this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
52 points (79.5% liked)

Memes

49934 readers
760 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (17 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months 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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

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

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

Can't critizise something that has never been tried! Also we already got a comment critizising capitalism as a counter argument :D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 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).

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 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] 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (5 children)

The US political spectrum is leaning so far to the right. A US left is a France center or moderate right. So what Americans consider communism is merely what French consider moderate leftist.

  • I’m French living in the US
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's basically "If you keep calling all of the stuff I like 'communism', then I guess that makes me a communist."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Or if you’re not a Nazi you’re a communist, then I’m a communist I guess.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Hell even Obama was right wing to many countries.

...this was before we all dove headfirst into facism as a trauma response

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

To be honest, I've been using Lemmy for a week now, and I'm kind of concerned with all the communism stuff around here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

McCarthy propaganda go brrrr

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

Fuck Communism and fuck unchecked capitalism. People deserve basic human rights. Free heallthcare, education, insurance and liveable basic income is a must. It doesn't make your society full of freeloaders instead it gives all the people a chance to become what they want in the society. I hope that people can see this basic difference and we can work towards for a better future as humanity instead of whatever country title.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Fuck centralized power. By definition true communism shouldnt have any of that, and anyone considering the systems equal is butt chugging propaganda

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

Educated people in general have to say on politics the same things that I said earlier, but they are very nostalgic over less criminalized popular culture, better technical education and rules being followed. So am I to some extent actually.

In Moscow? You're not being fair. Educated people in the soviet union from Moscow lived extremely well and have very positive views. Engineers, scientists, etc will all say positive things. You know as well as I do that hundreds of video interviews will confirm this. Be fairer, claiming that everyone that supports the ussr among the over 60s is just uneducated is definitely untrue. This particular video series is in Moscow and this lady is exactly what I am talking about.

You can't live in Moscow and say this is untrue. You're being unfair.

No recollection at all, I’m 1996, but since transition from USSR to modern Russia didn’t happen in an instance, in various institutions and organizations you can still see in some ways how it was. More in my childhood than now, but still.

Brought up in shock therapy then.

if you weren’t in denial.

I'm not in denial. I'm asking you to be fairer. The data does not support your position. You know as well as I do that 75% of the country consider the soviet era to be when the country was at its greatest (and that this is easily verifiable from many sources), and you know damn well that 75% of the country aren't all uneducated people. You are not being fair.

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

I am from Eastern Europe and I share this sentiment when I see anyone from the West defending communism. The issue is complicated but, to put it bluntly:

No, Timothy, communism didn't fail in Eastern Europe because it was implemented wrongly. This is a very complicated topic but the tldr summary is "It is a broken idea, it did not work and it will never work. The natural and logical outcome of any attempt at Marxism is a bloodbath followed by autocracy."

That being said, communism isn't the only way to achieve a more equitable society. You have social democracy (in Lennin's words - communism's greatest adversary); organized labour movements; collectivist anarchism; communitariasm, etc.

Communism, as applied in the 20th century, violently fought against or oppressed all of these movements and is incompatible with any of them.

Not to mention that in most countries nowadays orthodox communists have been hugely discredited for excusing the Russian war of annihilation against the Ukrainian people.

In conclusion, if you live in the USA or Western Europe and you are unhappy with how corporate greed has ruined society, don't look to communism for answers. There are many other proposed solutions out there - go and research these. Communism is very well known, which makes it easily accessible to people who want change - but it is never, ever the solution.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

boomers destroyed the earth beyond all belief, poisoned everyone with sketchy ass chemicals, destroyed the economy more than once (twice in my life), most of us will NEVER own a home because the housed your grand pappy paid 100k for is now worth 2.5 million and average yearly wage is less than 30,000... among a million other things. The greed and entitlement is baffling, mix that in with delusional red scare propaganda that a ton of people fall for and yall mfers spending time defending all this insane shit.

we effectively live in a corporate government where what the people want doesn't matter alongside the million other ways we are lied to and exploited. Billionaires and trillionaires run the world and they keep pushing for "the next thing" like the metaverse, blockchain and going mars while most of us cant even afford to fucking eat. Suck it. I guarantee that you cant even define communism and point out how it differs from social policies even on a very basic fundamental level. Fuck dude

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

No communism, but socialism yes.

And yes, I am from east Europe

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Communism isn't the issue the same way Capitalism isn't the issue, the issue is rich people abusing working class and poor people. Removing democracy from these systems just make them absolutely horrid in the long run. Also China isn't communist it's state capitalist dictatorship.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

A meme like this is what happens when you believe the GOP that doing anything to benefit regular people is communism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

There is no such thing as pure capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Because the single only way to do communism is how the UdSSR did it, there's no other way.

And of course it's only possible to either agree with the whole of a specific ideology, or none of it. There's no "good parts of communism" or "bad parts of capitalism" it's only ever all good or all bad.

Politics is the mind-killer.

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

Because the single only way to do communism is how the UdSSR did it, there's no other way.

It is, because one bad apple spoils the bunch if you don't send them to gulags. Communism on a large scale is not self stabilizing unless everyone is ideologically 100% onboard.

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

But sending people to gulags is not the only way to ensure ideological consistency.

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

It is. Education would not be sufficient for that unless you can program people with chips in their heads.

You then get a few people who produce something that is desirable and rare, start exchanging it for favors and you're on your way to a systemic collapse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Is really the only punishment you can think of slavery?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

As a someone whose country belonged to the western bloc, I can relate xD

load more comments
view more: next ›