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[–] 60 points 3 years ago (10 children)

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

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  • [–] 14 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    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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  • [–] 27 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    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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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    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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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    In feel like you make it complicated to arrive at your conclusion here. Communism, as described by Marx and Engels and to some degree Lenin, is something very specific that covers most aspects of the society. Political, social and economic. Marx himself wrote books upon books on the economy of a socialist, communist system.

    It is not an abstract "I don't like capitalism so let's try something different" approach. And yes, many have tried to adapt it, as you mentioned which is why those different approaches carry a different name 'anarchist communism' in your example. Because they are different enough from flat out communism.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    No, I have a very easy explanation what communism is, it’s just that nobody else agrees is the issue.

    different approaches carry a different name

    Yeah, well... So let’s see, we have: Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Titoism, Gulyáskommunizmus (both, as mentioned before, considered „nationalist communism“ by other communists), Rätekommunismus, Realsozialismus, Maoism …

    So, which one of those is the true communism?

    Joking aside, most of the 20th century was spent with people killing other people because they had slightly different opinions on what true communism means, so it’s really not me who made things complicated.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    And you keep using different names to describe them. As you should. Communism is not one thing and never was. But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.

    It's how it was defined in the communist manifesto in 1848. You could say it's Marxism, but I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well, like Engels and others who based on Marx's mostly economic study added the philosophical and political angles.

    Every theme or name change after the manifesto (that is not found in later revisions by the communist international) is attempts at adapting it with different angles and for different purposes and circumstances, aka NOT base or pure communism. Don't bundle everything in one basket and try to make sense, same way that bundling Putin's Russian form of Capitalism with US's imperialism and French Revolution's early capitalism together doesn't make sense either.

    He asked for pure communism, I answered for that. If he asked about Trotsky, I'd focus more on the permanent revolution and the Fourth International. If he asked of Stalin, I'd talk about his socialism in one country theory

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    I've got no horse in this race, I just want to point out the irony of asserting that there is only one "true" communism in reply to a comment about how leftists have spent the last century arguing over what "true" communism even is.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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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  • [–] [S] 5 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (3 children)

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

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    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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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    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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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    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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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    China is state capitalist, not communist

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    The functioning of their government is absolutely unequivocally communist. They have allowed some form of capital interests, which I would not consider communist in definition, but the government retains control over nearly all those interests and the plan they've put forward from the beginning is to renationalize industries as they reach a point of competitive development with the western world.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    I'm going to preface this with saying I don't support communism or centrally planned socialism, so this isn't me handwaving things away. It's just that this is a nuanced topic and definitions are important, and the red scare has sucessfully lied to most people about what these words mean.

    The government being in control of everything is not the sole defining feature of communism. Socialism is where the people own the means of production (business assets), typically through the government owning it all. Communism takes that a step further by removing currency and markets from the system and using some other system to determine how to create and allocate goods and services. And for the people to own the means of production through the government, they need to have an actual say in the government.

    Basically to have centrally-planned socialism or communism, you need the government owning all business assets in addition to something like a democracy or republic form of governmental policy. If you don't have a governmental policy that is controlled by the people, then the people don't own the means of production and by definition you don't have socialism or communism. You have one of the various forms of autocracy/oligarchy/etc.

    The issue we see here with people conflating modern day China, the USSR, etc with communism is that the change in government started out as socialist or communist movements, but then got coopted by fascists who removed political agency from the people, but also decided to keep calling themselves communists. However, overthrowing a form of government and pretending you're still that form of government doesn't magically make it true. North Korea isn't democratic or a republic just because the rulers call themselves it. Similarly, China's government is defined by its actions: state capitalist and not communist.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    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 3 years ago

    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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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    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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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    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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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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 3 years ago (1 child)

    Can you say what are the jobs?

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  • [–] -1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    I'm in my mid thirties, my current job (first time for this employer) is the best paid and offers the best conditions and is the easiest one I've ever worked and they need to give us a retention bonus so people don't leave for another department.

    I'll leave it at that so I don't dox myself.

    Edit: Don't know why people are downvoting? It's an office job that requires a high-school diploma, I've worked physical jobs before that paid less and where we weren't short staffed as we are in my current job. Happy?

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  • [+] 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    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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  • [+] 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    According to https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking for instance, there are 24 countries in the world with freer economy than USA.

    The right wing, climate change denying, Heritage Foundation is not a reliable source. That's nowhere near an unbiased analysis, but an opinion piece. No one can seriously believe the US to be less "free market" than like half of western Europe.

    That's like asking the North Korean government to create an index of democracy.

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