• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Commie Q&A

T

treebark

New member
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
26
Reaction score
7
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Communist
hi everyone! i just joined the site and i figured a fun inaugural thread would be a sort of political "ask me anything" question and answer thread.

like my profile indicates, i'm a communist - specifically a marxist-leninist. i'd be happy to answer questions about communism/socialism and to give a communist perspective on political figures, events, etc. i'll answer any question sincerely asked!
 
Welcome to the sight! shall we split this weeks potato lol

But on a serious note welcome! it's fantastic to see someone with the same point of view as me, I was raised in vietnam and have always held the communist ideas in heart maybe as some point we could chit chat about it
 

Did Lenin eat lentils?
 

sure, i'd be happy to. do you have any questions right now?
 
What attracts you to communism?
 
treebark said:
sure, i'd be happy to. do you have any questions right now?
Click to expand...

well I mean... I'm also a communist so I suppose where are you from? did you ever actually read his work? and what babba says what attracts you to communism
 

:2wave:
Hi Commi! Always good to get a different perspective on the site. Have fun here and I will buzz you, when something communist pops up.
 

You two should form a commune!
 
what attracts me? well i suppose there are a couple angles that i arrived at communism from.

obviously in the world at present there are a lot of problems - poverty, wars, racism, sexism, and a whole host of other things. i feel that in the short term socialism can help with these problems, and in the long term communism can solve them entirely with the abolition of class society and the exploitation that it causes. does that answer your question? i can go on if you want.


quick note on terms - when i use the words socialism and communism, i'm not using them in a vague way. socialism is, in marxist terms, the socio-economic stage after capitalism during which the working class is in charge of the state and uses it to prepare the way for the stateless, classless stage that we call communism. for most of human existence a stateless, classless society was the norm - the project of communists in the present is to return to this state of being but without the scarcity and misery of pre-industrial human society.
 

How many communist or socialist works have you actually read?
 
Chocolate said:
well I mean... I'm also a communist so I suppose where are you from? did you ever actually read his work? and what babba says what attracts you to communism
Click to expand...

i'm from the US. as far as reading his work, i'm not sure who you mean - but if you mean marx, engels, lenin, those guys, yeah, definitely. although you certainly don't have to be a master of theory with total knowledge of every last book on the subject to be a communist.
 
Proud South Korean said:
How many communist or socialist works have you actually read?
Click to expand...

oh, gosh i don't know if i could give you a specific number. the big ones - marx's "capital", engel's "origin of private property, family, and the state", lenin's "imperialism" "state and revolution" etc etc. the work of the black panthers and associated thinkers are also pretty good. anyway, lots of them. i have a pretty good library nearby so its easy to get my hands on even the rarer volumes.
 

So you're a solid Marxist-Leninist?
 

While I agree that pure, unregulated capitalism results in way too much poverty and social injustice, I lean toward a mixed economy of regulated capitalism with socialist elements to ward of the worst effects of capitalism. Because of the size of human populations today I cannot envision stateless societies. I don't see the elimination of classes, either. But as I stated above, I believe we can mitigate the worst of the effects of classes.
 
Proud South Korean said:
So you're a solid Marxist-Leninist?
Click to expand...

yeah, that's about the shape of it. that doesn't mean that those two guys have all the answers - obviously the world changed between when marx was alive and when lenin was, and different now than in lenin's time, but using their work as a framework is a point to start at.

the 20th century struggle against colonialism produced a number of great thinkers in africa, asia, and latin america as well, but it becomes a bit cumbersome to keep adding on more and more names to marxist-leninist (marxist-leninist-cabralist-sankaraist...... you get the idea)
 

So what attracts you to Communism? Why do you believe that it's so good?
 
Babba said:
While I agree that pure, unregulated capitalism results in way too much poverty and social injustice, I lean toward a mixed economy of regulated capitalism with socialist elements to ward of the worst effects of capitalism.
Click to expand...

Socialism has historically made things worse and mixing it with capitalism hasn't really worked either. A wise man once said that socialism can only ever feed, and I happen to find that conclusion to be right on the money. Think of how it works now in your system and you will discover that it basically works by feeding off of production. It never really produces a thing itself actually.
 
Last edited:

i often hear that sort of idea - talking about the mixed economy. at one time i thought something similar was the answer! if you're thinking of something like european "social democracy", i can explain why i later came to the conclusion that that was not a sustainable or realistic idea.

the biggest one is that right now (and for the last ~30 years - it varies from country to country) the social democratic parties - labour in england, "socialists" in france, social democrats in germany, etc etc - are all engaged in dismantling the social welfare structures that they themselves put into place in the post-ww2 years. that's because there's not really such a thing as a "mixed" economy - either capitalist property relations exist, or they don't. as groupings operating within capitalist politics, the social democratic organizations are just as sensitive to capitalist economic pressure as the other parties. during the great depression for instance, all the large social democratic organizations explicitly stated that they were (and acted as) the defenders of the existing capitalist system. in the US you can see something similar with the democratic party. from supporting new deal/great society-esque initiatives to dismantling them under the guise of reform.

then there's also the fact that as far as international relations go, the social democrats have always been essentially on the same page as the other capitalist parties. i mean, the origin of the first communist parties was that in world war 1 the social democratic organizations all - without exception - went back on their antiwar ideas and supported the war.

does that make sense? again, i'm happy to elaborate on any specific point or clarify something that's unclear.
 

What makes you think that all people want to be equal with each other?
 

right, see the thing is that when you look at the historical record of the socialist countries (by which i mean the ussr, prc, cuba, eastern europe, all those places - i'm not sure if that's what you mean by socialism but i'll assume for now you aren't talking about social-democracy) you actually find very large positive changes happening fairly quickly after a revolutionary government takes power. rates of illiteracy fall dramatically, life expediencies rise dramatically, unemployment is eliminated, numbers of doctors and teachers per capita fairly explode - and its important to keep in mind that all of the places that communist governments have existed were before their revolutions very poor, very underdeveloped countries. that makes the changes all the more astounding. its fairly instructive to compare, for instance, cuba and one of its latin american neighbors that hasn't seen a successful revolution, colombia for example. the differences in HDI speak for themselves. and behind the numbers are real people - cuba having a substantially lower rate of infant/mother mortality during births than colombia means that people live in socialist cuba who would die in colombia.

i guess the unrealized potential that socialist reorganization can unleash is another reason why i'm a communist. if it can change in a matter of years a poor ex-colony like cuba into a rival with the US and west europe in life expectancy, literacy, and every other HDI indicator, there must be something worth studying there.
 
Heebie Jeebie said:
What makes you think that all people want to be equal with each other?
Click to expand...

i'm not quite sure what you mean. was there a specific part of that post you're referring to?
 
Heebie Jeebie said:
Isn't that the basis of communism, that everyone is equal?
Click to expand...

well certainly everyone should be treated fairly. obviously some people will be more talented in this or that area of work or life, and some people will have disabilities that should be treated or accounted for. but that's not exactly the basis of communism really, that just sounds like treating people humanely. unless i'm not quite understanding what you mean?
 

How do you stop the socialist state envisioned in Marxism from falling to corruption and dictatorship?

And how do you resolve to make communism work when not everyone wants to be a communist?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…