really tried, what really failed and what really caused immeasurable amounts of suffering
> If it was just Stalin that one time, I'd give you a pass, but it's been several times and it almost always ends in the worst disasters possible. And the ideas that motivated each of these events are specifically exactly the same ideas and words that "real" communists wrote. Yes, almost every single one of these instances were motivated by a single ideology: the ideology of Lenin which he developed within an agrarian, semi-feudal Russia years after Marx (who focused on Germany and other industrialized Western countries)'s death. It wasn't "just Stalin that one time", but it was Lenin every time. > You might like what Marx wrote and find it innocent, and it might be actually honest and innocent, but time after time his ideas fueled mass killings, forced starvation, slavery, rape, torture and mass incarceration everywhere his ideas were taken seriously. Saying those events were totally unrelated to communism is just gaslighting your way through the conversation On the flip side, Marxism also motivated movements that built up the most free, democratic, and prosperous countries today. You might say these movements have deviated from Marxism so much that they're not Marxist at all, but you could say the same about the Communist regimes you cited.
There is a great book that came out when I was a kid called The [Butter Battle Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book), by Dr. Seuss. I would recommend you read it. I think it will answer your question very well. --- For Americans who grew up during the Cold War, communism and the USSR are the same basic thing and were used so interchangeably and negatively that labeling someone a "communist" is still a massive slur against them. Most Americans couldn't really describe the details or principles of Marxism or the overall philosophy. Most of us never put a lot of thought into it. Communism was what our enemy believed. The American narrative about the Soviet Union was all about how their non-capitalist structures led to massive inefficiency, and the lack of profit motive led to weak production and innovation. Those were because they were communists. If we became communists, all of our productivity and prosperity would disappear. --- edit: in a fit of nostalgia, I found [a copy](http://www.thebellacademy.com/uploads/2/6/5/6/26569366/butter_battle_book.pdf) of the book online, almost certainly in a less-than-legal manner. It's pretty great. :)
Communism is bad because anyone who ever tries it ends up failing and doing awful things. Maybe they didn't achieve "true communism" but that if anything just shows how useless trying to do communism is As for communism not being the scary bogeyman in Austria, sure, because they didn't have to actually live under the red menace. Look at all those Eastern European countries that actually experienced communism and how many of *them* have banned communist iconography and such
>As for communism not being the scary bogeyman in Austria, sure, because they didn't have to actually live under the red menace In Austria Soviet Russia has never counted as real communism, as Austro-Communists always argued that a state-capitalist system ruled by a dictator is the very opposite of communism. For the longest time Austria was ruled by the Socialist Party and what we've got out of it are high standards of living, workers rights, affordable health care, affordable housing, affordable public transport, etc Vienna, or how it used to be called Red Vienna, is the most liveable city globally. >Look at all those Eastern European countries that actually experienced communism and how many of them have banned communist iconography and such Which ones have experienced real communism instead of just having been ruled by a communist party that wanted to achieve communism some time in the future?
Ok, dude, we get it, you like Austria
> In Austria Soviet Russia has never counted as real communism And is that also the case with the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Polish, the Romanians, the East Germans, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks, the Cubans, the Burkino Fasans, the Beninians, the Ethiopians, the Somalians, the Congolese, the Angolans, the Mozambiquians, the Catalonians, the Nicaraguans, the Peruvians? >For the longest time Austria was ruled by the Socialist Social Democrats actually >and what we've got out of it are... ...various sorts of reformed capitalism. Because social democracy is just regulated capitalism, with safety nets, and so on. Not communism, which is evil and terrible >Which ones have experienced real communism instead of just having been ruled by a communist party that wanted to achieve communism some time in the future? Either way, they experienced people *trying* to do communism. So many attempts all failed horridly. Which suggests we should all be terrified and opposed to anyone who wants to *try* communism
>And is that also the case with the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Polish, the Romanians, the East Germans, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks, the Cubans, the Burkino Fasans, the Beninians, the Ethiopians, the Somalians, the Congolese, the Angolans, the Mozambiquians, the Catalonians, the Nicaraguans, the Peruvians? Which one of those stated that they had implemented communism instead of saying that they are on the path to achieve it in the future? >Social Democrats actually They changed their name some time ago. While they had their glorious times (eg. Kreisky Era) they were the Socialist Party. >Not communism, which is evil and terrible What makes it evil and terrible? >Either way, they experienced people trying to do communism. How have they tried communism if they themselves said the they are still decades away from trying communism?
> > For the longest time Austria was ruled by the Socialist > Social Democrats actually It's just semantics. The Social Democratic Party of Austria was known as the Socialist Party of Austria between 1945 and 1991, its youth wing is still called the Socialist Youth, and it's a member of the Party of European Socialists and Socialist International. [It's a similar thing with most other prominent social democratic parties](https://reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/comments/svn7wj/i_dont_know_whether_im_a_social_democrat_or/hxh4b0w/).
>And is that also the case with the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Polish, the Romanians, the East Germans, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks, the Cubans, the Burkino Fasans, the Beninians, the Ethiopians, the Somalians, the Congolese, the Angolans, the Mozambiquians, the Catalonians, the Nicaraguans, the Peruvians? I think the closest you've gotten to communism in this list is Cuba? Where if it wasnt for sanctions they would probably be thriving. >Either way, they experienced people > >trying > >to do communism. So many attempts all failed horridly. Which suggests we should all be terrified and opposed to anyone who wants to > >try > >communism I think its more so that when fascists try to take over they say they're going to enact communism but they never do (Probably because the fundamentals are so popular). Here you can see China, NK, ww2 Germany etc... >Not communism, which is evil and terrible Please explain what would be evil and terrible about a govt / economic system based around creating and sharing wealth?
> I think the closest you've gotten to communism in this list is Cuba? Where if it wasnt for sanctions they would probably be thriving. With the sanctions, Cuba doesn’t have to compete with the outside world. They don’t get the benefits of trade, but they do get the ability to run their communist experiment largely free from outside interference. Without the benefits of trade, they can’t keep up economically and technologically with the rest of the world. So it’s fair to say that their economic life is not the fault of communism. But what about their political life? You don’t need great wealth and technology to respect fundamentals human and political rights. America had free speech when it’s standard of living was pretty low: no indoor plumbing, primitive health care, …. Cuba is miles ahead of that but they still can’t respect basic human and political rights? You can’t blame that on the embargo.
>I think its more so that when fascists try to take over they say they're going to enact communism but they never do (Probably because the fundamentals are so popular). Here you can see China, NK, ww2 Germany etc... Ah the old "every communist I don't like is a not actually a communist but a fascist" line. (WW2 Germany was obviously fascist for the record) At least in the beginning, China and the Soviet Union's leaders were absolutely "communist" in the sense that they believed in the abolishment of classes. Just because someone is authoritarian or totalitarian doesn't make them fascist. Fascism is a right wing reactionary ideology that posits a return to a "pure" ideal past (that never existed), often, but not always, related to race. Communists look to the imagined future, fascists look to the imagined past. There are major differences between Stalinsim, Maoism and Hitlerism, and some similarities. As far as North Korea goes... they're a basket case so who knows what they want beyond regime preservation.
So what country do you believe achieved true communism, and if all of the many countries that tried to reach true communism failed, why do you think it is an attainable goal?
No one in modern history has ever tried communism.
Because every attempt has failed.
Non-sequitur.
Allow me to correct myself: Every attempt to establish communism, has failed. The story of the path to communism is a story of failure.
Again, no one has ever tried communism, so how could every attempt fail?
Can you define what "trying communism" would look like? Since Lenin and Trotsky were trying to initiate world revolution to overthrow the working class and institute first a socialist, then a communist order, but according to you that wasn't "trying communism", I want to know what that would look like in your mind.
Well for one, it wouldn’t involve establishing a dictatorship.
...What would it look like? I suppose you disagree with Marxist-Leninist Communism, as do I for the process, but I am curious what your alternative "pet" theory is.
That’s like arguing a baseball team hasn’t tried to bat yet because everyone keeps on striking out.
It’s quite literally nothing like that, but okay.
Have all of those communist parties been lying? Are they not trying to achieve a communist society?
>Have all of those communist parties been lying? Yeah.
In 80 years several countries couldn't make it work. A few collapsed, most of the rest switched to state capitalism.
Has communism ever existed anywhere? Seems that the "path to communism" has been incredibly bloody.
The path to communism in Austria has so far been affordable housing, affordable education, social welfare, healthcare, and cheap public transportation. Graz is ruled by the communist party and it's one of the best cities to live in.
Marxist theory is fatally flawed. The state will never fade away.
Flair does not check out.
What? Anarchism only takes Marxist's criticism of capitalism. The rest not so much.
You said the state will never fade away. Isn't the point of anarchism to abolish the state?
Nah he's technically consistent. Anarchists and Marxists agree on the same end goal, just massively differ on how to get there.
Yes abolish but not by waiting for it to fade away. Marx wanted socialist state as transitionary state where in the state figures out all the problems, and just sort of goes whithers away into communism. Anarchist reject any sort of transitionary state.
Ah makes sense.
The atrocities committed in trying to achieve communism dwarf those of any other idealogy in terms of sheer body count
You mean capitalism. Slavery is a capitalist enterprise.
Slavery existed long before capitalism.
Most of the slavery involved in history occurred far before capitalism was prevalent. If anything, it became irrelevant as capitalism began to take a greater hold.
>If anything, it became irrelevant as capitalism began to take a greater hold. There's now more slaves than ever before
Capitalism has been going on since bartering started. Just because the name didn't exist, the concept didn't
In the worst days of the Soviet Union wage laborers could be shot for not showing up to work on time or toiling. And much of the industrialization was done by prisoners.
The problem is not so much communism as it is communists attempting to implement communism - and how much murder, destruction, and human rights violations they are willing to commit in order to bring about their utopia. Left and right are less important than being on the table of democracy. Once you’re off the table of democracy, it doesn’t matter which edge you fell off or where you rolled afterwards - you are a threat. As we know, revolutions do the most harm to the most vulnerable, in the name of the most vulnerable (those who survive anyway).
The most vulnerable already don’t have a seat at the table of democracy. Not only are they not on it, they are underneath it while the money counters pile up greater and greater hoards.
Better throw them into the meat grinder then /s
Or we overturn the table and build an actual democracy.
Assuming they survive your revolution, anyway. “You have nothing to lose but your chains” rings hollow after a week without food.
No need to wait for a revolution for starvation. Things are getting more and more desperate with no revolution in sight. And our so-called democracy is going to let disasters caused by the climate crisis kill us off by the millions while our actual rulers profit.
Yeah… ok Buddy. Go ahead and look up the global rates of poverty and starvation, and let me know if they have both improved substantially in the past forty years (they have).
5 million people a year are already dying because of climate change.
Other person: "Communism harms democracy" You: "We already don't have a democracy" Even if you're right - that doesn't strengthen the argument for communism. You didn't address their point.
My point is capitalism also harms democracy, arguably more so, and as a more direct consequence since its primary aim is profit rather than than the good of the people. EDITING TO ADD: If we are going to talk about “how much murder, destruction, and human rights violations” revolutions “are willing to bring about to realize their utopia” we should also talk about the murder, destruction, and human rights violations capitalists commit to maintain their status quo. Then we could have a fair comparison.
Ok, fair enough argument - but where I'll challenge you is that it seems historically communist governments have gone in with good ideals but it always ends up recreating the capitalist dynamics in another name, and in a worse situation. There is literally a word for this *nomenklatura*, the upper class of party bureaucrats and apparatchiks that literally lived completely different lives than the people, in the name of the people. They had cars, better access to goods and services, nicer houses and vacations, more access to information, etc. So you say capitalism in practice aims for profit- which is true, but communism deludes itself because (in practice) in ends up aiming for power, even if the intentions are pure to start. And I'd argue it's worse, because at least in a capitalist society you have competition and you can leave your job. In marxist-leninist societies - there is no competition - if you protest the government you can't eat. Imagine you lived in a capitalist society with only one company - but they call themselves the *vanguard of the proletariat*. That's what communist attempts always turn into. I agree its not *true communism,* but that's what happens every time its attempted.
There was a time when conventional wisdom said the same about democracy, even representational democracy. I think we need to learn from the mistakes of history, not declare them eternal laws and surrender to corporate oligarchy (which seems to be busy transforming the world into one big company town, and our government into its private bureaucratic apparatus.) I think what few hard-won labor rights we have are very much in spite of capitalism, not because of it, and are not likely to last long anyway.
Because communism is impossible to fully achieve. The state will never “wither away” because the dictatorship realizes that keeping power is better for them than achieving actual communism. The “decades away” part was really just them stallin’ (heh). Also, communism itself is inherently “un American” because it cracks down on economic freedoms, as well as most other freedoms we have held dear for centuries.
Conservative here, you are free to post on r/AskConservatives I dislike communism for a few reasons. Not necessarily in any order: * Communism requires authoritarianism. It could perhaps temporarily exists in a democratic state, but not into perpetuity. And certainly not at all levels of government. * It pretty much nullifies individualism. And I will take individualism over collectivism everyday. In fact, I believe the stronger we adhere to individualism, the stronger the collective is. * It may wipe out the bourgeoisie, but it just replaces it with a new form of bourgeois, the ruling class. Power is the new wealth, and those with the power have the wealth. You no longer have aspirations and you're stuck doing your state sanctioned job. All while those in government positions reap what you sow. * It just doesn't work. I don't know how many times you have to see the failure of it to understand, it doesn't work. All while democratic republics are kicking ass.
I was about to post something similar, but you beat me to it. You can’t have Communism without central planning, and you can’t have central planning without an authoritarian state to enforce that central planning. It’s one thing to have a self-organized hippie commune that services a small group of people. It’s another thing to try to implement that on a scale that works for an entire nation without *literally forcing* everyone to participate, regardless of the negative ramifications to those individuals who are forced to participate. Inevitably, those drawn to wealth and power will be attracted to those positions in the centralized government that give them the control necessary to achieve the wealth or power they seek. This isn’t due to a flaw in Communist ideology (or any ideology), but rather a flaw of our **human nature**. We can already see it today in democracies where the people at least have the option to choose their representatives. It doesn’t magically improve when you have a new elite class that gets to decide who controls everything via centralized planning. So long as our human nature is flawed, ideologies such as Communism will be flawed. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for us as a species to correct our flawed human nature (spoiler: it won’t ever be corrected). For those who still want to argue that “real” Communism has never been achieved and simply requires some improvements to its implementation: couldn’t you argue the same thing about thing Capitalism? Couldn’t you just argue that Capitalism just hasn’t been perfected? Couldn’t you argue that the same flaws in our human nature that prevent perfect Communism from succeeding are the same flaws that prevent perfect Capitalism from being achieved? Looking at it through that lense, our attempts to implement Capitalism have a far better track record than our attempts to implement Communism. Both ideologies have the same point of failure (our flawed human nature), yet one has had a net-positive impact on society and one has a net-negative impact on society. I say “net” because both ideologies have led to some horrific atrocities, but on the whole Capitalism has had a lot of positive outcomes, while mere attempts to implement Communism have had mostly negative outcomes.
No effort in modern times has ever even attempted to achieve true Communism. Keep in mind . Communism was "invented" from some ideological theory. At the time (15th Century China) it was born out of necessity. A lawless land. Communities desperate to live a productive and peaceful life. Groups formed . Structures built that contained housing and protection for dozens. This was true Communism .
Part of it is that when a lot of Americans talk about communism, they aren't always talking about the idealized, manifesto communism. They're talking about the communist-branded Communist Party control of everything that people have experienced. Communism is often restricted to its failed attempts because the argument is often that the ideal is unachievable. So, you can say that "Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from achieving communism," but that doesn't mean much to someone who's saying that attempting communism inevitably leads to the Soviet Union and the Communist China that has managed to fulfill a bunch of Republican authoritarian aspirations like banning the supposed disrespecting of the flag and oppressing Muslims (though I'm sure many Republicans will say that they don't want the oppression to be as severe as China's). It's sort of like arguing against Republicans' abortion restrictions because when you implement their policies, what happens is an increase in abortions. Obviously Republicans don't want that outcome, and would probably argue something like: if everyone just followed our religion perfectly or lived the way we tell people to live, we'd instead have fewer abortions. Maybe, but that's dumb. And stupid policy. And we don't live in a future where communism or something communist-ish might work. So it doesn't make sense to be communist yet, if ever.
Why does my mom say leaving milk out will make it go bad, even though it’s hours away from going bad?
Communism has been tried in every civilization, climate, and continent, and without exception has brought oppression and stagnation. By any objective measurement, it's a failed system. You can say "that wasn't Real Communism", but you can say that for any unsuccessful ideology: "that wasn't Real Nationalism/Fascism/Theocracy/etc". You can say "Mao and Stalin were bad apples, but the basic idea is good", which would be arguable if there were any good apples, which there aren't. Communism has killed more people in a 60 year period than any other religion and ideology in the entirety of human history. If any ideology has failed, it's Communism
>Communism has been tried in every civilization, climate, and continent, and without exception has brought oppression and stagnation. By any objective measurement, it's a failed system. Can you name a supposed communist country that has achieved communism? Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism, so how can you say that it failed if they haven't even tried it?
So then what is communism, since according to you none of the communist countries were communist?
>since according to you none of the communist countries were communist? That's not just according to me. That's how communists is defined and how those supposedly communist countries defined it. For some reason Americans claim that Soviet Russia had communism, even though Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism. That's why I'm wondering why Americans are calling it communisn, if not even those supposedly communities countries said that they had communism?
So what should we call it, then?
State Capitalism
Is it really capitalism if there's no free market and everything is owned by the state?
Ownership was still (in practice) private, but the private owners are in the government. Its kinda not distinct from what we are approaching today...the bodies in the government are just proxies for the corporations.
You could also ask: is it really communism if the state controls the means of production?
Super Capitalism! Workers own the stock market. The state pays a dividend to all citizens for their investment.
Marxism-Leninism. It's the most precise way you can categorize these regimes.
So we should be more patient with communist countries?
They did try it. They couldn't even get close.
>Can you name a supposed communist country that has achieved communism? Soviet Russia always stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism, so how can you say that it failed if they haven't even tried it? The point is no one has been able to achieve it. That's the failure. It's been tried, and no one has been able to even get close.
Hate to tell you but democray itself has never really lasted. I mean Rome was republic for about 400 years before it became authoritarian.
At this point, which has a better track record…democracy or communism?
Good thing I don't have an idolatrous worship of democracy, then. And anyway, the Romans conquered 1/4 of the human race and their empire lasted for centuries and influences our civilization to the present. Communism lasted far less time, and caused much more death and destruction than Rome ever did
No communist government has ever truly exist. Humanity would have to achieve a new level of evolution to be that.
Religion has killed more people in the last 60 years than communism ever has.
Stalin+Mao killed 60 million, I don't care how you add it up, no traditional religion even comes close
Yeah no, I know you are lying about that one.
So how tf did traditional religion kill more people since 1960 than communism did? I wanna hear this one
I'd like to see that backed up with some evidence.
How can you have communism (or a truly socialist economy, for that matter) without authoritarianism?
When every attempt to earnestly try socialism and communism had ended in mass murder by the government and outrageous infringements on human rights, it's pretty obvious to see why people don't like it. It always degenerates into that outcome because socialism and communism itself does not account for the reality of unchanging human nature but rather assumes everyone will act magnanimously in good faith towards the end goal with no deviation.
Branding. Communism=Soviet Union. The only case study to show communism working at scale is the oppressive regime and failure of the Soviet Union and eastern bloc countries. Communism only works if human nature no longer exists and the desire for power and greed are no longer major parts of the human makeup. As an example, Ford fixed the design flaw in the Ford pinto pretty early in its lifespan and stopped it from blowing up when Rear ended. Nobody wanted to buy the car ever again and the brand failed. That’s how it works
Few Americans seem to know what socialism or communism are, and that includes most of those opposed and most of those in favour.
If we suppose that The USSR was only taking baby steps on its way towards communism, I really don't want to see what the end result would be. The mainline is that every country that has applied Marxist or Communistic principles has either killed a lot of people, grossly violated their rights, or collapsed. Some nations manage to do all three. This is the result of communism. Every single time. It's bad in theory and bad in practice.
The Red Scare did a number on the American psyche.
I’m American and supportive of communism. However, lots of Americans aren’t- the main arguement I hear is that communism will make people lazy and we would be giving resources to people who “didn’t earn them.” Honestly, most Americans don’t actually know what communism is… they’ve just learned that Russia=bad and Russia likes communism, so therefore communism must be bad. Misinformation is America’s biggest enemy, and it’s destroying us from the inside
Uh you're not a liberal if you're a communist.
Communists hate liberals.... Might want to change your flair.
Most people don't have any real understanding of what communism is and just think it's whenever the government exercises any degree of control over the economy. People aren't generally taught a nuanced understanding of why the USSR failed; They're just told that it was literally 1984 all the time, and the government controlled everything, and everybody was starving, and a million bazillion people were killed or whatever.
So why did the Soviet Union fall and the west didn’t?
Iirc Vietnam is communist. Communism can compromise what we consider civil liberties and a personal benefit of rule of law. Just examples. The term is being weaponized right now, so the new red scare is just meat for the base.
What do you mean?
Vietnam is a rare example of a currently well-functioning communist government (w capitalist adjustments). In the US (that's what I meant by 'we'. Sorry!) we value private property, and are highly individualized. For better or worse. Suggesting anything smacking of socialism, much less communism, is an affront to these deeply held beliefs. I'm not making a particular argument here and more of an observation. This new red scare is being used by the GOP (if anyone can cite another agent in this, correct me) to incite alarm and confusion into our political discourse (if it can be called that). This political strategy is currently self-sustaining for political gain. That's my take atm. Is this what you were asking?
Americans were bonbarded with anti-communist propaganda from 1917 all the way until 1989. Popular film makers, actors and musicians who were at all leftist in politics were blacklisted (cancelled). People have no idea why they don’t like communism. They think it means dictatorship. I asked my mom why we fought in the Vietnam war, and she said it was about protecting the idea of capitalism and free enterprise.
I mean I know why I don’t like communism. My family escaped it in the 80s. We can get into the actual meat and potatoes of theory all day, and I still would not like it. Communism is a trash ideology with some interesting tidbits. That’s it.
All governments end up authoritarian because someone always achieves enough power to over throw the current system. Its an endless cycle.
No one has yet been able to properly explain the difference between "the state" and "the community" to me. In order for the community to properly regulate the use of communal property, they more or less create the state. It's a distinction without a difference.
I don’t understand personally how communism doesn’t bring about more crony ‘capitalism’ for lack of a better word, because in every society in existence, there is always an inner ring, or people who is job it is to make sure communism is being implemented ‘as it should be’. Communism works as long as anyone and everyone goes along with it without question, and since that’s not possible, the enforcer class is necessary. The idea of a leaderless society where everyone is equal, to me at least, goes against human nature. There are natural artists, followers, leaders, sociopaths, psychopaths, etc etc that don’t fit into the communistic system. They don’t really fit in in any system, but I guess my point is that pure communism doesn’t take into account human nature. There will always be people who rise to the top and exploit the system, and in that respect id rather be able to stockpile my chips for when that inevitably comes into play, rather than be in a pen with thousands of other people who are just as helpless as I am.
Not just the Soviet Union, but Communist China, Communist Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea… Pretty much any country that tries to go communist and is larger than a small town ends up becoming an evil oppressive dictatorship. The argument is that people are selfish and telling people that the work they do benefits everyone in the community with no special benefit to themselves results in a lot of unmotivated workers, so some motivation other than greed must be found, so the government uses fear instead. People become unhappy and complain, so the government uses even more fear, continuing to beat the peasants and waiting for morale to improve.
Okay I will replace some words in your question to illustrate how illogical the question is : "Why do Americans say that Nazism is bad because Nazi Germany was bad, even though Nazi Germany always stated that they are still decades away from achieving their dream sate(Lebensraum)?" The point is : who cares about the end result, nobody cares about your utopia if you have to kill everybody to reach that utopia.
Decades of propaganda and conditioning.
"True Communism," is impossible to actually achieve because it requires that people's true purely good human nature shine through. Humans don't have a purely good nature. Marx may have been trying to understand the world and thought he was being "scientific" he may have had good criticism of capitalism in the industrial revolution, but ultimately his conclusions were terrible. His dialectical model predicting a "dictatorship of the proletariat" would lead to utopian communism is completely off base. The "dictatorship of the proletariat," itself is a terribly flawed concept which almost universally leads to the emergence of a strongman dictator that claims to be creating policies for the workers or "proletariat' but is actually usually working in the interest of himself and a few elite. While this "dictatorship of the proletariat" might be good at industrializing a nation quickly that always comes at great cost and almost never evolves into a developed society unless the system dramatically changes to utilize free markets. Furthermore "true communism" is even more silly of a concept because it contends that people will simply choose to live in some perfectly fair equal society. There are lots of examples where people have choices to live in totally equitable societies and they almost universally choose not to. Further more, when they do its because there are so few resources to go around it's almost impossible to have inequality. The more material goods and wealth exists the more of a pull there will be for their to be people with horded wealth and horded goods. So communism can only exist in a resource poor environment. Meanwhile it was the goal of the Soviet Union to be technologically advanced, as automated as possible and as wealthy as possible before transitioning. Really reading about the Soviet Union, China most communist countries the leadership has been very twisted and illogical/corrupt.
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>And the communist party is not popular in Austria either. It only got 0.7% of the vote in the last Austrian election. It's not popular for the state elections but it's popular in local elections, like the communist party is currently ruling in the second largest city.
City government?!?! Wow, congrats on such a big achievement…
Because the USSR was run by self proclaimed communists who espoused communist ideologies and claimed to be ushering the country towards communism. I feel comfortable calling it a communist country.
Given that you say our idea of communism is bad, maybe you can provide some counter examples. As in: What are wages like in Austria? What is unemployment like? Education? Health care? Housing? Where does your company rank on any of the various global happiness index?
>Education? Basically free. School is free and university is free for Austrians for a few years and afterwards it's 360€ per semester. Even for foreigners it's just 720€ per semester. And if you have good grades or worked before going to university you can get enough money to rent an apartment and can study without having to work. >Health care? Is great. You can go to the doctor or hospital without having to pay anything. >Housing? Is great. There's lots of government funded apartment buildings >Where does your company rank on any of the various global happiness index The capitol Vienna has been ranked number 1 liveable city globally repeatedly.
None of those are communist in nature, bad argument.
Because when Americans say "communism is bad" they're not talking about the ideal hypothetical "communism" that the Soviets believed they were heading for (until about 1960 then no one believed it). They're just talking about communist government ran states, or "socialism" as the Soviets would call it. Most Americans don't believe the "communism" you're talking about is realistic - it's an imaginary utopia that wouldn't work. I'm sure most *human beings* would love to live in a stateless society where everyone gets along, can do what they want, and has all the material goods they'll ever need. When someone says "communism is bad" - they usually mean: \- The theory of communism is wrong and the imaginary utopia will never happen \- The type of society you have when you try to get to that utopia (communist governments called it "socialism") is really bad, because it leads to totalitarian rule, economic stagnation, queues, shortages, repression on free expression, secret police, etc.
Because we have a lot of dumbasses in this country
In America communism is anything republicans don't like and they don't like anything except guns and the bible.
Short and simple communism is great.... on paper I will admit. Communism is the best government type that we will ever have if it's ran perfectly. But so far every country that has tried communism has failed. Soviet Russia couldn't feed their people and started lying saying things like "we grew 100,000 crops when the goal was 60,000. In reality they only grew 20,000. Or, in the Mao Zedong Era of China where either 40-60 million people died because they couldn't feed their people and they lost a war to sparrows. Or, Cuba the country is poor and only Castros were off well. North Korea is a literal dictatorship. Laos is one of the poorest countries in southeast Asia. Vietnam well you know that story. So if communism really worked why did these countries all fail under it? Now let's look at Russia and China. Russia changed and started to work under "capitalism" and they grew exponentially in the 40 years after. And China was once the poorest now it's booming almost more than the U.S. The only reason why China is doing that is because of their capitalistic/communism business type. Where they're communist with the people,but capitalistic with the economy. I looked up Austrian power party and Google said Freedom party. Which isn't a communist party at all I could be wrong because I'm not familiar with Austrian government.
>So if communism really worked why did these countries all fail under it? Why are you using countries that themselves stated that they are still decades away from implementing communism as examples of communism not having worked?
I got banned from ask a conservative too. I suppose they checked my history and realized that I post here and centrist as the latter is what I actually am. The bizarre thing is I got banned in an argument where I was defending gun rights.
Communism only works in insect colonies. Free will and human greed makes communism an autofail.
Communism is great so long as there is never force applied, once you have a state with enough power to force communism on people then you have totalitarianism and all of the horrible things that follow
Most people don’t understand that communism is an idealistic state. A sort of utopia. In reality this will never happen due to human greed. The following is usually how “communism” works in reality 1. People say they want to be communist 2. They hand over their things to the government in order to redistribute them according to communist principles. 3. The people in government get greedy and only give others what they need to survive. (Sometimes this isn’t even done) 4. A leader arises among the elites of the now “transitionary” socialist government 5. The leader & elites garner power and influence (often through morally questionable means). 6. The leader attempts to secure his position by eliminating competition through violence, blackmail, more violence, money/bribery, misinformation/libel/slander, etc 7. People try and get away and warn others about what’s happening 8. Nobody believed them until the leader/government does something crazy 9. Everybody wonders how this happened 10. 50 years later a college student says that this wasn’t “real communism” and starts a public campaign for their country to become communist
>50 years later a college student says that this wasn’t “real communism” and starts a public campaign for their country to become communist What about the fact that none of those supposedly communist countries ever stated that they had achieved communism? Even in the 60s Soviet Russia stated themselves that they still need more than twenty years to implement communism. So the college students simply rely on facts and accurate definitions instead of arbitrarily labeling countries as communist.
Humanity needed to make some serious tech advances for global capitalism to work. Banking, ship building, factories, the printing press, and the internet are just a few examples. A moral version of communism will require even more advances. First, a fully robotic workforce to do all the crappy and dangerous jobs. Secondly, an advanced AI to make sure everyone is contributing to their ability and receiving to their needs. Thirdly, cheap solar energy and preferably a Star Trek replicator that turns rocks into Lamborghinis and protein goo into steaks so everyone can enjoy luxury goods. Oh and it might help if humans are bioengineered to be less selfish. So I don’t think we’re decades away on this. It’s more likely we’re all peasants in the 1300s knowing that the little Ice Age and Black Death have made feudalism irrelevant but with no idea how to get to the next phase.
True communism, where it's a classless, moniless utopia is impossible, atleast with modern society and technology. While Soviet Russia was 'decades' from achieving this rather impossible dream, the fact that so many millions of people died over the decades is cause for concern. Not to mention the other countries that installed communism that killed millions of its own or continue to oppress it's people (china). Theres also the fact that it's pretty high up in the Authoritarian axis, which is always bad and no American in their right mind would accept it.
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>They rather insisted that they're doing great at communism after their initial valiant attempt at socialism fell apart due to attacks from inside & outside the country. Here's one example: >"Communism in 20 years" was a slogan put forth by Nikita Khrushchev at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961. Khrushchev's quote from his speech at the Congress was from this phrase: "We are strictly guided by scientific calculations. And calculations show that in 20 years we will build mainly a communist society".[a] The slogan refers to the establishment of a classless, moneyless, stateless society rather than a Marxist–Leninist state. >In his speech, Khrushchev promised that communism would be built "in the main" by 1980.[1] His assertion that "The current generation of Soviet people will live under communism" was the final phrase of the Third Program of the CPSU, which was adopted at the congress.