you know, i tell you what. i’m fed up with all this gringo self-righteousness when you talk about “oh communism was bad, oh people where killed, oh people had no food, oh people had no liberty, oh people could not buy ataris, oh our countries are so democratic”. your countries were democratic during the cold war in the first place because you had people to sort things out for you here in the global south. for each person complaining about how the food rations in eastern europe were not tasty enough, there were 10 dying of hunger or malnourishment here in the global south. for every person complaining they had to wait 5 years in a queue to buy a trabant or an oka, there were 10 who got no school in a range of 50 km. for every person complaining that their 8 hour shifts in state owned factories were overwhelming, there were 10 who were indentured workers. for every person complaining about how the stasi, kgb or the stb had bugged their apartment, there were 10 suffering the most horrific tortures inside black sites of the military of u.s. allies here in the “third world”. for every person complaining about dull standard apartment blocks in mikrorayons, there were 10 who lived in mud shacks and slums, and those are just who were lucky enough to have a roof over their heads. finally, for everyone complaining about chinese sweatshops, which are indeed a problem, there are 10 americans who work and yet cannot afford proper housing.
you wanna complain about how communism was bad? go ahead. you wanna complain how your parents lived under communism and could not drink coke? do so if you wish. but there are still millions of people down here who would give an arm and a leg to have a polish ration, an apartment in a russian gray building, or a yugoslav job. and while the chinese maoist red guard was bad, surely it won’t be an inch closer to the harassement people endured on a daily basis by our police forces.
again: you wanna complain? be my guest. but for me that’s an encyclopedic example of white privilege.
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Why would you not compare european communist countries woth european capitalist countries? Sure, africans and asians were poorer, but that goes without saying, honestly, what does that even have to do with this matter?
East Germany was poorer than west Germany. That tells us something. The fact that Ethiopia or whatever was poorer does not really tell us much about ehich economic system is better.
West Germany had almost all of the industry of Germany, and East Germany was made to pay harsh reparations for the immense devastation the Nazis wrought upon the Soviet people and countries. Moreover, West Germany was never de-Nazified, and the US and Western Countries heavily invested into its development as a means to destabilize the relations with the East, even threatening to put NATO nukes in West Germany.
Seeing some of the zingers in the comments here, now seems like a great time to plug my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Read up, comrades!
The struggle depicted perfectly lol
Death to America
as an american, hell yeah!
whoops, brazil. we had a budding workers movement that was absolutely crushed by the traitorous brazilian military, in the name of the US of course.
that hasnt stopped syndicalism to take root here and improve our lives a bit, but the communist organizations responsible were all crushed and we see our rights being taken away ever since because no one is left to defend them. we are scrambling rn to see if we can stop fascism.
to anyone who says “why don’t you compare communist eastern europe to democratic western europe?”. sure, first thing to notice is that eastern europe didn’t had companies exploiting underdeveloped nations for their cheap labour and raw materials, their oppression of labour organizations and the support of corrupt rulers. since brazil was mentioned (heh), let us remember that west german companies such as vw or mercedes-benz used to report on syndicalists and communists working and organizing on their plants to the brazilian military during the dictatorship, and sold equipment to the military and police. that siemens sold nuclear reactors to the dictatorship during the late 70s. that many former officials of the dictatorship got leadership jobs in these companies and in basf, hoescht, atlas-schindler, mwm. behind the “economic success” of the rich countries of the west there’s always some degree of exploitation of poorer countries.
I wonder if anyone ever said “Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens”.
Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don’t believe communism is an effective form of government, it’s still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.
There is a poem in Polish, it goes in fast and dirty translation: “Today you scare us with communists, just as years ago, you scared our fathers with the democrat name”.
The more I study history, the more I see the great wheel of humanity. Communists now, Jews in the 40s, Muslims in the early middles ages, the barbaric Gauls before Christ was even born. It never stops. The people with wisdom die off leaving remnants of their culture and ideas while the next generations tries to piece it all together.
16·1 month agoSomeone between 1804 and 1830: Democracy doesn’t work, just look at France, it dissolves into an empire
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How, exactly?
Well the ideal end result depends on the person, doesn’t it?
I’m sure Karl Marx and Stalin had very different ideas of what the ideal end result of communism would be.
From my understanding; Marx envisioned a worker’s utopia, while Stalin instead used communism to garner as much power for himself as possible.
Neither is accurate. Stalin tried to resign several times, in fact, but was rejected, and Marx wasn’t a Utopian, but in favor of Scientific Socialism. Now, that doesn’t mean Stalin was a saint or that Marx didn’t have a beautiful vision for the future, but it does mean you should read up a bit more before making judgement calls. I have an introductory reading list for Marxism-Leninism you can check out for that, if you’re interested.
Stalin was a power freak. Only reason he “tried to resign” is because Lenin released a statement criticizing him before he died. It’s kind of like saying Matt Gaetz tried to resign in good faith.
That’s only one of his attempts at resignation. If anything, it seems like he hated his position, wanting to just retire and do small party work without the intense stress that came with his position. He even advocated eliminating it entirely, as he believed there was no need for his 2 positions given the collective nature of Soviet leadership.
That doesn’t mean he was some selfless great man, either. He had his fair share of errors, even the CPC considers him to have been 70% good, 30% bad. However, simply saying he only tried to resign because Lenin was angry at him for insulting his wife is wrong, he seemed to have hated his position for his whole career until his death.
I like this version better, thx.
Anytime anyone whines about “commies / tankies”, they’re entirely complicit with these mass killings.
Don’t forget Sweden’s PM Olof Palme. I have a suspicion he was murdered by the CIA, for his criticism against the Vietnam war.
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Yeah, or like they do in China.
Unfortunately for many parts of the world, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to go full socialist or not, if you get in the way of multinational exploitation and neocolonialism, you’re gonna get couped. There’s no shortage of left-leaning non-socialists who have also been targeted by the CIA. Like Guatemala, where they just wanted to do basic land reform so farmers could work their own land, but Chiquita didn’t like that so it became the origin of the term “Banana Republic.”
Oh boy, another batch of centrists coming in from the Reddit shitstorm… This one oblivious to the fact that far right parties are gaining traction all over Europe.
This isn’t true, though. You can’t have a “little bit of Socialism” and a “little bit of Capitalism,” Socialism and Capitalism are descriptors of overall economies. Regulation in a Capitalist system is still Capitalism, Europe in particular is Imperialist (and increasingly moving to fascism as they fade from relevance in the global stage).
Socialism, on the other hand, absolutely works, and is why the PRC is overtaking everyone else at the moment.
if you do not regulate the free market
Wtf are you talking about. There is no such thing as a free market.
This is a sane take. This is the only form of economy that actually works well.
Is-ought fallacy? Understand me correctly, I like the EU system, but to pretend that it’s the end of history and that we’ve reached perfection in this space is wrong.
No, Imperialism doesn’t actually work well and is failing, meanwhile Socialism is still working and on the rise, such as in the PRC.
Unless the population pyramid is destroyed, but that won’t happen right?
Well, let’s thank Trump for destroying the CIA!
And it’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll what you’re told
Holiday in Cambodia
Where the slum’s got so much soul
Could a Communist Nation be considered viable if such a hostile force can take it down? Does it all come down to survival of the fittest (in the best use of the term)?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that we can get a good idea of what does work as success/failure isn’t a binary, no in the sense that, ultimately, the overall strategy ended up not being viable. We can learn from this, taking what works and leaving behind what didn’t.
The AES states of today have learned from what happened to the USSR and other former Socialist countries and have adapted, such as China’s Socialist Market Economy and stance towards international investment, not closing off but not ceding power.
I am a communist by heart, but I know that social market economy is the way to go, at least for now.
Kinda? China has a Socialist Market Economy, and this is building up the productive forces dramatically, but not every country will work the same way or have the same path.
Any one party political system can either fail or be maintained through violent oppression. People need to have a say in who represents them and what their values are.
A more sustainable solution than soviet style communism is to have proportional representation and work on instilling socialist virtues such as kindness, social responsibility, and fairness in the population. over time, the people in government will start to reflect those values.
To be clear, the Soviets did that too. Look at the values instilled in Soviet cartoons for children, as an example. The reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union were far more complicated and nuanced, such as liberalizing the economy, spending a large portion of GDP on millitarization to keep parity with the US, and existing under constant threat from the outside.
What if the answer to all of our worldwide problems is finding a balance between decentralized and centralized structures, balancing technology and the environment, finding a balance between currency and a moneyless society, and achieving balance between authority and liberty (with the goal of individual and societal sovereignty), and so forth?
In this thread, I see Anarcho-Communists (or final stage Communists/ideological purists) taking bat at Marxist-Leninists (who espouse mostly outdated theory, but not always) and Liberals who fail to understand really any ideology that differs from their own because of how thick the propaganda is (and who espouse ideals like Democratic Socialism while failing to realize that their social support is still enabled by modern slavery - such as the exploitation of third world countries).
I think a direct democracy, with authoritative and libertarian elements (such as enforcing liberty/a universal bill of rights for individuals) would be ideal.
It could have an economic system with built-in social supports (each according to their need) that emulates cash and all the best parts of blockchain (that isn’t hoardable or worth hoarding, that also doesn’t enable slavery/other forms of parasitism, and is generally private at the transactional stage - yet is auditable at a larger-scale), with centralized control of natural resources that still respects decentralized development and balance with the environment. And also does not have debt or parasitism of any form, instead encouraging diplomacy - such as contracts/agreements taking the place of debt to better the planet and encourage societal responsibility and stewardship (e.g. contracts that result in the stabilization of the society incurring the would-be debt).
Instead of total anarchy or various forms of authoritative control/dictatorship, we could simply combine direct democracy and hierarchy by electing leaders based solely on merit in the areas that are most needed, with strong controls so we get the best out of leadership and hierarchy and the resultant clarity and direction, without letting leaders and other experts become drunk on power. While also preventing the corruption of the individuals in power and the various forms of stagnation that result from entrenched power not conceding to new developments or advances.
I know I’m an idealist, but I’d like everybody to turn the chapter and realize that we are in 2025, not the 1900s. Technology and science have advanced every area of our society. We are so beyond scarcity that we are producing well beyond our needs with conditions and methods that are not even close to ideal (with ideal and emergent solutions and methods ready to take the place of those unsustainable methods).
We also have a global communication network - we can understand foreign languages without any human intervention in some cases, we can bridge cultural gaps, we can seek understanding and truth with our fingertips, and also we can push past the propaganda we are served on a platter, etc.
We can achieve something better than anything that has ever been conceived of previously, and it starts by crumpling up all of the things that no longer serve us. Concepts like racism, nationalism, really all of the isms that promote superiority over others. Bridging gaps, joining hands, while also countering disinformation (not misunderstanding) and bad faith.
We truly are not facing the same limitations that we did in the 1900s, although we may be facing new challenges like the rise of AI and the misuse of it by those currently in power.
There really is no more room in society for mucking about and fighting others while everything is in such disrepair, with so much needless suffering happening.
I just think it’s funny when you call ML’s outdated despite not really disagreeing with them, and then calling Anarchists “final stage Communists” when Anarchists want decentralization and “final stage Communism” is fully centralized. It more reads that you haven’t actually engaged with theory, especially considering the PRC is Marxist-Leninist and is outpacing everyone else at the moment.
You can think it’s funny all you like. Perhaps I wasn’t clear, but you misunderstood my grammar. I was detailing two distinct types of people, with different views. The latter (after the or) are more on the side of purity testing other Communists because they see what would unfold after many, many years of Communism as de-facto Communism and proof that others are not true Communists (hence the slash ideological purists part).
I currently choose to engage with emergent (and divergent) thought, not snapshots and echoes of the past - but I’m not trying to devalue it - I’m just very interested in modern Marxist-Leninist discourse and thought. I have previously engaged with the theory and understand the history that surrounded it and level of technology that we had in the 1900s.
Human greed destroys all forms of government.
This is one of bourgeois ideology’s last defenses: apathy.
That all the other systems are just as bad.
That it’s just “human nature.”
That there is no alternative.
There’s never been any real communism. If a country has money then it is inherently a capitalist society .
What no theory does to an mf.
Money and trade are not Capitalism. Capitalism is a specific Mode of Production that rapidly expanded with the Industrial Revolution, surrounding the M-C-M’ circuit of production.
Socialist societies have existed and continue to, such as the PRC, Cuba, and former USSR.
Says there’s communist countries, lists off all capitalist countries instead.
All of those countries have used money, had a class system, have used wage slave labour and are nation states. All of that combined makes a nation capitalist in my view. Just because a country says it’s “communist” doesn’t mean anything when all those countries are playing the capitalist rule set. It’s like saying you’re going to play candy land but you have the rules of monopoly. It just doesn’t work to call those countries communist or socialist when they are still playing the capitalist rule set.
It’s pretty clear that you haven’t read Marx, and think Communism means “immediately implement a far-future, highly developed society devoid of any remaining class antagonisms” through fiat, by pushing a button, but this would make Marx howl with laughter.
A Socialist system is one where public ownership of property is primary in society, and in all of those societies this is true. Having money, wages, even classes is indeed contradictory to late-stage Communism, but they never claimed to be. Socialism is the long, drawn-out process of erasing those contradictions, which cannot be waved away but must be erased through building up the productive forces and erasing their foundations, and the method of doing as such is to hold all large industry in the control of the public, and increase this control over areas that develop into large industry.
I recommend checking out my Marxist-Leninist reading list, at least the first couple of sections, before trying to take an authoritative stance on Marxism.
I have read Marx, thank you very much and you even said I was right about what communism means so maybe you should take a look at your own reading list.
No, your belief that Socialism must be devoid of any contradictions is anti-Marxist and goes against Dialectical and Historical Materialism. By that definition, “Real Capitalism” hasn’t existed anywhere either, as all Capitalist systems have had single proprietorships, public ownership, and more that contradict the Capitalist system.
Explain this quote from Marx himself, in Critique of the Gotha Programme:
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but itself life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
Wait, I thought Socialism couldn’t have contradictions, according to you? Why is Marx saying even Communism would have contradictions? Why is Marx talking about society as it develops, and not as magically appearing with the touch of a button?
I’m being sarcastic, of course. If you want to learn more about Marxism I can help you along, but without accepting that Socialism is a lengthy process of working out contradictions, and that therefore it is categorized by Public Ownership being primary, you’ll end up walking yourself into endless traps.
I read this as communism has never failed
trvth nvke
Well there’s never been any real communsim on earth yet so that’s technically correct.
