Modern Communist Countries

[Gumbl897]

I have a few questions about the remaining communist countries such as China and North Korea.

1. What is the general leftist view on these countries?
2. Can they really be called communist or socialist?
3. Are they really as bad as they are made out to be by the media?

[Weezer]

China?

North Korea?

Communist?

:confused::confused::confused:

You have a lot to learn, bub. No they can't be considered socialist or communist, especially China with it's free market economy, and the "revisionist", but more importantly disgusting policies of North Korea, and its cult of personality.

[Axle]

I have a few questions about the remaining communist countries such as China and North Korea.

1. What is the general leftist view on these countries?
2. Can they really be called communist or socialist?
3. Are they really as bad as they are made out to be by the media?

Socialism is a worker's state and is the transitional phase from Capitalism into Communism, a classless, stateless society...and neither are even remotely socialist. China is capitalist and North Korea, while still having a planned economy, has a Juche ideology.

[Vendetta]

the remaining communist countries such as China and North Korea.

Nope.

[AK]

:thumbdown: "Communist Country" is an oxymoron.
I see what you mean but I'm gonna get you on the technicality there. Communist state is an oxymoron, communist country isn't. A country simply refers to an area of land. It can be possible to create something such as an anarchist (as has been historically done in Catalonia, Spain) or communist enclave within the territory of a country. It would help in future to understand the differences as they can confuse your audience.

[Q]

I see what you mean but I'm gonna get you on the technicality there. Communist state is an oxymoron, communist country isn't. A country simply refers to an area of land. It can be possible to create something such as an anarchist (as has been historically done in Catalonia, Spain) or communist enclave within the territory of a country. It would help in future to understand the differences as they can confuse your audience.
You're quite wrong actually.

Socialism is not merely a workers state, like Axle suggested, that would be more accurately described as a dictatorship of the proletariat or more simply a direct democracy. Socialism however is an absolute social improvement on capitalism and this makes it transition towards communism.

To reach an absolute improvement, your level of production has to be higher than that of the most developed capitalist economy on the planet (the USA). For this you have to implement two features: 1. a democratically planned economy, 2. an international spreading of the revolution.

Therefore socialism is by very definition an international solution towards capitalism, which is an international system by itself. To achieve communism, a stateless society, capitalism quite simply can no longer exist or else there is still a class society and thus a hegemony of the working class (and thus a workers state) is needed.

More to the point: Communism is global or it is nothing.

[AK]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "you're quite wrong". What exactly did I get wrong? I do agree with the points you presented afterwards though.
EDIT: Ah wait, I get what you mean. It was all in the last few lines. And I think I made a thread on communist enclaves before... Found it: http://www.revleft.com/vb/communism-one-country-t126534/index.html?t=126534
But if you can get a stateless classless society in both Anarchism and Communism... how is it possible Anarchist Catalonia even existed? Or are we specifically talking about global sociey?

[ArrowLance]

China is not currently Communist. As for the DPRK, it has a very special ideology. What Maoism did for China, Juche has done, probably even more, for Korea. It's nice to sit at home and think of how nice and dandy of a revolution we could run if we just got a chance. And then use every flaw to destroy in our minds the revolutionary struggles of others who fail to meet our standards.

[Q]

I see what you mean but I'm gonna get you on the technicality there. Communist state is an oxymoron, communist country isn't. A country simply refers to an area of land. It can be possible to create something such as an anarchist (as has been historically done in Catalonia, Spain) or communist enclave within the territory of a country. It would help in future to understand the differences as they can confuse your audience.

Versus


More to the point: Communism is global or it is nothing.

[Q]

But if you can get a stateless classless society in both Anarchism and Communism... how is it possible Anarchist Catalonia even existed? Or are we specifically talking about global sociey?
What I think you need to separate here are historical processes (long term) and historical events (short term). Much like the climate (long term) and the weather (short term) are two different things.

It is all in the balance of forces whether a historical event, like that of Spain in the 1930's, is successful or not. If the working class is victorious in consolidating its power on a national plane, then it is indeed possible to spread the revolution outwards to other national sections of the global working class. This internationalism need continuous stressing though as you cannot build socialism on a national plane. Backward Russia degenerated relatively fast within a decade after the revolution of 1917 and today, with the highly integrated global economy, this could in fact go much more swiftly. In the Netherlands, where I live, for example a successful but isolated socialist revolution would effectively mean bankruptcy as our economy is vitally dependent on the export and financial sectors.

[Patchd]

Socialism is a worker's state and is the transitional phase from Capitalism into Communism, a classless, stateless society...and neither are even remotely socialist. China is capitalist and North Korea, while still having a planned economy, has a Juche ideology.
No, Socialism is workers' control. A workers' state (a contradiction at that) has nothing to do with Socialism, it's a state, run by bureaucrats, managing capital on behalf of capitalists, pretending to do it on behalf of the working class.

[AK]

No, Socialism is workers' control. A workers' state (a contradiction at that) has nothing to do with Socialism, it's a state, run by bureaucrats, managing capital on behalf of capitalists, pretending to do it on behalf of the working class.

Socialism is a transitional period between capitalism and communism, after which the state has completely disappeared and during which the state is beginning to be rendered useless and it's functions and responsibilities are gradually taken up by the workers. This implies that a state is present at the beginning and all the way through to the end, when it's last function is taken up by the workers.

[Hiero]

To reach an absolute improvement, your level of production has to be higher than that of the most developed capitalist economy on the planet (the USA).


That is ridicilious. That actually sets up countries to turn revisionist, that is the whole point of revisionism. The Soviet Union became to concerned with competing with the USA that it lead to too many compromises. In some cases free market in todays world will lead to a higher level of production (if you mean GDP).

A higher standard of living can be achieved in many third world nations by producing less, that is less for the imperialist market, and focusing more internally on what people need.

You have in a very strange way used a capitalist measurement to define socialism. Socialism is not about increasing the means of production for productions sake, but about consolidating the new relations of production under the proleteriat.

[FSL]

Socialism is not about increasing the means of production for productions sake, but about consolidating the new relations of production under the proleteriat.



It's about both, they're just as important. And there is no need to turn an economy towards capitalism to develop the productive forces, it can be done just as well in socialism (actually much better), as the USSR demonstrated. People can use it as a pretext of course, like Bukharin, Gorbachev or Deng.

[CELMX]

1. What is the general leftist view on these countries?
China is pretty much capitalist, and is run by a bunch of bourgeois elite snobs (but so are most other capitalist countries, right?) :D
North Korea is just...scary. Totalitarian, extremely oppressive.

2. Can they really be called communist or socialist?
Both do not deserve to be called socialist...and definitely not communist.
Again, you cannot call one country "communist" but you could call it socialist. Communism requires the withering away of borders and the state, as stated by Marx, so cannot occur in one nation.
Take Cuba, for example, that is a socialist country.

3. Are they really as bad as they are made out to be by the media?
for once, the media is accurate on how horrid North Korea is.
However, I'm not sure about China. There hasn't been much bad talk about China, since it is the leading export.
Cuba, however, is NOT as bad as the media claims it is. Poverty rates low, or nill. Standard of living increased.

Sorry, I just had to add those Cuba bits, since it is MUCH more socialist than China or North Korea (which aren't even socialist...)

[Axle]

No, Socialism is workers' control. A workers' state (a contradiction at that) has nothing to do with Socialism, it's a state, run by bureaucrats, managing capital on behalf of capitalists, pretending to do it on behalf of the working class.

Basically what I meant. I said it for simplicity's sake. And its not a prerequisite for a "worker's state" to be run by bureaucrats...democratic control of both the political and economic spheres by the working class in one or more countries would essentially make a worker's state.

[robbo203]

Socialism is a transitional period between capitalism and communism, after which the state has completely disappeared and during which the state is beginning to be rendered useless and it's functions and responsibilities are gradually taken up by the workers. This implies that a state is present at the beginning and all the way through to the end, when it's last function is taken up by the workers.

Historically, at least in the early 19th and 20th centuries socialism was widely understood to be just another term for communism i.e. it meant the same thing. We can argue till the cows come home about which particular usage of this term is the correct one but I think it would be more productive if you focussed on this idea of supposed transition between capitalism and communism and ask yourself whether it really makes much sense.

Ask yourself, for example, whether there can be some kind of society that is neither a class-based society nor a classless society, neither a society in which there is no money or a society in which there is money, neither a stateless society nor a statist society. Do you see what I am getting at?

What I am trying to suggest to you is that there is no such thing as a transition between capitalism and communism. Nada. Zilch. Niks. And just becuase Marx said there was doesnt make it right. The idea is actually incoherent.

If there is a transition, it is a transition WITHIN capitalism or a transition WITHIN communism but what it cannot possibly be is a transition BETWEEN capitalism and communism

[RadioRaheem84]

Cuba, however, is NOT as bad as the media claims it is. Poverty rates low, or nill. Standard of living increased.

Sorry, I just had to add those Cuba bits, since it is MUCH more socialist than China or North Korea (which aren't even socialist...)


Is everyone else in agreement about Cuba? I am sort of still on the fence with Cuba.

[punisa]

Is everyone else in agreement about Cuba? I am sort of still on the fence with Cuba.

Looking at today's world, I say Cuba is as socialist as it gets.

[Kingpin]

In the present and the future, just how exactly are you going to stop revisionists from seizing power?

You have a lot to juggle, the threat by reactionaries, revisionists, capitalist sabotage every step of the way, the corporate mass media against you, being able to carry out a planned economy without running short due to embargos, etc.


So how will you stop revisionists from seizing power without compromising progress?

If the reactionaries and capitalists see that there is an internal power struggle, they will use that opportunity to attack and finish you off.

[Q]

So how will you stop revisionists from seizing power without compromising progress?
By bringing the working class to power.

[cb9's_unity]

Is everyone else in agreement about Cuba? I am sort of still on the fence with Cuba.

I'm on the fence about Cuba too. I've done research from both pro-capitalist and pro-cuban sources, and I honestly think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Economically Cuba is the success story of the century. Despite being cut off from American goods, Cuba has been able to thrive compared to many of its Caribbean neighbors. According to Glenn Beck himself Cubans only make $9 a month, Haitians were making $2 a month before the earthquake (even the most brain dead pro-capitalists can't really deny the relative economic success of the Cuban revolution).

However Cuba doesn't exactly have the cleanest human rights records, and the Communist Party bureaucracy has de facto control over the parliament. To my knowledge, the cuban legislature meets only briefly and acts like a rubber stamp to the Castro's agenda. Cuba has democratic institutions (the idea that there is an iron fist dictatorship is a western myth) but the Castro's and the communist party itself holds quite a bit of the power.

[AK]

If there is a transition, it is a transition WITHIN capitalism or a transition WITHIN communism but what it cannot possibly be is a transition BETWEEN capitalism and communism
Communism is the idealised end product, it can't still be transitional. Socialism is, in some aspects, still part of Capitalism, as there is still a class struggle for the most part and there is a small, ever-decreasing sector (to the point of collective ownership) of private ownership.

[Tatarin]

1. What is the general leftist view on these countries?

Generally I'd say negative. Cuba is probably the only one left, and the one closest to any socialism. The rest of the so called "communists countries" (Laos, China, Vietnam and North Korea) have either liberalized their markets or are going in that way.


2. Can they really be called communist or socialist?

Communist: no. Socialism is another question, at least when it comes to Cuba. I'll say that none of the other four countries are close to socialism.


3. Are they really as bad as they are made out to be by the media?

This is a broad question. What is "bad"? Is, for example, the United States "good"? Is "good" when you have the right to start a corporation, say and write whatever you want, and when a state have more than one party to vote on? Is it good when you can do none of those things, but have guaranteed food, housing, schooling and free medicine?

But to narrow it down a little, nothing is black and white. For one, you could never ask me if Cuba is good or bad. There are bad things about Cuba, there are also good things, some could be even better. Maybe something has to be compromised? Cuba is close to the United States, they are open to propaganda. Does that justify the current Cuban government's propaganda? Is that bad?

The same can be said about many countries - not necessarily "communist" ones. The situation in Iran, another example, isn't very good, but it is good because their own people are starting to demand reforms, and historically, when many people unite and demands a change it will most likely happen. Just as no one sees Iraqi "rebels" as a good force, but can understand the reason they fight western troops.