Let's see: Communism
A system of government where the country's wealth is concentrated into a small, ruling class of billionaires, who use the media they own to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money.
Oh wait. that's capitalism. I don't know how I got those two systems confused.
Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, "Show me where it's written in the book." When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from "a higher organ of leadership" but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.
The method of studying the social sciences exclusively from the book is likewise extremely dangerous and may even lead one onto the road of counter-revolution. Clear proof of this is provided by the fact that whole batches of Chinese Communists who confined themselves to books in their study of the social sciences have turned into counter-revolutionaries. When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a "prophet" but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalisation of mystical notion as that of "prophecy" ever enters our minds. Many who have read Marxist books have become renegades from the revolution, whereas illiterate workers often grasp Marxism very well. Of course we should study Marxist books, but this study must be integrated with our country's actual conditions. We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.
How can we overcome book worship? The only way is to investigate the actual situation.
Yes, which is and has been practiced in AES countries. Just because higher-stage Communism, ie a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society hasn't been reached globally yet doesn't mean we don't know if it will work or not.
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn't that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It also keeps being built in third-world countries, usually blockade, sanctioned, or regime changed by Western countries so it's also hard to tell without those variables. Although so far it has a pretty good track record for equal levels of starting development.
Real everyone-eats-ice-cream-and-dances-all-day hasn't been tried either. Just because you describe a set of circumstances doesn't mean those circumstances can exist, and it especially doesn't mean they can be stable long term.
Scarcity is a fact of nature. You cannot rationally distribute scarce things without knowing people's preferences, so you either need to continuously solve the economic knowledge problem (which requires a huge state apparatus, which will be taken over by a dictator), or a means of exchanging goods between people to better suit their preferences (at which point you have invented capitalism).
I know, also I didn't say I'm a communist fan, all I'm saying is that they rebranded totalitarian form of governments under communism so we don't actually know if Marx communism works or it's a flop
The Western concept of totalitarianism was constructed by Hannah Arendt, who came from a wealthy family and so unsurprisingly was anticommunist. Her work was financially supported and promoted by the CIA. It’s a bourgeois liberal, intentionally anticommunist construct that lumps fascism and communism in the same bucket.
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
I'm pretty sure the leftcommunists and anarchists and worker councils requesting for power to be really handed to the soviets which were purged by Lenin and Trotsky weren't actually landlords. But you never know, people from .ml may think people unwilling to obey the bolsheviks get labeled landlords too.
When your purges actually violate literally every Marxist principle and sabotage the revolution, isn't it kind of fair to accuse Bolsheviks, or at least the leadership, of being fake communists?
Stalin was a counterrevolutionary, die mad about it, we're Menshevik posting in this bitch.
If you didn't willingly ignore the sins of "your side" that'd be valid.
Meanwhile, the only criticism you launch at the Mensheviks is... They wanted to keep fighting the imperial powers?
Don't get me wrong, it was just a bad decision, but it wasn't, ya know, genociding fellow socialists.
I'd personally criticize them for thinking they needed to follow the traditional Marxist thought that economic liberalism was a required stage on the path to socialism.
The imperial powers that were direct threats to the revolution and they were already fighting, buddy, aka the Ottomans and the Germans. Hey, remind me how that worked out in the end? Did the People's Government get a seat at Versailles? No? Had to fight a war against fucking Poland first and then get even more people killed by Germany later?
And your argument is "the decision was unpopular," not that it was wrong.
You also find that they were not overthrown. Their political alliance was couped, like what happens in a "real democracy" when you push an unpopular policy. Even then, they supported the Bolsheviks anyways in the civil war.
Generally speaking, it's considered rude to murder all of your fellow socialists anyways if that happens.
Hey, remind me how that worked out in the end? Did the People’s Government get a seat at Versailles? No? Had to fight a war against fucking Poland first and then get even more people killed by Germany later?
And your argument is “the decision was unpopular,” not that it was wrong.
Wait are you out here arguing that Russia should have continue fighting ww1? Seriously? And that refusing to fight the war led to nazi Germany and their exterminationist war against the soviet union?
Sure bro. I'll stop thinking "Russia having a seat at Versailles would have changed history" because it would somehow not change history, and that's something you can objectively prove, lol.
I'll tell you what definitely wouldn't have happened though.
The repeated Bolshevik genocides of Jewish people.
I'll not comment on your apparent belief that Nazism was some fated historical inevitability, which sure seems like something a Nazi would believe and not a Marxist.
and that’s something you can objectively prove, lol.
Weren't you literally just claiming that if Russia stayed in the war the nazis wouldn't have happened?
Bwahahaha
The repeated Bolshevik genocides of Jewish people.
As someone who had jewish family which survived the holocaust, lol, wtf? The worst instance of antisemitism in the USSR was the doctor's plot, which wasn't a genocide.
I’ll not comment on your apparent belief that Nazism was some fated historical inevitability, which sure seems like something a Nazi would believe and not a Marxist.
Nazijacketing me for thinking that Russia staying in ww1 wouldn't have stopped the rise of nazism? Wow.
When your purges actually violate literally every Marxist principle and sabotage the revolution, isn't it kind of fair to accuse Bolsheviks, or at least the leadership, of being fake communists? Stalin was a counterrevolutionary, die mad about it, we're Menshevik posting in this removed.
I don't think the Mensheviks were the good guys either. Mensheviks would allow a way out for the old elites to remain elites if they kept on with the times (from aristocracy to bourgeoisie), the Bolsheviks just laid the way out for new elites (party apparatus) by choosing not to empower the working class. The leninist model followed somewhat similar structures everwhere from Hungary to Vietnam, and they always ended the same way: with the party elites opening the way to privatization after one or two generational changes and the heirs of the new system realizing that they'd get more material privilege by establishing capitalism, and without an organized, conscious working class capable of stop them.
I agree. A viable long-term economy needs an organized working class that isn't sleepwalking through life. Would be cool to make the economic system not inherently hierarchical also.
The SRs were agrarian socialists and supporters of a democratic socialist Russian republic. The ideological heirs of the Narodniks, the SRs won a mass following among the Russian peasantry by endorsing the overthrow of the Tsar and the redistribution of land to the peasants.
In the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly held two weeks after the Bolsheviks took power, the party still proved to be by far the most popular party across the country, gaining 37.6% of the popular vote as opposed to the Bolsheviks' 24%. However, the Bolsheviks disbanded the Assembly in January 1918 and after that the SR lost political significance. (...) Both wings of the SR party were ultimately suppressed by the Bolsheviks through imprisoning some of its leaders and forcing others to emigrate.
Following Lenin's instructions, a trial of SRs was held in Moscow in 1922, which led to protests by Eugene V. Debs, Karl Kautsky, and Albert Einstein among others. Most of the defendants were found guilty, but they did not plead guilty like the defendants in the later show trials in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and the 1930s.
Note that these guys won the elections because they were the actually existing socialist movement in Russia and had been for decades. Lenin only led the government instead of them because he had the organization to overthrow the Mensheviks, not because the Bolsheviks were a better representative of socialism.
That's not true at all. The Mensheviks wanted to cooperate with the bourgeoisie and were therefore a bad representation of socialism. Lenin formed the Bolsheviks because the Mensheviks were being stupid. The country was also fractured after the revolution and many groups of counter-revolutionary groups were trying to overthrow the barely formed government. Meanwhile famines were ravaging the country. Understanding the historical context of Russia in 1917 and the economic struggles the people were dealing with is very important to understanding why things happened the way they did. Looking at the aftermath of a revolution where everyone is vying for power and killing each other doesn't automatically make the winner of that power grab the bad guys.
It was many factions. I'm just saying all of them were trying to have third revolutions while the people starved to death. At some point, revolutions end with a unifying government that isn't trying to murder each other. Lenin was not the villain you're painting him to be.
Yeah. Nobody’s ever done real communism on a national scale. As in, not just being a dictatorship in charge of everything that funnels money and power to the top while giving communism lip service and the people get screwed.
