Commie Q&A

[treebark]

If you are a "Marxist-Leninist", what are your thoughts on Joseph Stalin and his contributions to the theory, and his claims that he was carrying on "Marxism-Leninism"?
Also what are your thoughts on Trotskyism?

well whoever was the leader of the ussr in the 20s and 30s would have had huge problems facing them. i certainly think stalin made mistakes, but i think its important in criticizing any revolutionary leader to not criticize from a liberal perspective and instead criticize from a communist perspective. do you know what i mean? as far as theory stalin's most well-known thing was the theory of national oppression, which made sense since he was georgian and from one of russia's oppressed nationalities. other than that he wasn't a big theorist really, although he wrote a couple of books on economy.

trotsky was a little pessimistic in my opinion, but not a bad guy. i do have differences of opinion with a lot of modern groups that call themselves trotskyist however. there's a certain sort of communist you encounter who says some variant of "if trotsky had been in charge everything would have been different and better, and since he wasn't everything wasn't really socialism" when they're asked about historical problems with the ussr. this to me seems irresponsible, like a 'no-true-scotsman' sort of argument. it also leads to absurdities like them celebrating the destruction of the ussr (which, incidentally led to a sharp drop in life expectancy and a massive increase in avoidable deaths) as allowing for "real socialism" to finally bloom - which it did nothing of the sort.

 

[TheDemSocialist]

well whoever was the leader of the ussr in the 20s and 30s would have had huge problems facing them. i certainly think stalin made mistakes, but i think its important in criticizing any revolutionary leader to not criticize from a liberal perspective and instead criticize from a communist perspective. do you know what i mean? as far as theory stalin's most well-known thing was the theory of national oppression, which made sense since he was georgian and from one of russia's oppressed nationalities. other than that he wasn't a big theorist really, although he wrote a couple of books on economy.

I agree that he had huge problems facing him but why would he end the NEP so quickly when the economy was still rebuilding? Do you think one of his mistakes was making the working class essentially slaves of the state when massive industrialization took place?
Also do you agree with his paranoia and pretty much executing all the Old Bolsheviks and was essentially not necessary?

trotsky was a little pessimistic in my opinion, but not a bad guy. i do have differences of opinion with a lot of modern groups that call themselves trotskyist however. there's a certain sort of communist you encounter who says some variant of "if trotsky had been in charge everything would have been different and better, and since he wasn't everything wasn't really socialism" when they're asked about historical problems with the ussr. this to me seems irresponsible, like a 'no-true-scotsman' sort of argument. it also leads to absurdities like them celebrating the destruction of the ussr (which, incidentally led to a sharp drop in life expectancy and a massive increase in avoidable deaths) as allowing for "real socialism" to finally bloom - which it did nothing of the sort.

I agree but i agree with Trtosky's view that revolutionary socialism cannot essentially only build in one country.

 

[treebark]

Historically, Communism has not been successful because there is a lack of motivation to do a better job. While there are some who are truly altruistic, this is a minority and those very same altruistic people tend to have had successful capitalistic achievements and are later driven toward sharing with others. Bill Gates might be a good example. But generous as he is, he lives in a mansion.

So my question is how do you make the system work, without forming a rigid dictatorship? Are humans even capable of this kind of enforced "equality"? Will someone go to Medical School if they think they will get the same rewards as a Janitor? That is what seems to be the reason Communism has not worked in the past. Now, technology has indeed changed the world, but is that a solution to anything?

Because you are new, I wish to tell you I don't booby-trap my questions. I am interested in learning, not "winning".

sorry, just saw this!

this is another of the things that often come up when talking about socialism and communism. the socialist states that exist and have existed experienced many difficulties, but a suddenly lazy populace was not an endemic one. if you want to read a more in-depth look at how their economies function/functioned, this is a pretty good article: Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? | what's left

one misconception you might have is that everyone in the socialist states was paid the exact same thing. this is not and was not the case. while income inequality was far smaller than in capitalist countries (especially now that disparities are reaching 19th century levels again) there was about a 10-fold difference in the income of a factory laborer and a doctor or high-ranking government minister. noticeable, but hardly the obscene difference between worker and ceo that we see today.

in addition to that form of motivation, human drive for acclaim and peer-acceptance has also been a part of socialist labor forces. during the industrialization of the ussr for instance, work teams often competed against each other for awards and recognition.

a related thing, that you mention actually, is the idea that to get people to work you need police arresting people who don't. while this has been a historical strategy of capitalism, especially in its earlier stages - the laws against "vagrancy" in 17th and 18th century europe attest to that - this has not been a big method of social change or control in the existing socialist states. in fact, in the ussr the amount of police, intelligence agency forces, and emergency workers combined was actually a smaller proportion of the population than that of police alone in the usa.

 

[LadyMoonlight]

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.

Only aboriginal societies were stateless (although territorial) and classless. One cannot say that of ancient Mediterranean societies, or Egypt, or China, or India or other societies.

In any society there will always be some who are more successful than others due to their intelligence, their ambition, their perseverence in any given field. There will always be those who are not successful due to the lack of all of the mentioned qualities, and there will always be those who are not successful due to factors beyond their control (for example, a disability). I do not believe a society where everyone is truly equal is possible. Some will always rise above the rest of society and I don't believe they should be penalised for doing so, as long as it is through their own drive and not their parent's money.

Everyone should have equal opportunities in life, but not everyone is equal. I believe in merit; if you earn it, you deserve it and if you don't earn it then you have to settle for whatever is left.

In Australia, Liberal is Conservative and Labor is Left (American Liberal)

WISE WORDS FROM FATHER TO DAUGHTER

A young woman was about to finish her first year of university. Like
so many others her age, she considered herself to be Labor Party
minded, and she was very much in favour of higher taxes to support
her education and for more government programs in other words,
the redistribution of wealth. (Much like a Carbon Tax?)

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch
blue-ribbon Liberal, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on
the lectures that she had attended and the occasional chat with a
professor, she felt that her father had for years harboured a selfish
desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher
taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.
The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors must be
the truth, and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking
how she was doing at university.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 90% average,
and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was
taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which
left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't
even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many university
friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, How is your best friend Audrey doing? She
replied, Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she
never studies and she barely has a 50% average. She is so popular on
campus; university for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties,
and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.
Her wise father asked his daughter, Why don't you go to the Dean's office
and ask him to deduct 20% off your average and give it to your friend who
only has 50%. That way you will both have a 70% average, it would be fair
and you would both be equal.

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back,
That's a crazy idea; how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my
grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done
next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, Welcome to the
Liberal side of the fence.

 

[treebark]

I agree that he had huge problems facing him but why would he end the NEP so quickly when the economy was still rebuilding? Do you think one of his mistakes was making the working class essentially slaves of the state when massive industrialization took place?
Also do you agree with his paranoia and pretty much executing all the Old Bolsheviks and was essentially not necessary?

I agree but i agree with Trtosky's view that revolutionary socialism cannot essentially only build in one country.

well i think the first step in looking at stalin is to recognize that so much of what is taken for granted about him and his "era" so to speak in the ussr is fabrication, often times literal nazi propaganda created during the 1930s. in the 50s as the usa hardened its stance against the ussr many eastern european nazi collaborators were welcomed to the usa and given money and means to recreate the same nazi propaganda with a slightly different spin. so always take with a grain of salt things pretty much anything you read about this era.

now that said, your question! the decision to end the NEP was taken because it was allowing capitalism to re-emerge in the countryside. in many areas of the countryside in fact the situation was akin to a low-level civil war, with wealthy NEPmen assassinating party officials and openly plotting against the ussr. so it was necessary to rein in this policy to get a lid on those forces as well as to begin really constructing a planned socialist industrial economy.

as far as the industrialization of the ussr, i would use at all a phrase like "slaves of the state" and i don't think you'll find any serious russia scholar who would. with the opening of the soviet archives in the 1990s western academics gained access to lots of new information about that period, and even liberal, bourgeois, anti-communist researchers have put out a great deal of work that contradicts totally the existing narrative of that period (which again was often lifted directly from nazi propaganda). writers like j. arch getty and stephen kotkin (whose book "magnetic mountain: stalinism as civilization" gives an account of the construction of magnitogorsk and its huge iron and steelworks) are not communists and indeed are very critical of the non-liberal aspects of the ussr, but as serious academics they don't draw conclusions from data that isn't there. i hate to just say "hey read these books" but even just abstracts of them might be helpful.

the whole thing about "socialism in one country" was that it was adopted as a response to the fact that by 1922, all the hoped for revolutionary upheavals in west europe had essentially failed, drowned in blood in germany and hungary (with the collusion of social democrats, incidentally). so the idea that trotsky was advancing was in essence "well we might as well just give up trying to build socialism" which is why his line was never actually that popular within the ussr. obviously it would be preferable to not have to go it alone, but that was the situation at the time.

 

[treebark]

big ol' long quote

hey! so what i'm referring to when i write "for most of human existence a stateless, classless society was the norm" i am referring to the hundreds of thousands of years prior to settled living, not ancient greece or anything like that.

as far as the whole grade trade story, that's certainly one you run into a lot. however it has no bearing at all on wealth inequality for a couple reasons. firstly, in academic settings effort (roughly) corresponds to grades received, but its entirely possible to make huge quantities of money for doing nothing productive (and of course its also possible to inherit as well). secondly, while it's entirely possible to have more money than you could humanly spend, the same situation does not apply to grades. if the analogy were to be accurate at all, one student would have to have billions and billions of points of 'extra credit' while the majority of the others had much lower grades.

 

[Babba]

are you looking for any specific figures re: cuba?

also, on the subject of social-democratic economies in europe: firstly, they're all in some sort of low-grade crisis or another, or liable to stumble into one sooner or later. that's "austerity" in a nutshell basically. secondly, to the extent that they have been historically developed and healthy economies, the context must be included that they are nearly all former colonial powers (with the exception of a couple of scandinavian countries which were and are very tied in to the imperialist world economy). the wealth of europe was aided greatly by the plunder of africa, asia, and latin america. again, another thing that, for me, is a negative about social democratic politics is that it fails to account for that.

Yes. I am looking for specific figures for Cuba.

 

[treebark]

Yes. I am looking for specific figures for Cuba.

hahah, no, i meant which figures do you mean. like what sorts of statistics are you looking for?

 

[APACHERAT]

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!

I was trained by the U.S. Marine Corps to kill commies. I was good at it. :2usflag:

But I digress.

So my question is, are you a Red Diaper Baby ?

My follow up questions are, do commies still advocate the violent overthrow of the United States ?

And how do you feel about that communist have murdered 100 MILLION people over the decades, not counting soldiers or innocent civilians who were caught in the crossfire during many of the communist wars of liberation ?

 

[Babba]

hahah, no, i meant which figures do you mean. like what sorts of statistics are you looking for?

Economic/social mobility.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

I was trained by the U.S. Marine Corps to kill commies. I was good at it. :2usflag:

But I digress.

So my question is, are you a Red Diaper Baby ?

My follow up questions are, do commies still advocate the violent overthrow of the United States ?

And how do you feel about that communist have murdered 100 MILLION people over the decades, not counting soldiers or innocent civilians who were caught in the crossfire during many of the communist wars of liberation ?

Take my word for it; you don't make patriotism look very good this way. And you don't make your foes look very bad this way, either.

 

[LadyMoonlight]

May I ask why you, as a communist, have not moved to a communist country so that you can live in a system you advocate?

 

[APACHERAT]

Take my word for it; you don't make patriotism look very good this way. And you don't make your foes look very bad this way, either.

You're a liberal, what in #### would you know about nationalism ?

This also don't make my foes look good either.



From this -> https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM

 

[treebark]

Economic/social mobility.

i got that, but in terms of.. what? could you be more specific?

 

[treebark]

May I ask why you, as a communist, have not moved to a communist country so that you can live in a system you advocate?

it's the responsibility of a communist to work for change everywhere! besides, as i'm sure you've noticed, the capitalist world tends to violently overthrow existing revolutionary states, so living in one wouldn't be necessarily permanent until that danger was gone or much subsided.

 

[instagramsci]

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!

What do you think is the best way to quell counterrevolutionaries and subversive elements?

 

[Koros]

There is no such thing as an equal playing field

I busted my butt to make top grades. Being better educated than most people means you have an advantage.

I think you want more equality of outcome

Precisely. I busted my butt to earn a bachelor's, two master's, and a Ph.D (in progress). I have paid every last dime of all of my education myself or through grants and loans. My parents, neither of whom went to college, have not financially supported me at all in this endeavor. I did this just so I could have an advantage.

But, even if my parents DID pay for my education, so what? Isn't that the point of why parents bust their butts, so they can provide a better life and an advantage for their children?

 

[TheDemSocialist]

You're a liberal, what in #### would you know about nationalism ?

Please.... :roll:

This also don't make my foes look good either.

View attachment 67161881

From this -> https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM

This doesnt make us (USA) look very good either....
Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List – William Blum
Covert United States foreign regime change actions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
United States bombings of other countries – William Blum
United States war crimes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The US Has Bombed at Least Eight Wedding Parties Since 2001 | The Nation
Nicaragua v. United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So lets stop swinging our dicks around acting like your some badass and were exceptional and try to have a serious discussion.

 

[Dezaad]

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.

This is untrue. For example, it can aid in bringing about the efficient use of human resources by helping to equalize opportunity. Equalization of opportunity helps to ensure that the most talented people for occupations actually end up doing those occupations. Otherwise, talented poor people will more often stay poor, and their talents will go underutilized. This is an impediment to optimal production.

Another example is that when the gap between the wealthy and the rest becomes too great, the money at the very top is wasted, from the perspective of an efficient use of wealth in the economy. Redistributive policies mitigates that inefficiency, also helping to achieve optimum production.

Pure capitalism is inherently wasteful. Judiciously mixing socialism into it helps capitalism achieve greater efficiency, and thereby deliver greater, more sustainable prosperity.

 

[LadyMoonlight]

it's the responsibility of a communist to work for change everywhere! besides, as i'm sure you've noticed, the capitalist world tends to violently overthrow existing revolutionary states, so living in one wouldn't be necessarily permanent until that danger was gone or much subsided.

In other words, lol, you don't want to live anywhere else but America. Yep, got it!

 

[TurtleDude]

Precisely. I busted my butt to earn a bachelor's, two master's, and a Ph.D (in progress). I have paid every last dime of all of my education myself or through grants and loans. My parents, neither of whom went to college, have not financially supported me at all in this endeavor. I did this just so I could have an advantage.

But, even if my parents DID pay for my education, so what? Isn't that the point of why parents bust their butts, so they can provide a better life and an advantage for their children?

excellent post. I have bought insurance set up trusts, etc for my son. A strong family structure is a bulwark against the statist communal garbage the socialists and collectivists want to foist upon us. So it makes sense that socialist-progressive policies-be it death taxes or worse-are designed to destroy the family

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

Scandinavians are generally regarded as one of the most successful countries in the world-happiness, standard of living, education, etc...
Apparently that's not your model of success :shrug:

It's a wonder people aren't flocking there in droves then. After all, if you are looking to start a new life why not go to the most successful and happy places on earth!

 

[APACHERAT]

Please.... :roll:



This doesnt make us (USA) look very good either....
Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List – William Blum
Covert United States foreign regime change actions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
United States bombings of other countries – William Blum
United States war crimes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The US Has Bombed at Least Eight Wedding Parties Since 2001 | The Nation
Nicaragua v. United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So lets stop swinging our dicks around acting like your some badass and were exceptional and try to have a serious discussion.

Geewilikers TheDemSocialist, sure a lot of :laughat: Wikipedia links there.

As we always said over in Vietnam while shooting Charley, "There's always someone who didn't get the word."

>"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."<

Source -> Reliability of Wikipedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Koros]

excellent post. I have bought insurance set up trusts, etc for my son. A strong family structure is a bulwark against the statist communal garbage the socialists and collectivists want to foist upon us. So it makes sense that socialist-progressive policies-be it death taxes or worse-are designed to destroy the family

That has been one of my biggest complaints about a lot of left-wing tax polices. They seem to be designed to punish the successful, ensuring that the children of the successful cannot gain an advantage. I hear, frequently, "your daddy paid for it, you didn't earn it" leveled at some rich person or another. To that, all I can say is "so f***ing what?" That is one of the biggest goals of a lot of people: to provide a better life for their children. Death taxes/Estate taxes do nothing but punish the children for the success of the father (or mother).

 

[TurtleDude]

That has been one of my biggest complaints about a lot of left-wing tax polices. They seem to be designed to punish the successful, ensuring that the children of the successful cannot gain an advantage. I hear, frequently, "your daddy paid for it, you didn't earn it" leveled at some rich person or another. To that, all I can say is "so f***ing what?" That is one of the biggest goals of a lot of people: to provide a better life for their children. Death taxes/Estate taxes do nothing but punish the children for the success of the father (or mother).

One of my favorite BS rants from the parasites is claiming that the heirs have no rightful claim on their parents' estates. TRUE-but what the parasites ignore is that it is the wishes of the owner of the wealth that the parasites crap all over. They also seem to ignore that they have even less claim than an heir who may well have taken care of a sick parent or help;d the parent run the business that made all the wealth.
Death taxes are an abomination and need to be eliminated.