Any commies around?

Post Reply New Topic

No, until communism fails on paper, there is more to be said. One cannot say that surgery failed once, and therefore it is bad, but rather one needs to construct a theory of surgical failure proving that surgery can only fail in order to have the idea be removed from discourse, as if this is not done, then the peculiarities of the circumstance can be blamed.

Shear volume of work alone does not validate the work itself, but validity is supplied by the successful application of the theories posited in the work. And since the applications have repeatedly failed, then it may be same to assume that Communism itself is a failure.

Well, I think that the world isn't ready for Communism yet. You are of course welcome to disagree.

I feel like correcting some inaccurate history.

Vladamir Lenin introduced elements of capitalism to the Soviet economy with his New Economic Plan in the early 1920s (ie right after War Communism, which itself was mostly just looting the countryside for the benefit of factory workers). Stalin was at least as corrupt as any of those who came after him, probably more so, and he had a habit of killing off not only people who disagreed with him, but people he thought might someday pose a threat to his power. It is generally agreed that immediately before his death Stalin was planning on killing off a number of Communist leaders such as Malinkov and Beria. The "Doctor's Plot" was a Stalinist fabrication that would have led to a new round of show trials and purges. The new bureaucracy, under first the domination of Malinkov and then of Krushchev, was indeed corrupt, but significantly less so than under Stalin because no one was so powerful as to be able to completely dominate Soviet politics the way Stalin had, which meant there was a significant amount of compromise, give-and-take, and actual looking at the issues. Stalin killed off untold numbers of loyal Soviets, this did not happen to nearly so great an extent after his death.

Also, the Soviet Union did not become any more capitalistic after Stalin's death. If anything, it probably became more socialistic. Krushchev tried to begin preparing for the eventual transition from Socialism to Communism.

The problem with communism (as well as feminism and satanism) is that the theory is great and perfect but when applied it is not so great and perfect. Communism claims to make everyone financially equal, and it does. It makes everyone equally as poor and powerless.

Frankly, I think it sucks in theory too.


________________
☭WORKER'S UNITE☭

If something fails in practice, then there is something wrong with the theory.

I totally agree. But what I meant was that the theory SOUNDED perfect when in reality it wasn't.

Not so. The means of production were not privately owned.

ruveyn

No, that wasn't my argument there. My argument is that drunks usually cannot write that much or that coherently.

Fnord, you cannot assume that communism itself is a failure if the practices fail. The reason being that "communism itself is a failure" indicates that no working branch of communism CAN exist, but this is hard to justify with the failure of applications of communism, given that all applications we are using in our sample are from a specific ideology of it, using underdeveloped nations(the nations that Marx didn't see leading this change), and all applications have other elements that could be responsible for the failure as they are all autocracies, a government type known for non-communistic problems and failures. Thus, Fnord, I would have to argue that your methodology is wrong, and can at best only be a pragmatic guide for personal purposes, but not an argument against another person's ideology.

Your not seriously suggesting that Stalin and Mao were defenders of Marxism.

It is the actions of the likes of Stalin, Mao and their contemporary followers that have systematically destroyed workers movements around the world.

As to the claim that I am a leftist pragmatist by our resident creationist.

Well, the way things are going you may be able to say the same thing about capitalism by this time next year.

Goodness, who would want the advice of a French Failure like that...

Depends what you mean by privately owned... I would say that the country back then was privately owned by a select elite, the rest of the country did not come close to being stakeholders of any significance.

Anarchy works...

Are you heading down next week to London by any chance, Ascan?