Why aren't you all Communists?

[Yeekim]

I'm sorry that the situation was so bad for you, I hope that you and your family found much better lives wherever you moved to!

I understand that this would be a big turn off to Communism. Forgive my assumption, but did you happen to move from Eastern Europe, maybe Poland or East Germany?

If you did, then I agree that the situations of those countries was really bad. But that was more a result of the poverty imposed on those countries by the big bad Soviet bear. They were essentially forced to become imperial outposts and buffer zones of a massive totalitarian dictatorship, and they never even got to experience the revolution.

In fact, citizens of East Germany had standard of living decidedly superior to those of USSR.

It was a socialist country ruled by communist government.
As far as I know, neither Polish nor Soviet governments ever claimed Poland and USSR were communist countries nor that their citizens live under Communism. Building Communism was declared goal, not achieved state.

This.

Dictatorship is actually the exception in Marxist-Leninist regimes. The predominant form of government is one-party oligarchy, ranging from the very collective forms of leadership seen in post-Maoist China to the strongman systems seen in Yugoslavia or Cuba. Stalin and Mao's dictatorial periods only lasted maybe a decade or so, and were the outcome of long periods of factional strife within an established one-party system, and both returned to the oligarchical norm after the deaths of the dictator. Pol Pot was arguably a dictator, but his regime was short-lived even by revolutionary standards; the greater part of Campobdia's history as a Marxist-Leninist state was a one-party oligarchy after the "people's republic" model. Ceausescu's Romania, the Kim dynasty in North Korea, and maybe Hoxha's Albania represent the only really enduring dictatorship among the Marxist-Leninist states, and all of those are regimes note for their departure from the norms of the Marxist-Leninist states, both domestically and internationally- to put it bluntly, how bloody weird they were, even by the loose standards of revolutionary dictatorships.
Now, that's not to defend these regimes. An oligarchy can be ever bit as destructive as a dictatorship. But it's important to remember that the Marxist-Leninist regimes represent a particular type of regime- an allied cluster of types, really- specific to a particular period of world history, rather than a particular iteration of some abstract transhistorical spirit of "Totalitarianism". Presenting your opponents as evil incarnate is bad politics, bad history, and bad for your brain.

Listen to the fish, guys, he knows his stuff

Communist architecture is bad because it is an inept imitation of Western architecture. All the architectural evils of Moscow are found in prototype in London or Paris.

Actually, Stalinist architecture is pretty nice:

Spoiler :

I've lived in a house like this and I've nothing to complain about. Nice sturdy masonry there, you won't hear your neighbors no matter what they are up to.

So the redistribution of land (and income?) is the major difference between capitalism and communism?

I'm actually not against a more even distribution of wealth. I do not think that a huge concentration of wealth is a good thing for society, and I would be willing to consider measures to counter this (taking pages from Piketty's playbook, more agrressive taxation and a wealth tax). But I think that this can be implemented in a capitalist society, and I have no faith in neo-communists. I'm not sold on the ideology, as it exists in the dreams of the communists, and I definitely am not sold on the neo-communists ability to put theory into practice.

This.

 

[Yeekim]

We aren't territorial, we're at least as cooperative as we are competitive, and we're at least as egalitarian as we are hierarchical.

I guess you might enjoy this book. I certainly did.
Didn't make me a communist though, rather a believer in "capitalism with human face".

 

[warpus]

This.

Who cares what the Polish government at the time was saying? They were claiming all sorts of things, that the Russians were our friends, that our standard of living was some of the highest in the world, that it wasn't really better in the west, that everything was just fine, etc.

 

[Yeekim]

@warpus: I'm not begrudging you your colloquial use of the term, I just think a more specific explanation was helpful in this thread.

Edit: it also pointed out it wasn't "real" communism because they spectacularly failed to achieve that goal and not because they weren't trying.

 

[warpus]

I get it, but using the exact same reasoning we would conclude that Canada is not a democracy and that there are no Scots in Scotland and so on.

Since we've already had many regimes in the past calling themselves "communist", for many decades, that is now what historians refer to as communism. The academic "Real communism" doesn't exist aside from on paper. It needs a new name.

 

[W|M]

We already call all the ''communist'' states Marxist-Leninist, which distinguishes them from communism as a whole

 

[warpus]

Historians as well as most people who lived through it though call it "Communist Poland".

Moreover the USSR and her puppet states are known to many as "The Communist Bloc"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Historians as well as most people who lived through it though call it "Communist Poland".

Moreover the USSR and her puppet states are known to many as "The Communist Bloc"

And North Korea is called, officially, a democracy.

 

[red_elk]

I get it, but using the exact same reasoning we would conclude that Canada is not a democracy and that there are no Scots in Scotland and so on.

Since we've already had many regimes in the past calling themselves "communist", for many decades, that is now what historians refer to as communism. The academic "Real communism" doesn't exist aside from on paper. It needs a new name.

You confuse political system with regime in power.
If you elect Environmentalist party in office, it doesn't mean next day after elections you'll live under "Environmentalism".

 

[warpus]

If Environmentalists run Canada for 50 years, everybody in the country calls Canada an "Environmentalist" country, and historians write about this period in Canadian history as "Environmentalist Canada"

Then yeah actually yes, that's exactly what I'd conclude. Even if someone in the back stands up and says "Well actually according to the dictionary that's not really true"

 

[galdre]

Warpus, you are discrediting an ideology that has useful ideas to contribute because you disagree with what some people who called themselves communists did. That is completely illogical. I don't hate all Muslims because some are terrorists, or all Christians because some bomb abortion clinics, or all Catholic priests because some rape children.

 

[warpus]

Show me where I discredit the entire idea of communism. I haven't done that.

Just because we've had communist countries in the past who have failed worse than I fail when I try to pick up women in a bar doesn't mean that I think that the idea of communism has no legs to stand on. There's some good ideas in there.

 

[galdre]

It didn't come across that way.

 

[warpus]

I had a bad experience with communism, how does that in any way mean that I reject the entire ideology? This isn't black/white land. If you were able to quote me saying this specifically then yeah, you'd have a point, but it seems that you are pretty much saying: "You came in here not embracing communism as the most awesome thing ever, that must mean you hate everything about it"

 

[cardgame]

North Korea had a bad experience with democracy... even though, you know, they've never had it.

 

[warpus]

I mean, if they were ruled by a genuine democratic party you'd have a bit of a point. Instead you are supporting my point, really, by suggesting that literal dictionary definitions can be at times useless.

 

[galdre]

I had a bad experience with communism, how does that in any way mean that I reject the entire ideology? This isn't black/white land. If you were able to quote me saying this specifically then yeah, you'd have a point, but it seems that you are pretty much saying: "You came in here not embracing communism as the most awesome thing ever, that must mean you hate everything about it"

Your response of "communism is bad because of Poland" is discrediting an ideology because of what some people who called themselves communists did. You don't have to like communism, you can hate every bit of it, but say why you like/hate the ideology itself. I understand why you have a negative visceral reaction; that's the game politicians play, they associate terms that are neutral or even positive with negative policies so that people end up disregarding ideas that could be of use to them.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That was really well said.

 

[warpus]

Your response of "communism is bad because of Poland"

Please quote me saying such a thing.

You don't have to like communism

You assume I dislike the general idea of communism. Please quote me saying such a thing.

 

[galdre]

Please quote me saying such a thing.

You assume I dislike the general idea of communism. Please quote me saying such a thing.

okay...

I lived in a communist country once. It was so bad we actually left everything behind, and risked our livelihoods, and escaped. Half a decade later the country I left rose up and kicked the communists to the curb.

That's why I'm not a communist anymore.