That’s what annoys me the most. Tankies will go defend Russia like it’s the promised land of communism, when the only remnant of communism it has is rigged elections and propaganda.
Also wrong. Rigged elections would imply there ever was a communist Russia. There never was. It was (maybe at its best, in part) socialist and most of the time after the zars a military state. That is true for all states that were left leaning btw. No communists to be found.
A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access[1][2] to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless,[3][4][5][6] implying the end of the exploitation of labour.[7][8]
That was not the case. It was state owned, as the transition from whatever system was there before to socialism plans. Communism is supposed to be something different.
I am not arguing that it would be good or better than anything we have today but am saying that we never saw communism in the modern world.
Communism isn’t about ideological purity. The USSR never made it to the global, total, Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society Marx describes as Upper Stage Communism, but the Soviets never argued that they had. What the Soviets did, was begin the process of working towards that.
Thanks for a proper response. More than others in this thread are capable of.
The clear distinction is hard, I accept that point. The phases at least how I learned it are clear. First state owned then truly society owned as a goal. They never got anywhere near that. Nor a classless society. It wasn’t the old classes from before 1900 but classes as in power structures were very much present.
And yes it was their expressed and I believe trat they were truthful about that to create a communist state. But there were power struggles and the clear ideas became unclear and what remained (intentionally or not) was the name of the goal justifying all the horrible things.
Again, I am not arguing against or for communism, just making the argument that there was never a communist country as in the sense they reached something resembling the idea of the word. Keeping in mind that there is not a clear line of demarcation, this much is clear to me.
The clear distinction is hard, I accept that point. The phases at least how I learned it are clear. First state owned then truly society owned as a goal. They never got anywhere near that. Nor a classless society. It wasn’t the old classes from before 1900 but classes as in power structures were very much present.
This is a bit confused. The USSR did eventually form a Beaurocratic section over time, especially towards the 80s until its dissolution, but to call it a “class” is not quite accurate. In The State and Revolution, Lenin does a good job of explaining what even constitutes a State, in explaining the economic basis for the “withering away of the State.” The Soviet model functioned like this graphic:
Again, I am not arguing against or for communism, just making the argument that there was never a communist country as in the sense they reached something resembling the idea of the word. Keeping in mind that there is not a clear line of demarcation, this much is clear to me.
Again, though, this isn’t what people are saying. The doctrine of the USSR was Communist. They were working towards Communism. The fact that they did not reach that point does not mean their ideology was not Communist.
Same argument though for socialism. They are a capitalist country that calls itself something else. You don’t seriously believe they are socialist In any other way than their name.
China is Socialist, in that it maintains a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and is progressing towards full Socialization of the economy. The Dengist liberal reforms occured after Mao’s Great Leap Forward backfired, Mao put too strong of an emphasis on the idea of Class Struggle. As Engels puts it in Principles of Communism:
"Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke? No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.”
Xu Hongzhi and Qin Xuan elaborate on the decisions made in implementing liberal reforms as a part of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” specifically with respect to errors made under Mao in trying to “skip ahead to Communism:”
“Due to the hasty and early entry into socialism, we didn’t accumulate enough experience to enable us to have a very clear understanding on the issues of social development. Throughout the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the People’s Commune Movement in 1958, there had occurred a blind optimism of targeting ‘the realization of communism in our country, which is no longer a distant future’, and thus made a serious and erroneous estimation on the development stages of socialism…. As Deng Xiaoping pointed out: As early as the second half of 1957 we began to make ‘Left’ mistakes. To put it briefly, we pursued a closed-door policy in foreign affairs and took class struggle as the central task at home no attempt was made to expand the productive forces, and the policies we formulated were too ambitious for the primary stage of socialism. After the 3rd Plenary Session of the Party, after the comparison of our both positive and negative experiences, the Chinese Communist Party has gradually made a scientific conclusion that China is in and will be in the Primary stage of socialism.”
Whether or not the CPC has their bourgeois class reigned in or not, whether the Bourgeoisie in China is in control or the people via the CPC, these are genuine concerns that we can have, but the central idea that “having Capitalism means the entire system within context is Capitalist” is wrong. What matters is trajectory and control.
They’re socialist in who runs the country and how they run it
I don’t think a reasonable person can watch the difference in how they handled covid compared to truly capitalist countries and come away with this confusion. The capitalist class is not dominant in China.
This is a semantic matter. No socialist state has ever claimed to have reached the stage of communism, including China. But some socialist states—including China—have been/are run by communist governments/parties, which claim to be working toward reaching that stage.
The following communist states were socialist states committed to communism. Some were short-lived and preceded the widespread adoption of Marxism–Leninism by most communist states.
They got pretty far, they were Socialist for nearly the entire 20th century. They liberalized towards the end and were dissolved, but the narrative that they weren’t Socialist or that it wasn’t a real attempt at building Communism is nonsense.
Yes arguing that Russia was never socialist (or tried hard to be) would be nonsense. I am not arguing that though. I said that there was never communism. As in, archived and not used as veil to hide the failing government and society.
Nah dude, someone took the opportunity to use a slogan originating in witch hunts of people threatening the ruling class in their bleeding of post-war prosperity in America.
This is about some despot using their resources to interfere with what modest self-governance we have in America
Communism isn’t Utopian, it isn’t a “perfect model of society” that people simply need to agree with in their minds to adopt. It’s closer to a theory of historical development and analyzing what will come after Capitalism in that long chain of development.
Knowing about it can speed up the process of development, since you can better direct it, but modes of production emerge from what came before.
Just to elaborate, my first thought was: “I dislike this anti-Communist Cold War-era hysteria. I’ll post something to try to counter this hysteria.”
And then I realized: Wait. People are going to think I’m “defending” Russia against accusations of being Communist, and I’m tired of people attacking me for being “pro-Russia”, so I deleted it almost immediately.
So, basically, I’ve started to self-censor my thoughts because I find the toxicity of Lemmy exhausting. Go enjoy hunting your Reds under the Bed, and I’m going to do something better with my time, like go outside.
I really wanted Lemmy to work out, but it’s clear to me that this place is as bad as Reddit, just in a different way.
So, basically, I’ve started to self-censor my thoughts because I find the toxicity of Lemmy exhausting. Go enjoy hunting your Reds under the Bed, and I’m going to do something better with my time, like go outside.
I really wanted Lemmy to work out, but it’s clear to me that this place is as bad as Reddit, just in a different way.
Depends on the instance. Lemmy.world tends to be one of the more toxic instances if you left Reddit, it’s trying to recreate Reddit itself, and the users are generally people who loved Reddit but hated Spez in particular for the API crisis.
Russian Asset. Better dead than Red.
russia isn’t “red” and never really was to begin with
That’s what annoys me the most. Tankies will go defend Russia like it’s the promised land of communism, when the only remnant of communism it has is rigged elections and propaganda.
Also wrong. Rigged elections would imply there ever was a communist Russia. There never was. It was (maybe at its best, in part) socialist and most of the time after the zars a military state. That is true for all states that were left leaning btw. No communists to be found.
No true Scotsman
Russia very much was communism in the real world.
Great argument. What do you base this on?
It’s like china calling itself communist right now.
Yes there was rhetoric in the USSR that suggested they were but it was an instrument to legitimate the horrible things that they did to their people.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society
That was not the case. It was state owned, as the transition from whatever system was there before to socialism plans. Communism is supposed to be something different.
I am not arguing that it would be good or better than anything we have today but am saying that we never saw communism in the modern world.
Change my mind with arguments and not down votes.
Communism isn’t about ideological purity. The USSR never made it to the global, total, Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society Marx describes as Upper Stage Communism, but the Soviets never argued that they had. What the Soviets did, was begin the process of working towards that.
Thanks for a proper response. More than others in this thread are capable of.
The clear distinction is hard, I accept that point. The phases at least how I learned it are clear. First state owned then truly society owned as a goal. They never got anywhere near that. Nor a classless society. It wasn’t the old classes from before 1900 but classes as in power structures were very much present.
And yes it was their expressed and I believe trat they were truthful about that to create a communist state. But there were power struggles and the clear ideas became unclear and what remained (intentionally or not) was the name of the goal justifying all the horrible things.
Again, I am not arguing against or for communism, just making the argument that there was never a communist country as in the sense they reached something resembling the idea of the word. Keeping in mind that there is not a clear line of demarcation, this much is clear to me.
This is a bit confused. The USSR did eventually form a Beaurocratic section over time, especially towards the 80s until its dissolution, but to call it a “class” is not quite accurate. In The State and Revolution, Lenin does a good job of explaining what even constitutes a State, in explaining the economic basis for the “withering away of the State.” The Soviet model functioned like this graphic:
Again, though, this isn’t what people are saying. The doctrine of the USSR was Communist. They were working towards Communism. The fact that they did not reach that point does not mean their ideology was not Communist.
China doesn’t call itself communist. It’s Socialist with Chinese characteristics.
You are right, I mixed something up
Same argument though for socialism. They are a capitalist country that calls itself something else. You don’t seriously believe they are socialist In any other way than their name.
China is Socialist, in that it maintains a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and is progressing towards full Socialization of the economy. The Dengist liberal reforms occured after Mao’s Great Leap Forward backfired, Mao put too strong of an emphasis on the idea of Class Struggle. As Engels puts it in Principles of Communism:
Xu Hongzhi and Qin Xuan elaborate on the decisions made in implementing liberal reforms as a part of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” specifically with respect to errors made under Mao in trying to “skip ahead to Communism:”
Whether or not the CPC has their bourgeois class reigned in or not, whether the Bourgeoisie in China is in control or the people via the CPC, these are genuine concerns that we can have, but the central idea that “having Capitalism means the entire system within context is Capitalist” is wrong. What matters is trajectory and control.
They’re socialist in who runs the country and how they run it
I don’t think a reasonable person can watch the difference in how they handled covid compared to truly capitalist countries and come away with this confusion. The capitalist class is not dominant in China.
This is a semantic matter. No socialist state has ever claimed to have reached the stage of communism, including China. But some socialist states—including China—have been/are run by communist governments/parties, which claim to be working toward reaching that stage.
Okay lets use wiki as a source… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communist_states
The following communist states were socialist states committed to communism. Some were short-lived and preceded the widespread adoption of Marxism–Leninism by most communist states.
Would you look at that…
This is incorrect. The USSR was Socialist, and was attempting to work towards building Communism.
Yes working towards as in socialism is the first stage to communism. But they didn’t get far thus my argument was there wasn’t communism in the USSR.
They got pretty far, they were Socialist for nearly the entire 20th century. They liberalized towards the end and were dissolved, but the narrative that they weren’t Socialist or that it wasn’t a real attempt at building Communism is nonsense.
Yes arguing that Russia was never socialist (or tried hard to be) would be nonsense. I am not arguing that though. I said that there was never communism. As in, archived and not used as veil to hide the failing government and society.
What on Earth are you talking about?
To be fair, it has the most boots to be licked and some people have urges that the rest of us will never understand. /S
Someone offended your favorite colonizer!
Quick, to the semantic-debate mobile, we must split the hairs!!
Nah dude, someone took the opportunity to use a slogan originating in witch hunts of people threatening the ruling class in their bleeding of post-war prosperity in America.
This is about some despot using their resources to interfere with what modest self-governance we have in America
Yeah keep dreaming about the communist utopia that will definitely happen… somewhere… at some point… …maybe…?
Communism isn’t Utopian, it isn’t a “perfect model of society” that people simply need to agree with in their minds to adopt. It’s closer to a theory of historical development and analyzing what will come after Capitalism in that long chain of development.
Knowing about it can speed up the process of development, since you can better direct it, but modes of production emerge from what came before.
Americans being so politically illiterate they think that the government they practically installed is somehow communist.
lol remember to vote I guess
Nothing stupider than an American. Well, an American with a political agenda maybe.
What is Red in this context?
C. All of the above.
deleted by creator
Why’d you delete that?
Just to elaborate, my first thought was: “I dislike this anti-Communist Cold War-era hysteria. I’ll post something to try to counter this hysteria.”
And then I realized: Wait. People are going to think I’m “defending” Russia against accusations of being Communist, and I’m tired of people attacking me for being “pro-Russia”, so I deleted it almost immediately.
So, basically, I’ve started to self-censor my thoughts because I find the toxicity of Lemmy exhausting. Go enjoy hunting your Reds under the Bed, and I’m going to do something better with my time, like go outside.
I really wanted Lemmy to work out, but it’s clear to me that this place is as bad as Reddit, just in a different way.
Depends on the instance. Lemmy.world tends to be one of the more toxic instances if you left Reddit, it’s trying to recreate Reddit itself, and the users are generally people who loved Reddit but hated Spez in particular for the API crisis.
I decided it wasn’t worth arguing over.