288 points

There were no actual efforts to establish communism in eastern europe. Only autocratic regimes backed by soviet russia.

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285 points

It’s like saying democracy sucks because look at states like Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo and German Democratic Republic.

When people proclaim to be something doesn’t make it true.

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45 points

I’m no too learned in the subject but what would “true” communism even look like on the large scale like a country? Would it even be feasible?

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122 points

True communism in a country is impossible.

You can have socialism, or anarchy, which we’ve seen before, but communism cannot function in one country alone, unless said country is completely and absolutely self reliant.

A major part of communism is internationalism, which is why socialist countries had the Comintern. (Communist International). Besides a political/social system, communism has a strong basis as an economic system. You can’t apply communist economic system principles to the capitalist market.

To my knowledge, no existing country is self reliant to the point that they can completely cut off trade with the rest of the world. USSR didn’t do it, China didn’t do it and they were the two biggest countries at the time.

That, of course is all a very surface level ELI5, and if you want to ask something more specific or in depth, feel free to.

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39 points

Unless you’re an ultra-orthodox marxist, there is no such thing as trüe communism™.

There always have been many different ideas what „communism“ is, e.g. there have been various „nationalist communist“ ideologies (complicated by the fact that the Russian SFSR called everything „nationalist“ that wasn’t 100% aligned with its ideas of the Soviet Union, e.g. Hungary).

There are also no clear boundaries between communism, socialism, and anarchism, e.g. Kropotkin with his theories of anarchist communism.

That being said, I don’t think communism is a system (either social or economic), it’s strictly an idealogy, meaning it’s a way to achieve something, i.e. the classless and stateless society. If you follow that thought to its logical end, you cannot even „achieve“ communism at all, since at this point e.g. the proletariat ceases to exist, and as a result you cannot have a „dictatorship of the proletariat“.

It’s… complicated.

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-26 points

What do you think is anarchy? Without searching engine please.

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15 points

Well, it is feasible. You just need to give people replicators and free living space, and they will eventually learn to use their skills to enrich the world we live in. And boldly go where no one has gone before.

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9 points

True communism is pretty much impossible, same as true capitalism.

There have been some short-lived small-scale experiments like the “United Order”, but nothing that actually survived more than a few months with more than a few thousand people.

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3 points
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Realistically, it would look something like how the Anarchists organized society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, or how Rojava is organizing today with communal federations. Anarchism sidesteps the inevitable authoritarian regime that various Marxist theories have by not installing a ‘temporary’ vanguard state that quickly becomes autocratic and dictatorial, they just jump straight to decentralizing power immediately by giving it to the people.

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2 points

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War

Rojava is organizing today with communal federations

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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11 points
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And here comes the guy who thinks he can do it better, this time without mass killings.

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114 points

With capitalism we just outsource the death to 3rd world countries.

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48 points

Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.

Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).

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9 points

Implying capitalism does not regularly do mass killings.

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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-2 points

This time without hierarchy wherever possible. And we’ll keep most of the capitalistic economy as is, just redistribute the wealth so that everybody is safe and happy. Cut the bullshit jobs, make produced goods more durable and sustainable, so that the last at least ten times as long, cut more jobs in producing, distribute the remaining work to all the people, everybody who wants to get a little extra can do this by working, most will. I certainly would still work even if i did not have to, even if there is no monetary benefit. Doing a job that is nice and that you like is fun, because you’re doing your part.

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-5 points

Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.

Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).

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-13 points

Can’t critizise something that has never been tried! Also we already got a comment critizising capitalism as a counter argument :D

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9 points

In what sense was it not an actual effort? Just because it quickly slid into non-marxism doesn’t say anything about the initial idea of the revolutionaries. Bakunin predicted exactly what would happen with Marxism, and it did every time.

If you are against an authoritarian state, the only viable way to communism is to skip the dictatorship part directly and just have anarchism.

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1 point

Yeah, we did that with the Paris Commune. How many dead bodies dropped because they were unable to use authority to defend their actions?

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9 points
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40 points

America is very close to being real market economy, that’s why it sucks so much.

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1 point

And that’s why we have barriers to entry stifling competition lobbied for by the big players in said industry? Insulin is only the price it is because the government enforces the patent that says pfizer is allowed to have a monopoly on it, if other people were able to produce and sell affordable generics pfizer would have to drop their price or go out of business, but if you try the government comes, kidnaps you, and if you resist kidnapping, kills you.

Try to sell a product that the government decides you owe them money for: Weed? Jail. Moonshine? Jail. Weed in a legal state but didn’t break off the 50% protection money to the government? Jail. Unlicensed insulin? Jail. Drawing of a mouse too close to a famous one? Jail.

The US has what is called crony capitalism, not free market capitalism. Free market capitalism economy is what the Agorists like SEKIII want (but they refuse to call capitalism arguing that “real capitalism” is crony capitalism and “free market economies” are not “capitalist” at all and is actually leftist in nature.)

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-4 points
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Deleted by creator
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4 points

There were no actual efforts to establish communism

Period. Relying on the “temporary” government to relinquish their power is…foolish. If you’re building a system for the greater good, hierarchy will always undermine that goal. Unequal amounts of power does not a just system make.

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2 points

That’s a joke, right?

Right?

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6 points

If you want to argue against that, fine by me. I have nothing against an honest duscussion. But this comment is neither funny nor smart.

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0 points

I was about 99% this was a joke because I thought nobody could be this stupid. I don’t argue with jokes, that’s pointless.

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2 points

I literally pissed a slow day at work away pointing out the many, many flaws in the USSR to a lemming whose primary response was LALALALA I CAN’t HEAR YOU, GO READ THIS BOOK

There is definitely a cadre of extremely disillusioned and extremely ill informed users who think the USSR was legitimate sunshine and candy communism

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2 points

Oh here we go with “That wasn’t real communism!” as if any other communist state on this planet is any different.

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24 points

I mean they violated some if tge main principles outlined by Marx, like the other states, who almost all followed the lenin-stalin-model, so yeah. Prove me wrong.

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21 points
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Deleted by creator
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6 points

Because that doesn’t fit the narrative.

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4 points

There are very few examples of Communism put into practice at a large scale.

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2 points

They are though. China, Vietnam and Cuba are all pretty drastically different and they are all communist countries.

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8 points

China is state capitalist, not communist

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-2 points

Give me an example of a capitalist society. Waiting.

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-3 points

Full no true scotsman.

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-23 points

Communism fails every time it is tried because it goes against human nature of constantly comparing yourself to others and trying to improve yourself. You will never do harder work if you can get the same reward for easier work, and you will look for other, less moral ways of getting the bigger reward.

Communism sounds great but it will never work until we have unlimited resources and completely automated labour.

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44 points

Nah, that’s just wrong. You can compare yourself in other ways than how much fake money you earn. Fun thing is: truly communistic society would mean easier work for most people.

And communism does work in small scale enviroments. Families, cooperatives, tribes. Sometimes neighborhoods.

This whole “Sounds great but won’t work” rhethoric is just what the ones that would loose their power in communsim want you to think. If you dig into it you will see, that there were and are a lot of efforts to discredit the idea.

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6 points

That’s funny because I do easy work for a great paycheck yet we have a harder time hiring than in my previous job which didn’t pay as well and was harder.

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0 points

Can you say what are the jobs?

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5 points

While I agree with you, this doesn’t mean that Eastern Europe was communist.

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-12 points

They did attempt to be communist, but they failed like every other attempt will fail. Greed is basic human nature, and those who have it more than others will find a way to abuse the system, get in charge and ruin it.

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219 points

The US political spectrum is leaning so far to the right. A US left is a France center or moderate right. So what Americans consider communism is merely what French consider moderate leftist.

  • I’m French living in the US
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90 points

Yeah, it’s basically “If you keep calling all of the stuff I like ‘communism’, then I guess that makes me a communist.”

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13 points

Or if you’re not a Nazi you’re a communist, then I’m a communist I guess.

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11 points

To be fair, depending on the european country the spectrum is quite broad.

For example Norway has both literal marxists and full on “gay people should be put in camps” christian conservative nutjobs in parliment.

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1 point

Hell even Obama was right wing to many countries.

…this was before we all dove headfirst into facism as a trauma response

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-2 points

Sure, but the meme refers to the communities on the internet that unironically go full tankie, praising Stalin and Mao.

Worst of all, tankies tend to inflitrate sane leftist spaces and slowly transform them. I’ve witnessed it many times, and that just makes me think that Marxists-Leninists are just the most dominant form of leftism on the internet, which is horrible.

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3 points

This doesn’t mention Stalin or Mao.

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3 points
*

It doesn’t, but in this thread’s we see a simultaneous claim of “We aren’t tankies, of course Stalin and Mao are not good examples of communists” and “Eastern european people were better off under the USSR”. Of course, I don’t think the same people are making both claims, but just the fact that some people can claim the latter and not get collectively shunned is indicative of a huge problem in leftist spaces, it’s disgusting frankly. Tankies are significant force, at least partially representing leftism to everyone else.

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-9 points
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I think a lot of people give Mao a bad wrap.

For what it’s worth, Stalin is a monster, and the state of China right now is repugnant.

Mao didn’t intentionally lead tens of millions of people to starve in the same way Stalin did. Mao was trying to revolutionise agriculture (The Great Leap Forward) but didn’t understand the ecological and logistic principles required.

I’m convinced his intentions were good, he just wasn’t educated enough to implement something like this.

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-5 points
Deleted by creator
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172 points

McCarthy propaganda go brrrr

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24 points

Also a terrible person. The world’s big enough for there to be many terrible people in it. You need to create a very robust bureaucracy to keep corruption out and maintaining one is a very unglamorous job. Revolutionaries rarely have that skill set.

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18 points

Almost like we need a large state apparatus…

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130 points

Well we’re not praising fascism and corruption.

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30 points

The main issue is that they communism is economic policy, NOT social policy. While they do go hand in hand people often conflate the two. Many dictatorships use communism as a way to control the people but that doesn’t mean that communism leads directly to dictatorships.

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30 points

If they’re using “communism” to control the people, then they’re not really using communism

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17 points

Is true Communism even possible if it’s being attempted by flawed humans? Seems like it doesn’t matter the economic system so much as the fact that people will ruin anything given enough time.

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-7 points

“That wasn’t real communism” eh? First time I’ve ever seen this one…

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19 points

I guess the main issue is with the government having absolute control over the economy. I would not want the most prominent politicians in my country having control of the economy. No matter how much I dislike capitalism.
Just put the people who work for a company in charge of the company. Have them elect who calls the shots. Also have them directly benefit from the company doing well. I guess that is like end-stage unions or smth. All power to the workers. Should be doable within capitalism, maybe, probably.

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27 points
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“All power to the workers” is a communist principle, though. It’s the main political slogan of the communist manifest by Marx and Engels.

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-1 points

Yeah, any economic system that concentrates power into one group is bad, whether it’s corporate monopolies or a single government (which ends up kind of like the ultimate monopoly in a communist state). Communists IMHO have a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and how incentives can be exploited for the benefit of everyone. We need a form of capitalism that promotes competition (because profit is possibly the most powerful motivator of innovation), but also keeps companies in check with strong regulations, strong workers unions, and profits taxed appropriately. It’s also important to recognize that some basic needs should be met by the government like public education, public utilities, correctional systems, national defense, welfare, healthcare, etc. But even with public services, there should be room for private companies to innovate and provide premium alternatives to keep the government in check (with exceptions obviously, we don’t want private military and private prisons for example).

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2 points

Communism is an economic fairy tale, not policy.
It would be nice if it were possible but with the current state of the world, it is not.

Social democracy is a reasonable compromise.

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0 points

Social policy is socialism. Socialism is a different thing.

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-3 points

You can’t have a communist economic policy without being authoritarian. It’s human nature - once money is removed as a motivator, society breaks down unless you motivate people some other way (not being sent to the gulag).

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3 points

The only thing that motivates you in life is money? How do you feel about that?

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-9 points

Don’t forget the times dictators try to enforce communism onto nature. Mao’s Great Leap Forward killed tens of millions.

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-3 points

Mao’s great leap forward wasn’t communism, your using association fallacy.

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16 points

Eeehhhh there are plenty of Tankies around here that unironically simp for Stalin and Mao, (never Pol Pot for some reason though), and those regimes were frought with corruption and are often called “red fascism,” so I wouldn’t be so quick to say “we” here. “You” maybe, “me” definitely, but “we” is too strong of a word when there are plenty of people doing just that on lemmygrad right now, and lemmy.ml being a marxist instance some there as well (though the refugees mostly drowned them out now).

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25 points
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Deleted by creator
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14 points

And you can be a tankie without being a communist considering how many of them simp for Xi and China. Basically it is just pro-dictatorship with a very thin socialist façade.

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1 point

While true, that still falls in the “you” category, not the “we” category. The fact that there are plenty of people here doing that very thing sort of precludes us from being able to use the word “we” in this capacity.

Again, “you” maybe, “me” definitely, “we” becomes no longer true once some of the “other we’s” do the thing.

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13 points

Mao and Stalin (though to a noticably lesser extent) actually had insightful things to say though. Mao’s essays on epistemology are genuinely really fantastic. And that can be true alongside all of the show trials and sparrow murder which was genuinely really fucking bad.

Pol Pot meanwhile admitted to never having really ever read Marx, and his faction of the Communist Party of Cambodia was more concerned about Khmer ultranationalism and anti-Vietmamese sentiment that had been brewing over the course of French colonialism, then with anything to do with building socialism.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that we ought to take a nuanced, grounded view of historic socialisms that accounts for their success and failures, and doesn’t fall into either mindless exoneration of awful shit, nor reflexively screeching “TANKIE TANKIE!!!” Every time anything vaguely socialist oriented comes up in discussion.

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3 points

Stalin botched Marxism into an authoritarian system that suited him. It was successful and he sponsored other authoritarians that liked his ideas. Those are all about the concentration of power and have fuck all to do with Marxs ideas.

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-8 points
*

Mao and Stalin (though to a noticably lesser extent) actually had insightful things to say though. Mao’s essays on epistemology are genuinely really fantastic.

And Hitler was a Vegetarian. Does that mean vegitarians should simp for Hitler because “he had at least one good idea?” I should hope not! Furthermore if they do, even if they only simped for his vegetarianism and not his “political career,” it is gonna come off a bit different than they intend to most people.

By all means, keep those subs dedicated to defending all those atrocities and simping for despots, but people likely won’t be fooled into thinking they only care about epistemology while they say nothing happened in Tienanman Square without a shred of irony.

LOL I see I struck a nerve. Keep downvoting, the salt seasons my post.

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1 point

Ahh so guilty by association McCarthy?

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-2 points
*

They literally said the exact opposite of that. Work on your reading comprehension.

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0 points

oka. explain how you centralize governmental control of the economy without enabling the government to profit from it.

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