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Communism and Ignorance - Speak to a real-life leninist!
Red Requiem
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello everyone. I'm new to the site, so I figured I'd bring up a topic close to my heart.
In my country, (USA) it is rediculouly difficult to be a Leninistic Communist (as I am). Because, after 40 years of social programing...people think that all communists are either:
1-Soviets/Russians/Caucasian.
2-Terrorists.
3-Chinese Spies.
4-Terrorists.
6-Stalinists.
OR
7-Terrorists with russian accents who say "comrade".
In response to this nonsense, I'd like an intellectual discussion regarding my political beliefs. I am not reactionary, so please do not worry about offending me. Please ask any questions you wish, and I will answer them the the best of my ability.
So, off to drink have some vodka and potatoes while listening to the soviet anthem comrades!
:rolleyes:
God Bless you all and please post!
(yes I know I'm a deistic communist...so shoot me =D )
-Requiem
In my country, (USA) it is rediculouly difficult to be a Leninistic Communist (as I am). Because, after 40 years of social programing...people think that all communists are either:
1-Soviets/Russians/Caucasian.
2-Terrorists.
3-Chinese Spies.
4-Terrorists.
6-Stalinists.
OR
7-Terrorists with russian accents who say "comrade".
In response to this nonsense, I'd like an intellectual discussion regarding my political beliefs. I am not reactionary, so please do not worry about offending me. Please ask any questions you wish, and I will answer them the the best of my ability.
So, off to drink have some vodka and potatoes while listening to the soviet anthem comrades!
:rolleyes:
God Bless you all and please post!
(yes I know I'm a deistic communist...so shoot me =D )
-Requiem
Red Requiem on
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Question One: Given that your political philosophy of choice has been massively discredited worldwide, on account of the tremendous economic distortions and thousands of dead it produced, not to mention that pretty much everyone has by now been cued into the fact that all the "dictatorship of the proletariat" stuff really meant "dictatorship of the self-selected Party that claims to represent them" instead, and given that as you noted it has approximately the same chance of gaining control in the United States as I do of scoring a date with Franka Potente, why should I care about how you attempt to rationalize your belief in Leninism's continued relevance today?
Maybe you should give us some background on what constitutes "Lenninistic Communist."
Kay?
How old are you?
You don't have to sign your posts. We can all read your name.
Blaming negative opinions of a political theory so thoroughly discredited as Communism on "40 years of social programming" is incredibly condescending, by the way.
I'm betting he's still in high school.
(But then, I was a Libertarian in high school, which is pretty much just as bad.)
S'likely, I was rather into socialism in high school myself. Not quite into it enough to believe it could actually work, but into it enough to wish that it could. Ah, youthful idealism.
True enough, and let's not forget that a state/party with access to perfect information is also a requirement for accurate central economic planning to produce things without ending up with massive shortages or surpluses.
Or maybe the Russians were just doing it wrong, man.
For god's sake, we were all little marxists at one point in college or high school.
Further to this, do you see revolution not only as a viable venture in today's world (where global liberal capitalism is the overwhelming, dominant ideology/economic arrangement), but a necessary one? If so, why form of revolution would this take? Would it be similar to the October Revolution - a violent coup against an autocratic ruler? Would it be something like Mao's, a long, drawn out civil war where hundreds of millions are killed and displaced? Do you see it as possible for the revolution to be enacted electorally (i.e. like the Sandistas, or Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution")?
If your revolution is violent in nature, do you not have some issue with that? That is, while it may certainly be necessary to use violence against the enemies of the state, or the revolution, or what have you, what implications do you think there are for the continued legitimacy of the state? What of its mechanisms of justice, and the perceptions therein held by the populace? Would a violent revolution impede or encourage a just society, post-revolution?
I've run into some on various nation based roleplaying forums. I've since sworn off any historic RP in a period with major communist states. Some of those guys not only were true believers, but insisted that any flaw observed about communism was made up by the west and proceeded to complain about the moderators when the mods made rulings that were realistic instead of adhering to their fantasy world.
That sounds like good role-playing to me, albeit meta-role-playing.
If you're doing it small-scale in the protective envelope of a more rational economic system.
Yeah, but it's hard to run a game when one side doesn't believe it facts.
The irony of the communist bloc players arguing that there weren't enough communist mods and that the mods were pro-capitalism was staggering though.
I'm looking at you, Arabia.
Excuse me?
Socialism do work, don't go confusing socialism and communism. Communism requires the leadership to have total control of everything, socialism can be bent to any degree you wish it, most industrilized nations are socialist to some degree.
Christ, I declared myself a Fascist in Junior High once.
EDIT: Anyway the main problem with Communist ideology is the concept of the revolutionary vanguard- it requires a group of people to be in charge. Everytime you have people in charge with no check on their power and no incentive towards compromise, you get a problem. The best government systems are designed around limiting and spreading power around.
EDIT THE SECOND: Also the "Leninnist Communism is different from other kinds!" largely comes out of the idea that Lenin tried to introduce some reforms before his death. It emerges from a wildly exaggerated and ridiculously optimistic interpretation of those reforms and the belief that they mean Lenin wasn't, well, Lenin and that they'd have been followed by even further reforms. Since Lenin died before he could continue them (if he was going to do so) there is no way to refute it. For the most part, it's BS- "Lenninist" or "Trostskyist" or "Insert Communist Slightly Less Evil Than Stalin X-ist" is just a means of separating Communism in practice from Communism-in-theory, which still has appeal to people who don't recognize that it just doesn't work out in practice.
The reason people equate communism with these points is due the fact that practical applications of communism have resulted in these things. I can't think of an example where communsim has worked well.
If someone can provide an example and proove me wrong then go for it, i'm interested to see how communism can made to work.
It's historically correct, though. That's exactly what the Soviet leadership would have done. They thought they could define reality.
Why do you say this?
Even when we don't, we do. What else is an insurance company but for-profit socalism? :P
Can you see a communist country running for any significant amount of time if the leadership do not have total control?
The very idea behind it is that the leadership control everything and then delegate it to the citizens based on eleborate all encompasing multiyear plans.
If you start letting people control parts of the delegation of wealth and such themselves then you start moving away from communism and into the realms of capitalism and socialism.
I'd like to see how Cuba would have ended up if left to its own business. The reason for its current state can largely be blamed on US embargos.
Oh, that depends on what you define as socialism. I mean, for some americans, universal healthcare is socialist, for europeans you have to be almost communist but not quite yet (think GDR - they always claimed they were building up socialism so they could advance into communism from there). A lot of scandinavian countries are social democratic, that is, they have a strong welfare system to help those in need. I wouldn't call them socialist by any stretch of imagination, mainly because I do follow the east german definition of socialism, which includes a one party gouverment, most, if not all industry owned by the state etc.
I am an active member of the Socialist Peoples Party in Denmark (socialistisk folkeparty - SF) and a hardcore socialist myself and honestly socialism != communism, the only reason it did in east germany was because the Communist party in USSR wanted their satelittes to be communists.
No socialist I have met wants communism, we want free market forces but with free healthcare, free education, eldercare, high taxes and so forth (basicly we want what we got in scandinavia).
Saying Socialism is nothing but a stepping stone towards communism is very, very missguided.
Scandinavia is very, very socialist, by the very definition of socialism, what you are talking about is communism, not socialism.
I was referring to socialism in the idea of government ownership of the means of production, which I believe is the standard definition of the word (wikipedia backs me up here). I do not consider a social welfare net to be socialism in the true sense of the word.
The wikipedia article is about socialism as a transistional stage in progress to communism, if you want that kind of socialism you're a communist, not a socialist, a socialist stops at some point before communism.
We may or may not be talking about both, in danish the phrase democratic socialist, dosn't exist.
Socialism: The government controls the means of productions (read: everything). The government is made up of the people, best way is through a republic, or at least a democracy.
Communism: The government controls the means of production (read: everything). The government is a one party state, probably authoritarian.
Anyway, it seems that we have a cursory understanding on this thread, in which some people are denying that socialism exists in our government. Fucking rediculous.
Saying socialism is a total control ideologi is wrong, in one extreme end it might be, but that dosn't make other variations not socialism.