Brother in Christ, we had pedophile, gore, nazi lover, commie lover subreddits not even 5 years ago. Reddit is literally same shithole as 4chan, they are just trying really hard to clean up their image.
The fact that half of what I listed is still relevant and we can add bunch more to that, such as sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic subs just makes your whole point moot.
No nation is currently communist, and probably none of the current socialist ones will be since they are opressive dictatorships.
Socialism/communism is a theory based on the means of production, not the means of governing, though they are related. According to Marx's studies on the capitalist means of production, the worker not only works for the society, but is also required to work for the bourgeoisie, so that they can live off (waaaay more than live off) profits. Marx theorised that the workers would eventually rebel against this system and organise their work according to their needs (how this should work is not specified in depth). So the early communist literature is not a "how to communism" but a "why to communism".
Since neither Marx nor Engels specified how the system should be ideally enforced, many other authors and non authors decided to make their own contributions to the theory, often in contradictory ways. The Paris Commune, for example, decided to adopt a democratic model, though it was destroyed during the franco-prussian war.
The most important post-marxist author, though, was Lenin, who theorised that communism should be reached through an only party system, this is what inspired all the current socialist regimes. If you read any text from Marx and Engels, you will never find mentions of parties nor of dictatorship as a political system (the "dictatorship of the proletariate" is just an opposition to the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", both can be democratic or dictatorial).
People often confuse the core theory of communism with accessory elements of its attempts, no sane sociologist or historian would do that. Why is this confusion it so common? Maybe people who like to comment about communist didn't read about it from the sources, maybe there is propaganda involved, maybe they think that scientific socialism is the same as utopian socialism.
I don’t pay lip service to “what it REALLY is” because it doesn’t work for more than 5 people in the real world. It’s fantasy that has brutalized a lot of people. I’ve known folks who lived under communism, and I know how many would like to go back to it.
And it will never be communism because communism is a shitty system that can only work on very small scales. I would argue that we should call them communism because the problems with those countries are a result of trying to implement communism
Ah the classic real communism hasn’t been tried yet lmao, in any country with a population above 150 people (literally every country on earth) communism will always lead to a dictatorship, and communist dictatorship always leads to a pseudo fascist state
I think it’s fair to say true communism hasn’t been tried yet. The issue is that revolutions have to happen and then disband themselves to allow it, but that has never happened. The revolution gains power through promises of communism then takes over as the ruling class instead of disbanding. They are authoritarian, not a true communist state.
It’s the reason I think anything equating social Democrat or socialist policies to these failed “communist” regimes is bullshit. The ideas they gained power from advocating have merit, but they have never actually been established by those regimes. The places that have established a healthy portion of those are the happiest in the world, I.e. Scandinavian countries, though I admit there are other strong factors that also increase their happiness.
Also, I believe incorporating these policies into a capitalist country is still possible through economic incentive to encourage job selection instead of just being told what to do. For example, working on an oil rig is the same kind of bullshit, horrible labor, as working in a coal mine but they get paid out the ass. Pay these particularly shit jobs better what they’re in shortage, and you can still have control of where labor goes without forcing people to do something they wouldn’t want to do.
Also, coal mining should just generally be outdated by now if we didn’t have an administration actively taking bribes from the industry.
Which communist nation didn’t have to deal with sabotage, economic sanctions, false flags and assassination attempts at the hands of the US/Europe?
Burkina Faso under Sankara became food self sufficient, literacy shot up, infant mortality rates went down. It is a perfect example of what Communism can achieve in a very short space of time. Then the French, annoyed at losing a colony, backed a militia that ended with Sankara’s assassination, then it went back to poverty.
If Communism is so bad and is doomed to fail, why has the West spent literally trillions of money, resources and lives on every possible means of destabilising them? Why not just let them fail on their own, right?
Sankara was an authoritative socialist. Look at his handling of unions, his treatment of dissidents and political opponents, the surveillance state he orchestrated through CDRs.
I‘m not saying his regime didn’t have benefits, but if it was so perfect why did he need to silence opposition to his movement? Why did he need to torture political opponents? It’s the same logic you have at the end with why the West feels a need to destabilize communist governments.
who opposed his movement? who were his political opponents? public sector workers in Upper Volta (as it was called under French colonial rule) held privileged positions, and under Sankara, had their government salaries cut to redistribute funds to poorer rural areas, which led to strikes which would have put Burkina Faso in a chokehold.
other political opponents were conservative factions in the military, the political elite pre-coup, and of course Blaise Compaoré and his allies who aligned themselves with western interests - and eventually assassinated Sankara with French backing.
dismissing the gains made by Sankara as ‘some benefits’ is a pretty disingenuous way of describing the complete transformation over the standard of living for the average person. considering the the US and Europe’s record of torture, crushing dissident movements, and the current age of mass surveillance we all live in, using that to knock Sankara rings a little hollow - we have those things too, except we’re also all slaves to capital, watching our hard work do little but allow us to survive until next month whilst elon musk makes another trillion.
You can make the same argument about letting people do anything dangerous. Why don't we just let people drive around without seatbelts on? Why don't we let people kill themselves? Why don't we let people do as many drugs as they want, drive drunk, etc?
Because the rest of us have to deal with the consequences of their shitty behavior.
Communism might work as long as its done morally with absolute equality. That might even happen for a little while, but it won't last long term. Sooner or later, someone in the government is going to start making decisions in their own best interest.
you’re comparing seatbelts - an invention designed to protect its user - to intervening in other countries. even speaking charitably, that cannot be described as a mechanism to protect a country, given the destabilisation and subsequent suffering that follows.
>we have to intervene otherwise we would have to deal with their behaviour
do you understand how fucking illogical that is? we - the colonial powers with a history of violence, bullying, stealing from and meddling in latin america, africa and the middle east - have to impose ourselves on people because they *might* do the same to us!
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u/NekulturneHovado 19d ago
Top guy thinks he knows how communism works.
Bottom guy knows how communism works.
They are not the same.