Is that an accurate description of communism? — Purple Pond

No, that is a description of what communist dictatorships have been in practice, and describes communism as an ideology about as accurately as the systematic killing of jews describes capitalism.

Oh except for this part:

The communist economy is --- inefficient. — Purple Pond

That part was about right.

Look to the roots.

This is sort of a joke. But I'd say communism is the idea that you are always morally obligated to side with the loser. What shocks me about Mao is that he can write such an insightful class analysis of kuomingtang china, and not love that complexity and believe in the monotheism of "the worker"

It's an accurate description of what Communism has turned out to be every time people have tried to implement it, but of course from the Communist point of view, that wasn't real communism :D

There's quite a distance between Communist ideals and Communist reality - but actually it's the ideals that are the problem, that lead to the shitty reality despite the undoubted best intentions of many rank-and-file Communists.

[Delete] @Baden

No it wasn't. People were following what Marx had in mind, the leaders were following what they had in their own mind. — René Descartes

Nevertheless, due to the unparalleled scale of destruction and death associated with communist regimes, I would like to see the word "Communism" buried, much like "Nazism" should be.

[Delete] @Baden

Analogy: There are now 9 states that have nuclear weapons and a few more who could if they wanted to. The technology to make an atomic bomb was invented only once by the United States, 1942-1945, then a bit later for thermo-nuclear bombs. The technology was then stolen or shared.

There is similarly 1 state, the USSR, that established the first communist government and set the pattern. These two states shared their ideas and methodology with other states that also established communist governments in the PRC, North Korea, Cuba, and the eastern European bloc countries.

It has been pointed out many times that Russia was not a promising economy in which to apply Marxist thinking, but it none the less found enthusiasts well before the 1917 revolution. China was also not a promising economy.

The "flavor" of Soviet communism derived much from the personalities of its founders -- Lenin, Stalin, et al, and the project which they attempted to achieve: transform a very lightly industrialized agrarian economy with a long history of absolutist rulers, covering a vast territory populated by widely varying cultures, religions, geography, and so forth, into a heavily industrialized nation in a short period of time while engaged in two world wars, neither of which they started.

Both the USSR organized a very authoritarian governments (secret police and all) and operated a command economy (as opposed to a market economy) with the state serving as the Corporation. The State Corporation was not totally unsuccessful but it left much to be desired.

None of this is in Marx, Engels, or any major socialist/communist theorist. The Soviets (and others) tried for a giant leap-frog over the slow, historical development of a working class capable of seizing the means of production, and they failed miserably.

The results were both significantly good and really very bad.

Is that what the creators of communism had in mind? — Purple Pond

No. They had in mind the following: a stateless, classless, moneyless world wherein human beings collectively own the means of production. That is the definition of communism.

What you have in mind are those societies that were governed by communists, not societies that were communistic. The USSR, China, etc were/are trying, at least on paper, to get to the state of being described above. Were they successful? Clearly not.

Herein also lies the fundamental defect of communism: it is unimplementable. Whatever else it is, it's an absurd utopian scheme that, whenever tried (in the sense of certain countries and individuals ideologically committed to bringing it about), has resulted in societal, economic, and moral implosion and degeneracy, or in a word, totalitarianism.

I meant buried the way Banshees are. They're old goddesses who escape their burial mounds from time to time to fill the hearts of the living with dread.

[Delete] @Baden

Communism is the withering away of the state; communism is the development of a knowledgeable working class (over time) which can take control from the bourgeoisie (the owners) of the economic resources of a country. The working class will have to take it, because the bourgeoisie are not going to just hand it over. That part could be a bit messy, depending on how tightly their fingers are gripping their property. (Hopefully it won't involve their cold dead hands.)

Without the state, without the bourgeoisie extracting surplus value from the workers (the profit, in other words), society will evolve to exploit the new economic circumstances. The demise of capitalism will not solve all problems, of course, and issues like global warming and environmental degradation are going to follow us to our graves, regardless of which political/economic system we have.

Still, I'd rather have a system friendly to the idea of "production for human need" rather than one based on "Production for maximum profit".

Interesting. Maybe you could say more about that.

We can't forget what happened. Millions of death. You can't just bury it. — René Descartes

I agree.

Curiously, the roots of communism are also the roots of American independence.

The older I get, and the more I see the appalling suffering caused by capitalism, and by theocracy - the other major governmental system in today's world - the more I feel drawn towards Marxism.

Just saying.

When I was young I didn't like history much, but now that I am mostly history, I have much more respect for it.

[Delete] @Baden

Is that an accurate description of communism? — Purple Pond

No.

Marx and Engles would have been horrified to have seen Stalin and Mao; how "communism" had been hijacked by a system of State Capitalism.

Counter-anecdote: the older I get, the less enthused with Marxism I have become.

[Delete] @Baden

No.

Marx and Engles would have been horrified to have seen Stalin and Mao; how "communism" had been hijacked by a system of State Capitalism. — charleton

FINALLY. Someone mentions it. Thank you. It was State Capitalist, yet everyone says it was a failure of communism. Most of the confusion with the word ( and in debates about communism vs capitalism) is from a failure to define terms. When you do, it is clear that the systems in China, USSR were not like Marx and Engels described.

[Delete] @Baden

Surely this can't be what people had in mind by "communism". — Purple Pond

What people who read Marx (long before 1917) presumably had in mind were medieval communes. Groups of peasants, or tradesmen, or the inhabitants of a town or parish, forming associations to protect themselves. That is fundamentally Marxism; that an individual will always be weak within an economic system; that they need to realise their collective strength.

forming associations to protect themselves. — Londoner

They paid warlord/aristocrats for protection. That is not Marxism. Marxism is a passive wait for history to reveal its purpose.

Communists chose not to wait and instead devoted themselves to destruction with some blind faith that whatever grew back in its place would be better. It wasn't.

They paid warlord/aristocrats for protection. That is not Marxism. Marxism is a passive wait for history to reveal its purpose. — frank

No it is not. Marx and his followers have always enjoined the class struggle.

What people who read Marx (long before 1917) presumably had in mind were medieval communes. Groups of peasants, or tradesmen, or the inhabitants of a town or parish, forming associations to protect themselves. That is fundamentally Marxism; that an individual will always be weak within an economic system; that they need to realise their collective strength. — Londoner

In today's terms it would equate to workers co-operatives. The state's role would be provide legal frameworks for them to operate fairly.
This has never been seriously tried on a wide scale. Within the current capitalist system companies would be encouraged to give workers shares as part of their wages, until the whole was in the hands of the workers. This could really incentivise productivity if workers know they are working for their own benefit and not some fat prick living in Switzerland.

I agree with both of you. We have not truly experienced real communism as Marx and Engels preached. Rosa Luxemburg seemed to be close to this true communism but she was assassinated.

However I can see the point from anti-Communists that what we have seen thus far around the world of what is called "Communism", isn't a good image. — René Descartes

Abe Lincoln's famous joke comes to mind: "How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg."

Ideal communism is no doubt beautiful. The same is true of ideal capitalism. All ideals are wonderful. On the ground, in actuality, things are always uglier.

The fact remains that in terms of scale of destruction, communist regimes have no equal.

They paid warlord/aristocrats for protection. That is not Marxism. Marxism is a passive wait for history to reveal its purpose. — frank

What they did was to establish themselves within the feudal system. A commune took on the role of a person, like a lord, in the same way as a company today takes on a legal personality. Like everyone else they were part of a system; they had rights and duties.

Remember Marx is from a medieval city which would have had strong guilds. It was part of the Holy Roman Empire which was itself a sort of commune.

It is no good reading Marx as if he is a twentieth century, let alone a modern writer. It is absurd to try to understand what he meant by communism by looking at regimes that only came into existence around 40 years after his death.

And Marx was under no illusion that all you had to do was await history to do its stuff. He wrote numerous studies of failed revolutions. To say capitalism was unstable because it contained inherent contradictions did not imply that it must inevitably be replaced by communism. People had to make it happen.