this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 291 points 1 year ago (24 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 286 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Lol someone once told me "nazis are socialists its in the name"

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (4 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?

[–] [email protected] 121 points 1 year ago (8 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.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Yeah well, so you’re an orthodox Marxist and I disagree with you ¯\(ツ)

But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.

Aha, is that so?

I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well

Yeah, you could say that!

So! Let’s talk about Restif de la Bretonne who was using „communist“ and „communism“ 60-70 years before Marx writes the „Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei“. Babeuf (who called himself a „communalist“) already tried to incite a communist revolution in the 1790s. De La Hodde calls the Parisian general strike in 1840 „inspired by communist ideas“. In 1841 the „Communistes Matérialistes“ publish „L'Humanitaire“, which Nettlau calls „the first libertarian communist publication“.

And how come that a certain bloke named Karl Marx in his 1842 essay „Der Kommunismus und die Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung" finds that communism had already become an international movement. Hey, I know that name! 🤔

Tell me, how exactly is Marxism (or whatever you want to call it) the one and only trüe communism™ when there’s decades of different variances of communism and movements of people calling themselves communists before the „Manifest“?

Just face it: your beloved Marxism is just one variant of communism, which for a variety of reasons has become the best known. But it’s certainly not „base communism“.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 112 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year 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).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Implying capitalism does not regularly do mass killings.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

China is state capitalist, not communist

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