[QUOTE=Trotsky;20346004]...Why weren't you aborted?[/QUOTE]
I thought you were done...
A better question is: why are you a communist?
Oh and the reason I'm pissing you off is because you're like the vegetarian douchebags in my english class
heres a quote from them "love is such a cliche, god carol ann duffy was right, an onion has so much more meaning about love"
I HATE THEM SO MUCH, GET OVER YOURSELF
Because I believe in the economic theory of communism
oh wait, the all powerful and knowing Earthen knows I am lying.
alas, it is true, I am but a 12 year old kid from bumblefuck, Washington who thinks it's cool and edgy to be communist.
[editline]07:41PM[/editline]
you have slain thee lie, fair earthen
Get out.
Both of you
[QUOTE=Trotsky;20346154]Because I believe in the economic theory of communism
oh wait, the all powerful and knowing Earthen knows I am lying.
alas, it is true, I am but a 12 year old kid from bumblefuck, Washington who thinks it's cool and edgy to be communist.
[editline]07:41PM[/editline]
you have slain thee lie, fair earthen[/QUOTE]
Good so we agree on your personality/character
You realise that economic theory is flawed right?
Shaddap cunt.
You're both annoying and not contributing anything. Go send eachother hate PMs.
[img]http://www.playazball.com/kim%20jong%20il%20angry.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Earthen;20346458]Good so we agree on your personality/character
You realise that economic theory is flawed right?[/QUOTE]
i was being facecious... really, you couldn't figure that out?
uh, it's not. Flawed assumes its been implemented. it's a system with check and balances, social and civil freedom and fiscal responsibility.
[QUOTE=Earthen;20341102]I thought communism was "stateless, classless, oppression free" AKA anarchy. Well the industrialization was at the cost of millions of lives, it should've been completed without so much death. Capitalism works because there is hierarchy and some governmental structure.[/QUOTE]
That's true, and that's were the similarities between the two systems end. Anarchy is formed differently and operates differently then communism. Anarchists want to establish a stateless (and not even necessarily classless, look at anarcho-capitalism) society instantaneously, on a whim. They believe membership in society is purely voluntary and it should be formed around that. Anarchy is simply supposed to be a liberal's paradise.
Communism is a system that's achieved not because some liberals want it to, but because labor has developed to a point that it's powerful enough that it's economically feasible to allow resources become free-access. That's the point where society can only become truly stateless and classless. Before then, there can only be socialism, which has a state.
They're similar, but it would be confusing and incorrect to say they're the same. It would be like saying monarchism and fascism are the same. They aren't, they're similar, but it would be confusing and incorrect to say they're the same.
I don't know if millions died in industrialization, but I agree it could have been done a better way. Early on, lenin and the communists believed that the USSR could skip the industrializing stage capitalism if the revolutions in the rest of europe succeeded (to an extent, they did, but they were crushed because the newly created socialist states were too weak to defend itself from external threats, prime examples being the bavarian, hungarian, chinese, finnish, and estonian/latvian/lithuanian soviet republics).
After that failed the USSR had to develop the country themselves. To do that, the politburo (congress of the USSR's soviets) decided to collectivize soviet agriculture and use money made from grain exports to buy machinery, hire industrial experts, etc. A combination of inexperienced and dogmatic soviet statesmen who oversaw the payment of russia's peasants for their harvest and the harvest quota for the region, and stiff resistence from russia's wealthy and reactionary peasantry whom constituted a chunk of russia's agriculture, created the USSR's famous famines in the 30's and its harsh responses to peasant resistance.
If collectivization wasn't performed so suddenly and quickly, it could have fared better and not have the internal conflicts it did. Unfortunately, if it did that, it probably wouldn't have been able to defeat Germany just a few years down the road. On the other hand, if the european revolutions succeeded and there was an economically developed German SSR to aid the USSR, things would be very, very different.
[editline]04:09PM[/editline]
also you and trotsky should really stop shitting up this thread
[QUOTE=Trotsky;20347373]i was being facecious... really, you couldn't figure that out?
uh, it's not. Flawed assumes its been implemented. it's a system with check and balances, social and civil freedom and fiscal responsibility.[/QUOTE]
Yeah civil freedom
first steps of the Russian revolution implemented by lenin and trotsky...
1. shut down all newspapers
2. make sure freedom of speech is blocked
3. secret service the shit out of the country
and more.
Where are the fiscal responsibilities? I thought it was about no private ownership...
[QUOTE=Earthen;20349487]Yeah civil freedom
first steps of the Russian revolution implemented by lenin and trotsky...
1. shut down all newspapers
2. make sure freedom of speech is blocked
3. secret service the shit out of the country
and more.
Where are the fiscal responsibilities? I thought it was about no private ownership...[/QUOTE]
What does Russia have to do with this?
[QUOTE=Conscript;20349118]That's true, and that's were the similarities between the two systems end. Anarchy is formed differently and operates differently then communism. Anarchists want to establish a stateless (and not even necessarily classless, look at anarcho-capitalism) society instantaneously, on a whim. They believe membership in society is purely voluntary and it should be formed around that. Anarchy is simply supposed to be a liberal's paradise.
Communism is a system that's achieved not because some liberals want it to, but because labor has developed to a point that it's powerful enough that it's economically feasible to allow resources become free-access. That's the point where society can only become truly stateless and classless. Before then, there can only be socialism, which has a state.
They're similar, but it would be confusing and incorrect to say they're the same. It would be like saying monarchism and fascism are the same. They aren't, they're similar, but it would be confusing and incorrect to say they're the same.
I don't know if millions died in industrialization, but I agree it could have been done a better way. Early on, lenin and the communists believed that the USSR could skip the industrializing stage capitalism if the revolutions in the rest of europe succeeded (to an extent, they did, but they were crushed because the newly created socialist states were too weak to defend itself from external threats, prime examples being the bavarian, hungarian, chinese, finnish, and estonian/latvian/lithuanian soviet republics).
After that failed the USSR had to develop the country themselves. To do that, the politburo (congress of the USSR's soviets) decided to collectivize soviet agriculture and use money made from grain exports to buy machinery, hire industrial experts, etc. A combination of inexperienced and dogmatic soviet statesmen who oversaw the payment of russia's peasants for their harvest and the harvest quota for the region, and stiff resistence from russia's wealthy and reactionary peasantry whom constituted a chunk of russia's agriculture, created the USSR's famous famines in the 30's and its harsh responses to peasant resistance.
If collectivization wasn't performed so suddenly and quickly, it could have fared better and not have the internal conflicts it did. Unfortunately, if it did that, it probably wouldn't have been able to defeat Germany just a few years down the road. On the other hand, if the european revolutions succeeded and there was an economically developed German SSR to aid the USSR, things would be very, very different.
[editline]04:09PM[/editline]
also you and trotsky should really stop shitting up this thread[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea_%E2%80%93_Baltic_Canal[/url]
One example of millions dieing
Finland was never a threat, jesus christ our army was a speck of dust compared to theirs (in size and firepower). They just made up excuses about Finland. But thankyou very much for clearing up things for me, however, i stick to my beliefs and I will stop arguing. I still think the kulaks weren't directly responsible, they had every right to keep their own things, I know for sure if i was a farmer and somebody just took my tractor away i'd be pissed my tractor, i bought it end of.
[QUOTE=Earthen;20349818][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea_%E2%80%93_Baltic_Canal[/url]
One example of millions dieing[/QUOTE]
The article doesn't state millions died
[img]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=218658&dateline=1263196645[/img]:hf:[img]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=54082&dateline=1266615478[/img]:hf:[img]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=90695&dateline=1266793494[/img]
Woo defending communism against untrue stereotypes!
[QUOTE=Earthen;20349818][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea_%E2%80%93_Baltic_Canal[/url]
One example of millions dieing[/quote]
it says 100,000 thousand gulag inmates died.
[QUOTE=Earthen;20349818]Finland was never a threat, jesus christ our army was a speck of dust compared to theirs (in size and firepower). They just made up excuses about Finland. But thankyou very much for clearing up things for me, however, i stick to my beliefs and I will stop arguing. I still think the kulaks weren't directly responsible, they had every right to keep their own things, I know for sure if i was a farmer and somebody just took my tractor away i'd be pissed my tractor, i bought it end of.[/QUOTE]
I wasn't referencing to the winter war, I was talking about the finnish SSR that was crushed by germany and the white finns that allied with them during the russian civil war.
The kulaks were directly responsible, but you could also say collectivization was, depending on which side you choose.
I won't go into it anymore then that, though, as we'll just keep going. I'd like to drop this anyhow.
[QUOTE=Conscript;20350267]it says 100,000 thousand gulag inmates died. [/QUOTE]
What do you think on that?
[QUOTE=Vasili;20350937]What do you think on that?[/QUOTE]
unfortunate, but a log of gulag inmates died doing all kinds of work, mostly because of lack of medicine.
[QUOTE=Conscript;20350987]unfortunate, but a log of gulag inmates died doing all kinds of work, mostly because of lack of medicine.[/QUOTE]
Would you say it was wrong to use labour forces such as Gulag inmates, as a lot of them where considered enemies of the state, for typical stereotypical communist reasons. Though my Soviet Union history is a bit rusty, I think most of them where political opponents or activists or anyone generally anti Soviet Union.
Actually, while all labeled as such, an 'enemy of th state' during the post-Lenin USSR, and even a bit during, could be anyone from those two guys chatting over coffee, to a guy who offhandedly remarked about some policy that irritated him, to a child who pointed out some slight contradiction, to whoever anyone in power decided they didn't like. Gulags in themselves were a fair idea- create a laborforce from dissidents and criminals- but the reasoning for them and the people who they put into them was of course totalitarian, fascist, and of course wrong in many aspects. Most of the people did not deserve the conditions they endured, and the treatment of those in the gulags was terrible and was closer to a German concentration-death camp than any form of prison or labor compound.
Another question: Would you say Nazism and Bolshevism are very similar to one another? Two people that radically hate each other, yet when you scan their policies and opinions - usually they share the same interests. Only one seems to be in ideal for traditionalism and the other for patriotism focused on people rather than the past.
Edit:
Actually I'd like to continue that question a bit more.
What do you think of Fascism on pen and paper? I have noticed most of the Marxist supporters on Facepunch are constantly defending themselves against the history of 'Communism' and how it never really came out right.
Yet Marxists hate Fascists, right? Yet I see the same arguments applied to them, but they get a harsher end of the stick, I think this due largely to the effects of WWII largely (well, obviously).
"[I]Like Liberalism or Marxism, Fascism is a world viewpoint in its own right, recognising that the future and health of the nation and its people to be more important than the pursuit of 'ideals' of individuals liberty or Utopian drivel. From this it draws it's social economic view of state corporatism in which the state manages the capital of the nation for its people own economic interests rather than that of foreign bankers, protecting workers livelihoods by rejecting foreign goods and foreign labour. Fascism believes in the power of the community and a return to traditional cultural values, that individualism and mass culture disengages humans from society leaving them isolated and prone to deviant and criminal behaviour[/I]."
Two systems largely similar, yet both differ largely by history and bias perhaps?
No, Bolshevism died when Stalin took office, and most of the Bolsheviks were killed or sent to Gulags. Bolshevism was close to the ideals of Marxist communism, with more of a authoritarian and specific political twist. Nazism and Bolshevism being compared would be like comparing Nazism and a modern Republic- infact, with the exception of a single-party state and the economic system, it is almost the same. Nazism, as we know, was a single-party dictatorship, fascism, with total military rule, etc. Bolshevism was not.
Other than the socialist economic policy and the single-party state, Bolshevism and Nazism were completely dissimilar. Stalinism, and Nazism, on the other hand, to me, were nearly identical, which is why I still hold true my belief that communism would be inappropriate to describe Stalin's regime, and fascism would be fitting.
I can't speak for Conscript or Trotsky, I know our interpretations of the past and of communist philosophy are different, so you may want to get input from them, too.
[QUOTE=Vasili;20351113]Would you say it was wrong to use labour forces such as Gulag inmates, as a lot of them where considered enemies of the state, for typical stereotypical communist reasons. Though my Soviet Union history is a bit rusty, I think most of them where political opponents or activists or anyone generally anti Soviet Union.[/QUOTE]
Gulag inmates were made up of all kinds of people. From petty criminals and gangsters (termed 'hooliganism' on the charges) to kulaks to tsarists, kerenskyites, and trotskyists. The early decades of the USSR were unstable and in a period of strife.
Most people in a gulag were in for non-political reasons, and the population varied wildly year to year (gulag sentences were usually short, unless the charge was serious), according to [url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf]this[/url]. Page 22
As for whether it was wrong or not, I don't know. Too subjective. From another point of view, you could easily say that they were 'right' because gulags were very useful in developing the economy.
[QUOTE=Vasili;20351505]Another question: Would you say Nazism and Bolshevism are very similar to one another? Two people that radically hate each other, yet when you scan their policies and opinions - usually they share the same interests. Only one seems to be in ideal for traditionalism and the other for patriotism focused on people rather than the past.[/QUOTE]
I see this a lot and I always say the same thing. Every ideology that includes a state is inherently repressive. When there is a state, there is no freedom, and vice versa.
The only thing similar between nazism and bolshevism is that the countries the ideologies were practiced in used the state to fight groups of people who worked against the interests of the state, which were tied in the interests of its ruling class, in a particularly turbulent period of time. For germany, the nazis repressed every group that would oppose the revival of german capital, so as to consolidate the country and prepare it for another imperialist war against britain and france. For the USSR, it meant repressing every group that opposed industrialization and progressing the USSR down the socialist road. Though later that turned into repressing every group that opposed the bureaucracy, even if it meant fighting communists.
[QUOTE=Vasili;20351505]
Two systems largely similar, yet both differ largely by history and bias perhaps?[/QUOTE]
The difference is that fascism attempts to do this through subjugation and total power by an individual or group, with no power to the people or individual rights beyond those few granted to them by the dictatorship of the individual.
Communism, or Marxist Socialism, is intended to grant close to, but not exactly, the same things through a republic of the people, through a dictatorship by the people- as in, the people are not dictated by an individual, they are dictated by society, by themselves- thus, a republic, with elected representatives, with individual rights, some of which you can view in "Demands for the Communist Party in Germany" (which I'm having a hard time finding a link to).
[quote]1. The whole of Germany shall be declared a single, indivisible republic.
2. Every German over 21 years of age shall be able to vote and be elected, provided he has no criminal conviction.
3. Representatives of the people shall be paid, so that the workers, too, will be able to sit in the parliament of the German people.
4. The whole of the population shall be armed...
5. The provision of Justice shall be free of charge.
...
13. The complete separation of Church and State. Clergymen of all denominations are to be paid only by their voluntary congregations.[/quote]
Another question, have there been any Communist societies that have had democratic voting?
What do you think on Cuba, do you consider it a country that is closer to Communisn than anyone else has attempted? Or do you think there is a much darker road which follows that of secret police that Communists are also famous for?
I believe there was democratic voting in Lenin's Russia, in a representative democracy, that is, and within several other communist parties that held power, but were short lived throughout Europe before Stalin. As I've stated, though, and quoted, Marxist society was intended to be a republic during the socialist stage.
In my opinion, Cuba is no more Marxist or communist than China or the USSR.
[QUOTE=Vasili;20352096]Another question, have there been any Communist societies that have had democratic voting?[/quote]
Technically they all did. Though the validity of them varies from country to country. In the USSR, the soviets still existed and operated like they were supposed to, except the candidates had to pass an extensive, and bureaucracy friendly screen. There was an attempt to eliminate this in an addition to the 1936 constitution with radical decentralization of power, but it was unsurprisingly rejected by the, again bureaucratic, central committee.
In terms of who controlled the government, the USSR was undemocratic. It was, however, extremely liberal and responsive with workers. Wages and benefits were negotiated by unions and the state, strikes were usually met with compromise, community petition demands were often met, etc. The soviet government had the philosophy that satisfying workers benefited everyone, and rightly so. Workers were well represented in the USSR, but the power they had over their soviets was limited.
Yugoslavia worked the same way, but power was nowhere near as centralized.
There's many examples of workers having power though, but most weren't in 20th century communist countries. The most famous example, though, would be the Paris commune.
[QUOTE=Vasili;20352096]What do you think on Cuba, do you consider it a country that is closer to Communism than anyone else has attempted? Or do you think there is a much darker road which follows that of secret police that Communists are also famous for?[/QUOTE]
The former.
To be fair and to agree a bit with Conscript, after Stalin the USSR did improve drastically, though still not Marxist in my opinion.
[quote][img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/1266294694722.jpg[/img][/quote]
Reminds me of Fallout 3 or STALKER.
[QUOTE=Vasili;20351505]Another question: Would you say Nazism and Bolshevism are very similar to one another?[/QUOTE]
Stalin's Bolshevism, yes, but not Lenin's
ITT: A bunch of nerds talk about how communism is great.
hurr
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;20301394][IMG]http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/11/ryugyong-hotel-lg.jpg[/IMG]That thing is simply way too big to simply demolished[/QUOTE]
It's barely staying together as it is. They used the lowest quality building materials they could find to save money (and still ran out.)
The building has shifted so much that elevators can't be installed, because the shafts have warped.
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