Communism
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Everybody else is the overwhelming majority of the people, who are not members of the high ranks of the state apparatus.
In other words, people who have to stay in huge lines in supermarkets, people whose homes lacks toilet paper, people who can't travel inside their own country without a special permit. That's the lower class.
The upper class, the oppressor, even less numerous than the capitalist class in the West, is the bureaucratic elite. They eat caviar, have huge summer houses in the country, private cars and drivers, house service staff, etc.
Merit originated? Seriously?
There was more cronyism in the Soviet Union than in all the capitalist world combined.
The "uppers" in the Soviet Union were a bunch of senile butt kissers.
I was simply reading the communist manifesto due to pure interest and because I thought that it was simply time to read it, and I found this kind of strange.
I wasn't purposely trying to find fault with anything. I just think it would be weird to leave our culture behind.
aelf
Ashen One
I don't think you got that remark at all.
Onionsoilder
Reaver
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It's official: Jesus is Communist!
aelf
Ashen One
Damn, I knew it. All that stuff about the nativity star and the blood that cleanses us. Star, blood-red - commie flag!!
This guy got it, I cant understand why socialists cant
"Im not a marxist!" Karl Marx
Its pretty clear
aelf
Ashen One
"Im not a marxist!" Karl Marx
Its pretty clear
Nope, no doubt you're taking it out of context and trying to apply it in isolation. It's not even clear what you intended by bringing that up.
I'm sure you think sound-bites are intelligent but, honestly, it's hard to take them seriously.
This guy got it, I cant understand why socialists cant
I assure you that most of them have probably thought about it more carefully than you have.
The reason I always hated communism was that where I grew up we were a predominantly mining society, and how it worked was that one man who owns the land where the coal face is is the mine-master, and so anyone who qualifies as a free-miner is entitled to go and mine there, on the condition they give one pound in ten to the master. Now we always thought that if the communists came around, they'd have us having to run the mine and try to force everyone to have the same amount, where our system said that whatever you can take, you can have (bearing in mind that the master owns it all anyway; we don't have some god-given right to work the face) they said that a man who could shift a ton of coal in a day was worth the same as one who could shift a pound - which doesn't seem right
nonconformist
Miserable
It must be a dictatorship, as there would be no democratic communism (or at least not purely democratic) and the class enemies would still have to be liquidated.
ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
Hmm you should read "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists".
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Okay. Because I've advocated that.Ah, so the problem only existed in the 80s for the most part. Good to know, considering Soviet socialism was already on its way out by then.
Even poor people in Russia eat caviar, they love that stuff there. As for these "huge summer houses," many Russian families had them, just ask the Russians here on the forum. The car think was lamentable, but then not everyone can afford a car in the West, either.
It was a problem, sure, but it wasn't an imposed class thing.
So different from the West.
See, where your argument fails is that you seem to think that the Soviet Union was the realization of everything socialists have ever dreamed of, that Russia was ripe for the conversion to socialism, and that everything that happened there went exactly according to plan, and that it was one giant plan being built and built since 1848. I've explained myriad times about how unprepared Tsarist Russia was for socialism, and why its nascent capitalist phase was a joke. I've explained myriad times what it is that socialists actually want, and how we don't worship the USSR as anything but a case study of what to do and what not to do. I've explained myriad times that many of those things we don't want, and are things we never wanted. Yet you continue to use this strawman argument that we want to turn everything into an exact replica of the USSR and that we approve of everything that happened there, and that socialism is only defined as precisely what happened in the USSR, when none of these things are true. That you continue to ignore these points speaks either of willful ignorance, purposeful capitalist apologia, or simply that you are kissing the rich and powerful's asses. Or are part of them.
So stop lying. To yourself, to other people.
Many of the early Christian communes were proto-communist, and many Christians throughout history have tried to create similar societies. Many were brutally repressed when they did so.
Socialism is the extent of democracy to more areas of life, it would have to be democratic to function properly. Why else would Trotsky declare that democracy is to communism like oxygen is to the body?
Now you sound like Winner. All communists want to just exterminate the upper classes, that's how they create the classless society, right?
You're nothing but a fool. The purpose of the "those who work, eat" policy, which was immediately implemented in the USSR, was to force the bourgeois to work just like everyone else, and those who wouldn't would starve, but by their own doing. Unless you're going to be extra-ridiculous and bring up the Kulaks as an example of "exterminating the unwanted classes." If such is the case then we have nothing to say to each other.
QuoVadisNation
keeping your angel alive
uh.. guy, I know I withdrew myself from this topic, but that statement ain't got a lick of sense unless you happen to be a pundit. What Marx taught and what Marxism was are two different teachings altogether. And Marx, strangely enough, didn't agree with parts of Marxism (an ideology named after him). So it doesn't say much about refuting the other.
nonconformist
Miserable
Words are cheap.
More Trotsky quotes:
"As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life."
"There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens."
AAAAnd straight back in with the ad-hominems.Now you sound like Winner. All communists want to just exterminate the upper classes, that's how they create the classless society, right?
If the people do not, or at least segments of society do not want communism, then how is it supposed to survive? What if capitalism is immediately reimplimented following a democratic vote on it?
What if under communism a man stil finds a way to "exploit" his fellow man (e.g work for me, and I will provide you with XYZ, therefore the bourgeois do not encessarily need to work?)
And what of the petit-bourgeois? Are they to stay a class, or be assimilated?
And why ignore the Kulaks? That would be whitewashing history.
And what of the great Red Terror, and the mass murders of the Russians?
It happened in all "communist" nations, whether we like it or not.
Those were "mild" problems, which indeed existed in the 80's, which is probably the decade in which life in the USSR was the best.
I was naming those mild problems for the sake of argument. Do you want me to name problems of the "peak" of the USSR, in the 30's, 40's and 50'? Like famines, labor/death camps, confiscation of peasants's production, etc etc etc etc etc?
Are you seriously saying that the ordinary soviet citizen had access to luxury villas in the Black Sea and elsewhere like the Communist Party chiefs?
And how does that matter for the ordinary citizen?
No Cheezy, when we use the USSR we are being nice. Because it was the most developed " communist nation". The argument " they were not ready for communism" does not impress me. If they were not ready then maybe Lenin and co. should have waited for a proper capitalist consolidation.
Likewise, the argument "socialists don't like everything about the USSR" is hardly worth of much merit either. Do you think pro-capitalist people like everything that goes on in the US or Britain? Of course not.
All we can do is compare regimes that have existed. The rest is empty talk. If you dislike comparisons with the USSR, let's talk about Maoist China, or even better, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Indeed. You say you are a socialist, but your actions clearly show apology for the capitalist system. Or you're just too afraid to take the action to end it.
Which proves...what?
It won't be, because "communist takeover" isn't a coup, its a revolution.
You know the answer to that. I think. I don't really know what you "know" any more.
I didn't say ignore them, did I?
Ah yes, true staples of socialist thought they were.
Almost all your posts about this topic in our many threads have been this sort of red herring nonsense, getting lost in things that are of no consequence to the topic at hand, which is socialism in the modern day or future.
nonconformist
Miserable
I am a socialist, albeit one who finds the current European status quo of mixed economy far from ideal, but tolerable.
I'm not scared to take action, I don't really see what action to be taken, especially seeing as we are not represented in parliament.
Yet you seem to be taking quite the ivory tower for someone whose contribution to the great revolution consists of posting on internet sites, looking up Trotsky quotes on the internet, working in the restaurant he's employed at, taking his girlfriend to Russia and studying for his degree while funnelling money into the sytem, and supporting it via his actions.
You are, like most socialists in the West, a middle class, comfortably living person whose Socialism is strictly intellectual, sitting by the fire, and sipping whiskey while debating how good a world it would be if we were all socialist.
The thing is, most have the decency to admit it.
However, I'll be keeping an eye out on CNN for the moron who walks up the steps of Capitol Hill, waving his tiny little red flag, proclaiming the revolution, before being shot by the secret service.
About as much as your quote did.
Revolutions tend to be violent, and incur a lot of collateral damage.
In any case, the point is moot, because there will be NO revolution.
Again, insults, insults and being snide when you have no answer. The refuge of the teen socialist.
I think I know the answer, and it stems from the barrel of a gun. Unless you have a different idea?
Effectively, you did.
Answer the points, instead of the smoke and mirrors crap, if you please. I've been nothing but polite, yet harsh, like Paxman, and you have turned almost instantly to insults, faux-intellectualism, arrogance and being unpleasant.
You're not nearly as intellectual, superior, or as convincing as you think you are, so please stop acting it.
Hey - let's calm it down here, please
