Communism

[Pushkatu]

You welcome. It's easy for me to mention such things now. All I did was to write down what my parents told me over the years, a small part of it just to make you understand. They always told me how lucky I am that I am able to do what I want with my life and go where ever I want, if that makes me happy. Also I'm sorry for any gramatical mistakes, but I'm at work and I have to type fast becouse you never know when a client might come in. Anyway, thanks for taking your time to read that. I rarely post such long posts(long for me at least), I only do so when I think I have something to share and it has not been mentioned before.

 

 

Cheers,

Pushkatu!

[Surenas]

May I add that the Chinese communism is none in the common understanding of non-Chinese, at least not really?

In the Mao Zedong era it was the Chinese (read: Han) understanding (that is: interpretation) of Marxism-Leninism. In the struggle for power that followed the death of Mao in 1976 the Maoist left Gang of Four (among them the Mao widow Jiang Qing) got knocked out by the Imperialist right wing that consisted of pro-Soviet restorationists led by Hua Guofeng and reformers that favored a kind of socialistic market economy with Deng Xiaoping leading the way. In the mid 80s the Chinese horoscopes for a Soviet Union that had crossed the communist point of safe return with Perestroika and Glasnost under Gorbachev had reached their all-time low, with the logical consequence that Deng Xiaoping made the race, finally. Deng introduced the new way, the Chinese understanding (that is: interpretation) of democratization, esp. of industrial democratization of the urban society under the oligarchic control of the party apparatus.

And here we are now. We have a new thin middle class of partly very rich profiteers, a skyline of Shanghai that lets the New Yorker look like Megaton, a flourishing economy and a retarding rural majority of the people that still lives in the poverty of the 50s. There is thus enormous future trouble in the air, perhaps even a second culture revolution of the downtrodden - a good reason for the party apparatus to keep 2.5 million trained people under arms (the annual military spending has gone up between 1994 and 2004 by 1000%). So whatever we call it - it's no communism that is at work here but the old Chinese soul. The Han Empire strikes back.

We have, finally, to keep in mind that the Chinese interpretations of things were, by good reasons, never a blockbuster outside of China (not even in the neighbouring Vietnam). Those left youngster here in the West are to be warned, for Chinese lifestyle is neither to be imported nor to be exported, as history proves. It is by far easier and more probable that the West gets assimilated by the Chinese one day though. They would buy us in, that's all.

[Kendo 2]

Leave it to Surenas to entertain.

 

Chi-Com politics and The Gang of Four. Racial cleansing and the 'new way'.

[Surenas]

Good call.

[Maharg67]

What is called Communism is changing, must change. It was always heavily influenced by the various nations, cultures, that it grew up in to become quite diverse branches. E.g Vietnamese Communism versus Chinese Communism versus that of Cuba or even Communist Parties in the West.

 

The vision of Communism that Marx had did not really come to fruitition. He did not have much respect for Lenin's vision of Leninist Marxism. Marx saw Communism rising not in the Third World, in the poorer nations, as it did but firstly in the West, in the more advanced nations, where it did not. Trotsky said that if Communism became locked into poorer countries, did not gain the resources of the West, it would become warped and one could argue that is what happened.

 

This debate would go further and be more interesting if many assumptions about Communism were questioned, assumptions of the sort I had before I studied Communism at university and began to question Communism as a political solution (just as I do Capitalism which I do not see as a success but as barely surviving from one economic disaster to the next). Both the right and left wing often make such assumptions.

 

A good starting Topic would be WHAT IS COMMUNISM?

 

I am sorry, Serenas, but Communism can not be simply cut down to a series of historical events. I studied Chinese Communist both from the view of a history student and a student of political theory and true understanding needs both an understanding of the action and the practice, or praxis (theory and action) as it is sometimes called. I hope I am not making any foolish assumptions about what you have written.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Surenas]

I've just pointed to decisive historical shifts in theory and practice and the different supporters and opponents.

Ideas aren't simply to be determined by the theory but predominantly by the realization in practice. Dreamers might see this fact reverted though.

For the beginners: The ideals of Mao Zedong got almost sacrificed in the events that deal with the

Gang of Four and the (at least for Maoists) totally unexpected succession of Zhou Enlai by the pro-Soviet

Hua Guofeng, a tactical gambit, an interim arrangement that directly has led to Zou's protégé Deng Xiaoping.

You see - in a still left public atmosphere the party apparatus has made a temporary U-turn followed by a right angle turn to the middle. Remarkable tactical maneuvers by the Zhou Enlai faction to win power... and control of the future.

 

I for one won't participate in an in-depth debate on already again outdated atheistic communism in a world of strange religious restauration, the modern thinking backwards. Perhaps I've to review my today decision in a generation or two, but not in this decade.

[Chaosblade02]

More people have been butchered under the Communist flag than any other flag in history, including the Nazi flag. I am not an expert on Communism, but I know the people who have formed governments under it in the past, have always been butchers and tyrants. And I don't believe this is a coincidence. Mao was a butcher, Stalin, Castro, Che, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Ill, etc. The idea of taking from one and giving to someone you deem as more deserving, is tyranny, and any government that practices that kind of ideology needs to go down.

 

And Modern day Communism seems more like a branch of Socialism, some freedoms, some free market, but the power of the people is still very limited, America is on its way in that direction. I am a Libertarian, so Communism and Socialism are on the complete other side of the spectrum from my views.

[Kazakovich]

I have a rather weird relation to communism. It's an idea I truly adore. Every one of us putting aside our greed and blissful ignorance to unite, to build a new world, a better world, for humanity.

 

However, I also feel that I've come to recognize it for what it is; a dream, a phantom. We've never had true communism, and I doubt that we ever will. It's an idealistic fantasy which can never be truly realized, since it clashes with the immovable object, which is human nature. It puts far too much trust on our good will as humans. I'll describe what I mean.

 

Say you're a freedom fighter who've just overthrown the tyranny. However, before you can abolish the state and create a true communistic society, you have to stay in supreme power for about seven years to make preparations for that transition; the dictatorship of the proletariat. However, would you be prepared to actually step down from your position as supreme ruler once those years have passed? And even if you are prepared to do so, perhaps your senior officers or old comrades aren't. Which usually means that you will have to remove those who threaten you or be removed yourself.

Powerstruggles like this never fail to escalate far out of proportion. Before you know it, you've installed yourself on a bloodstained throne with no future plans to leave, or end up in a shallow grave in a forest somewhere. Those who will pay the greatest toll of this are the people.

 

This, among with many other reasons (like how communism doesn't take the individual in account), is why I feel that communism is an ideal which no human might possibly live up to. Sadly, it asks far too much of us.

 

However, I do think that socialism might work in a more realistic way. If nothing else, a welfare system is a good start. If money and social status are to dictate wether you'll receive help in times of need and get treated like a human being along the way, then I believe it's time we abolish that whole silly 'human rights' business. Or make them apply to all.

[Surenas]

More people have been butchered under the Communist flag than any other flag in history, including the Nazi flag.

[snip]

Guess not, and for sure not during a short time frame of just six years as in the case of the German Nazi flag at war. The Nazi victims 1939-1945 - Jews, Roma, Soviet POWs, Euthanasians and non-Jewish civilians in a KZ - number ca. 13.000.000, an incredible number that is equivalent to 1/6 of the German overall population at the outset of the war. Only the devil could beat that... in hell. Thus may God forgive the guilt of the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

 

http://www.abload.de/img/anne9hol.gif Shabbat Shalom

[DarkZerker]

Communism is a good IDEA on paper but when actually put into practice, it doesn't work. For a truly perfect society, the very basics of human nature, that was gained through the animal like nature of the past, must be suspended or taken out. If you guys have played Fallout 3, it would have to be like Vault 101 without an overseer. Everybody believes, "You live and die in the Vault" and leaving was never even thought of until the Lone Wanderer and his father left. Same with communism, the media nullifies all traces of the idea and puts idealistic ideas into the mind of the citizens. The only way communism works is if the government is the law while still being non-corrupt. Kind of like a better version of North Korea.