Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
One of those is the ideal version that Marx described as the ultimate goal and that can never be made by humans anyway because humans just don’t behave like that. The other one is what you actually get if you follow the Marx Manifesto and his idea of an “intermediate state” that could bring you to the end goal. (And if you go compare it with plain OG Fascism, both look way too much alike.)
There are other things called “communism”, both the word and the concept are way older than Marx. There are even ideas that begun in that umbrella but we don’t actually group in any singular concept, and instead are “just the way things are” nowadays.
I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds, Communism and Fascism have historically been entirely different and equating them is not really justified.
I’m not who you responded to, but they have a good point. The difference being who is favored and who is not. In fascism there are in groups and out groups. The real life forms we have today of communism follow that same rule. I think the distinction is who is being targeted. Try to speak out against the Russian government in Russia, it won’t go well. The same thing would certainly happen in a fascist state. Pointing out the small differences between the two is akin to making the distinction between a pedophile and a hebephile. They are both authoritarian in nature.
Frankly, this is wrong. I am not trying to be rude here, so please don’t take it that way, but as you admitted in the original post you aren’t very informed on this subject to begin with. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend reading my top-level reply to this thread as well.
First, to get the obvious sticker out of the way, the Russian Federation is undeniably Capitalist, Socialism was dissolved and the former state was sliced up and sold for parts at garage sale prices to wealthy Capitalists. The USSR was dissolved in the early 1990s, 3 decades ago, and with it the Socialist economy was also dissolved. An estimated 7 million people died due to the sudden destruction of the economy and the utter crumbling of previously government provided services, like free healthcare and education, a process known as “Shock Doctrine.”
Secondly, Fascism and Communism. You really need to read the book I recommended, Dr. Michael Parenti has an easy to read writing style packed with wit and rigorous historical analysis, however I will respond as best I can to the points you yourself brought up.
It is correct that both Fascism and Communism have an “in-group” and an “out-group,” but if you don’t actually see which group is represented and which group is oppressed by which system, you come to false conclusions. Fascism’s in-group is undeniably the national bourgeoisie, the Capital owners that profited immensely off of the various fascist movements, such as Ford, Hugo Boss, Krupp, many of which exist to this day in some form. The out-group is also undeniably the proletariat, the working class. Often times, somewhat due to the Nietzchian influence, ethnic groups such as Jewish peoples and Slavic peoples were targeted, along with any organized members of the working class, especially Communists. Fascism is a sort of “immune system” for Capitalism.
What about Comminism? Well, it’s the exact opposite. Communist movements have historically come from the Proletariat (as well as the peasantry, especially in China where there wasn’t a large Proletariat at the time of its revolution), and have served the Proletariat greatly. The oppressed class is the Bourgeoisie. What this historically has translated to is AES states (or “Actually Existing Socialism”) working towards huge literacy programs, massive education expansion, rapid industrialization, and generous social services. The USSR, for example, provided completely free healthcare and education, and had lower retirement ages than the United States, the social safety net actually inspired FDR’s New Deal as a means to prevent revolution within the United States during the Great Depression.
Moreover, the USSR and the Nazis saw the vast majority of the fighting in WWII. 80% of Nazi deaths came from the Eastern Front, it was the strategy of the West to let both the Nazis and the Communists fight it out and grind each other to a pulp. Truman spoke this of the strategy:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Ultimately, the real issue here is trying to dress up a massive difference as a small one, and using it to equate two polar opposites. Again, I highly encourage you to read the top level comment. No, AES states are not and have never been perfect, but they have also been in no way shape or form comparable to fascist states, in who they serve or how they functioned, and to equate them is a massive error.
Let me know if you have any questions!
In short, the authoritarianism happens because it requires a large amount of power to make the societal changes happen in the first place, which would then give rise to a generation that can maintain the system without overreach.
Now the problem obviously is that humans are corruptible, and very few people in the history of our species have ever been given totalitarian powers and not abused it for their own power and benefit.
something that doesn’t work, easy.
Motherfuckers really will downvote a non-stupid question on !nostupidquestions
It’s not whether it’s stupid or not, but that it’s actively belligerent and exposes the antagonism of OP against learning new things. Awful example to set for the community
Op does not seem neither belligerent nor antagonistic to me. Maybe rude in their initial statement, but they’ve been interacting with the comments in a perfectly civil way.
Most definitely not an “awful example to set” in any way.
This is what I’m talking about:
Can anyone succinctly explain <topic>? Everything I’ve read in the past said <stuff>. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed <something else>. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about <topic>.
What’s wrong with these statements?
Genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about.
This is exactly what happened, how it happened. The idiot I was arguing with kept going back and forth in his arguing, in some comments he would say there is a state in communism, then two comments later he said communism has no state. So yes, the person I was talking to was an idiot, not uncommon (hello my username.)
If this blurb offends you, maybe I was wrong about the conservatives calling us snowflakes.
It was the same way on Reddit. These types of communities are always a fucking joke.
And then there was always someone complaining about it and someone explaining to them that it’s always like that. And then someone telling them that that exact comment chain happens way too fucking often and it brings nothing to the discussion (that’s me in this comment chain!)
Congrats, we achieved Reddit!
Where our golds at though? Kind strangers, this way!
🏅 Here’s poor man’s gold or whatever, never used that stupid emoji before, not sure it’s the correct one.
why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
most likely due to “power syndrome”
That doesn’t answer my question unfortunately. In fact kinda muddies the water. Wikipedia says that it strives to be stateless, but how does that contend with the real life versions of communism that most certainly have a state?
what you refer to as
real life versions of communisms are in fact attempts to establish communism by communist parties within their respective nation states. communism has bever been reached - and none of these parties in power ever said that they had.
the way you use the word (associating USSR, China, Cuba, N Korea with communism) is the result of cold war propaganda. more accurate terminology for these (horrible!) dictatorships would be authoritarian regime with state-monopolized capitalist economy.
all summarized communism is an ideal economy where each gives what they can and gets what they nees, where necessity is at the core and not the accumulation of wealth.
This isn’t actually true. AES states are Socialist, the concept of “State Capitalism” refered more to the NEP period. Communism is always meant to be based on Public Ownership and Central Planning, because Marx observed Capitalism’s natural tendencies to centralize and develop intricate internal planning mechanisms.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Regardless of your opinions on the successes or failures of AES, they were and are very much in line with the Marxist notion of Socialism.
could you at least say what you are quoting when using citations for your argument?
that being said: collective ownership of the means of production (what socialism means) is a direct contradiction to nation-states as long as these are unable to reflect the collective will within their structures.
Ah, fair enough! This is Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, one of the best introductions to the philosophical aspects of Marxism in my opinion.
As for your point, public ownership and central planning requires infrastructure to direct production and people/algorithms to fulfil those roles (not getting into Cybernetics at this point as that’s another can of worms). All Communists espouse democratic values, usually in the form of “units” that elect representatives from within themselves to a higher unit, in a ladder approach, with instant recall elections available as a countermeasure. Furthermore, the concepts of Democratic Centralism and the Mass Line are critical for Marxist organizational theory.
The correct answer
I think the second paragraph talks a bit about this. It’s not really about the exact form of government. But about society and classes. So you’re both subject to exactly that. There is no agreement how communism can be achieved. I’d say without anyone keeping an eye out and enforcing it, it’s going to degrade into something else. But I can see how different groups oft people could do that, by different means. At least theoretically.
A stateless society is one with a power vacuum. Some one will claim the title of leader and often it’ll be someone of little virtue.
Kind of. Marx’s theory of the State was about Class Oppression, when you eliminate Class there isn’t really a State for Marx, ergo full Public Ownership and Central Planning is considered Communist. You are more referring to Anarchism.
Are these “cental planners” robots or humans?
In all likelihood, a mixture of both! The concept of “Cybernetics”, or productive control systems being applied to a centrally planned economy, has been an aspect of Marxism for centuries. Here’s another interesting article on calculating prices in a planned economy.
Describing economic and political systems is tough because people have different interpretations of them and they can all be correct. Denmark and the US are both capitalist but their systems are incredibly different.
The simplest description that applies to all forms of communism but not to systems that aren’t communist, is that the means of production (typically defined as land and capital) are state owned (with the intention that their use is decided democratically by the public).
Other descriptions could also apply but they’re also not required. Like how a watch is still a watch whether or not it has a hand to indicate seconds.
The confusion is between communism as an economic system and communism (more properly, Marxism-Leninism) as a political system.
Economically communism is a classless, stateless, society.
Most Marxist-Leninist states take the position that transitioning to that instantly is impossible, and you need to build the material conditions for it by transitioning through capitalism (be that state capitalism or some other form) to socialism to communism. The Communist Party of China for instance has a goal of achieving socialism by 2050.
That’s a very simplified version anyway, and some (Trotskyists mostly) disagree that a transition period is necessary.
There are a few key misconceptions here.
MLs do not take the stance that you need to go through “State Capitalism.” The State playing a role in Markets a la the NEP is still considered a Socialist state even if production isn’t socialized, but this isn’t 100% necessary though it is beneficial in underdeveloped sectors.
Secondly, Communism for Marxists looks like full Public Ownership and Central Planning in a worldwide republic. The State for Marx was the aspect of society that enforced class distinctions, so upon reaching full Public Ownership, even with a government, there is no “State” in the Marxist convention. Per Engels:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Finally, the CPC considers China to be Socialist already. The 2050 metric is to be a “great, developed Socialist nation.” The CPC subscribes to the stageist theory of Socialism whereby each phase in Socialism has unique characteristics, not that they are not yet Socialist.
I see. So there is supposed to be an authoritarian state in the transitionary period, is what you are saying?
Interesting, I was under the impression the real life forms had just failed; one group got into power and just said “naw” and then stayed in that authoritarian ‘state.’
Your impression is basically the Trotskyist view.
Stalin himself answered your question in an interview with an American reporter some time ago.
Yes , you are right, we have not yet built communist society. It is not so easy to build such a society. You are probably aware of the difference between socialist society and communist society. In socialist society certain inequalities in property still exist. But in socialist society there is no longer unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities. In socialist society everyone is obliged to work, although he does not, in return for his labour receive according to his requirements, but according to the quantity and quality of the work he has performed. That is why wages, and, moreover, unequal, differentiated wages, still exist. Only when we have succeeded in creating a system under which, in return for their labour, people will receive from society, not according to the quantity and quality of the labour they perform, but according to their requirements, will it be possible to say that we have built communist society.
You say that in order t o build our socialist society we sacrificed personal liberty and suffered privation.
Your question suggests that socialist society denies personal liberty. That is not true. Of course, in order to build something new one must economize, accumulate resources, reduce one’s consumption for a time and borrow from others. If one wants to build a house one saves up money, cuts down consumption for a time, otherwise the house would never be built.
How much more true is this when it is a matter of building a new human society? We had to cut down consumption somewhat for a time, collect the necessary resources and exert great effort. This is exactly what we did and we built a socialist society.
But we did not build this society in order to restrict personal liberty but in order that the human individual may feel really free. We built it for the sake of real personal liberty, liberty without quotation marks. It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm
This doesn’t really answer any of my questions, only raises more. Unless of course he is making the point that an authoritarian government is the “saving up for the house” but it’s clear with his next statements in the interview, that’s not the case.
You’ve got it, really. The difference between stalin and hitler is largely one of rhetoric. There’s definitely political differences, but gulaging that many people, in the name of “saving up for the house” of no more oppression… Both used a political system that had nothing to do with authoritarianism and perverted it to their own ends. Both called it socialism, both lied.
Stalin talking about “no oppression” is quite ironic
Easy: purge the oppressed!
If there’s nobody left to oppress, there is no oppression!
Most attempts at communism so far have been from single party governments. Those trend quite quickly into authoritarianism regardless of the intent (you might get lucky with a long lived strong man with a deep ethical drive - aka Lenin) but chances are your single party will be coopted by an asshole.
Every time we’ve tried a communist government at a large scale we’ve really horribly failed but it has worked at smaller scales. It may be impossible beyond a limit like Dunbar’s number but I think it’s worth trying a few more times (especially if we can get the US to stop trying to constantly sabatoge it).
The main reason it devolves into authoritarianism is Outside interference
you might get lucky with a long lived strong man with a deep ethical drive - aka Lenin
Wouldn’t call him especially long lived
Oh yeah- that’s kind of the issue. I was more highlighting him for his deep ethical figure. Lenin was a complicated man and, if he had the time he may have turned into a pure dictator, but he really never got a chance. The October Revolution led directly into the Civil War and Lenin had a stroke midway through that. By the time the dust settled Lenin was already significantly impaired and on his last legs. It sucks because (while he wasn’t the nicest) he was a pretty cool dude and a true believer in the cause.
After his death everything immediately went to shit - with the death of Armand only Trotsky had the cloud to claim leadership and he was extremely militant. People romanticize him (understandably because the other option was a right turd) and if he had become Chairman the whole “ruler for life” thing probably wouldn’t have happened, but, Trotsky saw the only acceptable path forward as continual and total war to convert nations into soviet councils until nothing else remained. This would have meant a lot of suffering and inevitable collapse.
So instead of Trotsky some dickweed of a clerk said "Nuh, uh, with his last breath Lenin said I should be
Emperor, KingChairman? Nah, let’s call it “General Secretary” and be all humble… and that’s how we got the unpolished turd that was Stalin.
Curious, what small scale examples are you thinking of? Those might be a good model.
Just trying things and seeing what sticks puts millions of lives on the line. Seems risky. But maybe eventually we can predict mass human behavior well enough to develop a control loop that keeps an unstable system stable without succumbing to selfishness/power grabbing? But that seems dangerously close to just hoping AGI will save us all.
I recommend reading The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber for more details on societal structures of the past
But which ones? Were they religious communities? Hunter gatherers such that centralization was less advantageous?
Some examples in the book include the Wendat people and Teotihuacan. You can also check out the book’s wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything.
One of the core conclusions of the book that you may find interesting (quote from the wiki):
Based on their accumulated discussions, the authors conclude by proposing a reframing of the central questions of human history. Instead of the origins of inequality, they suggest that our central dilemma is the question of how modern societies have lost the qualities of flexibility and political creativity that were once more common.
There have been many groups that form communes within a larger system. Sometimes its built around a religion (or cult), sometimes around various ideals, like artist communes. In my opinion, what makes these work is that they’re small (your reputation matters), people join it voluntarily, and people can be kicked out if they don’t uphold the ideals. So, you don’t need a state to enforce the rules aside from a mechanism to remove people who don’t participate fairly. And because they are within a larger entity, they don’t have to deal with things like national security or foreign affairs. I don’t think that model scales to a national level.
Like the Amish people ?
I don’t know a lot about the Amish, but possibly. From what I know, it seems like they embody some of the core principles in terms of contributing to the community and managing a balanced, relatively equal society. I don’t know anything about their religion, so I don’t know if there is a level of control from church leaders that might be more of a centralized control structure. But they might be an example. You can also search for examples of hippie communes or artist collectives.
Yeah I agree. If people don’t have a relationship with everyone, that sort of reputation model would be hard, so it wouldn’t scale well.
So the solution for trying next time is to become resistant to sabotage.
Communism is essentially the next step after socialism, which is basically Anarchy (As in you get rid of the state)
In my humble opinion, You cannot achieve Communism
This isn’t correct, at least not with respect to Marxism. The Marxist theory of the State is not the same as the Anarchist theory of the State, Marxists see it as an instrument of Class oppression and Anarchists see it as an institution of hierarchy and a monopoly on violence. This means for Marxists, a fully publicly owned, centrally planned world republic is “stateless” as there are no classes, while for Anarchists it would look more like a horizontal spiderweb network of communes.
Ok so who “plans” then ? Marxists man😅😂
Central Planners, elected officials, managers, etc. Similar to how it is done in the government already in Capitalist nations like the Post Office. Communism would have a government, just not a “state” as Marx outlined it.
Power always corrupts.
That’s the Anarchist critique of Marxism in its barest and simplest form, to be sure. I don’t generally agree with this, though, such a statement ignores material democratic structures and methods of ensuring accountability.
But it’s state-like
In the colloquial sense, yes, hence the widespread misundertanding of Marxism among those who haven’t read him. For Marx, though, organization and hierarchy aren’t a problem in classless society, and are rather essential tools to provide for all.
Okay, so the first thing to recognise is that terminology in left wing theory can be super confusing and the same words can be used to mean different things at different times or in different places, or sometimes in the same place at the same time.
Communism however in modern usage is fairly straightforward as it is used almost exclusively as it is defined in conventional Marxist doctrine(and yes there are many branches of Marxism).
That said big C Communism means a state of being that is achieved as the end point of societal evolution where there is no state, the means of production is controlled by the community and the needs of all are met.
In conventional Marxist thought the way of achieving this is through a transitional stage of socialism where the means of production is controlled by a “Vanguard” state. Many states in history have claimed to be communist in ideology(they are working towards this stateless utopia) but none have claimed to have achieved communism, only to be in the process of transitioning to it.
To all the leftist theory heads out there, don’t at me, I know this is a huge oversimplification, it is deliberate for someone who is obviously new to this.
The usual rhetoric is that you shouldn’t look at the dozens of examples, and their consequences (1). Rather focus on the theory, and agree that that theory is perfect. And also that anything else is bad. Unless it’s an attempt at being communist, then the bad things aren’t bad. Unless they are undeniably bad, but in that case, it isn’t real communism.
Well this was kinda my opinion going in, so I wanted a different perspective lol.
What they’re describing is a so-called tankie who claims that they’re communist but instead really they’re just authoritarians who need to feel a little less shitty about themselves so they pretend they do it for the good of all people.
Pure Socialism is a society where resources are shared as equally as possible across all participants. Resources are distributed as appropriately as possible to create what is needed, excess is distributed with as little waste as possible. Communism has a centralized body to distribute these resources.
Communism is the struggle for a moneyless, stateless, classless society.
There’s no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The “authoritarianism” arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology. I’ve looked into the histories a lot and its very complicated. Not like you wouldn’t understand it, just that it can’t be reduced to a simple truism, cant be made succinct.
Let’s just say that the capitalists who hoard all the wealth and do nothing to earn millions and billions, who own the media and for whose benefit the state represents, aren’t too keen on movements that sometimes overthrow them. So it’s in their interests to paint socialism and communism in as bad a light as possible.
There’s no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The “authoritarianism” arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology.
Material conditions made me put the worker council leaders in front of a firing squad!
If you want to discuss the history of the Russian revolution, I saved but didn’t post several paragraphs, but deleted them for the sake of brevity. Flattening the whole 100 years of Russian “socialist” history to highlight it’s worst abuses is just as intellectually lazy as flattening it to only highlight the best parts of it. I’m not going to apologise for Kronstadt or anything that came after, but the civil war period was horrible. And had the Bolsheviks not taken power, Kornilov or Kerensky would have, and instituted far more brutal oppression; if not just tried to restore the Tzar.
The organizing principles of the Bolsheviks and RSDLP should absolutely be studied leading up to Oct 1917, as well as Rosa Luxemburg, and Anton Pannekoek’s criticisms of Lenin.
But saying “firing squad” doesnt prove that communism leads to authoritarianism, although it references a time in history that was very brutal and oppressive. However, Its not as good of a criticism as you are capable of. I’m used to having discussions with people who probably aren’t critical enough of the Bolsheviks, so its refreshing to hear from you, in a way.
But saying “firing squad” doesnt prove that communism leads to authoritarianism, although it references a time in history that was very brutal and oppressive.
No one said this.
Saying that the rise of authoritarianism had nothing to do with ideology is wrong though. Mind you, it wasn’t the result of communist ideology, but the opportunistic Leninist ideology that hijacked the worldwide leftist movement.
I disagree, but I appreciate you walking back the anticommunism. Paul LeBlanc covers about every argument for Lenin’s “opportunism” in great detail, I would recommend Lenin and the Revolutionary Party for a good description of Leninism before 1921. If you mean Leninism like “Foundations of Leninism” then yeah I’ll join you in calling Stalin an opportunist. But not even Paul Averich, anarchist critic of the Bolsheviks and historian, was willing to lay the authoritarianism of the USSR at the feet of Lenin. But I don’t want to legislate the tragedies of 20th century socialism. I’ll study it, but there’s plenty of reasons to be skeptical.
I recently read a couple books by Cyril Smith who is pretty negative toward Lenin, and while I don’t really buy his premise, I think his emphasis on what was missing (an analysis on “sensuous human activity,” like in Theses on Feuerbach) from the Plekhanov-Leninist tendency of Marxism holds water.
The notion of “state” differs wildly across people, so that probably adds to the confusion.
The core concept is that ownership of a thing belongs to the people of the thing. This is where it clashes with feudalism and capitalism, where ownership of e.g. a farm is not held by the farm workers.
The organizational unit is “group of people cooperating”, or a “commune”. This can be small, like a hippie farm, or it can be big - a traditional state.
A democratic state can be communist if it forbids private ownership of common resources. I.e. your house is your house and your car is your car but some rich fuck can’t decide to build a fence around the local hiking trail.
An authoritarian state may technically be communist if it is strongly democratic. That is theoretical. The ones currently claiming communism are dictatorships.
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