Yeah, the guy that lead the most successful iteration of communism isnt a real communist. Only people debating on the internet are true communists.
Your criteria for communism is essentially “if they did bad things, then it wasn’t real communism”. Leftists can learn a lot from The Soviet Union, mistakes and all. Dismissing entire nations that actually tried communism because you’re scared you’ll have to justify everything they did is silly.
Nah. I think Lenin was a communist. A reactionary asshole, a traitor to the revolution, but genuinely a communist, thought he was doing the right thing, and a hell of an administrator.
I think Castro was a communist. Not as big on democracy as he could’ve been, fucked up on queer issues until right near the end¹, but genuinely into the communism.
Stalin was a gangster in disposition. An opportunist. What Stalin believed in was power, terror, and himself. He was as much a communist as napoleon Bonaparte or al Capone.
¹and credit where due, turned hard, got basically all of it right. Later than id like, but ahead of like every other state.
And shitty communists go around purging other communists in kangaroo courts and show trials.
Shitty communists impose cults of personality and destroy workers democracy.
Shitty communists also refuse to learn from a century of shitty communism and still cling to old categories as if they have any meaning today. I mean you can stan Robespierre all you like but in the end of the day, the 1871 Commune was never going to be run by 1789 Jacobins much less fucking bonapartists.
Dont be an insufferable weirdo if you wanna have a discussion. Speaking to people this way doesn’t work in real life and I’d like to extend that courtesy to online spaces too.
The final goal of communism is a worldwide, stateless, classless, moneyless society.
This has obviously never been achieved, but the socialist and communist factions that use Marxism Leninism to work toward this goal are still nonetheless communist.
Communism in the Marxist sense isn’t about abolishing hierarchies. When they say they want a stateless society, there will still be oppression but executed by workers which is much besser. Source: read Das Kapital or something. I’m not a Marxist, what do I know
you actually have this backwards. communism in a marxist sense is hierarchiless as described in das kapital. however the bosheviks broke from the larger communist movement because the mensheviks (the larger of the two factions of russian communists) advocated for building a larger and larger coalition that could create durable anti-authoritarian change in russia. lenin believed in vanguard party politics, that it would be better to do the overthrow of the capital class first, and then slowly cede power to the workers. unfortunately in the first elections under bolshevik control the workers didn’t vote how lenin had assumed they would and he ceased democratic elections in soviet russia. following a series of strokes, power was not slowly ceded to the workers, rather, stalin manipulated petty beurocratic power in order to consolidate, rather than disperse, power. ultimately, much like the french revolution, what happened was the typical revolution cycle:
things are bad
the people revolt
two parallel movements develop representing either a coup by power or a great societal reform
the coup by power faction consolidates a core faster and takes over
the great societal reform faction is purged as counter-revolutionary
the driving force behind the coup by power faction goes mad with power and dies
in the vaccuum of power a new cult of personality arises in which a previously mostly ignored person takes full control and re-establishes the old order with himself at the head and the only real change is the aesthetic of the imperium.
in france, the result was a totalitarian authoritarian regime “liberating” europe. in russia it was a totalitarian authoritarian regime “liberating” the workers.
to get an idea of who the bolsheviks really were look at how quickly they abandoned leftist unity to purge the anarchocommunists from eastern europe. these were people they, allegedly, shared ideals with and had been fighting to free the serfs alongside up until the moment they could purge the anarchocommunists in order to consolidate personal power at the top of the hierarchy.
tl;dr marxism is without hierarchy, marxist-leninism is very much with hierarchy
Yeah, the guy that lead the most successful iteration of communism isnt a real communist. Only people debating on the internet are true communists.
Your criteria for communism is essentially “if they did bad things, then it wasn’t real communism”. Leftists can learn a lot from The Soviet Union, mistakes and all. Dismissing entire nations that actually tried communism because you’re scared you’ll have to justify everything they did is silly.
Nah. I think Lenin was a communist. A reactionary asshole, a traitor to the revolution, but genuinely a communist, thought he was doing the right thing, and a hell of an administrator.
I think Castro was a communist. Not as big on democracy as he could’ve been, fucked up on queer issues until right near the end¹, but genuinely into the communism.
Stalin was a gangster in disposition. An opportunist. What Stalin believed in was power, terror, and himself. He was as much a communist as napoleon Bonaparte or al Capone.
¹and credit where due, turned hard, got basically all of it right. Later than id like, but ahead of like every other state.
Why would you assume that’s their criteria? Communism is a stateless, classless society. USSR had both of those things.
Can a nation be considered to have achieved communism when it still has a hierarchy?
The Soviet Union didn’t even claim to have achieved socialism. Their ideology was that they were supposedly constantly working towards that.
While killing everyone who tried to move or experiment towards it.
TIL the Soviet Union only existed from 1924 to 1953. Wow, thanks, I didn’t know this at all!
You’re right. We shoukd pay more half to the other half of the time it existed, where it did exactly none of this.
State capitalists usually say that so they keep control of power.
Communists are not people that practice communism (not possible yet), they are people trying to achieve communism as an end goal.
Which requires social progress and experimentation; things Stalin didn’t allow much of.
And shitty communists go around purging other communists in kangaroo courts and show trials.
Shitty communists impose cults of personality and destroy workers democracy.
Shitty communists also refuse to learn from a century of shitty communism and still cling to old categories as if they have any meaning today. I mean you can stan Robespierre all you like but in the end of the day, the 1871 Commune was never going to be run by 1789 Jacobins much less fucking bonapartists.
The way you communicate is insufferable lol.
Pretty telling that this is how you chose to reply to this. Just ignore everything they said I guess, huh?
Dont be an insufferable weirdo if you wanna have a discussion. Speaking to people this way doesn’t work in real life and I’d like to extend that courtesy to online spaces too.
This is an insufferable way to talk. You’re insufferable, ajd therefore I can ignore everything you have to say (but keep reading it all)
I see nothing off putting whatsoever about their comment.
Not my problem
Well, your toothbrush is gross and your toes smell like canola oil.
The final goal of communism is a worldwide, stateless, classless, moneyless society.
This has obviously never been achieved, but the socialist and communist factions that use Marxism Leninism to work toward this goal are still nonetheless communist.
Communism in the Marxist sense isn’t about abolishing hierarchies. When they say they want a stateless society, there will still be oppression but executed by workers which is much besser. Source: read Das Kapital or something. I’m not a Marxist, what do I know
you actually have this backwards. communism in a marxist sense is hierarchiless as described in das kapital. however the bosheviks broke from the larger communist movement because the mensheviks (the larger of the two factions of russian communists) advocated for building a larger and larger coalition that could create durable anti-authoritarian change in russia. lenin believed in vanguard party politics, that it would be better to do the overthrow of the capital class first, and then slowly cede power to the workers. unfortunately in the first elections under bolshevik control the workers didn’t vote how lenin had assumed they would and he ceased democratic elections in soviet russia. following a series of strokes, power was not slowly ceded to the workers, rather, stalin manipulated petty beurocratic power in order to consolidate, rather than disperse, power. ultimately, much like the french revolution, what happened was the typical revolution cycle:
in france, the result was a totalitarian authoritarian regime “liberating” europe. in russia it was a totalitarian authoritarian regime “liberating” the workers.
to get an idea of who the bolsheviks really were look at how quickly they abandoned leftist unity to purge the anarchocommunists from eastern europe. these were people they, allegedly, shared ideals with and had been fighting to free the serfs alongside up until the moment they could purge the anarchocommunists in order to consolidate personal power at the top of the hierarchy.
tl;dr marxism is without hierarchy, marxist-leninism is very much with hierarchy