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Left Party leader sparks communism controversy

My contention that Communism neccessitates a dictator and repression has been proved by history. You can call for absolute equality and no big bad bossman to focus all your hate on, but who runs the bossless society? Lenin knew who the boyo was and set the template for Communism in practice.

I read Alexa's essay and agree that the USSR was exploitative and ridden by its own perverse homemade class system. But Marx was a crank who believed that other classes were there to be fought and crushed, so no wonder the quakery was magnified and his scapegoat mentality taken to its logical extreme.


Russian communism ceased to exist as soon as Stalin came to power.

Lenin and others were killing and hating long before then. Not that there were no grievances, but communists were failures because they appealed to the worst in peoples' base instinct to go and hang someone they didn't like.

You can say anything about a doctrine when it's still on paper. But when you run it through its paces you then judge by what you get.

It's easy to say 'Oooo, that was never proper Communism', be the number of Communist governments one or two-hundred. But on that basis, would YOU take the risk that a new Communist government allowed somewhere would buck all trends and suddenly be all nice and fluffy?!

Me neither.
 
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However, I would suppose you disagree with GE selling jet engine technology to China?

No, not at all. We do a great deal of trade with China and they are not yet on any enemies list.
 
RoP I think this article accurately refutes your assumptions. What happened with the USSR is quite accurately described as State Capitalism, not at all what Marx proposed. Try and read it.

Was the USSR Communist? | A Division by Zer0

What absolute and utter garbage that website is.

Tell me the truth, Alexa. Do you actually believe what is on that page???
 
No, not at all. We do a great deal of trade with China and they are not yet on any enemies list.

Then you are one of the first I have met. Even many hardcore conservatives on this site, who rail against government intervention into business, have been calling for the government to stop GE from transferring this technology.
 
Thank you for the explaination I really was curious about the circumstances. I don't think we have as much disagreement as you think. My whole argument is that if it happened without the totalitarian state and consequences you mentioned then the system in its self wouldn't be very different from any system. I know how things have turned out, it's a system that's far too easy to abuse. All I mean is that people advocating for communism do have good intentions, no one wants it to become what it has (which seems to be an eventuality judging by the past).

People advocating Communism have good intentions?? Whatever made you think that?

Where is the evidence?

The same 'good intentions' theory could be said for Nazism, Fascism, Islamism, Racism, or and of the other murderous isms that have plagued the world during the past century. The idea that Communist supporters had good intentions is horribly naive, which is why these supporters were referred to as "useful idiots".

They were also dangerous idiots as well.
 
People advocating Communism have good intentions?? Whatever made you think that?

Where is the evidence?

The same 'good intentions' theory could be said for Nazism, Fascism, Islamism, Racism, or and of the other murderous isms that have plagued the world during the past century. The idea that Communist supporters had good intentions is horribly naive, which is why these supporters were referred to as "useful idiots".

They were also dangerous idiots as well.

Do you believe that there has never been atrocities committed by capitalists for the sake of the all mighty dollar?
 
My grandmother lived on a farm which was over-run by the Communists in 1939 and was later absorbed into the Ukraine under Stalin's ethnic cleansing policies. The village is now just rolling hills and forest. She had to undergo constant Stalinist-Leninist brainwashing and saw people gradually disappear, taken away by the NKVD if they weren't seen to fully convert. These were the same people who shot countless Poles, including the Polish officers at Katyn.

Then the Germans came and the scattering of her family was complete. Ironically, she ended up on a farm in Austria and actually worried a little less than she did under the 'failed economists' of the Communists. Amongst her fellow refugee friends here was a woman who had to endure a Siberian march.




Happened with Nazism too.




They've had all the chances in the world to prove it. It turned out the only way it could.





Suppose you had the totalitarian state and mass murder plus the economic success? To a great extent the model for that is Nazi Germany.

I've lived for some time in Central America, RofP and know many Nicaraguans who have suffered experiences to those you describe. I've also read the Black Book of Communism and have shown the passage on Nicaragua to Nicaraguans and they have confirmed its accuracy.

These people who think Communism is just another way of life just don't know, they have no idea, and that's a damned shame. It strongly suggests that people can condone any sort of madness if they just believe, and making them believe appears to be frighteningly easy. Only those who have survived it know better.
 
Do you believe that there has never been atrocities committed by capitalists for the sake of the all mighty dollar?

Excuse me? You want me to defend atrocities of some sort?

Do you ask this question because you feel the Cold War was a battle between Communism and Capitalism?
 
Excuse me? You want me to defend atrocities of some sort?

Do you ask this question because you feel the Cold War was a battle between Communism and Capitalism?

Not at all, I ask the question because you asserted that none have ever held good intentions in pushing a Communist or Socialist form of government. I just wondered if you felt that capitalism was a virtuous and honest method.
 
It strongly suggests that people can condone any sort of madness if they just believe, and making them believe appears to be frighteningly easy. Only those who have survived it know better.

And by the way, I could never had said this better myself!
 
Not at all, I ask the question because you asserted that none have ever held good intentions in pushing a Communist or Socialist form of government. I just wondered if you felt that capitalism was a virtuous and honest method.

I'd firstly have to know what your definition of capitalism might be.

It might be a business arrangement completed to the mutual satisfaction of both interested parties or it could be the "dog eat dog" system as defined by many on the Left.

I tend to not trust governments and would defend individual freedoms, and that would include economic freedom.
 
Not at all, I ask the question because you asserted that none have ever held good intentions in pushing a Communist or Socialist form of government. I just wondered if you felt that capitalism was a virtuous and honest method.

In that case, yes, I do believe that capitalism is the most fair and just economic method, if it is democratic capitalism and follows the law of the land.
 
I'd firstly have to know what your definition of capitalism might be.

It might be a business arrangement completed to the mutual satisfaction of both interested parties or it could be the "dog eat dog" system as defined by many on the Left.

I tend to not trust governments and would defend individual freedoms, and that would include economic freedom.

My definition of Capitalism is exactly that of Adam Smith, who supposed that because human nature is to be greedy, in business it would be best if all acted only in their best interest so that competition between all acting in their best interest will benefit the system as a whole.
 
My definition of Capitalism is exactly that of Adam Smith, who supposed that because human nature is to be greedy, in business it would be best if all acted only in their best interest so that competition between all acting in their best interest will benefit the system as a whole.

And who am I to disagree with Adam Smith?

By the way, PJ O'Rourke wrote a rather easier version to muddle through than the original.

P.J. O'Rourke Takes On 'The Wealth of Nations' : NPR
 
My contention that Communism neccessitates a dictator and repression has been proved by history. You can call for absolute equality and no big bad bossman to focus all your hate on, but who runs the bossless society? Lenin knew who the boyo was and set the template for Communism in practice.

I read Alexa's essay and agree that the USSR was exploitative and ridden by its own perverse homemade class system. But Marx was a crank who believed that other classes were there to be fought and crushed, so no wonder the quakery was magnified and his scapegoat mentality taken to its logical extreme.




Lenin and others were killing and hating long before then. Not that there were no grievances, but communists were failures because they appealed to the worst in peoples' base instinct to go and hang someone they didn't like.


You can say anything about a doctrine when it's still on paper. But when you run it through its paces you then judge by what you get.

It's easy to say 'Oooo, that was never proper Communism', be the number of Communist governments one or two-hundred. But on that basis, would YOU take the risk that a new Communist government allowed somewhere would buck all trends and suddenly be all nice and fluffy?!

Me neither.

I would agree with you that communism went wrong with Lenin. My knowledge of Karl Marx's communism comes from reading his humanistic writings which have as much to do with totalitarianism as the Dali Lama's teachings have to do with extremism and my memory of Lectures when I was a student. I remember that Marx believed in some form of Direct Democracy. Lenin on the other hand believed in one election only and I don't think that included all the people.

The difference is whether you take communism from reading and studying Marx or whether you take it from people who claim to be communists. That is why people are correct when they say there has never been any communism. Not communism as envisaged by Marx.

Around the time of Thatcherism when full employment was beginning to be seen as no longer a possibility other people were reinventing Marxism to fit that time. I liked Andre Gorz. He like Marx was utopian. We are not yet spiritually capable of acting in this way - a way which never can be forced but that does not mean that we never will.

I also accept that my readings of Marx are limited to his humanistic writings and lectures.
 
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People advocating Communism have good intentions?? Whatever made you think that?

Where is the evidence?

The same 'good intentions' theory could be said for Nazism, Fascism, Islamism, Racism, or and of the other murderous isms that have plagued the world during the past century. The idea that Communist supporters had good intentions is horribly naive, which is why these supporters were referred to as "useful idiots".

They were also dangerous idiots as well.

You really don't know what you're talking about. Islamism? I'm not sure that's a word, blindly pretending capitalism is totally beneficial is dangerous and idiotic as well. Name any war and I promise it was either because of religion or money, both of which only exist in our minds. It's not the systems fault it's people's greed and ignorance, which in your case seems to be willful.

Saying anyone who advocates communism wants things to end up the way they do would be like me saying that you want people to work for slave wages or that you want the diamond trade to be a source of instability.
 
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That last outburst is all over the place. Islamism does indeed exist and it's the political side of Islam. Google it.

Capitalism of course isn't the perfect system but the benefits outweigh any disadvantages and it's by no means a political system like Communism. Saying Communism's just about economics is to ignore the operational side required to force it against human nature and the inequality of life.

What's more, people who advocate Communism are either control freaks or deluded freaks, who think they can pick up a brutal and completely unwieldly concept, then apply it without its mandatory tools of oppression in wilful ignorance of its entire practical history.




And as for wars, World War 1 began because the Kaiser backed Austria-Hungary in its attack on Serbia, using the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as a pretext. Due to various treaties, the main nations of Europe were dragged in one by one.

World War Two began because Hitler was over-running Europe and we needed to stop him. (Claims that we did it to halt fascism and shut the Nazi camps aren't wholly true as those were below the priority of keeping ourselves safe. Before then we were happier to let Hitler go about his business.)

Korea began because Kim Il Sung got permission from Stalin to invade South Korea and Vietnam was supposed to be a holding action on the Americans' part to curb Communist aggression.

Which ones are about the money..?
 
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You really don't know what you're talking about. Islamism? I'm not sure that's a word, blindly pretending capitalism is totally beneficial is dangerous and idiotic as well. Name any war and I promise it was either because of religion or money, both of which only exist in our minds. It's not the systems fault it's people's greed and ignorance, which in your case seems to be willful.

Saying anyone who advocates communism wants things to end up the way they do would be like me saying that you want people to work for slave wages or that you want the diamond trade to be a source of instability.

Again we have to define what capitalism is. If you feel that love of money, or capitalism, is the root of all evil then others have made this point well before you submitted this posting. I'm not 'blindly pretending' capitalism is beneficial, I'm only pointing out what many others have said before me. It is highly beneficial, and f you can point to a more successful and demonstrated system then lets hear it.

We can find many dangers in this world and abuses from many areas. Love occasionally proves unsatisfactory, or the consequences of too much wine, getting in an airplane, ordering a meal in a strange restaurant. There are risks in this world, and no matter how much we might want to be protected from the realities of these risks they are still going to be there. So it is with money. And despite human failings, capitalism has also allowed us greater freedoms than our human predecessors have ever known. All you need to do is look around you, or investigate comparative life spans between generations.

Communism always ends up the ways it has ended up. Always. There are no exceptions.

Wars have been fought for any number of reasons, including a soccer match, and if you know as little about islamism as you do about economics then you'd best start educating yourself in that area also.
 
That last outburst is all over the place. Islamism does indeed exist and it's the political side of Islam. Google it.

Capitalism of course isn't the perfect system but the benefits outweigh any disadvantages and it's by no means a political system like Communism. Saying Communism's just about economics is to ignore the operational side required to force it against human nature and the inequality of life.

What's more, people who advocate Communism are either control freaks or deluded freaks, who think they can pick up a brutal and completely unwieldly concept, then apply it without its mandatory tools of oppression in wilful ignorance of its entire practical history.




And as for wars, World War 1 began because the Kaiser backed Austria-Hungary in its attack on Serbia, using the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as a pretext. Due to various treaties, the main nations of Europe were dragged in one by one.

World War Two began because Hitler was over-running Europe and we needed to stop him. (Claims that we did it to halt fascism and shut the Nazi camps aren't wholly true as those were below the priority of keeping ourselves safe. Before then we were happier to let Hitler go about his business.)

Korea began because Kim Il Sung got permission from Stalin to invade South Korea and Vietnam was supposed to be a holding action on the Americans' part to curb Communist aggression.

Which ones are about the money..?

Hitler was initially popular because of the economic state of Germany if you look far enough it tends to come down to economics (why else would you want to invade a country) I'm not going into every single piece of that. I was joking about the use of the word islamism (unusual to say). I'll respond to grant here as well for the last time, I did not say that communism has ever worked, nor have I advocated it at any point here. All I said about capitalism was that it too has problems (and since there exists no purely capitalist system you can't give it all the credit where it exists, which is most places in some way or another). I know you claim you're not saying I'm advocating communism but you really seem to think I am. I already said that we don't have much disagreement on distaste for how it's turned out, arguing just to argue is pointless.

As far as it being all over the place, not really I was responding to what Grant said. Moving on to that.

if you know as little about islamism as you do about economics then you'd best start educating yourself in that area also.

I know plenty about economics, it's you who isn't mentioning that part of communism and ironically capitalism. That said personal attacks are a sure sign that this isn't a debate but an attempt to lash out at anyone who doesn't share your views.

p.s. When I say people have good intentions, I mean it in the way that anyone has good intentions. I know that neither Republicans nor Dems want to "destroy America" just like no one who wants communism wants things to work out for the worst (though it does).
 
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Hitler invaded 'his' countries because he was an imperialist. Even other Nazis doubted him there, including Goring.

Also, the Germans didn't chase him because they lusted for money. They saw a collapse of two systems there were ordered to put faith in - Capitalism and Democracy.

And Hitler's popularity also came about because he was the 'strong man' promised, that he preached diatribes attacking big business (though kept their patronage) and because he was seen as a bulwark against the communists.
 
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Hitler invaded 'his' countries because he was an imperialist. Even other Nazis doubted him there, including Goring.

And Hitler's popularity also came about because he was the 'strong man' promised, that he preached diatribes attacking big business (though kept their patronage) and because he was seen as a bulwark against the communists.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that claiming economic factors were a non-issue would be incorrect. Before we even get back into it though, I don't want another Stalin anymore than you do (I don't think I can be more clear than that).
 
I'm saying that claiming economic factors were a non-issue would be incorrect.

I'm not saying economic factors were irrelevant. Indeed, economic policy and ideas led to catastrophic engineered famine in the Ukraine alone. Twice, with the second time AFTER Stalin.

(Also check the belated middle paragraph in my last statement in regards Germany.)
 
So no evidence then.

I'm sure there are charges of "homophobic attacks by far right groups" but they are always made by Leftists and are thus not taken seriously.

As much as you want to escalate this into some sort of exchange of personal attacks my position is clear and your response speaks for itself.
 
Hitler invaded 'his' countries because he was an imperialist. Even other Nazis doubted him there, including Goring.

Also, the Germans didn't chase him because they lusted for money. They saw a collapse of two systems there were ordered to put faith in - Capitalism and Democracy.

And Hitler's popularity also came about because he was the 'strong man' promised, that he preached diatribes attacking big business (though kept their patronage) and because he was seen as a bulwark against the communists.

...and Imperialism is about power and money.
 
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