Define communism.

[Kuciwalker]

Siding with imperialism against the USSR was a betrayal.

Because clearly the USSR was the better choice of the two?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


...

hmm

For your post we needed an "obvious nice soundbite " smilie

Or perhaps a "lets all hold hands and sing kumbiya" smilie


But you never make me snore-- its hard to sleep when you are laughing

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Siding with imperialism against the USSR was a betrayal.

Because clearly the USSR was the better choice of the two?

As far as the international working class goes, yes.

[The Vagabond]

Communism in the narrow sense is just an economic system without private property (don't confuse with personal property). State capitalism + social state is just one realization of such a system, and this is pretty much what was accomplished in the USSR. Actually, in the USSR itself, this system was never referred to as "communism". A term 'real socialism' was coined instead. One difference between the communist (in western terms) countries of Eastern Europe was the extent to which some residual private property was allowed.

Other possible realizations, if any, have not yet been tried in practice.

Communism as an ideal is a society without money. Perhaps one day people will acquire some stronger incentives than just money and consumerism, who knows. An "Ascetic Virtues" secret project would really be helpful here.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Which by the way, most internet discussions are not. Of course the word "Communist" has been loosed from its real world moorings since 1991. Its become as loose as fascism. To folks who like it, "Im a communist" means "I am socially idealistic in some fashion, and not like all the greedheads at my high school waiting for the next PS3 pricecut, and, Im against the guys who beat up on gays, and Im an atheist" To the folks on the right "Hillary's a communist" means "Hillary supports something my dad says will make his taxes go up, shes some kind of lesbian, and I dont like her" (of course folks on the right have been playing loosey goosey with left wing terminology for a long time)

Kind of the way fascist has come to mean "Something on the right, that I dont like"

None of which has anything to do with mature political discussion.

Very helpful remark, in fact.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I disagree. The opposite is true. Lack of attention to the forest has resulted in failure.

Perhaps we can just agree that lack of attention in general has resulted in failure?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Flubber
Whenever I hear people trumpeting "equality" I wonder what type?

I support equality of opportunity to the extent that any government actor can grant that. The government cannot change that some people have better parents, are simply more intelligent, have a better mentor/teacher, or even that some people give less attractive people a hard time/fewer breaks. So I agree that TOTAL equality of opportunity cannot exist since you cannot " homogenize" people and their experiences.

I actually do not believe "equality of condition" is a desirable goal. While I fully like and believe in government trying to help all people enjoy a quality of life above a certain standard, I also like the idea that people can IMPROVE their individual standard of living through their own inventiveness or hard work.

That's a good subject.

I say that "Equality" really means "Equality of power", when one person has power over another, through whatever mechanism (intimidation, legal, political, military, money), then that is a lack of equality.

What exactly constitutes "power over" is another good question, and to that, I tend to say, "A mechanism which forces people to remain in a condition that they do not feel is in their true best interests".

Loyalty for instance, is not power over, nor is belongingness.

To clarify best interests with an example....
Power over, is basically the power of restricting options. Say you stick someone in the cage and they have the choice of eating (living suffering), not eating (dying slowly) or bashing themselves to death on the bars (dying painfully), and claim that whatever they choose, that is their best interests. It's not, their best interests are in getting out of that cage.
The cage of course can be a metaphor for wage slavery / capitalism.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
heterosexism, and all other forms of oppression are abolished, humanity ceases to be alienated from itself and from nature and

Thats only in Communism 3.0. I doubt its in any of the cannonical works. The part about heterosexism, I mean.

Don't get hung up on terminology, LotM. You know damn well that the abolition of sexism was part of the Socialist agenda and that the early Bolshevik government was among, if not the, first to legalize homosexuality in the modern era.

Actually, my impression was that the USSR was fairly repressive towards homosexuals. Of course opposing 'sexism' is hardly the same as opposing "heterosexism"

What differentiates Marxist communism from general socialism (communism being a subset of socialism) is that we believe that the working class must smash the organs of repression of the bourgeois state and create their own democratic state which represents their interests and prevents the return of the bourgeoisie. This is known as the dictatorship of the proletariat.

No sir. At least not if you mean to imply that this is Marxism in general. IIUC Marx in his own time allowed for the possibility of success within existing democratic states - dictatorship of the proletariat meant merely the social state when the proletariat ruled (including by bourgeois legal means) but had not abolished property relations. It was a term describing a social state, NOT a statement about political forms. You sir, are giving, AFAICT, a basically Leninist interpretation of Marx, one that, again AFAIK, has not been universally held among Marxists since it was proclaimed. If you mean to say this is what differentiates Communist Marxism, from other views of Marxism, as well as from other views of socialism, that would be more correct.

From the 1872 intro to The Communist Manifesto, Marx notes that "One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.'" The point, which you misunderstand, isn't that Marx thought that democracy made violence unnecessary. Rather, in the particular nations listed by Marx, he felt that the combination of democracy (though the working class couldn't vote in England, and maybe not in Holland either) AND the lack of a institutionalized repressive state apparatus (none of these countries had standing armies or police at the time) meant that the workers could take power peacefully via the ballot without having to worry about a coup d'etat. That period has passed, and in any event, I suspect Marx was being naïve, and had forgotten such events as the Peterloo massacre. Nor had he yet witnessed the government repression in the United States during the Great Labor Uprising.

In fact the UK did have a standing army throughout the 19th century, though not a particularly large one. And the police in the UK were created by Robert Peel, which is why they are still called "bobbies"

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Siding with imperialism against the USSR was a betrayal.

Because clearly the USSR was the better choice of the two?

thats kinda the crux of it, Soc Dems thought it was a worse choice, Communists that it was a better choice. Which was largely determined by their view of Leninism as a ruling ideology.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Actually, my impression was that the USSR was fairly repressive towards homosexuals. Of course opposing 'sexism' is hardly the same as opposing "heterosexism"

Once Stalin consolidated power, yes. In the early years of the revolution, it was legal. Hence opposition to heterosexism.

I suspect Marx was being naïve

In fact the UK did have a standing army throughout the 19th century, though not a particularly large one. And the police in the UK were created by Robert Peel, which is why they are still called "bobbies"

Let me bold that part.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Actually, my impression was that the USSR was fairly repressive towards homosexuals.

True.

Whenever I look at modern Russian show business, I miss the USSR.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Perhaps we can just agree that lack of attention in general has resulted in failure?

snoopy,

They weren't trying to build a communist utopia. They weren't really communist. They were trying to build some kind of huge slave society, and they were successfull at it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Blake


That's a good subject.

I say that "Equality" really means "Equality of power", when one person has power over another, through whatever mechanism (intimidation, legal, political, military, money), then that is a lack of equality.

What exactly constitutes "power over" is another good question, and to that, I tend to say, "A mechanism which forces people to remain in a condition that they do not feel is in their true best interests".

Loyalty for instance, is not power over, nor is belongingness.

To clarify best interests with an example....
Power over, is basically the power of restricting options. Say you stick someone in the cage and they have the choice of eating (living suffering), not eating (dying slowly) or bashing themselves to death on the bars (dying painfully), and claim that whatever they choose, that is their best interests. It's not, their best interests are in getting out of that cage.
The cage of course can be a metaphor for wage slavery / capitalism.

Nicely stated.

[onodera]

Originally posted by Serb

True.

Whenever I look at modern Russian show business, I miss the USSR.

...with the earring and the makeup, yeah buddy, that's his own hair.

[Lancer]

Communism is the will of the people for the greater good of the nation of which they are part. It is a paradise for workers who all share in the advance created by what they produce. It is security in that all needs are provided for by the state. Communism is a utopia of shared production, and I am a small blue pebble.