It must rule being a liberal. Just being able to say whatever, talk out your ass like you’re an expert on a subject you don’t even understand, be completely submerged in the capitalist cultural ooze and somehow think people who disagree with you don’t know shit.
I long for a world where I can be as blissfully ignorant as a communist as you can be currently as a liberal.
Liberal democracies use actual slave labour, not to mention the colonial horrors still being carried out - and I’m not going to waste my time trying to explain imperialism to you, because I know there’s a whole other thing we’d have to educate you on first.
The USSR had a lower recidivism rate, lower death rate and higher QoL for inmates in the gulag system from 1952 onwards than the US has in its current system to this day.
We are infinitely more surveilled than any communist scare-story. You only don’t notice political repression because you stay within what is acceptable. We coup, cheat elections, kidnap and kill to our hearts desire in the west - and not just brown people! We have black sites where police can take you, we have bullshit charges and violent cops.
But despite liberal democracy creating a violent all-surveilleing repressive police state dedicated to extracting wealth from the poor and giving it to the rich, it is somehow communism that is fascism. I assume this is because of “authoritarianism”? The idea that a state exerting power is bad in and of itself, no matter on behalf of whom and to what end said power is used, is fucking ridiculous. Cooked up by Hannah Arendt - an actual antisemite - in order to make Hitler an equal to Stalin. The concept is meaningless, any definition is either so broad as to encompass all states or so narrow as to just mean “enemy of the US”
No? Communism is a movement towards abolishing class society, via collectivizing production and distribution. Fascism is a violent reaction to capitalist decay, employed to retain bourgeois property ownership and break up labor organizing. They are diametric opposites, which is why they have historically bitterly hated each other.
The hammer and sickle is the sign of the communist movement. I assume you mean to insinuate that the USSR was somehow fascist, but I must be misunderstanding you, nobody would be that ridiculously wrong on the internet. The USSR saved the world from fascism despite the best efforts from the capitalists in the west.
The bird has the hammer and sickle, the symbol of the joint partnership of the industrial proletariat and the agrarian peasantry, the symbol of Marxism-Leninism. The hammer and sickle was created in the RSFSR, the first socialist state in history. Using any one person as symbol for the working class movement, and not symbols of the working classes themselves, is akin to liberal Great Man Theory.
Unless you mean anarchist conceptions of communism, ie communalist structures, all Marxist formations recognize the necessity of the working classes using state power, ie authority, to protect the gains of socialism and gradually collectivize production and distribution. In that sense, all communism can be seen as authoritarian, at least until all production and distribution is collectivized globally and thus the state finally fully withers away.
Further, worker owned governments with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy are never fascist, fascism is uniquely tied to capitalism in decay.
Not necessarily. There are indigenous societies from all across the world who were communist for millenia, and many who still strive for it while capitalism is forced upon them. They often are more anarchist in structure.
But even assuming that state power of some degree is required, there is a lot of room for debate about how much. Original commenter seemed concerned about authoritarianism, I assume that their understanding of communism is Stalin’s USSR. There are certainly ways to be auth/com without going that far, and that commenter may find those appealing.
The reason I bring up communalism, the more anarchist-adjacent forms of organization, is because they aren’t really the same as what people talking about Marxist communism are. Tribal formations and communes are localized, based on self-sufficient and small-scale production and distribution.
Communism, in the Marxist sense, can be seen more as the stitching together of all humanity into one unified system, with mass production and distribution scientifically organized and planned to meet everyone’s needs. This isn’t really a moral judgement about either, but the understanding that when someone says “communism is authoritarian,” they are referring to the Marxist conception, which is qualitatively different from the anarchist.
But even assuming that state power of some degree is required, there is a lot of room for debate about how much. Original commenter seemed concerned about authoritarianism, I assume that their understanding of communism is Stalin’s USSR. There are certainly ways to be auth/com without going that far, and that commenter may find those appealing.
This is a much more interesting argument, in my opinion, because it requires answering what it means to wield authority.
In Marxist analysis, the state is within the class struggle, and exists precisely to represent a definite class. Thus, authority lies within the hands of a definite class in any given state, that class being the one with political and economic control.
What determines the extent to which authority is wielded?
It can seem pretty obvious that it’s the decision of the government to act in this or that matter when dealing with different problems faced by society. However, this is looking at the effect, not the cause. The cause of wielding authority is the class struggle, which has necessary material struggles. In other words, the extent to which authority is employed is not simply a choice by the state, but a reaction to the conditions one finds themselves in.
Take Germany, for example. The rise of the Nazi party was an explicit reaction to ongoing labor organizing, capitalist decay, and a crisis in economy due to the inter-war debts. However, Germany of today has had less of a need to exert authority, so it hasn’t. This is changing, though, as pro-Palestinian protestors are beaten, and the far-right is rising due to intense economic crisis and the downfall of imperialism as a means to inflate the economy.
The same applies to the USSR. The system of the soviet union was fundamentally democratic. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
What happened wasn’t a crisis in structure, but a reaction to existing heightened class struggle and siege from imperialists. Fascists and tsarists, kulaks and capitalists, all manner of those opposed to socialism remained in the USSR long after its inception. Revolution does not immediately abolish them, no matter how democratic or egalitarian your new society is, because the older ruling classes lose in socialism. Class struggle continues under socialism.
That’s why my question is simple: what could the USSR have done to be “less authoritarian?” That isn’t to say that the soviet union never made mistakes or errors, or was structurally perfect, but instead to ask about the nature of authority itself, and why it’s applied more or less in different conditions. Is it as simple as a choice made by the state? Or is it deeper than that, a result of dialectical contradictions working themselves out?
Removed by mod
It must rule being a liberal. Just being able to say whatever, talk out your ass like you’re an expert on a subject you don’t even understand, be completely submerged in the capitalist cultural ooze and somehow think people who disagree with you don’t know shit.
I long for a world where I can be as blissfully ignorant as a communist as you can be currently as a liberal.
Liberal democracies use actual slave labour, not to mention the colonial horrors still being carried out - and I’m not going to waste my time trying to explain imperialism to you, because I know there’s a whole other thing we’d have to educate you on first.
The USSR had a lower recidivism rate, lower death rate and higher QoL for inmates in the gulag system from 1952 onwards than the US has in its current system to this day.
We are infinitely more surveilled than any communist scare-story. You only don’t notice political repression because you stay within what is acceptable. We coup, cheat elections, kidnap and kill to our hearts desire in the west - and not just brown people! We have black sites where police can take you, we have bullshit charges and violent cops.
But despite liberal democracy creating a violent all-surveilleing repressive police state dedicated to extracting wealth from the poor and giving it to the rich, it is somehow communism that is fascism. I assume this is because of “authoritarianism”? The idea that a state exerting power is bad in and of itself, no matter on behalf of whom and to what end said power is used, is fucking ridiculous. Cooked up by Hannah Arendt - an actual antisemite - in order to make Hitler an equal to Stalin. The concept is meaningless, any definition is either so broad as to encompass all states or so narrow as to just mean “enemy of the US”
You should read Blackshirts and Reds, it deals with the many differences between the two.
Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook
Good bot /j
🤖
No? Communism is a movement towards abolishing class society, via collectivizing production and distribution. Fascism is a violent reaction to capitalist decay, employed to retain bourgeois property ownership and break up labor organizing. They are diametric opposites, which is why they have historically bitterly hated each other.
but why then has the bird the symbol of a fascist regime, and not, say, the silhouette of Karl?
The hammer and sickle is the sign of the communist movement. I assume you mean to insinuate that the USSR was somehow fascist, but I must be misunderstanding you, nobody would be that ridiculously wrong on the internet. The USSR saved the world from fascism despite the best efforts from the capitalists in the west.
The bird has the hammer and sickle, the symbol of the joint partnership of the industrial proletariat and the agrarian peasantry, the symbol of Marxism-Leninism. The hammer and sickle was created in the RSFSR, the first socialist state in history. Using any one person as symbol for the working class movement, and not symbols of the working classes themselves, is akin to liberal Great Man Theory.
Trying to zero in on where your head is at.
Are you saying that any symbol that features intersecting lines is a fascist symbol or something?
Not all communism is authoritarian
Unless you mean anarchist conceptions of communism, ie communalist structures, all Marxist formations recognize the necessity of the working classes using state power, ie authority, to protect the gains of socialism and gradually collectivize production and distribution. In that sense, all communism can be seen as authoritarian, at least until all production and distribution is collectivized globally and thus the state finally fully withers away.
Further, worker owned governments with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy are never fascist, fascism is uniquely tied to capitalism in decay.
Just my 2 cents on the matter.
Not necessarily. There are indigenous societies from all across the world who were communist for millenia, and many who still strive for it while capitalism is forced upon them. They often are more anarchist in structure.
But even assuming that state power of some degree is required, there is a lot of room for debate about how much. Original commenter seemed concerned about authoritarianism, I assume that their understanding of communism is Stalin’s USSR. There are certainly ways to be auth/com without going that far, and that commenter may find those appealing.
Not when you treat “authoritarianism” as a hard binary there isn’t.
The reason I bring up communalism, the more anarchist-adjacent forms of organization, is because they aren’t really the same as what people talking about Marxist communism are. Tribal formations and communes are localized, based on self-sufficient and small-scale production and distribution.
Communism, in the Marxist sense, can be seen more as the stitching together of all humanity into one unified system, with mass production and distribution scientifically organized and planned to meet everyone’s needs. This isn’t really a moral judgement about either, but the understanding that when someone says “communism is authoritarian,” they are referring to the Marxist conception, which is qualitatively different from the anarchist.
This is a much more interesting argument, in my opinion, because it requires answering what it means to wield authority.
In Marxist analysis, the state is within the class struggle, and exists precisely to represent a definite class. Thus, authority lies within the hands of a definite class in any given state, that class being the one with political and economic control.
What determines the extent to which authority is wielded?
It can seem pretty obvious that it’s the decision of the government to act in this or that matter when dealing with different problems faced by society. However, this is looking at the effect, not the cause. The cause of wielding authority is the class struggle, which has necessary material struggles. In other words, the extent to which authority is employed is not simply a choice by the state, but a reaction to the conditions one finds themselves in.
Take Germany, for example. The rise of the Nazi party was an explicit reaction to ongoing labor organizing, capitalist decay, and a crisis in economy due to the inter-war debts. However, Germany of today has had less of a need to exert authority, so it hasn’t. This is changing, though, as pro-Palestinian protestors are beaten, and the far-right is rising due to intense economic crisis and the downfall of imperialism as a means to inflate the economy.
The same applies to the USSR. The system of the soviet union was fundamentally democratic. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
What happened wasn’t a crisis in structure, but a reaction to existing heightened class struggle and siege from imperialists. Fascists and tsarists, kulaks and capitalists, all manner of those opposed to socialism remained in the USSR long after its inception. Revolution does not immediately abolish them, no matter how democratic or egalitarian your new society is, because the older ruling classes lose in socialism. Class struggle continues under socialism.
That’s why my question is simple: what could the USSR have done to be “less authoritarian?” That isn’t to say that the soviet union never made mistakes or errors, or was structurally perfect, but instead to ask about the nature of authority itself, and why it’s applied more or less in different conditions. Is it as simple as a choice made by the state? Or is it deeper than that, a result of dialectical contradictions working themselves out?
But the good kinds that actually work and help people are