Could Communism have worked?

[addiv]

Originally posted by Benderino


Perhaps, but it is also widely held that the totalitarian leaders were attempting to create communism through their autocratic methods. Stalin's first Five Year Plan is a fine example of this. He took all the food from the peasants to export as well as to feed the workers. It worked in the sense that it propelled the USSR faster than any nation in history into industrialization, but it left millions of dead Russians. The only way to bring about a communist economic system is to kill people, because (surprise surprise) people like their things, and they don't like to be parted with them.

I don't think the only way to implement a communist economy is by killing people. The fact that that happened is more due to the fact that Lenin and Stalin were brutal criminals by nature. History has proven that the ideals of communism can be very easily misused, so that doesn't make communism a very attractive option, but of course the goals of the communist ideology were never to kill or starve people.

 

[newfangle]

Originally posted by addiv

but of course the goals of the communist ideology were never to kill or starve people.

YES! They were. And that's precisely why communism failed.

The goal of communism is the complete and utter destruction of the indepedant, thinking man. It converts his mind and his body into a slave for the state, for the collective, or for whomever points the gun at his head.

If that's not killing a man, I don't know what is.

 

[addiv]

Originally posted by newfangle


YES! They were. And that's precisely why communism failed.

The goal of communism is the complete and utter destruction of the indepedant, thinking man. It converts his mind and his body into a slave for the state, for the collective, or for whomever points the gun at his head.

If that's not killing a man, I don't know what is.

As long as you work along with the state, you won't be killed. Killing in the sense of taking someone's life is not one of the communist ideals.

 

[newfangle]

*Woosh* as the point is missed.

Communist apologists strike again.

 

[addiv]

Originally posted by newfangle
*Woosh* as the point is missed.

Communist apologists strike again.

*sigh* I didn't miss your claim that communism 'kills' people in the sense of making them a slave to the state and thought-controlling them. However, that was not what I was talking about, I was talking about the actual taking away of lives, killing in the literal sense. Of course you know that, you were just looking for an opportunity to bash communism (again). And how you can call me a communism apologist is beyond me, I was simply stating facts...

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

The point Addiv is that without your personal freedom for independent thought and action, you might as well be dead.

 

[addiv]

See my above post.

 

[Benderino]

Originally posted by ICBM
While it's true millions were murdered in the name of Communism, it can also be said that the most of the major wars of the 20th century were fought in defense of the wealth of a few. Thus 100 million died for Capitalism.

How so? I fail to see one example of this. The Chinese and Russian Revolutions alone account for that much, I'm sure. None of the great wars of the 20th centry were for money. One was over an alliance system, the other over lebensraum.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83986