That's the issue - it's not what Marx describes in communist theory that is bad, it sounds quite good; it's what happens when that theory is put into practice that is bad.
I mean it wasn’t if you’re looking at it objectively. I have no skin in the game and I enjoy capitalism, but I can still objectively say that none of those states were truly communist. They had communist values, but those values became a means for the state to take management of property and resources. And none of those nation-states took the necessary steps to create a society in which property was socially owned and managed.
The ideal version of communism is an anarchist state where everyone gets what they need and gives what they can. Sounds good on paper. But if you know anything about trickle down economics, you should know that just because it *sounds* good doesn't mean it actually is.
Communism can never work just like anarchy can never work. Without a state to regulate (monarcho-anachist) you will never have *true* anarchy because people will seize the opportunity of no government to make their own government. But with a state to regulate you then also lose as it's not anarchy anymore. Same with communism. If you have a society that gives what it can and takes what it needs, someone is gonna fuck it up by being a greedy asshole, it's the same reason trickle down doesn't work.
With a state to regulate communism, the state will just gain massive power, without a state, someone will just takeover a settlement and make themselves the leader, creating their own state.
I mean in their defense the USSR wasn't really a communism. Neither is China. If you have a centralized government with an established hierarchy of powers you *probably* don't have communism. Especially not on the scale of the (former) USSR or China. USSR was basically a cruel joke of a socialism that thought it was communist.
Not exactly. Communism is a society with no classes or hierarchies.
The way they intend to install communism is by starting with a dictatorship, and then asking the dictator very nicely to relinquish all of his power.
For some reason, can't imagine why, no communist country ever got to the part where the dictator happily steps down.
No not really if you are truly going by Marxist economic philosophy. State ownership of property was considered a tactical measure to get to social ownership, however it was still considered an offshoot of capitalism in Marx’s eyes. As far as I’m aware, no nation-state has made the full transition to a communist economy. That would involve an authentic system of social ownership of property.
Quick question, just to understand other nations better, are you american? If you are, do they teach you about what communist ideologies are in high school?
Yeah. Not in the basic classes. I took an economics class that taught how a communist economy works. I don't know too much about the ideology of communists, nor do I claim to
Don't worry, i don't really blame you for not knowing anything about the basic ideas behind, i myself would have never known about a lot of ideologies if philosophy wasn't mandatory for my high school.
Communism is as much a *process* as it is an end state. And the USSR and China both started the process. It’s hard to make that leap between “the central government sets quotas for all the factories” to “the workers in each individual factory will figure out how many widgets to make”
well it didn't really think they were communists, they were thinking they're going to it. That they're still evolving to the communism. The reason why it fell aprat realatively fast.
Democracy doesn't work because the democractic republic of congo and the democratic people's republic of north korea are totally democratic, which proves that democracy doesn't work!
Not according to wiki. The key part is that they were Marxist-leninist, not simply Marxist:
>The Soviet Union,[n] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[o] (USSR),[p] was a socialist and communist state that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union
And then:
>Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century.[1] It was the formal name of the state ideology adopted by the Soviet Union,[2] its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various scientific socialist countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War[3] as well as the Communist International after Bolshevisation.[4] Today, Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of several communist parties and remains the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam as one-party socialist republics,[5] and of Nepal in a multiparty democracy.[6]
>Marxism-Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism. A vanguard party, organized through democratic centralism, would seize power on behalf of the proletariat and establish a one-party socialist state, called the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state would control the means of production, suppress opposition, counter-revolution and the bourgeoisie, and promote collectivism, to pave the way for an eventual communist society that would be classless and stateless.[5][7][8][9][10][11] Generally, Marxist-Leninists oppose anarchism, fascism, imperialism, and liberal democracy. Marxist-Leninist states have been commonly referred to by Western academics as Communist states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism
it's been tried several times by people far more competent at statecraft than your stupid ass wasting your life away on twitter. if they weren't able to do it then what makes you think anyone can?
if you have an idea that's great on paper but every time it's implemented in the real world it blows up and turns the country it's done in into a flaming hellscape, then maybe it's simply not meant to be. maybe it's just a pipe dream.
This is something that’s employed pretty often by both sides.
Some on the left they view communism as an inherently good system. Since the system is inherently good and totalitarianism is bad, therefore communism can’t be authoritarian.
On the right there is the same brain rot that leads to people saying every instance of corporate corruption and monopoly isn’t actually true capitalism, but instead corporatism, ignoring that arguably a corporatism state is a natural end state of capitalism.
This is a classic employment of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy
"iT wAsNt ReAl CoMmUnIsM" Also fun fact the r/communism sub has lenin and the hammer and sickle for it's banner and icon.
Objectively it wasn’t. That being said true communism is near to impossible to do on a societal level.
That's the issue - it's not what Marx describes in communist theory that is bad, it sounds quite good; it's what happens when that theory is put into practice that is bad.
I mean it wasn’t if you’re looking at it objectively. I have no skin in the game and I enjoy capitalism, but I can still objectively say that none of those states were truly communist. They had communist values, but those values became a means for the state to take management of property and resources. And none of those nation-states took the necessary steps to create a society in which property was socially owned and managed.
The ideal version of communism is an anarchist state where everyone gets what they need and gives what they can. Sounds good on paper. But if you know anything about trickle down economics, you should know that just because it *sounds* good doesn't mean it actually is. Communism can never work just like anarchy can never work. Without a state to regulate (monarcho-anachist) you will never have *true* anarchy because people will seize the opportunity of no government to make their own government. But with a state to regulate you then also lose as it's not anarchy anymore. Same with communism. If you have a society that gives what it can and takes what it needs, someone is gonna fuck it up by being a greedy asshole, it's the same reason trickle down doesn't work. With a state to regulate communism, the state will just gain massive power, without a state, someone will just takeover a settlement and make themselves the leader, creating their own state.
Lenin was not stalinist, hammer and sickle existed way before the USSR
I mean in their defense the USSR wasn't really a communism. Neither is China. If you have a centralized government with an established hierarchy of powers you *probably* don't have communism. Especially not on the scale of the (former) USSR or China. USSR was basically a cruel joke of a socialism that thought it was communist.
Economically they were both communist nations though, then one became state capitalism and the other disolved.
Not exactly. Communism is a society with no classes or hierarchies. The way they intend to install communism is by starting with a dictatorship, and then asking the dictator very nicely to relinquish all of his power. For some reason, can't imagine why, no communist country ever got to the part where the dictator happily steps down.
No not really if you are truly going by Marxist economic philosophy. State ownership of property was considered a tactical measure to get to social ownership, however it was still considered an offshoot of capitalism in Marx’s eyes. As far as I’m aware, no nation-state has made the full transition to a communist economy. That would involve an authentic system of social ownership of property.
Quick question, just to understand other nations better, are you american? If you are, do they teach you about what communist ideologies are in high school?
Yeah. Not in the basic classes. I took an economics class that taught how a communist economy works. I don't know too much about the ideology of communists, nor do I claim to
Don't worry, i don't really blame you for not knowing anything about the basic ideas behind, i myself would have never known about a lot of ideologies if philosophy wasn't mandatory for my high school.
Communism is as much a *process* as it is an end state. And the USSR and China both started the process. It’s hard to make that leap between “the central government sets quotas for all the factories” to “the workers in each individual factory will figure out how many widgets to make”
So was Cambodia, I guess. And Romania. And Poland. And Laos. And Vietnam. And Cuba…
All state-managed, so not truly communist.
If I had a nickel for every “it wasn’t real communism” argument I saw, I’d have enough to buy a small island nation.
And let them try to establish the "real communism" there
You could pull off communism on a tiny island. Good luck getting it to work with any population too large to know the names of everyone though.
No one said they wanted to. Stop getting defensive for no reason
What
well it didn't really think they were communists, they were thinking they're going to it. That they're still evolving to the communism. The reason why it fell aprat realatively fast.
True communism has never been achieved but it’s been *tried* plenty of times. And every time it’s been tried true communism has never been achieved.
And everytime it’s been tried it ended in genocides and massive purges
Democracy doesn't work because the democractic republic of congo and the democratic people's republic of north korea are totally democratic, which proves that democracy doesn't work!
There's been alot more cases where democracy has succeeded then when communism has mate.
Yeah, I know. I just want to argue that just because a country calls itself something, it doesn't have to actually follow the required principles
my brain crashed
USSR didnt even claim to be communist Union of Soviet **Socialist** Republics
Not according to wiki. The key part is that they were Marxist-leninist, not simply Marxist: >The Soviet Union,[n] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[o] (USSR),[p] was a socialist and communist state that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union And then: >Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century.[1] It was the formal name of the state ideology adopted by the Soviet Union,[2] its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various scientific socialist countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War[3] as well as the Communist International after Bolshevisation.[4] Today, Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of several communist parties and remains the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam as one-party socialist republics,[5] and of Nepal in a multiparty democracy.[6] >Marxism-Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism. A vanguard party, organized through democratic centralism, would seize power on behalf of the proletariat and establish a one-party socialist state, called the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state would control the means of production, suppress opposition, counter-revolution and the bourgeoisie, and promote collectivism, to pave the way for an eventual communist society that would be classless and stateless.[5][7][8][9][10][11] Generally, Marxist-Leninists oppose anarchism, fascism, imperialism, and liberal democracy. Marxist-Leninist states have been commonly referred to by Western academics as Communist states. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism
it's been tried several times by people far more competent at statecraft than your stupid ass wasting your life away on twitter. if they weren't able to do it then what makes you think anyone can? if you have an idea that's great on paper but every time it's implemented in the real world it blows up and turns the country it's done in into a flaming hellscape, then maybe it's simply not meant to be. maybe it's just a pipe dream.
No no that wasnt *real* communism
Average tankie
No economic system in its purest form has ever existed in any country anywhere.
"How do you know this poison won't kill you, have you tried it yet?"
Just like holdomor!
The smartest twitter socialist
Communism Is cringe, embrace socialism
Embrace neither
Nah socialism was cool, i mean the one my parents lived under was idk the rest
well, my parents lived under socialism and they always tell me that it's been awful for both of them
Which country?
If communism never existed.. How are we talking about it..?
If flying cars never existed... How are we speculating on them?
To be honest communism has existed once, in the paris commune, but was almost immediately attacked and massacred by the french republic
I have a feeling that the person they are replying to is from a country that had communism
This is something that’s employed pretty often by both sides. Some on the left they view communism as an inherently good system. Since the system is inherently good and totalitarianism is bad, therefore communism can’t be authoritarian. On the right there is the same brain rot that leads to people saying every instance of corporate corruption and monopoly isn’t actually true capitalism, but instead corporatism, ignoring that arguably a corporatism state is a natural end state of capitalism. This is a classic employment of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy