Europe is Revolting

[chequita guevara]

I made cake last night. I'm sharing.

[chequita guevara]

Capitalism killed a hundred million people in the last decade alone. I don't think you want to play the who has more bodies game.

[Patroklos]

Capitalism killed a hundred million people in the last decade alone. I don't think you want to play the who has more bodies game.

Everything that is not communism /= capitalism.

In any case, I am more than positive that Che would crap his pants at the first instance of him ever have to participate in the ulta violent revolution he jerks off to.

[Fake Boris]

Everything that is not communism /= capitalism.

In any case, I am more than positive that Che would crap his pants at the first instance of him ever have to participate in the ulta violent revolution he jerks off to.

As Che said, it's a game the anti-communist crowd loves to play, but it's not very fruitful to their point.

Marx never described in detail how a communist state should work. Gulags and dictatorships are not an intrinsic component of his system.

If you want to blame accidental failures on communism itself, then things like monopolies/nepotism/right wing authoritarianism/depressions should be blamed on capitalism too.

[Darius871]

Communism isn't about being poor as a matter of principle. In fact it is, amongst other things, about supporting the aspirations of ordinary working people to want to be rich. However, communism opposes a system it believes to be incapable of generating a large enough cake for all to have enough, and seeks to find a way to rationally build a larger and more stable cake than under the chaos of capitalism.

Dammit! In all the years I've been a commie, I've never been able to put it as succinctly as that.

Er, I never suggested anything about the ultimate objective of communists. Obviously the supposed end result is not for everyone to be poor, and therefore there would be no obligation to live like the poor in that sense.

Rather, the context is of a communist living in a capitalist system prior to the revolution (let's call him/her X). In that context X purports to find that system horribly unjust and immoral because of the way that it enslaves some poor people for profit and starves those poor people who are not profitable. Granted, in theory X's ultimate objective would, if accomplished, free those people entirely, but in the meantime there is a huge degree of human suffering going on. How is it that X can consistently maintain his/her moral indignation without first doing all he/she can to at least mitigate the suffering that he/she finds so morally reprehensible as to warrant immediate [and potentially violent] revolution? In other words, if X perceives the pain to be so bad as to require such a drastic solution, how is it consistent for X not to ease that pain as much as possible in the meantime? Or in your analogy, how can X so vehemently pursuing an eventually larger cake for all be morally reconciled with X's selfishly hoarding unneeded quantities of scarce cake until then, while others whom X would supposedly like to "save" get no cake at all?

I suppose you could exempt from my logic those communists who simply find communism more efficient and/or downright inevitable from a dry, deterministic, theoretical point of view and don't purport to give a **** about ending proletarians' present misery for its own sake, but in my experience that subset is very small indeed.

[chequita guevara]

Everything that is not communism /= capitalism.

That's amazingly true. The moon is not communism and it's also not capitalism. Brilliant insight into reality you've achieved there. As far as economies go, however, feudalism disappeared a while ago, except in a few tiny corners of the world. Every other economy today, with the exception of Cuba and North Korea, is capitalist. It may not be the "pure" capitalism that some people think Adam Smith (the author, not the poster) idealized (and of course, those holding up AS only hold up half of his theories, never anything about protecting the workers and preventing combination of capitalists), but capitalism never has adhered to narrow a priori definitions. It's like Ben K claiming all the crimes committed by Christians actually weren't, because they weren't real Christians.

In any case, I am more than positive that Che would crap his pants at the first instance of him ever have to participate in the ulta violent revolution he jerks off to.

You're the only one who talks about violent, let alone ultra violent revolution.

[snoopy369]

Communism isn't about being poor as a matter of principle. In fact it is, amongst other things, about supporting the aspirations of ordinary working people to want to be rich. However, communism opposes a system it believes to be incapable of generating a large enough cake for all to have enough, and seeks to find a way to rationally build a larger and more stable cake than under the chaos of capitalism.

Then communists are REALLY idiots, and not just liberal wonks. There's little debate as to which system generates the bigger pie, at ANY point, unless you argue that the inevitable revolution will destroy all of the capitalist gains... which is sort of a circular argument.
Capitalism certainly generates a larger pie (and, probably, regulated capitalism the largest). Communism generates a larger slice of the pie for each individual who's not one of the capitalists themselves, from a somewhat smaller pie (how much smaller is open for debate, but smaller to SOME degree necessarily).

[Patroklos]

That's amazingly true. The moon is not communism and it's also not capitalism. Brilliant insight into reality you've achieved there.

Your so very cute when your obtuse

In any case, I know you like to pile deaths in Africa and what not into the capitalist tally, but th anarcho-chaos that exists there is not capitalism. Capitalism requires things like property rights and judicial process to protect them, where those do not exist neither does capitalism. Its not like I try to claim amazon tribal societies are communist just because they share some stuff.

You're the only one who talks about violent, let alone ultra violent revolution.

Yeah, because I am all about being ripped from my home and loved ones

Exactly what revolution did I support, Mr. "REAL revolutionary?"

[snoopy369]

That's amazingly true. The moon is not communism and it's also not capitalism. Brilliant insight into reality you've achieved there. As far as economies go, however, feudalism disappeared a while ago, except in a few tiny corners of the world. Every other economy today, with the exception of Cuba and North Korea, is capitalist. It may not be the "pure" capitalism that some people think Adam Smith (the author, not the poster) idealized (and of course, those holding up AS only hold up half of his theories, never anything about protecting the workers and preventing combination of capitalists), but capitalism never has adhered to narrow a priori definitions. It's like Ben K claiming all the crimes committed by Christians actually weren't, because they weren't real Christians.



You're the only one who talks about violent, let alone ultra violent revolution.

More like, not all of the world's wrongs were caused by capitalism, even if they happened to have occurred in a capitalist economy... Saddam Hussein would've killed all those kurds, capitalist or not; millions would die of war, famine, and poverty in Africa regardless of the economic system (and I'd argue that many countries in Africa do NOT have a capitalist economy).

The biggest beef with communism is the need for a strong central government in all iterations of Communism to date. Someday someone will perhaps come up with a system that does not require such, or figure out some form of strong central government that works without ending up with either a dictator or dictator-class, or bureaucratic inefficiency killing the nation, but until that happens I won't believe it possible frankly... not until we advance in technology far enough for normal things (food/water/land/normal luxuries) to be irrelevantly cheap, anyhow [ie, Iain M. Banks' Culture-type world], at which point communism is nearly inevitable.

[chequita guevara]

A post revolutionary state won't need a strong central government when someone isn't out to destroy it. How many times did the Soviet Union invade the West? How many times did the West invade the USSR? How many acts of terrorism in the U.S. were carried out by agents of the USSR? How many acts of terrorism in the USSR were carried out by agents of the US? They had good reason to be paranoid. We really were trying to destroy them.

[chequita guevara]

Rewriting history
Monday 30 March 2009
John Green
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AT this juncture of capitalist collapse, it's far from coincidental that the BBC has just screened a three-part series titled The Lost World Of Communism.

The series was a travesty of reality, but just in case the present crisis should encourage you to dream of socialist alternatives, this was a warning of how dire socialism could be.

It is also worth remembering what the period of the cold war was really like for progressives in the "democratic" West.

Few countries have been scarred so deeply by the conflict between communism and Western concepts of democracy as Germany.

This year, the country will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of its post-war democratic constitution.

Since unification, the governments there have insisted on equating "the German Democratic Republic state of injustice" with that of the nazis.

It is now 20 years since the Berlin wall fell, yet the demonisation of the GDR continues.

Any positive evaluation of the GDR experience is denied and swept aside - it was simply the other side of the totalitarian coin.

It seems likely that this anniversary will be exploited to consolidate the "appropriate and proper evaluation of the two German dictatorships" and to reinforce the memories of Communist injustice.

This historical viewpoint conveniently ignores the role played by the West German state in post-war German history from 1945-89, concentrating entirely on a demonisation of the GDR, with the Federal Republic as the whiter-than-white democracy.

What is the government keen to suppress?

Well, central to the eradication of uncomfortable memories is the banning by the West German state of the Communist Party of Germany on August 17 1956, using the new constitution as the excuse.

It was maintained that the Communist Party was "anti-constitutional."

Those Communists who fought in the resistance against Hitler, many of whom had been sent to concentration camps, were not celebrated as heroes in post-war West Germany, but were subjected to similar treatment in the "new democracy."

In the early decades after the war, over 250,000 official investigations of alleged Communists were undertaken, resulting in around 10,000 convictions.

It became a mirror image of the McCarthy vendetta in the US. And what were these dangerous criminals accused of?

Very often for campaigning against remilitarisation and for the unification of the two Germanies.

The state prosecutor Hans Ritter von Lex, who proclaimed the ban, was a former legal official in Hitler's ministry for home affairs and had been thanked by Hitler for his support in bringing in the laws of empowerment which allowed the latter to take power.

Announcing the ban in 1956, he pronounced that the Communist Party "is a dangerous source of infection in the body of our people, spewing poisons into the bloodstream of the state and social structures of the Federal Republic."

The free battle of ideas so highly proclaimed as a basic right in a democratic state had no place in West Germany.

That battle was shifted to the courtrooms, invariably presided over by former nazi judges.

The political battle against communism was henceforth fought out in the legal sphere using punitive criminal law and resulting in heavy convictions.

There were so many political cases to try that, after 1951, another 17 special political courts were set up to deal with them, as well as a special unit of political police.

The courts were vindictive. Long-term prison sentences were often imposed, civil and suffrage rights removed and those convicted sacked from their jobs.

There was also the loss of any compensation which had been due for any injustice suffered during the nazi period, as well as the imposition of fines and court costs.

A widespread official blacklist kept alleged Communists out of many professions and public posts.

However, this open warfare hit not only Communists. In a survey of court cases in the state of North Rhineland and Westphalia, two-thirds of those accused of high treason, of insulting or endangering the state were non-communists and not even members of so-called front organisations.

The first anti-Communist laws were introduced in 1951 and, as with article 131 of the new constitution, involved the virtual incorporation of the anti-Communist legislation from the nazi regime.

Virtually the whole nazi justice apparatus was taken over lock stock and barrel by the post-war West German state.

In the Federal Court 80 per cent of the judges had been active participants in the nazi justice system and instrumental in persecuting anti-nazis - the same judges who'd sent Jews and Communists to concentration camps were again sitting in court and punishing the same individuals.

In the GDR, on the other hand, a genuine de-nazification as demanded by the Potsdam Agreement had been carried out.

There were no longer any former nazi judges, teachers or academics in leading positions.

In the West German state of Lower Saxony, the authorities were particularly zealous in their prosecution of progressives during the high point of the anti-Communist paranoia.

In the '50s and '60s around 600 per year were convicted.

In Lunerburg, two prosecutors who had previous expertise in the field were Konrad Lenski and Karl-Heinz Otterbach.

Lenski had been a member of the nazi party pre-1945 and had prosecuted numerous cases against resistance fighters and army deserters.

In 1953, he was appointed chief state prosecutor responsible for "state security issues."

In 1943, he had been involved in a case in Alsace in which 13 members of a resistance unit were condemned to death.

His colleague Ottersbach had also been a member of the nazi party and pre-war he had given death sentences to a number of Polish partisans. These are only two examples of many - those who didn't change their spots.

In one trial of an older comrade, he was accused of stubbornly sticking to his Communist convictions and that "not even his time in a concentration camp (under the nazis) had taught him to better his ways."

August Baumgarte spent 12 years in prisons and concentration camps under the nazis, but was put on trial again after 1945.

These judges "took into consideration" his previous imprisonment and felt "it justified a lighter sentence," but still gave him two-and-a-half years. Baumgarte thus lost all rights to due compensation as a "victim of fascist persecution."

He and other Communists were often incarcerated in Wolfenbuttel prison where the view from their cell windows was on to the unchanged courtyard where nazi executions had taken place.

Despite continued demands since 1992 made by the Party of Democratic Socialism and, subsequently, Die Linke for this period of history to be properly assessed and to use the opportunities provided by the recent unification and the end of a divided Europe, the Merkel government refuses to budge and remains dug into its cold war trenches.

The Die Linke and The Rehabilitation of the Victims of the Cold War organisation, based in Essen, are campaigning for retrospective justice and calling for a restitution of rights and compensation for victims and their families of this persecution.

It is undoubtedly a surprise for many that such persecution took place under the democratic mask of a new Germany - something the present leaders don't wish to admit to.

It would spoil the pretty picture and might even encourage those suffering in this recession to question the very tenets of the present system.

This feature is based on an article that first appeared in the German newspaper Junge Welt.

[snoopy369]

A post revolutionary state won't need a strong central government when someone isn't out to destroy it. How many times did the Soviet Union invade the West? How many times did the West invade the USSR? How many acts of terrorism in the U.S. were carried out by agents of the USSR? How many acts of terrorism in the USSR were carried out by agents of the US? They had good reason to be paranoid. We really were trying to destroy them.

Che, they need a strong central government TO ENFORCE COMMUNISM. Communism is not the natural impulse of humanity; capitalism is (or, more accurately, selfish-ism, which is not identical to capitalism, though their similarities is what allow for capitalism without a strong central government). How exactly could communism operate on a large scale (USSR scale) without a strong central government?

[Patroklos]

A post revolutionary state won't need a strong central government when someone isn't out to destroy it. How many times did the Soviet Union invade the West?

Twice.

How many times did the West invade the USSR?

Once.

[chequita guevara]

Twice.
Once.

Wrong, the USSR never invaded the West (at least not when it hadn't been invaded first) while the West invaded the USSR twice, three times if we count the Polish invasion in 1919.

[Elok]

There's also the whole nuclear deterrent angle. It wasn't communist ideals that saved Russia from enemy attack, it was the fear of nuclear annihilation. Which is also the reason why the USSR didn't attack The West (copyright Aneeshm 2009) directly. Instead we spent several decades in expensive proxy wars, wagging our peckers at each other.