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”
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
China is the most democratic country on Earth, it has done nearly all of the poverty elimination that has occurred on this planet in the last fifty years, it has proven its ability time and time again to solve problems that vex capitalist regimes in humane and effective ways, it has proven to be resilient if not totally immune to the cyclical market shocks that every capitalist regime on the planet is regularly victim to, it has closed the technological gap and is now pulling ahead of the capitalist world in nearly every sector, its citizens are happier than the citizens of any other country and have the highest faith in their government institutions out of any other country…
I could go on. But please tell me about TiAnAnMeN sQuArE and the UyGhUr GeNoCiDe like I haven’t heard those weak ass-arguments a million times.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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:
Except during the years of World War 2, the Gulags had a better quality of life and lower risk of mortality than contemporary prisons in many much wealthier and more developed countries. Despite the enduring cultural legacy of the fiction novel Gulag Archipelago, the truth of the matter is that after the revolution the Communists reformed the Tsarist work camps into what were at the time the most progressive rehabilitation regimes in the world.
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
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
"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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Enemy at the Gates is not a documentary, it’s a propaganda film. In true fact while the Soviets did have a large number of conscripts and did suffer supply issues early in the war, at no point were they sending under-equipped battalions into the front line to die for no reason, and the thing about shooting those who retreated only applied to officers who ordered a retreat without proper cause (you’ll find that every other army in World War 2 had a similar protocol).
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.
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 🤔🤔🤔
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.
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.
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”
What about Communism depends on this, structurally? How, in any way, does Capitalism do better?
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?
China is the most democratic country on Earth, it has done nearly all of the poverty elimination that has occurred on this planet in the last fifty years, it has proven its ability time and time again to solve problems that vex capitalist regimes in humane and effective ways, it has proven to be resilient if not totally immune to the cyclical market shocks that every capitalist regime on the planet is regularly victim to, it has closed the technological gap and is now pulling ahead of the capitalist world in nearly every sector, its citizens are happier than the citizens of any other country and have the highest faith in their government institutions out of any other country…
I could go on. But please tell me about TiAnAnMeN sQuArE and the UyGhUr GeNoCiDe like I haven’t heard those weak ass-arguments a million times.
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.
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
2.12 out of 10 on the democracy index.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
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.
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
deleted by creator
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.
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
Except during the years of World War 2, the Gulags had a better quality of life and lower risk of mortality than contemporary prisons in many much wealthier and more developed countries. Despite the enduring cultural legacy of the fiction novel Gulag Archipelago, the truth of the matter is that after the revolution the Communists reformed the Tsarist work camps into what were at the time the most progressive rehabilitation regimes in the world.
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
“The younger the eastern European, the more they suffered under communism”
"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
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.
This is why
authoritarianism is infinitely preferable to authoritarianism + communism + famine + repression of speech etc etc
Authoritarian central planning sucks…
Workers having shares in companies and or the means of production doesn’t.
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.
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
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.
Enemy at the Gates is not a documentary, it’s a propaganda film. In true fact while the Soviets did have a large number of conscripts and did suffer supply issues early in the war, at no point were they sending under-equipped battalions into the front line to die for no reason, and the thing about shooting those who retreated only applied to officers who ordered a retreat without proper cause (you’ll find that every other army in World War 2 had a similar protocol).
Removed by mod
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.
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 🤔🤔🤔
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.
Just to note; Capitalism also has this problem of paying workers the minimum in order to transfer wealth to profit/owners.
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.
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.