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Cake day: September 4th, 2024

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  • Again, though, this isn’t what people are saying. The doctrine of the USSR was Communist. They were working towards Communism. The fact that they did not reach that point does not mean their ideology was not Communist.

    sidenote: if they didnt reach this point not due to time constraints but because they took a turn along the way, does it still count? ;)

    i think what annoyed me about the whole thread and got me on the path about “the real communism” (until it got decent, thanks again!) was this comment. i made something out of it that wasnt the point of the whole debate.


  • too many threads to keep track of. so if anything gets mixed up …

    regarding engels: yes its a process, i agree. that didnt transfer for me into what we call the phase (or state) that the country was in. i am rethinking this right now, as it makes sense to keep the expressed goal (communism) not only in mind while going through (the troubles) socialism and power struggles. since i never saw the next step i never made that connection. still not sure about it, but i am willing to learn.

    regarding china i have a different perception than you. coming back to trajectory matters and control over the direction a country and its society is taking it the communist idea doesnt fit the china of the last 20 years.

    the “great leap” criticism is all fine. they are taking a step back and dont try to jump ahead. that, for me, doesnt manifest itself in the economic doctrine (yeah, economic system and political system are not the same, i know). in the case of china the economic impact of the production and trade with the rest of the world seems to be so all consuming that its hard for me not to see it as a capitalist system. in control are a political class, most of them akin to oligarchs (and the US equivalent) in wealth and power. the trajectory seems to be there just to be able to say something positive to the people while they die for the capital (in the original sense). that remindes me of every capitalist country i know.

    an example came to me:

    a startup has an idea, tries to realize it into a product. gets money from investors but isnt profitable yet. the cant seem to finish the protoype and start to run into walls. i wouldnt listen to these people regarding the protoype or sound business advice just because they set out to change something for the better.


  • Thanks for a proper response. More than others in this thread are capable of.

    The clear distinction is hard, I accept that point. The phases at least how I learned it are clear. First state owned then truly society owned as a goal. They never got anywhere near that. Nor a classless society. It wasn’t the old classes from before 1900 but classes as in power structures were very much present.

    And yes it was their expressed and I believe trat they were truthful about that to create a communist state. But there were power struggles and the clear ideas became unclear and what remained (intentionally or not) was the name of the goal justifying all the horrible things.

    Again, I am not arguing against or for communism, just making the argument that there was never a communist country as in the sense they reached something resembling the idea of the word. Keeping in mind that there is not a clear line of demarcation, this much is clear to me.




  • Great argument. What do you base this on?

    It’s like china calling itself communist right now.

    Yes there was rhetoric in the USSR that suggested they were but it was an instrument to legitimate the horrible things that they did to their people.

    From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society

    A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access[1][2] to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless,[3][4][5][6] implying the end of the exploitation of labour.[7][8]

    That was not the case. It was state owned, as the transition from whatever system was there before to socialism plans. Communism is supposed to be something different.

    I am not arguing that it would be good or better than anything we have today but am saying that we never saw communism in the modern world.

    Change my mind with arguments and not down votes.