Communist violence vs. Capitalist Violence

[AnarchistCommunist]

Sometimes while browsing Communist websites, I always find the obligatory Capitalist pig that posts the all too common photos of bones and dead members of Communist countries. I can't help but to think "you know, this reminds me a hell of a lot of the conquest of Capitalism". Is that a valid argument if one were to mention heavy death as a con of Communism? By this I mean, many die for the Communistic idea of equality and freedom, while the deaths of Capitalistic wars are fought solely for monetary interests (see: Iraq War).

[OneNamedNameLess]

Sometimes while browsing Communist websites, I always find the obligatory Capitalist pig that posts the all too common photos of bones and dead members of Communist countries. I can't help but to think "you know, this reminds me a hell of a lot of the conquest of Capitalism". Is that a valid argument if one were to mention heavy death as a con of Communism? By this I mean, many die for the Communistic idea of equality and freedom, while the deaths of Capitalistic wars are fought solely for monetary interests (see: Iraq War).


Well first of all, I don't have much respect for the regimes they are likely to mention. As you will hear a lot here on Revleft, Cambodia, the USSR, China and so on were not/are not true workers democracies. These atrocities were committed by hierarchical, state capitalist elites. I don't think I can think of any so called 'socialist' experiment which achieved anything close to a classless, stateless society. Moreover, during the transitional stage a greater degree of workers control and socialistic elements could have been implemented. I believe many leftists supported them out of hope that something close to communism would one day be achieved like many now do with Cuba and Venezuela. My point is really that if you have a decent enough knowledge of your beliefs and explain what communism really is about then you can undermine these irrelevant arguments. Personally, I see single states labeled socialist as a temporary step until the global capitalist system is replaced by an alternative global cummunist one.

In addition, yeah, capitalism kills, has killed and continues to kill. Whether this is via a war for resources, famine, corporate crime, it hasn't went away. Jesus, just look at the actions of many corporations and what they do to people, animals, the earth etc in order to increase their profits! If you read up on history and some leftist political science the crimes of capitalism and their scale is shocking.

Finally, explain why capitalism is dependant on inequality and provide a Marxist critique of the system which is generally accepted, even by many right wingers ;)

[F9]

First of all, there arent any "communist countries".Communism never existed, and what the countries you are referring had or have is far from communism.
Communism is about been free not retaining power and authority and "fuck the workers" and send them to wars.Those countries had indeed lots of dead people.But i cant blame "communism" because CCCP joined the WW and mainly was they that stop fascism spreading.I cant talk about those things and think they did bad..You got to defend against fascists.So that, if they are referring to dead people in WW about the "evil communists" just hit them on the head and ask them if they preferred fascism.It wasnt a "communist win" it was a people's win, and their determination to stop fascism.It had indeed many "blood" but thats whats going to be when someone is shooting to you and you had a gun on you..
On people dying and killed by the "wish" of those countries is just a shame of the movement and communism.Communism has nothing to do with killing people for having different views, just saying they dissagree, communism is to help the poor and give them to eat, not try to build armys, get nuclear searching, and space exploration that cost lots of money, and the people are hungry and die.Those have nothing to do with communism and its shame that some people connected those things with Communism.
Communism is as an idea against violence, revolution is indeed violent but thats because no one is gonna leave you take over his oppression materials, no one is going to give his belongings that got from oppressing people.They will try to kill you, and you have to defend yourself.I dont call that violence, i call that self defence.
So no we cant compare "communist violence" with capitalist one.Even if we did indeed take what "communist" countries did(which is innacurate anw) capitalism killed lot more, capitalism kills so much people every day, that it seems "natural".The fact that they die isolated with no one else to see them, or few ones, dont makes them dissapear.

Fuserg9:star:

[Q]

Many conservative idiots will claim a 100 million figure resulting deaths from "communism".
Ok, I can play that game too, I'll design a tshirt saying "Capitalism killed more than 1 billion people and all I got was this lousy tshirt!" and then visit a republican convention or something.

[marxistcritic]

Recently, I was debating with an anti-communist, and, guess what? They were so far from mainstream anti-communism that they didn't even know about the 100 million figure that these people normally pull. All she managed to use to support her argument was the tiny few thousand figure from Estonia.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

All she managed to use to support her argument was the tiny few thousand figure from Estonia.

It might be tiny compared to the figures people pull out over Stalin or Mao, but I don't think you should trivialise the deaths of thousands of people. Secondly, I wouldn't consider any of the 20th century regimes to be Communist, no more than I would consider the Labour Party to be a labour party.

If I can refer to the adage from the situationists; 'A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of total revolution'. Lets get the ballistics here; 10-20 million deaths in the European colonisation of the Americas, 15-25 million WWI, 40-70 million WWII, 1.5-2 million in conflict in Afghanistan since 1979 and highest estimates are that over 1 million have been killed in Iraq since 2003. I'm just cherry picking statistics, but there's a whole orchard of deaths caused by capitalistic wars for empire and domination.

Furthermore, there are the every day crimes of capitalism; being forced to prostitute your labour to the employing classes so that they can get rich by the fruits of your labour. Not to mention where there is food being thrown out and houses lay empty whilst people go hungry and without shelter. What about the workers who were shot, simply for demanding a living wage, an 8 hour day or the weekend? What about every landlord who's ever thrown a family out on the street? I hate these boogie liberals and conservatives who think that just because capitalism hasn't shit on them yet that it isn't an abhorrent and violent system. Maybe they should ask a family in Palestine whether they think capitalism is violent, or ask trade unionists in S. America whether they think capitalism is violent, hell maybe ask some of the 1 billion+ people we have going hungry in this world which is causing food riots across a multitude of continents, whether they think capitalism is violent.

[marxistcritic]

I know that none of those countries were actually communist. I was trying to say that some people are so far from mainstream anti-communism that they don't pull the giant figures. Sorry for making the Estonian deaths seem trivial, because I wasn't trying to.