you know, i tell you what. i’m fed up with all this gringo self-righteousness when you talk about “oh communism was bad, oh people where killed, oh people had no food, oh people had no liberty, oh people could not buy ataris, oh our countries are so democratic”. your countries were democratic during the cold war in the first place because you had people to sort things out for you here in the global south. for each person complaining about how the food rations in eastern europe were not tasty enough, there were 10 dying of hunger or malnourishment here in the global south. for every person complaining they had to wait 5 years in a queue to buy a trabant or an oka, there were 10 who got no school in a range of 50 km. for every person complaining that their 8 hour shifts in state owned factories were overwhelming, there were 10 who were indentured workers. for every person complaining about how the stasi, kgb or the stb had bugged their apartment, there were 10 suffering the most horrific tortures inside black sites of the military of u.s. allies here in the “third world”. for every person complaining about dull standard apartment blocks in mikrorayons, there were 10 who lived in mud shacks and slums, and those are just who were lucky enough to have a roof over their heads. finally, for everyone complaining about chinese sweatshops, which are indeed a problem, there are 10 americans who work and yet cannot afford proper housing.
you wanna complain about how communism was bad? go ahead. you wanna complain how your parents lived under communism and could not drink coke? do so if you wish. but there are still millions of people down here who would give an arm and a leg to have a polish ration, an apartment in a russian gray building, or a yugoslav job. and while the chinese maoist red guard was bad, surely it won’t be an inch closer to the harassement people endured on a daily basis by our police forces.
again: you wanna complain? be my guest. but for me that’s an encyclopedic example of white privilege.
This, so much this. Having a job and a roof over your head is such a luxury in the ‘global south’, the true face of capitalism
oh people where killed
Ukraine.
Why would you not compare european communist countries woth european capitalist countries? Sure, africans and asians were poorer, but that goes without saying, honestly, what does that even have to do with this matter?
East Germany was poorer than west Germany. That tells us something. The fact that Ethiopia or whatever was poorer does not really tell us much about ehich economic system is better.
West Germany had almost all of the industry of Germany, and East Germany was made to pay harsh reparations for the immense devastation the Nazis wrought upon the Soviet people and countries. Moreover, West Germany was never de-Nazified, and the US and Western Countries heavily invested into its development as a means to destabilize the relations with the East, even threatening to put NATO nukes in West Germany.
It doesn’t matter what ideology. If the people running it are rotten, any system can be corrupted.
So then the solution is to decentralize so everyone is running it.
And have a way for it to be trustless as well
Communism by any other name would smell as sweet
A co-operative ?
Communism is more about centralization, Anarchism is the one about decentralization as a rule.
The difference between communism and anarchism isn’t the aims, but whether the state could immediately be abolished or that there must be a transitional period.
Anarchists don’t want a fully publicly owned and planned global republic, Marxists do. Anarchists want networks of decentralized communes, Marxists do not.
The “state” for Marxists is the oppressive elements of society that make up class distinctions, such as private property rights and the current police structure, whereas for Anarchists its usually seen as a form of hierarchy entrenched with violence.
Chiefly, a decentralized network of communed does not get rid of class, but entrenches petite bourgeois class structures where each commune owns only what is within its commune, whereas Marxists want to abolish class by making all property equally owned by all in a highly developed and complex economy.
And likewise, oligarchy calling itself communism smells just as rancid.
It’s simple: teach everyone to make everything they need for themselves, so they can’t be expoited
Sure bro lemme teach my aunt to make her insulin, her own needles, her own glucose test strips and all that cheers
Maybe we should all specialize, and pay each other with our own goods, or better yet, a sort of representation of goods we all agree is valuable, so you can get one persons goods with anothers.
Kinda seems unfair that somebody’s aunt should have to purchase insulin she needs to survive, like she shouldn’t have to work harder to have the same lifestyle as someone without a disability. Maybe we should just give her the insulin she needs to survive, and compensate the people who make it out of some sort of common pool of resources everyone is required to contribute to, in order to distribute the costs more fairly.
When I was younger, I tried to design an universal constructor.
Unfortunatelly, I was using Roblox studio to do this.
How’s that for insanity?
I also carved a log with a knife, hacking off pieces in an attempt to make a 3D printer
It’s not insane! 3D printing is making huge strides. You were just a little ahead of your time.
If we can run Doom on 16 billion crabs, then you can carve a 3D printer.
Luckily the US is dismantling the CIA so that’s good news for communism!!!
Seeing some of the zingers in the comments here, now seems like a great time to plug my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Read up, comrades!
The struggle depicted perfectly lol
For those that don’t like to read, you don’t have to read theory. In fact, most theory is old. There are newer and better takes on these ideas. Find a good YouTube channel that goes over the ideas. I like Vaush.
If you like to read theory, go for it. But I think there are faster and easier ways to get the concepts.
You DO have to read theory. Just because it is old doesn’t mean it’s wrong or outdated.
Also I’m not opposed to watching YouTube videos, but it shouldn’t be your only source for it, and recommending Vaush is a huge problem, don’t do that.
If anyone wants some actual good recommendations:
In english: Second Thought, Hakim, Yugopnik, Luna Oi, revolutionary_thot, azurescapegoat. There’s also Hasan, but he does commentary and not theory teaching or analisys or anything like that.
In portuguese: Ian Neves/História Pública, Laura Sabino, Jones Manoel, Tempero Drag/Rita von Hunty, João Carvalho.
There’s of course others, I’m just going by the ones I remember right now.
Support for chasers and sex-pests like Vaush is pretty awful, not to mentions his awful politics and constant butchering of Marxist theory for an audience that usually can’t tell the difference.
Theory is important. Much of my list is newer, some is older when it holds up, some is newer when it meaningfully adds to the discussion. However, as someone who had your approach, reading theory directly genuinely is much faster than rolling the dice.
I have audiobooks linked as well that people can listen to if they prefer, and importantly they won’t be distorted by a sex-pest who complains about Marxists constantly while misrepresenting them.
Where can I find audiobooks you talked about? My app probably doesn’t show your userpage right.
I have audiobook links after (almost) each listed work.
Vaush’s whole thing is controversy bait. He purposely crosses lines to get people mad at him while maintaining some form of “plausible deniability” to where his fans can always find a way to defend and excuse his actions by talking about “you don’t understand the context” or whatever, it’s a very common and tiresome tactic. Like, if you’re trying to promote a shitty video game that can’t stand on it’s own merits, just do something to antagonize either the left or the right (doesn’t matter which) and then go to the other group and be like, “Look, the guys you hate hate us, you should check us out.” Controversy generates clicks. A big reason for Trump’s success is that he cracked the code on how to apply this formula to a political campaign. If you know how to recognize it, it’s very obvious that Vaush does this.
This sort of opportunism is very detrimental to actually understanding the world or promoting ideas or building a movement. It’s essentially brain-poisoning and a cognitohazard. You’re much better off reading actual books than just following whoever’s best at attracting attention on the internet. If you are going to shun books for videos, you should at least go with someone more educational, like Shaun.
For all the people talking about Vaush and Hasan and their controversies, realize that there are other folks out there where you can learn about theory without the Twitch brainrot. The Revolutionary Left podcast is my personal favorite.
Or even better, reading books. With respect to a small minority, podcasts are not a great source to learn about anything.
Absolutely, but many people do not have the time luxury to read dense theory books, and (good) podcasts can at least get people acquainted with the ideas.
Also, (and I’m putting words in your mouth, so sorry for that) I think it’s a fallacy to say that every comrade must be a theory scholar. Certainly our leaders and organizers should be, but I think it’s fine if people don’t have the academic inclination and want to contribute in other ways.
When people ask me what communist country was successful I usually say all of them until cia decided to go there and spread freedom 🇺🇸🦅
Well… There was this thing called Soviet Union. They decided to try to speed up the transition to communism by using repression and violence. And ended up being a totalitarian state, a direct opposite of what a communist state is supposed to be like.
Of course you can argue that Soviet Union was not communist, it was just a state that had chosen to call itself communist for propaganda reasons… But still, Soviet Union is an example of a communist country that was unsuccessful as a communist project already by itself. Then came outsiders and helped make it even worse, but bad doesn’t become good by some people wanting it to be even worse. Burma is another example. I’d say they hacked away their own leg before anyone else, such as CIA, had time to interfere in their business.
The USSR had to deal with a civil war, rising up during WWI and being sabotaged by the Germans, more civil war, foreign meddling, and all while being the first successful communist revolution. Yet they still managed to raise literacy, raise health outcomes, raise average life expectancy, gender equality, science and technology, end the cycle of famines (after the first one or two they had when they were still building up), had faster growth during that period than any capitalist country (except maybe the US, which was doing imperialism at the time and the biggest hegemon), all while helping sustain other socialist countries, like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea.
The USSR didn’t “do repression and violence to speed up Communism,” they had a successful revolution and established Socialism. By all accounts it was quite successful overall, but we can learn from where they erred and adapt for the future.
The only ones who believe the Soviet Union wasn’t Socialist are generally Western Trots or liberals/Anarchists who already don’t want the form of society Marxists want, which is a government that publicly owns its large and key industries and gradually folds in the new firms that grow to that level until the entire economy is publicly owned.
Have you never heard of bolševiks and menševiks? What you’re explaining is what menševiks wanted, but what happened was what bolševiks aimed for.
And that was inhumane horror.
Least smug shitlib
09/11 Chile vibes
deleted by creator
I like this version better, thx.
Anytime anyone whines about “commies / tankies”, they’re entirely complicit with these mass killings.
Don’t know how your get one from the other. I can think that state socialist experiments were flawed, misguided, and ultimately destined for autocracy, and still think that targeting them with imperialist intervention is wrong.
Just because the US empire is evil doesn’t make everyone opposing them good. The world is not black and white.
Who’s the one telling you that the USSR, Cuba, China, Venezuela or Vietnam are/were autocracies?
If you actually investigate countries that have substantive / economic democracy, which goes far beyond the liberal equality before the law, you’ll find them to be far more democratic than the countries accusing them of being autocracies.
The US Empire being incredibly evil and predatory towards anyone daring to exert domestic control over their economies and even their own allies does paint a better picture for AES states. It doesn’t make them automatically good, but it starts them off on the right foot.
Then you can analyze how AES states have brought immense democratizations of the economy, massive expansions in key quality of life metrics like education, literacy, life expectancy, Home Ownership, and more, while expanding worker rights and supporting the Global South against the Imperialist countries, it’s hard to see AES as “bad.”
There are genuine critiques of AES countries, but I wouldn’t call them “autocratic,” considering they are generally more democratic than western countries, and moreover the needs of the people are better met. For example, people in China believe the government represents their interests at rates surpassing 90%, and more Chinese workers believe they have democratic control than USian workers.
All of these considerations need to be taken into account, and the fact that these AES states have been treated with the harshest of violence from the US Empire means they are deserving of support for their own existence.
And it often comes into being because of a CIA financed coup
It’s like the chicken or the egg question.
When has the CIA ever financed a communist coup?
deleted by creator
It was complicated. Kruschev, and later Gorbachev’s reforms really weakened the Socialist system because they didn’t properly retain strong control of the larger firms and heavy industry (a lesson the CPC took to heart), however the CIA and really the US absolutely worked tirelessly to weaken it. The Soviets also had to spend a much larger portion of their production on the millitary in order to keep parity with the US, meaning that development rates began to slow.
deleted by creator
The reforms didn’t just allow for “political dissent,” they worked against the Socialist system, that was based on central planning. Rather than running in a more efficient manner, it ran against itself.
Further, nobody says the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise.” It had tremendous strides for workers, but it wasn’t perfect by any means.
The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.
The Soviet Union was, if not a traditional dictatorship, absolutely a totalitarian autocracy. Stalin was a brutal dictator and his successors were chosen by the communist party. Elections in the USSR were for show.
Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people. The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.
Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people.
People like you should be forced to live under conditions like Tsarist Russia.
I am a communist by heart, but I know that social market economy is the way to go, at least for now.
Kinda? China has a Socialist Market Economy, and this is building up the productive forces dramatically, but not every country will work the same way or have the same path.
