You're viewing a single thread.
Has anyone in the communism community ever actually lived under a communist regime? I have and that shit was not good. No matter how nice communism sounds on paper it depends on humans sharing and not being selfish and power hungry, which is a fantasy. Even in a communist society, you'll have those who will get more than others and will be more "equal"
it depends on humans sharing and not being selfish and power hungry, which is a fantasy.
What about Communism depends on this, structurally? How, in any way, does Capitalism do better?
Even in a communist society, you'll have those who will get more than others and will be more "equal"
Where does Marx say that Communism is about equality?
Where and when?
Let's make it more interesting. Name a place where communism has taken hold and has worked as intended without a ruling class and without resorting to human rights violations of their citizens
Why don’t you just say where and when you lived under a communist regime?
Why are you so insistent I doxx myself to you? For a person defending communism you sure do seem to want to throw me in a dungeon for wrong think
I’m not the one who claimed to have lived under a communist regime. You did.
Are you still living under a communist regime?
Would simply stating where and when you live under a communist regime put you in danger?
If so then why did you volunteer that information on a public Internet forum?
The downvotes say it all. No one in favour of it here seems able to have an honest discussion.
If you are genuinely unable to see that any political system, no matter how great in theory, doesn't translate that simply into reality because of human behaviour, then you've got some reading and thinking to do.
The attitude towards communism here comes across like a cult. Present facts or a reasonable point of discussion, you get shouted down/strawmanned, othered, etc.
Ironically, the very behaviour that stops things like communism working in reality.
Permanently Deleted
China is also extremely capitalist, but yeah it's really easy to pretend how great it is there when you're so willing to completely ignore all the reasons it's not
China is not “extremely” capitalist; its capitalism is intentionally limited. To paraphrase Grover Norquist, the Chinese government keeps capitalism to the size where it can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. It may appear massive & dominant to you, because 1) you see almost nothing but products by Chinese capitalist companies and 2) you’re not accounting for the full scope and size of China’s population and their production and consumption.
Why did you bring up China? Wasn't involved in the conversation, doesn't qualify as a communist nation, hasn't claimed to be for a while actually.
Sure China has done some impressive things but those two "weak-ass" arguments you brought up are neither weak nor small. China is an authoritarian state that abuses its people. You could unfortunately say that about many counties though.
*crickets chirping*
Everybody Sucks Here
2.12 out of 10 on the democracy index.
😂 You know who defines the metrics for democracy indexes? Liberals who wouldn’t know democracy if it bit them in the ass. People who believe in bourgeois democracy.
Economist Intelligence Unit is by venerable rag of the bourgeoisie, The Economist. Karl Marx himself called it, “the tribune of the aristocracy of finance.”
The US score is 7.8, even though it is not a democracy and never was.
Most in China Call Their Nation A Democracy, Most in U.S. Say America Isn't
Permanently Deleted
Yeah countries which the US has couped in my parent's lifetimes are more democratic than Cuba, where residents sometimes complain that the government consults them too much and which regularly has referendums over measures refined up from local committees everywhere until they have a measure to vote on. (See: family code)
What were your experiences living under a communist regime?
Go look up communist countries and strongholds throughout Central and South America in the 70s-90s. Even people here calling me a liar don't realize that even when a country wasn't communist, there were regions, villages, etc that were fully controlled by communist forces. They raped little girls and took the boys to force into fighting so that didn't seem so socialist to me.
And just because the opposition forces led by the west were just as brutal it doesn't make the guerillas any less culpable
what specific guerillas or strongholds are you referring to? its hard to learn from history without being able to name any dates, places, people, or any details at all. without those things it isnt history its just like a vibe. like you have bad vibes about communism, which youre entitled to i guess. i have a little bit more curiosity than that though. i think that if we arent discussing anything specific, then we arent discussing anything at all.
70s-90s, Central and South America, horrible experience? It's likely the Communist Party of Peru - Shining Path, a horrifying fringe terrorist splinter of Ultra-Maoism hated universally by Communists and Capitalists alike.
You want me to doxx myself but I'm not gonna bite. I do remember meeting a friend's aunt who went full communism and joined the guerillas who were understandably fighting against a right wing fascist government backed by the west. And the guerillas were so happy when Russia started backing them, (this is when you realize we're just brown people pawns for white people proxy wars). Once the money and arms started coming in, the commune suddenly became the high command and the grunts, and women like me friends aunt became sex slaves to leaders and commanders that demanded them at gunpoint. Nearby villages became empty after everyone was run off or killed by guerillas. In the end they became as bad as the fascists they were fighting. Their communist revolution never made it all the way, cause human nature took hold long before that.
it sounds like you hate human nature not communism. Anyway that sounds terrible, I wish you were able to give me more details so that I could try and learn from your friend's family's experience. I wouldn't try to doxx you, I don't have that kind of free time or energy, but I def understand the hesitation.
I guess I would argue that calling something communism doesn't make it so, and there's all different strains of communism too. For example, I've often found myself working with Trotskyists who explicitly reject forming "communes" that could become cults, and guerilla groups to seize power through violence. Even if its good for the people to form militias, trots tend to believe it isn't where the energy of the "vanguard" should be directed, and that instead people should seize political power and smash the state via those means. There's no history I'm aware of of what you're describing happening with Trotskyists, in fact there's sort of a nasty history of trotskyists getting rounded up and killed by the sort of groups you are against.
You can be a socialist and recognize the need to change the social order away from capitalism while still being suspicious of communism. Just because a guerilla group did something awful doesn't mean capitalism is good (which you don't say, you seem to have some anti imperialist critiques of capitalism yourself) or even that there is no alternative to capitalism. If this is the best system possible, the planet, all people are fucked. Something, someone has to fight against it. Capitalism can't be reformed.
Its interesting that your misanthropy seems to be directed at a system that has never existed rather than the system that actually exists. But I don't know you so maybe that's an unfair generalization. Anyway, thanks for your response, maybe next time we can have a more detailed discussion.
Edited some clarity and tone
It's funny because I'm pretty sure you haven't lived in a communist country either. So you're arguing that lack of personal experience invalidates all arguments in favour of communism, but your lack of personal experience living in a communist country somehow doesn't invalidate your arguments against communism. Yup, perfectly consistent.
You're weird. You're one of those weirdos people are talking about I think, going around questioning people's nationalities and race
They want to know what you're talking about to determine whether you're full of shit. You're weird.
"The younger the eastern European, the more they suffered under communism"
A revolution from the top was always going to be bad. I think people in this forum are hoping for a revolution from the bottom.
What do you mean by a "revolution from the top?"
The BV's were initially grass roots, along with other communists in Russia at the time, but after Lenin got control the policies all came from above with little to no input from the workers below, and the BV's became the defacto only party.
That stands in direct contrast to the actual structure of the USSR, and a misunderstanding of Democratic Centralism. The Soviets were the organizational organ of the USSR, as shown here:
Secondly, being a single party does not mean democratization lowers. Parlimentarianism obscures the material impact of a Worker's voice. A single party system can be bad, such as in Nazi Germany, where there was little to no actual democracy. A single party system can be good, such as in the USSR.
As per your previous statement that "most of us want bottom-up revolutions," that's correct, but "most of us" do not agree that the October Revolution was a "top-down" revolution.
I recommend reading the following texts, if you have not done so already:
Fair enough, carry on sir.
Makes joke about Stalin
Dies of exposure in Gulag in Siberia
Permanently Deleted
Ok, Marx
If a revolution from the bottom happens, there will still be new leaders appointed from those at the bottom. And will soon become less like the rest of us, and will become just like the old Masters
What if we keep replacing the leaders with new people from the bottom?
I think the only way it works is if you start chopping off hands and shit as punishment for corruption and that's a whole can of worms, and there will still be certain people immune
If everything is shared while living a communist way of life, that would include political power. This makes communism a direct democracy.
Does that sound like the country you're thinking of?
Which communist country, and when? It's hard to imagine anyone in any former communist country who was old enough to remember communism, and lived through the 90s, could think communism was worse.
No matter how nice communism sounds on paper it depends on humans sharing and not being selfish and power hungry
Those problems are a million times worse in capitalism where each capitalist is a dictator responsible only to themselves and each politician is responsible only to their capitalist donors.
I know a guy who was a child in east Berlin, he is a Trotskyist
"Even when communism is not achieved, communism will not be achieved.' is probably the most common and basic declaration from people have yet to learn anything about it.
Communism cannot be achieved. It sounds nice but humans suck.
Reminds me of Star Trek. Great vision of the future, but it'll never happen cause HUMANS SUCK
views this on a smartphone encapsulating about a dozen concepts inspired and portrayed in Star Trek.
Humans suck... for now.
Of course they haven't, and while I'm happy to be proved wrong, I'm sure they're all enjoying the benefits of living in a democratic country while cosplaying communists.
Do you think your bourgeois democracy is actually democratic? If you are for democracy you'd be a socialist.
Philosophical question: Can socialism and capitalism coexist?
Purely hypothetical.
No, capitalism vs socialism is; who owns the means of production, the capitalist class or the working class?
I haven't stated my position. Yes, I think our democratic processes could be better in many countries.
I also understand the reality that there is no simple 'one system" solution that is just going to miraculously fix everything.
Yes, I think our democratic processes could be better in many countries.
No, we do not have democracy. We have bourgeois democracy that cannot be reformed into democracy.
What is bourgeois democracy?: https://www.leftvoice.org/bourgeois-democracy-what-do-marxists-mean-by-that-term/
If you are skeptical of the inability to reform bourgeois democracy I would do some reading on Allende and Chile.
Authoritarian central planning sucks...
Workers having shares in companies and or the means of production doesn't.
Authoritarian central planning sucks…
You hate it because it defeated the nazis or...?
No, I dislike all Authoritarian regimes. I dislike single party systems.
We're discussing systems of the past of course, not possible variations or was a new Socialism moght structure its self.
But the problem is that Capitalism isn't going down without a fight, and if there's a fight there will likely be an Authoritarian one party system after, that performs a period of white/red terror, that's difficult to avoid.
It's a hard problem for revolutionary forms of Socialism.
No, I dislike all Authoritarian regimes. I dislike single party systems.
Living in WW2 Belarus would cure you from that centrist hyperidealist nonsense. Or maybe not, there would be statistically 1/3 chance nazis would murder you.
an Authoritarian one party system after, that performs a period of white/red terror
The one party system is going to perform white and red terrors?
There's always more than one side in a revolution, and there's always massacres.
Auth left and Auth right have had all of human history and they've blown it. Don't you think it's time for someone else to give it a go?
The political compass turned you into a fucking moron, dude.
The soviet economy was insane(ly good)!
https://youtu.be/Hcl3R-yARX8?si=Z2Us5pkG9a7FBPUw
Well sourced easily digestible video on it.
Is that why they won the cold war? And all Eastern European countries experience explosive growth post communism?
Its why they defeated the nazis, who had a 50-100 year industrialization lead when the USSR started doing a command economy. The USSR also ended up liberalizing, especially in its last decade, creating the circumstances for a coup that resulted in balkanization and massively decreased living standards.
And all Eastern European countries experience explosive growth post communism?
This is counterfactual
I thought a massive international effort defeated the nazis, including strategic bombing, embargos and lend-lease. Weird.
The USSR killed 80-ish percent of the nazi troops, and suffered 26 million casualties, mostly civilians exterminated by the nazis. They were mainly responsible for the victory and suffered the heaviest losses, including a lot of the lower level communist organization whose absence lead to the bureaucratic centralization (that Stalin opposed heavily before his death) that let corruption gradually take over the project.
Yeah, when you organize your army based on politics and not on, you know, military capability, you end up sucking at war and need to make it up in numbers. You ignore intelligence of imminent invasion you let hundreds of thousands of troops get encircled and begging the Yankees for resources.
Consider not learning your ww2 history from pop culture
So, no argument at all? Just a downvote and an ad-hominem? I'm disappointed...
Why would I need to seriously argue against what is essentially tropes, including the asiatic hordes trope? Your argument speaks for itself.
Compare the size of the soviet army at the start of the war to the size of the French and German armies. Now compare the Soviet delaying actions to the invasion of France.
They defeated the Nazis by throwing conscripts into a meat grinder regardless of whether they even had a weapon, and by threatening to shoot them if they tried to retreat.
That's the nature of Authoritarian regimes. Not very working class of them.
Permanently Deleted
I'm sure we've seen the towering number of deaths from the USSR meatgrinders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU
We still see the same "throw soldiers at it" mentality in the war in Ukraine today, Russia is just like that. Nothing particularly to do with Socialism, more Authoritarianism.
Likewise we see poorly equipped troops in Russian forces today too. Same thing different era. It's just the mentality there.
They defeated the Nazis by throwing conscripts into a meat grinder regardless of whether they even had a weapon, and by threatening to shoot them if they tried to retreat.
You are mistaking the movie enemy at the gates for a history lesson, or are absorbing myths that ultimately originate with that movie.. During particularly desperate times troops would have to split rifles during training. General order 227 created penal detachments for officers who kept ordering retreats without cause, and created blocking units to turn back retreating units. They weren't machine gunning conscripts in the back.
Also even if not one step back was as US propaganda claims, every step back allowed the nazis more population to exterminate or enslave. The Soviets lost 19 million civilians, exterminated by the nazis.
And all Eastern European countries experience explosive growth post communism?
You live in a world of pure fantasy.
Cool feels. The facts are that GDP has grown more than 1000% (not a typo) in the 30 years post communism.
Again, fantasy.
Who calculated the GPD of a command-driven, non-capitalist state, and how did they do it? It’s incomparable using such a metric: apples & oranges.
And regardless, GDP is a garbage metric. All sorts of unproductive income is included, things that are not part of the real economy.
Finance Capitalism versus Industrial Capitalism: The Rentier Resurgence and Takeover
Today’s national income and GDP accounting formats are compiled in keeping with this anticlassical reaction depicting the FIRE [Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate] sector and its allied rent-seeking sectors as an addition to national income, not a subtrahend. Interest, rents, and monopoly prices all are counted as earnings—as if all income is earned as intrinsic parts of industrial capitalism, not predatory extraction as overhead property and financial claims.
When the socialist states privatized what had been public—which was nearly everything—and sold them at fire sale prices to the neocolonial capitalists of the imperial core, that would have been included in the GPD as well. What did that get them but a new class of local oligarchs? Just bonkers.
If you compare the GDP of suddenly collapsed, suddenly capitalist states—that were being actively pillaged by the Global North—to their GDP 30 years later, of course line go up. But that’s a very different comparison to their situations pre-collapse.
Is any metric that's unfavorable immediately garbage? Life expectancy? Number of political prisoners? HDI?
Lots of Authoritarian one party economies are, Hitler's, China's, Ghengis Khan's, Ancient Rome.
You can really make leaps and bounds with forced labour and a Stalinist regime... But I don't want to live under such a system, nor would I automatically trust how it's applied.
Here's some photos of some gulag laborers digging the White Sea to Baltic canal for some extra bread and meat rations: https://allthatsinteresting.com/white-sea-baltic-canal
Insanely "good" economies are often created from poverty, serfdom, slavery, and forced labour. That's not how I'd define a "good" economy though.
Lots of Authoritarian one party economies are, Hitler’s, China’s, Ghengis Khan’s, Ancient Rome.
Lol
God I wish
reeducation camps were a thingPolitical prisoners are a thing.
Gulags were a thing, labor camps have been a thing, vocational education and training centers, have been a thing, north koreas camps have been a thing, siberian labor camps have been a thing, pol pots torture camps have been a thing.
Authoritarian one party systems tend to have political prisoners, and institutions, camps, or prisons where they're dealt with.
These are things the proletariat and lumpenproletariat (and other classes) get subjected too for political reasons, I'm saying I don't want that happening. That it's a bad thing.
You aren't saying anything except bringing up scary terms you heard. Conspiracies are a thing. War profiteers are a thing. El Chupacabra is a thing.
You're just talking shit without any specific accusations. Just vibes.
You're free to look up these various systems of political punishment. Just answering 'theyre conspiracy theories ' isn't a convincing argument.
You have to win people to your cause if you want your systems to win.
I didn't say they were conspiracies. I said conspiracies were a thing. Just like you didn't say shit about all the scary terms you threw around. I'm supposed to look up 'political prisoners' and then divine what your point is? You're fucking dumb.
Ha, this guy doesn't think one party authoritarian states have political prisoners.
Weird how the socialist command economies lead to a massive increase in literacy, life expectancy, women's rights, access to education, doctors per person, decreased infant and maternal mortality, I could go on.
Almost like there is a difference between a capitalist command economy like the nazis did and a socialist command economy. Wonder what the difference between those three word phrases are, hmmmmm 🤔🤔🤔
Just to note; Capitalism also has this problem of paying workers the minimum in order to transfer wealth to profit/owners.
The fact that people are downvoting you and saying no no you didn’t actually live through that is fucking crazy
I summed it up in my response to them, but essentially they have a confused idea of what Communism even means. It's perfectly possible for them to have grown up in a Communist nation, but 2 points stick out as confused:
-
They believe Communism structurally depends on "good people not being selfish" without elaborating, and
-
They believe Communism to be about some vague "equality," despite Marx arguing against said very notion.
-
It isn't crazy if you know the first goddamned thing about what he's talking about. Because then you'd know he doesn't.
Agreed, but I am sad that they don't choose to share any of those personal experiences that they claim are vital for understanding communism.
Even if communist revolutions tend to fail for the same reasons most revolutions fail (a need for temporary authoritarian rule followed by fumbling the succession) anything that can help understand how and why something failed is useful.
a need for temporary authoritarian rule
Why?
For a revolution to succeed you need the power to remove any people in power that oppose you, doesn't get more authoritarian than that.
authoritarian rule
This is why
authoritarianism is infinitely preferable to authoritarianism + communism + famine + repression of speech etc etc