you know, i tell you what. i’m fed up with all this gringo self-righteousness when you talk about “oh communism was bad, oh people where killed, oh people had no food, oh people had no liberty, oh people could not buy ataris, oh our countries are so democratic”. your countries were democratic during the cold war in the first place because you had people to sort things out for you here in the global south. for each person complaining about how the food rations in eastern europe were not tasty enough, there were 10 dying of hunger or malnourishment here in the global south. for every person complaining they had to wait 5 years in a queue to buy a trabant or an oka, there were 10 who got no school in a range of 50 km. for every person complaining that their 8 hour shifts in state owned factories were overwhelming, there were 10 who were indentured workers. for every person complaining about how the stasi, kgb or the stb had bugged their apartment, there were 10 suffering the most horrific tortures inside black sites of the military of u.s. allies here in the “third world”. for every person complaining about dull standard apartment blocks in mikrorayons, there were 10 who lived in mud shacks and slums, and those are just who were lucky enough to have a roof over their heads. finally, for everyone complaining about chinese sweatshops, which are indeed a problem, there are 10 americans who work and yet cannot afford proper housing.
you wanna complain about how communism was bad? go ahead. you wanna complain how your parents lived under communism and could not drink coke? do so if you wish. but there are still millions of people down here who would give an arm and a leg to have a polish ration, an apartment in a russian gray building, or a yugoslav job. and while the chinese maoist red guard was bad, surely it won’t be an inch closer to the harassement people endured on a daily basis by our police forces.
again: you wanna complain? be my guest. but for me that’s an encyclopedic example of white privilege.
This, so much this. Having a job and a roof over your head is such a luxury in the ‘global south’, the true face of capitalism
Seeing some of the zingers in the comments here, now seems like a great time to plug my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Read up, comrades!
The struggle depicted perfectly lol
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to anyone who says “why don’t you compare communist eastern europe to democratic western europe?”. sure, first thing to notice is that eastern europe didn’t had companies exploiting underdeveloped nations for their cheap labour and raw materials, their oppression of labour organizations and the support of corrupt rulers. since brazil was mentioned (heh), let us remember that west german companies such as vw or mercedes-benz used to report on syndicalists and communists working and organizing on their plants to the brazilian military during the dictatorship, and sold equipment to the military and police. that siemens sold nuclear reactors to the dictatorship during the late 70s. that many former officials of the dictatorship got leadership jobs in these companies and in basf, hoescht, atlas-schindler, mwm. behind the “economic success” of the rich countries of the west there’s always some degree of exploitation of poorer countries.
I like this version better, thx.
Anytime anyone whines about “commies / tankies”, they’re entirely complicit with these mass killings.
Don’t know how your get one from the other. I can think that state socialist experiments were flawed, misguided, and ultimately destined for autocracy, and still think that targeting them with imperialist intervention is wrong.
Just because the US empire is evil doesn’t make everyone opposing them good. The world is not black and white.
The US Empire being incredibly evil and predatory towards anyone daring to exert domestic control over their economies and even their own allies does paint a better picture for AES states. It doesn’t make them automatically good, but it starts them off on the right foot.
Then you can analyze how AES states have brought immense democratizations of the economy, massive expansions in key quality of life metrics like education, literacy, life expectancy, Home Ownership, and more, while expanding worker rights and supporting the Global South against the Imperialist countries, it’s hard to see AES as “bad.”
There are genuine critiques of AES countries, but I wouldn’t call them “autocratic,” considering they are generally more democratic than western countries, and moreover the needs of the people are better met. For example, people in China believe the government represents their interests at rates surpassing 90%, and more Chinese workers believe they have democratic control than USian workers.
All of these considerations need to be taken into account, and the fact that these AES states have been treated with the harshest of violence from the US Empire means they are deserving of support for their own existence.
Who’s the one telling you that the USSR, Cuba, China, Venezuela or Vietnam are/were autocracies?
If you actually investigate countries that have substantive / economic democracy, which goes far beyond the liberal equality before the law, you’ll find them to be far more democratic than the countries accusing them of being autocracies.
When people ask me what communist country was successful I usually say all of them until cia decided to go there and spread freedom 🇺🇸🦅
Well… There was this thing called Soviet Union. They decided to try to speed up the transition to communism by using repression and violence. And ended up being a totalitarian state, a direct opposite of what a communist state is supposed to be like.
Of course you can argue that Soviet Union was not communist, it was just a state that had chosen to call itself communist for propaganda reasons… But still, Soviet Union is an example of a communist country that was unsuccessful as a communist project already by itself. Then came outsiders and helped make it even worse, but bad doesn’t become good by some people wanting it to be even worse. Burma is another example. I’d say they hacked away their own leg before anyone else, such as CIA, had time to interfere in their business.
The USSR had to deal with a civil war, rising up during WWI and being sabotaged by the Germans, more civil war, foreign meddling, and all while being the first successful communist revolution. Yet they still managed to raise literacy, raise health outcomes, raise average life expectancy, gender equality, science and technology, end the cycle of famines (after the first one or two they had when they were still building up), had faster growth during that period than any capitalist country (except maybe the US, which was doing imperialism at the time and the biggest hegemon), all while helping sustain other socialist countries, like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea.
The USSR didn’t “do repression and violence to speed up Communism,” they had a successful revolution and established Socialism. By all accounts it was quite successful overall, but we can learn from where they erred and adapt for the future.
The only ones who believe the Soviet Union wasn’t Socialist are generally Western Trots or liberals/Anarchists who already don’t want the form of society Marxists want, which is a government that publicly owns its large and key industries and gradually folds in the new firms that grow to that level until the entire economy is publicly owned.
Have you never heard of bolševiks and menševiks? What you’re explaining is what menševiks wanted, but what happened was what bolševiks aimed for.
And that was inhumane horror.
Least smug shitlib
I am a communist by heart, but I know that social market economy is the way to go, at least for now.
Kinda? China has a Socialist Market Economy, and this is building up the productive forces dramatically, but not every country will work the same way or have the same path.
What if the answer to all of our worldwide problems is finding a balance between decentralized and centralized structures, balancing technology and the environment, finding a balance between currency and a moneyless society, and achieving balance between authority and liberty (with the goal of individual and societal sovereignty), and so forth?
In this thread, I see Anarcho-Communists (or final stage Communists/ideological purists) taking bat at Marxist-Leninists (who espouse mostly outdated theory, but not always) and Liberals who fail to understand really any ideology that differs from their own because of how thick the propaganda is (and who espouse ideals like Democratic Socialism while failing to realize that their social support is still enabled by modern slavery - such as the exploitation of third world countries).
I think a direct democracy, with authoritative and libertarian elements (such as enforcing liberty/a universal bill of rights for individuals) would be ideal.
It could have an economic system with built-in social supports (each according to their need) that emulates cash and all the best parts of blockchain (that isn’t hoardable or worth hoarding, that also doesn’t enable slavery/other forms of parasitism, and is generally private at the transactional stage - yet is auditable at a larger-scale), with centralized control of natural resources that still respects decentralized development and balance with the environment. And also does not have debt or parasitism of any form, instead encouraging diplomacy - such as contracts/agreements taking the place of debt to better the planet and encourage societal responsibility and stewardship (e.g. contracts that result in the stabilization of the society incurring the would-be debt).
Instead of total anarchy or various forms of authoritative control/dictatorship, we could simply combine direct democracy and hierarchy by electing leaders based solely on merit in the areas that are most needed, with strong controls so we get the best out of leadership and hierarchy and the resultant clarity and direction, without letting leaders and other experts become drunk on power. While also preventing the corruption of the individuals in power and the various forms of stagnation that result from entrenched power not conceding to new developments or advances.
I know I’m an idealist, but I’d like everybody to turn the chapter and realize that we are in 2025, not the 1900s. Technology and science have advanced every area of our society. We are so beyond scarcity that we are producing well beyond our needs with conditions and methods that are not even close to ideal (with ideal and emergent solutions and methods ready to take the place of those unsustainable methods).
We also have a global communication network - we can understand foreign languages without any human intervention in some cases, we can bridge cultural gaps, we can seek understanding and truth with our fingertips, and also we can push past the propaganda we are served on a platter, etc.
We can achieve something better than anything that has ever been conceived of previously, and it starts by crumpling up all of the things that no longer serve us. Concepts like racism, nationalism, really all of the isms that promote superiority over others. Bridging gaps, joining hands, while also countering disinformation (not misunderstanding) and bad faith.
We truly are not facing the same limitations that we did in the 1900s, although we may be facing new challenges like the rise of AI and the misuse of it by those currently in power.
There really is no more room in society for mucking about and fighting others while everything is in such disrepair, with so much needless suffering happening.
I just think it’s funny when you call ML’s outdated despite not really disagreeing with them, and then calling Anarchists “final stage Communists” when Anarchists want decentralization and “final stage Communism” is fully centralized. It more reads that you haven’t actually engaged with theory, especially considering the PRC is Marxist-Leninist and is outpacing everyone else at the moment.
You can think it’s funny all you like. Perhaps I wasn’t clear, but you misunderstood my grammar. I was detailing two distinct types of people, with different views. The latter (after the or) are more on the side of purity testing other Communists because they see what would unfold after many, many years of Communism as de-facto Communism and proof that others are not true Communists (hence the slash ideological purists part).
I currently choose to engage with emergent (and divergent) thought, not snapshots and echoes of the past - but I’m not trying to devalue it - I’m just very interested in modern Marxist-Leninist discourse and thought. I have previously engaged with the theory and understand the history that surrounded it and level of technology that we had in the 1900s.
