That's not REAL communism! he declares

When has non-authoritarian communism been implemented successfully over a large population? It can work in a small community but tell me how you'd make communism work in a country of 330 million. What did the other attempts such as soviet union, mao's china, venezuela etc. fail to get right that you know how to do better?

There is no such thing as authoritarian communism. Communism is a stateless system of mutual cooperation. Every country you listed is a system of state capitalism. Look the term up if you don't understand it.

The Right: Words have meanings!

Also The Right: Obama is a socialist communist nazi!

My point is that when communism is attempted it turns authoritarian 100% of the time. You denying that the Soviet Union, Mao's China and Venezuela were attempts at communism show you lack understanding and/or are intellectually dishonest. So you can also answer, what did they do wrong, and what do you know that they didn't to make it work properly, like the "real" communism you describe.

That's not an argument and doesn't help your cause at all. I can infer from your drivel that you are in the camp that "real" communism has never been tried, or is it more nuanced than that?

That’s not real communism thread #3457 of pard

As with all things, it depends how you define it.

If you use the google definition

a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Then it's obvious that it hasn't ever actually existed.

Socialism under the following definition

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Could be said to have existed since there were places where the state owned industry and that could be argued to be "the community as a whole".

Correct, it has never actually existed because it can't exist. It always turns authoritarian, thereby eschewing its textbook definition.

Socialism is just a stepping stone to communism but is closer to having existed RE: Bolsheviks.

It's much like "real" capitalism or "real" libertarianism or "real" democracy haven't been tried/don't work. They would also be failed systems. A mixed economy, capitalism with some social programs, with mixed sources of power both govt and private, are proven workable models and is what the U.S. is now. If someone wanted to argue that more attention needed to be paid to the social side of things then that'd be a discussion worth having, but to conclude with communism, no. Doesn't work, hasn't worked, can't work, won't work..ever.

Bolshevik just means majority. They were the right wing, lead by Lenin, who endorsed State Capitalism and shat on the idea on internationalism and permanent revolution. Lenin even wrote a book bashing leftists. The Mensheviks were the left wing who endorsed the Marxist ideas of no government and mutualism and permanent revolution.

If you enjoy reading, I could suggest some books if you don't want to come across as entirely ignorant when speaking to anyone familiar with Marxism, anarchism, syndicalism, etc.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Aug 10 2020 06:59pm

So then you accept that a dictator can't exist in communism, and so your original comment was nonsensical.

Something I really don't like is that "independents" will happily criticize the left for wanting "communism" because "it can't work or is always a dictatorship", but never do the same to the right and their worship of the market/capitalism despite having almost the exact same contention.