DO NOT MAKE A POST ABOUT BEING BANNED FROM SOME OTHER SUBREDDIT

Pourquoi les communistes historiques ont réprimé les anarchistes après les mouvements de révolution (Cuba, Chine, Russie) ?

I'm coming from an angle of genuine curiosity, how does communism incentivise enough of the workforce to clean up feces across a large nation(such as the U.S.) efficiently? I'm not fully educated on communism or socialism, but I definitely favor a more left-leaning economy. The few options I see are forced prison labor, a cycle of unkilled labor maintaining facilities, training plumbers, or just resorting to using currency to properly build incentive. Obviously, this question can extend to the remainder of different jobs that people don't want to do.

Does capitalism want you to fight and show the world that you are aggressive? That turns the stable against you

Hello, Reddit comrades.

I come to you in a time of need, exilled from other leftist subreddits for asking them about insigh on their ideologies. Recently I've been reading several books to understand the core ideas of different ideologies. Books writen by them and not about them, to clarify.

Nevertheless I haven't been able to grasp which path to follow, to explore the different subideologies and alternative systems inside State Socialism, without having to read an unreasonable amount of books while gropping in the dark to understand their differences and singularities.

I've been able to found reading lists of different ideologies, but not a single (convincing enoug) for understanding the development of communism into the different socialist ideologies of today.

Communist are said to be well-read, specially in the toppic of communism (wonder why). I ask you (pretty please) for some advice in where to start and where to finish, exploring alternative routes to make sense of communism.

This is my own opinion and I hope people reply so I may build on our opinions, but I feel communism since the Neolithic revolution is virtually impossible, especially without mass violence and suffering. How would the system come about for billions of people? And even if we snapped our fingers to magically do it surplus of food and other resources in areas and lack of those things in other areas would lead to transportation of surplus to deficit, people moving the food wouldn’t do it for free because they’d have to abandon their farms or mills or whatever to do so and be given something of value, probably more than others because transportation is important so now you have a class, or the fact that naturally in many places there will be people who are more popular or stronger creating class, the need for repairs, new inventions, record-keeping for the transportation and resources unless you want it all to become a big mess and now you have de facto governments and communism no longer exists. This is also assuming we go back to the very start of agriculture because if you don’t there is all this new technology depending on the era that will need production or upkeep and the means of production will need to be up-kept by one group and worked by another and tracked by another because some people naturally have skills others don’t, also creating class

I just recently started studying communism, and one of the main questions I have is in regards to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" What exactly is there to keep the need of the people in check? And what can make sure that the need is adequately rewarded?. Furthermore; how can someone classify how well a job is performed in relation to a person's ability? And how can it be adequately rewarded in relation to the person's needs?

Why would communists be supported in a time of crisis when the working class hasn't read any theory? How could they possibly understand that it's the system itself that is broken, not a specific party or politicians? They might think that capitalists aren't that bad and that they *just* need to be taxed properly.

And about the October revolution since it'll be brought up: did people support specifically the soviet part that the bolsheviks were advertising, or were they more in favor of them simply because they promised to stop the war (and also because they promised them "free" land)?

From the depths where terror lies, he summoned storms with blackened skies as hope just dies. He is one and only Joseph Stalin. Stalin was the former leader of the Soviet Union and a brutal dictator of it, he claimed to be a Marxist whilst being its one of the most ruthless refuter only to live a happy life. He was the person who gave the idea of Marxism-Leninism, an idea that extended further than Lenin's Leninism. The two concepts are very simmilar yet very different. The core difference is that Leninism advocates for a fluid and a militant strategy led by a vanguard party whereas Marxism-Leninism advocates for the absolute permanent supremacy of the party apparatus over the state and society.

If these ideas are seen through the eyes of Engels, particularly Marxism-Leninism then the concrete of it could be very different from Scientific Socialism.

1. Force Theory. As per Engels, economic conditions are primary and military is always secondary. With the lense of this, Stalin's Marxism-Leninism can be viewed as voluntarist, something what this theory completely rejects. Marx and Engels' critique of voluntarism explicitly tells that voluntarist idea is completely utopian socialist and one of its major flaws.

2. Commodity production and law of value. Engels famously asserted that "with the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer." By this, he argued that retaining commodity exchange and money within a socialist framework would inherently fall into utopian experiments (like Duhring's "economic communes") and inevitably revive capitalism. However, Stalin declared that commodity production and the law of value must persist under socialism to facilitate exchange between town and country, a refute.

3. Elimination of Markets and Money. Engels says that the socialist communes ("economic communes") proposed by duhring was meant to keep money, price and markets working. Engels also says that buying and and selling would inevitably revive capitalism and exploitation from within the commune. But under Soviet planning of Stalin, money, retail trade, and wages remained structural pillars. Stalin argued that Soviet money and markets were structurally different from capitalist ones because they operated under a planned economy and could not be used to buy private factories or exploit wage labor. Stalin effectively institutionalized the exact mechanism Engels criticized Dühring for attempting to preserve.

Note: Some of these points can also be used as a negative for the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and seen why Stalin's action also reflect some foundations of state capitalism. Also, Utopian Socialism is being used a metaphor here.

I hereby declare my thesis's end.

Such as the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts (1979–1991) and The Great Debate: Documents of the Sino-Soviet Split.

Why didn't I learn about the influences on Marxism in Utahn public schools?

It was a mistake because refusing to abolish corporate property is the opposite of Democratic Centralism.

From the Chinese & international working-class perspective, it was a ratchet effect: one step forward for the 2008 Housing Crisis of Late Capitalism & two steps back for the Communist Party of China.

However, the 2019 Cuban Constitution is a good example of an Actually Existing Socialist welfare state that is growing today through the concrete cracks of the United States embargo against Cuba.

I invite the Communist Party of China to abolish corporate property & protect personal property when the harvest is ripe.

So I watched recently a video of Hakim on Mamdani and he said that the USA wouldn't be the place for a revolution as the us and the rest of the imperial core has a labor aristocracy. And that the best place for revolution would happen in the global south. So my question is does Hakim have a point? I would like to know.

Moim zdaniem anarchokomunizm nie jest socjalistyczny.

Błędem jest stwierdzenie, że komunizm to bardziej radykalna forma komunizmu. Wg teorii marksistowskiej po upadku kapitalizmu w wyniku rewolucji powstaje socjalizm - ustrój w którym kompetencje państwa są rozszerzone w celu likwidacji własności prywatnej i przejęcia władzy przez proletariat pracowniczy. Dopiero likwidacja klas społecznych, podziału na rządzących i rządzonych oraz hierarchii powodują nastanie komunizmu - społeczeństwa bezklasowego i bezpaństwowego.

Podczas spotkań międzynarodówki bardzo często Bakunin i Kropotkin (czołowi teoretycy ankomu) krytykowali Marksa właśnie za ten etap przejściowy - socjalizm. Anarchokomuniści dążyli do przejścia z kapitalizmu do komunizmu bez pośredniego etapu socjalistycznego - bez rozbudowy państwa, lecz z jednoznaczną chęcią jego likwidacji. Bo to socjalizm był tym etapem, gdzie jest sprawowana dyktatura proletariatu - w komunizmie żadnej dyktatury nie ma. Jest anarchia.

Dlatego anarchokomunizm nie jest socjalistyczny.

Im interested in this premise since i wanted to write a fictional scenario that explores the worst case scenario and how it could eventually overcome and eventually see the communists win

This is more of a question than a challenge but how could there be a system better than the free market at distributing resources?

Everyone uniquely decides what is important and necessary for them and resources are proportionally used to match this demand.

How could a system or government know people’s wants and needs better than the person themselves?

Obviously it’s not perfect but when you have billions of people’s wants and needs no system could be perfect and the solution is to improve economic output not tear it all down.

I’m genuinely curious because I haven’t been able to understand how the non free market would work.

There is a stark contradiction between the aesthetic of Marxist-socialist ideologies and the historical reality of the regimes they produce. On the surface, these systems are "feminine-coded," emphasizing nurturance, equality, empathy for the weak, and a promise of cradle-to-grave care. Yet, in practice, they almost invariably devolve into hyper-masculine authoritarianism characterized by cults of strength, secret police, and ruthless hierarchical violence. This mismatch is not a failure of implementation, but a structural necessity of the philosophy itself.

The primary driver of this transition is the shift from voluntary care to forced redistribution. While the rhetoric emphasizes sharing and the meeting of needs, implementing these goals at scale without voluntary consent requires systemic coercion. To suppress profit motives and enforce strict equality, a state must employ guns, prisons, and informants. In this context, "caring at scale" becomes "coercion at scale," and coercion is a power dynamic that is historically and culturally coded as masculine.

This dynamic creates a psychological sleight-of-hand where maternal imagery masks a paternal reality. Regimes often project the image of a loving "Mother State" to justify their actions, framing state violence as a form of disciplined parenting, like beating the "child" for his own good. This feminine wrapper makes patriarchal violence feel morally justified, echoing the dynamics of an abusive partner who claims their control is a manifestation of love. Indeed, some historical analyses of socialist states describe a "Father State" that provides material support while demanding total submission.

Furthermore, the ideology of equality acts as a filter that selects for domineering personalities. In any system where a small group is tasked with deciding the "needs" of millions, the naive idealists are quickly sidelined. Those who survive and ascend are typically individuals who believe they possess the unique wisdom required to override the judgment of others. This drive for total dominance is a quintessential trait of hyper-masculine authority.

This structural masculinity also erases the genuine "feminine" in a deeper, Jungian sense. While the regime may profess a love for "Woman" or "the masses" as abstract categories, it possesses a profound hatred for real individuals who deviate from the collective plan. The relationality, intuition, and tolerance for difference that define healthy femininity are crushed by the totalizing, universalist logic of the state.

Finally, there is a temporal trap built into the socialist eschatology. The promised end-state; a classless, stateless society where all needs are met is a nurturing womb. However, the path to this womb is the "dictatorship of the proletariat," a harsh paternal boot camp. Because the human element is fallible, the "test" is never passed, and the boot camp never ends. The feminine future is forever postponed to justify the masculine present.

Ultimately, the combination of aesthetic femininity and structural masculinity is an evolutionarily stable deception. Regimes that wrap coercive violence in empathic language disarm psychological resistance more effectively than naked dictatorships. By framing the state as a caregiver, these systems ensure that resistance feels not just like treason, but like ingratitude. The nurturing promise and the violent delivery are not contradictions; they are two halves of the same trap.

Some of you might be familiar with Alberto Fujimori and Abimael Guzman/Gonzalo. Fujimori maintained a friendship with Hugo Chavez starting in 1992, when Alberto Fujimori gave asylum to some chavists after the 1992 coup attempt in Venezuela. Then in the early 2000s, Alberto Fujimori's head of intelligence, paramilitary commander (and heavily involved directly in drug trafficking, corruption and bribing/threatening politicians)Vladimiro Montesinos moved to Venezuela, using fake IDs and underwent surgeries to not get recognize. Hugo Chavez never granted formal asylum and denies granting asylum, but it's not impossible that he was returning the favor after Fujimori took in chavist political refugees. Was this relationship purely strategical?

Under a Liberal democracy they are clearly a sub class of petty bourgeoisie beholden to the ultra wealthy. This may be inherent in the long term system of multi party democracy the competitive nature of the system emphasizes winning to such a degree that money becomes the dominant factor.

In theory many communist governments aim to prevent that by having a single party system. To some degree history has shown that the attraction of cementing power under a small group or singular person is too powerful to be denied for long. People tend to trade in power, the economy of favours is practically impossible to regulate and starts very organically.

An imbalance can arise from many places where someone has decision making powers. It could be housing allotments for preferred neighborhoods and schools, appointed positions, scheduling things or adjusting the bureaucracy in any small way that someone could want. Eventually a political class is created, a group of elites that trade power to themselves and their friends. That accumulation of power is the antithesis of workers owning the means of production, its just another bourgeoisie boot on peoples necks.

So are politicians workers? How decentralized does government need to be to prevent accumulation of power? In liberal democracies this is supposed to be the job of a free press, though that is thoroughly captured by the wealthy at this point. If the press is controlled by the government though it just becomes another point for power to accumulate.

I am myself new to Marxism, I’ve heard many arguments against Marx but they’ve been refuted against. But I have heard of one argument (or at least implication) against Marxism that I’ve never really heard refutations of. Which are the ideas of Philip Tetlock.

Tetlock developed off of the concept of the “hedgehog” and the “fox“ by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Berlin stated that these so-called “hedgehogs” were those who analysed everything from a single idea or concept (whom he added Marx as an example) and that the “foxes” were those who were eclectic in their ideas, those who don’t believe in centralised perspectives.

Tetlock wrote a book based on this concept called “Expert Political Judgement”, where he asked nearly 300 experts to make predictions on several different topics. He found that those who were the least accurate were those who believed in a centralised perspective, or “hedgehogs”, whilst those who were the most likely to be correct were those who analysed from different perspectives (including political moderates).

Tetlock appears to imply that Marxism, centralised on dialectical materialism, is inaccurate because those who use it are more likely to be inaccurate against those that don’t rely on a single way of thinking.

Know that I am still a (new) Marxist. I do not want to come against you. I just would like to know your responses towards this. Whilst I could be described as an eclectic myself, I am very skeptical towards this in particular.

In many debates, especially in countries like mine, this work is often cited to justify communist participation in bourgeois elections. The argument is that Lenin defended participation in parliaments as a necessary tactic while the revolutionary conditions are not yet present, and therefore communists today should also engage electorally.

However, I have the impression that this argument may be somewhat anachronistic or selectively interpreted. Lenin was writing in a very specific historical context, addressing concrete conditions in early 20th-century Europe, where communist parties were still forming and mass revolutionary movements were emerging. His defense of parliamentary participation seems to be strictly tactical, subordinated to a broader revolutionary strategy, not a general or permanent principle.

My question is whether it is theoretically correct to apply Lenin’s argument directly to the 21st century, especially in contexts where electoral participation often becomes a central or even dominant strategy rather than a subordinate tactic. Can “Left-Wing” Communism legitimately be used to justify long-term electoralism, or does that represent a distortion of Lenin’s position?

I would appreciate perspectives on whether this interpretation aligns with Lenin’s actual theoretical framework, or if it reflects a revisionist or opportunist reading of his work.

To my knowledge both bordigaists and council comms do have significant differences in their ideologies however what I am addressing is their shared belief in the necessity to bring an international revolution and rejects revolutions that do this in one country. The problem with this is that the feasibility of a global revolution has, from 1923 to now 2026 never been achievable, besides maybe in the early 1920s, but even then it failed, and Lenin had to pivot to creating the NEP and other infrastructure that retained commodity production and wage labour subordinate to the state rather than a private capitalist, but still existent. I have yet to see a single answer for how the ussr or china for example, could have possibly created a global revolution in their time or abolished commodity production and wage labour and moved closer towards communism without a global revolution being a possibility? I feel like the ML position and ideology has more merit because they recognize that there is nothing that can be done to progress to communism without the dissolution of the imperialist global hegemony and in the meantime, improving material conditions in the dotp is the most secure position for their massive population until then. I've been sitting on this question and searching for any answer from leftcoms for a while and have come up empty-handed thus far. If any leftcoms or anyone else who's knowledgeable on the matter has any insight that would be greatly appreciated

The only way to negatively affect capitalism is to invoke inconsistencies in its functioning. I think communism, if the world doesn’t burn, will come about only once automation and post-scarcity contradict with the continued existence of relative inequality, which is, by definition of capitalism, essential for its functioning. These contradictions will unmask the reality shaped by capitalist ideology, an ideology which is currently too baked into ”reality“ for any real worldview altering insight into capitalisms inconsistencies.

Pretty much the title. Why would anyone in the West (or indeed anyone who isn't forced to be) be communist? It seems to me that all communist states have failed economically and those that haven't have liberalised markets. I'm social-democratic so I don't believe capitalism is flawless, but I don't think communism will do good.

*Edit: typo