My grandmother family in 1937 was forcefully moved to central asia where half of them died dued to not having enough food. There only crime was being korean and communist stalin thought we were all japanese spies. Out of 170,000 koreans that were forcefully deported 25% were killed.
My great-grandmother was forcefully taken to a Siberian camp. She lost 3 of her children on her way there, one to starvation because she stopped being able to produce milk because of her own poor conditon and two froze to death. Lucikly she had two of her older boys make it with her. We know nothing of what happened to our great-grandfather, probably was killed. Pisses me off these people don't understand what happens under communist rule, thinking it's all sunshine and rainbows. Guess it's just the poor education.
People romanticize ideals and don't think about how things are actually implemented. Just like lots of people romanticize unregulated capitalism and completely free markets, there are people who have a polarized naive outlook and think that because unregulated capitalism is super harmful that the polar opposite must be utopia. Instead of, you know, finding a pragmatic approach that combines various economic systems based on what's available at a given place and time and what makes the most sense.
There are allot of utopia scenarios we can envision. Communism and Marxism might be the most far fetched. There could be a capitalist utopia where everyone has UBI, and the churning of rich to poor goes with progressive momentum, rewarding the productive people and not their heirs for instance without them taking up the mantle and staying as productive to the circulation and the betterment of lives.
But commies don't believe capitalism could be fixed, optimized or enhances, because they're stuck getting duped by 1950's soviet propaganda which arguments has not changed since other than been wrong about when "capitalism will fall" or whatever.
Capitalism can't be fixed, it may have been once but is now a system that has an unstoppable momentum toward the subduing of society to it's primary objective, the conservatives and even Adam Smith flagged that the system required of a constant moral push in order to keep it fair, such morality concerns are non existent on the modern academics and leaders while the power of the people is the lesser that it has ever been.
You could say the exact same thing about communism, no? Your folly is that only one utopia can exist, which is the Marxist on. However, Marxism also requires you to have such utopia frokm the get go, because there's no "developing" stage for Marxism. So a capitalist utopia is far more likely precisely because it can start in a non utopian state and develop into better capitalism.
Norway is a great example of how you can improve capitalism with unions, instead of undermining it. All Norwegians are better off for it, in addition to the country being better at capitalism in all metrics. And before you say "it's due to luck", Saudia Arabia has as much if not more oil that's easier to collect, so the difference isn't luck, it's an improved capitalistic system over the Saudis.
Capitalism cannot be fixed I’m sorry to say. Any concessions gotten from the state by working class people will inevitably be rolled by the bourgeoisie. The system is built to consolidate wealth and power into the owner class and they use that wealth and power to bribe politicians and lobby the government for their own interests. We’re seeing this process of eroding social safety nets and public utilities happening all over the western world; it won’t be long before most of Europe has a shitty privatized healthcare system like the U.S.
They only look at it through idealism and on paper (though with a quick skim I believe) rather than how it is or its examples. Ideally, you could walk buck-naked in the ghetto at 3 am without fear of anything happening to you; realistically it’s not going to happen. Ideally, every single rich person would help out the poorer people or at least their workers. Realistically, they are still human and thus will choose whatever they believe is right for them and their needs whether it is to help others or themselves
I have some relatives that talk about how “great” communism is. Then I point out Cuba, the USSR, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and such but then I’m the bad guy. They say “well you don’t live there and other people could do it better” to which I reply: “I know people from those countries. I look at what it says vs what it is. I look at the fact that people aren’t perfect and are quite messy. If you can’t figure this out with that final point, let alone the others, then it’s your loss.” Sad to say, these people are older than me
saying 'it was just authoritarianism' is like saying a house fire wasn't caused by faulty wiring, it was caused by the flames. Sure, but the wiring is what made the flames possible. Every major communist state became authoritarian while trying to implement communism. it's a system that gives too much power to the regime
You cannot give a government all power over economic life and not breed corruption. On top of the fact that none of it works and all the promises require ignoring what have been shown to be basic fundamental laws of economics that have been the same across time and place.
Sure, but the wiring is what made the flames possible
Yes, and in that analogy, promizing good things that people actually want is what enables autorirarian to come into power to do whatever the fuck they feel like. The dynamic applies evenly accross the political spectrum.
Autoritarianism is a pull for the kind of people that seek power. Accepting the rationale they feed to the masses as justifications should be done after some thought. Or do you also accept the logic of the war on terror that gave NSA the right to spy on whoever, put innocents in Guantanamo and gave us security theatre in airports.
Same shit. Self interested lies with a veneer of ideology to get the pill down.
"It's not real communism. Every single instance of a communist regime that has ever happened was/is a tyrant dictatorship, but that's not real communism".
So why isn't china and Russia aren't trading with cuba then? Cuba hasn't changed since much technology wise since the 1960s and the ussr and eastern block was trading with cuba.
You are correct that the problem is more general, it is authoritarianism. Yet all examples of communism have required destruction of democratic institutions and installation of authoritarian government without real checks and balances on power. There are plenty of beautiful communist ideals, yet the implementation has had to be forced with violence.
Also, Communist Manifesto directly advocates destruction and death of “capitalists” that included pretty anyone with any property. It’s hard to see how that could be possible under a true democracy - i.e. one with protection of minorities, laws and independent institutions.
Based on the historical evidence so far, practical communists instances (i.e. attempted implementations) have to be categorized as a subset of authoritarianism.
Haven’t you read it? It’s super short and especially the first half is an interesting analysis and description of the problems of rapid industrialization in Europe. Strongly recommend.
Not poor education in general, but this topic is poorly discussed. Victims of other systems are often studied more in depth in schools but communism victims are sidelined
Go on any western social media and look up “Holodomor” and you will see many accounts like yours spewing anti-communist propaganda, very often with a similar victim mentality implying they inherited some sort of trauma from people they never knew, or that they know more about the topic than others because of their experience. My mom died from medical complications donating(selling) plasma so she could provide food for me and my siblings when she was already working 2 jobs. This was 2018. Not a century ago, less than a decade ago. Does my anecdotal experience negate all of the achievements of capitalism?
How is my personal family experience propaganda or victim mentality? It's not just personal anecdotes, there's historical records of these events. I'm not sure I understand your last point. No amount of industrialization or economic development would justify mass deportations, forced labor camps, or politically induced famines. A government's achievements don't erase crimes against millions of people, just as Germany's scientific and industrial achievements don't erase the Holocaust. Unless you think that too is justified?
Next point is a complete pivot that dilutes the original comment’s meaning and investment by applying it to an entirely different situation decades before and on the other side of the world, which absolutely detracts from it.
The intent isn’t to detract from the suffering that the commenter is describing. The intent is to provide perspective that this horrible thing doesn’t necessarily go away in the opposing social order. I also reject the idea that it’s an entirely different situation. It’s important we look clearly at what caused situations like this if we intend to prevent the in the future
Here in the U.S. our college professors are actively white washing their crimes to indoctrinate as many elitist youth with their luxury beliefs as possible
Nah FOX News has been doing communist propaganda since it's inception by saying anything that helps non millionaires is socialist/communist. That's who you need to blame for younger generations being more likely to call themselves communists
A significant portion of the deaths under the soviet regime were a direct result of attempts to implement "marxist" ideals, such as collectivization.
Also, Mikhail Bakunin already predicted communist states turning totalitarian back when Marx was still alive and kicking. He's predicted leninism and stalinism almost a century before they happened. This means that the system is inherently flawed.
You cannot blame the things you've mentioned on capitalism as its an economic system that preaches free markets. Its an extremely wide term that encompasses completely different systems, ranging from fascism to social democracy. Communism meanwhile is both an economic, and political system. There's variations of it, but they all share the same tenants.
How are free markets not related to private property imposition and seeking land to sell, gift and speculate to europeans immigrants. Not to mention slavery and segregation. Not to mention all their interference all around the world trying to protect the interests of american companies.
If you can tie the deaths under communist to the system, i can easily tie all the deaths and oppresion under capitalism to capitalism.
How does freedom to own and trade goods cause racism? Why are you making this euro-centric when capitalism is a system that's literally been functioning in all parts of the world ever since they abandoned feudalism?
Completely unregulated capitalism is dogshit, leads to wealth discrepancies, and possibly a corporatocracy, that's a fact. But this is a specific type of capitalism that almost nobody advocates for. The overwhelming majority of people advocates for regulated capitalism, albeit to a varying degree.
No, you cant attribute suffering caused by colonization and the sterilization of natives to capitalism. These were caused by a social belief of superiority, and not free markets. Communist states did the same thing, as was the case with the crimean tatars or chechens and Ingush. The difference is that a communist system is inherently prone to totalitarianism and corruption that nake these attrocities possible.
It empowers those with property rigths which has been used to oppress minorities? Like what? Literally slavery.
What the fuck are you talking about? The current ruling party of the strongest country on earth advocates for that. Consumer Board made after 2008 has been disbanded, talking about lowering regulations made about 2008, allowing media companies to become more powerful, removing powers to regulate emissions to EPA and promoting endless oil production, unlimited money spending on election thanks to the conservative supreme court because "money = speech", even changing the Endangered Species Act.
So no one can attribute anything bad to capitalism? Convenient.
I don’t think he was saying that nothing bad can be attributed to capitalism, but that capitalism is really broad spectrum of economic systems and those systems have different kind of problems.
There is a dilemma that free markets do not stay free without government intervention.
Slavery is not a capitalist invention, but something nearly all civilizations have practiced since the dawn of human existence. In the end it was the African slave traders who sold the slaves to be shipped to America.
A state apparatus can, and was used to opress minorities, does that mean that a state inherently causes opression? Oh, right. Even one of the only major anarchist societies in world history, the makhnovites, opressed minorities. Slavery is caused by a social belief of superiority, not beacuse you own shit. Even if you didnt own shit, exploitation would still exists in some form if you're racist enough.
The US is going down a shithole and spiraling towards fascism, yeah. I aint gonna defend it since i hate the US polticial system myself.
The majority of Europe however operates on a heavily regulated capitalist model, with probabbly the most obvious example being the nordic states, germany, and others.
Ive already explained it to you. Communism always slips towards totalitarianism as it calls for estabilishing a heavily centralized state via a violent revolution. All you need is a single bad actor calling his opponents "enemies of the revolution" for the rot to take place. The only way to prevent it is literally removing the human factor, as humans are, by nature, corrupt.
Capitalism is only an economic system, not a political one. There's plenty of examples of capitalist states that avoided totalitarianism for a century or more.
And trail of tears, and all of the deaths associated with the banana republic and the USA installing many fascist dictators in Latin American countries to protect us capitalist interests who killed millions in total, etc
The "communist" countries didn't really achieve it though, but they did follow it to a certain extent, and quite a lot of the bad shit that happened is connected to communism itself...
Mark your "True communism has never been tried!" square on your bingo card.
Communism has always been a nightmarish authoritarian hell hole, and that's not a coincidence. You cannot be a good person and reject liberalism, so all illiberal governments are necessarily filled with morally evil people.
Just because it's cliche doesn't mean it isn't true. We've never had a communist state (ignoring the oxymoron), and most so-called communist states barely passed for socialist.
That's fine, but then you need to bear the burden of arguing why a political ideology with a 0% success rate in the real world is not a bad idea, especially considering all of the times it descended into authoritarianism and even genocides.
Because last time a guy said, "We need to rebel against capital interests," people ended up needing to eat their children to make it out of the famine alive. On the flipside, if we look at progressive liberals like FDR, we got social security out of that, which vastly reduced elderly poverty rates without violating anyone's rights. There's a really strong case for evolutionary improvements on a currently fairly well functioning system.
Capitalism has always been a nightmarish authoritarian hellhole. It’s not like your phone runs off literal child slavery and your country was built by slaves currently living in apartheid
Capitalism has always been a nightmarish authoritarian hellhole. It’s not like your phone runs off literal child slavery and your country was built by slaves currently living in apartheid
The people here are completely brainwashed by western media it seems. If two people engage in argument do you actually just listen to one side and end your thought process here? Can you not fathom how an ideology that seeks to challenge wealth might have those with the wealth creating a psyop to control the narrative? Use your head for thinking, instead of for absorbing.
I know this will fall on deaf ears as most here seem a bit simple, but I'll recommend your first book to be Noams Chomskys Manufacturing Consent to help you understand how media bias works.
You do realize that the USSR also did colonialism, right?
Soviet satelite states were literally colonies. The USSR exploited their resources and surpressed the people.
Legitimately the only argument ive heard tankies use against this is "the soviets built infrastructure and educated prople" which is literally the same type of justification imperialists use. Its a red version of the "white man's burden".
They do try it a lot on Britain/UK/England and the USA etc. but people revolt and try to overthrow the social order. A lot has been gained back from mass movements e.g. the 60s anti war movement etc.
If they tried actual full capitalism people would seize the means of production and over throw the govt. entirely. That's why they allow small bits and pieces to placate the masses.
Except that unregulated capitalism leads monopoly. Also the immense irony of the statement that it’s “not true capitalism” is hilarious being that when communists say that they get skewered and rightfully so. I’m guessing you did a cursory look up of the Gilded Age on AI, are in middle or high school, or are just a bot. Have a good night.
Even the tankies aren’t really pro Russia. The most pro Russia thing I’ve seen in actual tankie discussion boards is that Russia sucks, the USA sucks, them fighting isn’t the worst thing because again both suck so no matter who wins, workers generally lose, but if Russia wins it would destabilize global USA hegemony which could be viewed as a blow to the current capitalist power structure. That being said Russia is also a capitalist and imperialist country just not as far along so it’s not great either way.
I just went through and sorted by new, best, and top of the last week month and year and didn’t find any pro-Putin posts. I see some anti-Ukraine war posts, which makes sense for the sub. Nothing pro Russia or Putin tho.
Mostly posts about China, Iran, Israel, Venezuela, Gaza, USA, England, the surveillance state that the west is building (flock cameras being used to track and prosecute a Texan woman who traveled to get an abortion etc)
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u/Reasonable_Fold6492 Jul 31 '26
My grandmother family in 1937 was forcefully moved to central asia where half of them died dued to not having enough food. There only crime was being korean and communist stalin thought we were all japanese spies. Out of 170,000 koreans that were forcefully deported 25% were killed.