Challenge: Write a Marxist FAQ

[Robocommie]

It's important to engage with people who may know nothing at all about Marxism or whom may have many assumptions about it based on popular media or "folk" assumptions, things people picked up in grammar or secondary school and never really shed. I thought it'd be interesting, fun and not a little enlightening to issue a challenge to the entire forum to write an FAQ about Marxism.

Here's the Rules:
-You have to write a truthful, friendly and approachable answer to each of the 10 following questions. The questions are all hypothetical (and they're not all questions)

-Write your answers for brevity, try and keep them down to 5 or 6 sentences at most. Avoid jargon and confusing buzzwords, remember the intended audience.

-Be friendly and diplomatic. Avoid cross-tendency sniping! Obviously our answers will reflect our politics but any FAQs which come off as too blatantly partisan will likely alienate the reader. (not to mention degrade the thread)

-The readers of the thread will be the judges. If you read a poster's FAQ and think they did a particularly good job at answering all 10 questions within the set criteria and in keeping with the spirit of the challenge, thank their post. This way the best writers should be made clear through popular acclaim. And don't let this be a popularity contest!

And now, without further ado, the questions:

1. What IS Marxism?

2. Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?

3. Don't revolutions always result in excessive bloodshed and atrocity?

4. Doesn't Marxism always result in a repressive, corrupt society just as bad as the old one?

5. Marxist governments have killed millions of innocent people just for their ideals.

6. Doesn't Communism mean having to give up your individual rights
and freedoms?

7. Isn't it true that in Communism nobody's allowed to own anything?

8. People can't just overthrow the government, it's too strong.

9. I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.

10. Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.

[¿Que?]

1. What IS Marxism?
Marxism refers to several theories that are rooted in the ideas of German 19th century philosopher Karl Marx. Although there is a wide variety of ideas that fall under the "Marxist" rubric, common to all of them is giving special focus (although not explanatory emphasis) on economic conditions as a particularly unique aspect of social organization. Thus, it is often assumed that Marxism is an economic theory, where in fact Marx's concern with economics was in large part as a way of understanding broader social concerns.

2. Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?


3. Don't revolutions always result in excessive bloodshed and atrocity?

4. Doesn't Marxism always result in a repressive, corrupt society just as bad as the old one?

5. Marxist governments have killed millions of innocent people just for their ideals.

6. Doesn't Communism mean having to give up your individual rights
and freedoms?

7. Isn't it true that in Communism nobody's allowed to own anything?

8. People can't just overthrow the government, it's too strong.

9. I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.

10. Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.

(Might work on the rest later. Otherwise, just give me an incomplete)

[Amphictyonis]

Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?


We don't have a democracy. The entire point of the revolution is to set up an actual democratic society. Also, throughout history no ruling class has ever voluntarily given up their position of privilege. There is no way, in a representative "democracy" (plutocracy), capitalists will let themselves/wealth be voted away.

"You can't skin a live tiger by it's paw".

[zimmerwald1915]

This is obviously incomplete, but it's not like there's a deadline for it. And I prefer to edit incomplete posts over time than to compose whole ones all at once.

1. What IS Marxism?
Marxism is a particular way of viewing and shaping the world towards the liberation of humanity. The theoretical foundation for marxism was laid by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century in a lifetime corpus of works, and its practical methods were prefigured by - especially Marx's - political work in the Communist League and the International Workingmen's Association and then by Engels' work in the early Second International. This theoretical foundation was refined, and applied to changing world conditions, by the members of the later Second and Third Internationals and groups that emerged from them. Class, defined as a social relationship between groups defined by the space they occupy in the way society reproduces itself, occpuies a special place in Marxism. Marxism holds that the fate of any society is bound up with the course of the struggle of classes within that society. Marxism's prognosis for modern, capitalist society, divided between the owning class, which owns all the means of social reproduction, and the working class which owns none and operates all, is that it must either end in the seizure of political power by the working class or the "common ruin" of the whole of humanity. Only with the victory of the working class over the owning class can society be liberated from class, and from economy, scarcity, and want.

2. Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?
"Democracy" is a term with which one must be very careful. Democracy was not simply dreamed up by the most enlightened of "our" [western] ancestors, developed by their most powerful descendents and conquerors, preserved in learned texts, and rediscovered and developed in its modern form again by the most enlightened of political philoophers. In reality, to the limited extent that we have democracy today, we owe it to the political struggles of the working class. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it was always the working class that championed democracy, precisely because the thinkers that articulated its viewpoint believed that a really democratic political system would allow the workers, with their numerical weight and their eventual [and later real] political organization to dominate society. Modern democracy as we know it is a creation of the bourgeoisie designed to give the illusion of such a political system while really keeping power in its own hands. That is why the modern democratic state must become the real target of the working class.

3. Don't revolutions always result in excessive bloodshed and atrocity?
Frankly, yes they do. However, in reviewing the history of revolution, particularly of modern class movements of the proletariat, it becomes very easy to see where the blame for the violence of revolution really lies. In Paris in 1871, in Russia in 1917, the initial movement of the working class towards power was accompanied more by symbolic, if threatening, violence than real violence. The working class makes its revolution by occupying the spaces of social reproduction, by taking to the streets, by refusing to work to support the owners, by withdrawing its confidence in the state, and finally by beating down the last resistance with violence. The owning class, defending its outmoded property rights, its outmoded and exploitive relations of production, is always the first to resort to real, often preemptive, violence against the workers.

4. Doesn't Marxism always result in a repressive, corrupt society just as bad as the old one?
[I'm going to hold off answering this one, as it could contain within itself the seeds of a tendency war.]

5. Marxist governments have killed millions of innocent people just for their ideals.
[See above.]

6. Doesn't Communism mean having to give up your individual rights and freedoms?
"Individual rights and freedoms" are the invention of thinkers on the side of the modern owning class, which that class has destroyed in reality for workers. In theory, nobody in modern society is bound to do anything. We are not slaves, by by political law and religious tradition to work for masters who are bound to feed us, or serfs bound to work the land for masters bound to protect us. In reality, workers are bound not by political but by economic laws to work, to compete with each other for work, in order to survive and to produce the next generation of workers. Owners similarly are bound by the same laws to compete with each other to devalue the labor of their workers, to make them work longer for less, in order to make larger profits and continue on as owners. The modern economy stands against individual rights and freedoms, and the fight for individual rights and freedoms is the fight against the modern economy. As for individual political rights, we've already explored what happens when one thinks or acts beyond the boundaries set by the owning class: it calls down the violence of the state.

7. Isn't it true that in Communism nobody's allowed to own anything?
It depends on what is meant by "nobody" and "anything". Marxism isn't a set of value judgments about the immorality of greed or a program of asceticism. The important thing are the ways in which people relate to each other in the process of reproducing society. How people relate to one another in this process, as well as the process itself, defines what sort of society they live in. Marxists are concerned with creating a society in which people relate to each other as people, not as buyers and sellers; where the procurement of the means of life for yourself does not mean that you outbid someone else for those same goods in the market. To that end, marxists advocate the ownership by society and rule by their workers of the places where things are grown, extracted from the earth, and made, the networks through which they are transported, and the places where they are distributed. It does not advocate a particular model for the living of life, but instead states that, because the reproduction of society will be so organized as to eliminate scarcity, people will finally be able to live their lives in socially and individually healthy ways, ways that will be pleasing to them.

8. People can't just overthrow the government, it's too strong.

9. I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.

10. Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.

[Nolan]

I tried to do something like this a while back. Maybe there's some stuff in the thread you can use:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/index-reactionary-claimsi-t129283/index.html?t=129283

[Salyut]

It might be useful to refute economic calculation arguments put forth by Miseans and such.

[Ocean Seal]

I'll finish it off.

8. People can't just overthrow the government, it's too strong.
History has always been a confrontation between those oppressed against the strong and on numerous occasions the "weak" have been victorious and become the strong. See French Revolution, the fall of Rome, the Russian Revolution, Vietnamese anti-imperialism, Carnation Revolution, 26 of July Movement, Irish Rebellion etc.
The government has been overthrown before, they are not invincible.
9. I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.
Do you. The revolution guarantees you economic freedom instead of wage slavery, it is a goal that we should pursue because the bourgeois have kept too much wealth. Remember the workers built the world, they can destroy it and build it again. Almost everyone has more to gain than to lose. Remember the top 1% controls about 39% of the wealth.
10. Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.
That is why we go through the socialist phase. In socialism everyone gains according to how much they produce. So everyone has the incentive to contribute more. It is unlike capitalism where one man gains from the labor of many. So the "communism will never work" is invalid and from the psychological perspective it is not even debatable.

[zimmerwald1915]

I'll finish it off.
According to the OP, it seems that each poster is supposed to compile their own, as complete as possible, FAQ.

[Robocommie]

According to the OP, it seems that each poster is supposed to compile their own, as complete as possible, FAQ.

Correct, it's a writing exercise but also a friendly competition.

[Amphictyonis]

competition.

What a bourgeois concept ;) We should cooperate.

[ContrarianLemming]

It might be useful to refute economic calculation arguments put forth by Miseans and such.

this isn't a good thing to bother doing since the intended audiance will never have heard of miseans.
Infact most political people don't really know anarcho-capitalism, lets not educate, they might like it.

[ContrarianLemming]

I'm an anarchist, but I'll add my own

i've made my one more propaganda-ish then the other ones, nice poetic feel to it I hope, it is propaganda after all, not the learning section, thus the use of nice quotes.

1. What IS Marxism?

Marxism is a political and economic theory which states that society is divided into classes and that the ruling class are exploitive of there working class, and because parlimentory politics inherently serve the ruling class, a revolution is necessary to end exploitation. Marxists hold that history is mostly defined by economic activitey and "class struggle" and that we have entered a unique phase in humanities history in which classes have increasingly become concentrated into two main camps: Workers and Capitalists.
This situation is to the detriment of all humanity, a class society such as this causes poverty, war, crime and oppression by the ruling class, thus we must end it.

2. Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?

Parliments inherently serve the status quo and actively work against change and progress, it is through struggle and fight that histories victories - workers rights, womens rights, 8 hour days - are won, no politican has ever put foward a progressive proposal before mass public support, they, in the words of Michael Parenti "always jump on the bandwagon"
In short, capitalist states serve capitalists, and serve as shackles for the rest of the humanity, while the upper class live off the labour of the working class, like a parasite.

3. Don't revolutions always result in excessive bloodshed and atrocity?

This is the unfortunate way of quick change, but necessary, everyday thousands die, billions in poverty or just above it, almost the whole human race must choose between "work or starve" - is this really a choice? Are we truly free if we are forced in work and forced to choose our masters? We enact revolution to defend the working people of the world, from the next strike breaker and the next public repression, a revolution is little different to a person defending themselves against a theif, would you stand by and allow yourself to be robbed or swindled? We will not stand by, we are willing to give the theif a bloody nose and send him away forever.

4. Doesn't Marxism always result in a repressive, corrupt society just as bad as the old one?

Marxism has never been applied correctly
This one is rather hard to answer.

6. Doesn't Communism mean having to give up your individual rights and freedoms?

No, communism is not based on repression of liberty, but expansion of it. We live in a very limited for of freedom today, we wish to expand freedom greatly and form a decentralized democratic society in which the workplace and governance will be run democratically by the people directly affected by the policies in place, through direct democracy, delegation and confederation.

7. Isn't it true that in Communism nobody's allowed to own anything?

No, you'll still get to keep your house, car, pet, wallet. Communists have never believed in taking away peoples personal property, we believe that "productive property" (like factories and mills) should be owned in common by all. To quote Peter Kropotkin "the watch will be mine, the watch factory will be everyones".

8. People can't just overthrow the government, it's too strong.

Governments are overthrown all the time, every decade states power ebbs and wanes, no power lasts forever, the monolithic state you see everyday is not as powerful as it seems, it is based on men and women just like you, men and women who can just as easilly be shown how repressive the state is. "All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." We must stop feeling weak, our curse it not that we do not have guns, our curse is that we think we need them, "the great are great only because we are on our knees".

9. I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.

"You have nothing to lose but your chains, and a world to win" It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We can build again.

10. Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.

We live in a society governed by greed and yet..the trains still run on time and we all still do our part.

[cenv]

What IS Marxism?

Marxism is a way of understanding social relations by looking at the way they are shaped by material reality and the system they form as a whole. For example, Marxists argue that capitalism is based on material scarcity: capitalism developed in times when humans had not mastered material reality to the extent that they could satisfy everyone's material material, which led to a system based on social classes. Similarly, Marxism does not look at issues like "poverty," "world hunger," or "crime" as isolated problems but rather sees them as part of a system where a minority of the population controls the world's material resources and the vast majority, workers, have to sell their ability to do work in order to survive.

Looking at social relations in this way means understanding how they develop over time. As capitalism witnesses the rise of increasingly powerful industry, humanity's ability to produce an abundance of material goods develops to the point that a new system becomes both possible and necessary: a system based on satisfying the needs of everyone, where humanity as a whole controls its material resources, where the problems of capitalism can be transcended by overthrowing its social relations and replacing them with common ownership of the instruments we use to produce material and intellectual goods as well as a political system where people collectively control their future. This system is called communism, and it is the practical goal of Marxist theory.

Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?

When we look at our democracy in light of capitalism as a whole, we realize that it is built upon money and the power relations of capitalism. Instead of having direct power over their future, workers have to place their trust in "representatives" -- people who have the money to win elections. Unlike most of the people they represent, these politicians are well off and powerful within the capitalist system, and they see no need to replace the social relations of capitalism.

By creating revolution and overthrowing capitalism, workers are finally able to collectively assert their power. Marxists advocate building new political structures that give workers the direct power to make the decisions that affect their lives. Marxism also seeks to extend democracy to economic life by empowering workers to collectively control the material resources they produce. Thus, for the majority of the world's population, revolution is far more democratic than accepting the disempowerment of capitalism.

Don't revolutions always result in excessive bloodshed and atrocity?

There is no peaceful way to overthrow a system as powerful and oppressive as capitalism. But when you take into account the people who die because of wars, world hunger, and the many other forms of violence that follow directly from capitalist social relations, the human life that revolution can save is inestimable.

Doesn't Marxism always result in a repressive, corrupt society just as bad as the old one?

In the society's Marxists seek to create, power is wielded collectively and democratically by the working class, not a group of politicians above them. Therefore, a Marxist revolution that is true to its name eliminates the power structures that make repression and corruption possible.

Marxist governments have killed millions of innocent people just for their ideals.

When we look at these governments considering the answer to the last question, we see that these governments were Marxist in name only. Contrary to popular belief, communism is not dictatorship: in fact, communism means abolishing the state altogether and placing power in the hands of everyday, working people.

As far as the 20th-century revolutions that claimed the banner of Marxism, we have to bear in mind that they occurred in countries that were nowhere near achieving the power of production and material abundance we have today. These trying circumstances made it impossible to build a society where working people could collectively coordinate their efforts, leading to the rise of a bureaucracy that controlled political and economic life. But considering the instruments we have today, the advanced techniques of production, modern communication technology, and so on, a Marxist revolution in our times would not resemble revolutions that took place many decades ago.

Doesn't communism mean having to give up your individual rights and freedoms?

Unlike capitalism, where all who do not own businesses or factories of their own must sell vast portions of their lives to bosses and capitalists, communism gives everyone the power to live their lives as they see fit. The freedoms of capitalism are abstract since most of the world's population is chained by economic constraints. By eliminating the oppressive social relations of capitalism, communism establishes the concrete basis of freedom and individuality.

Isn't it true that in communism nobody's allowed to own anything?

Communism seeks to abolish private property, the system whereby a minority of the world's population controls factories, businesses, natural resources, the production of material goods -- in short, everything produced by workers and by nature. However, [i]personal[i] property, your right to personal possessions like the clothes you wear, would remain intact because it doesn't harm people in any way.

People can't just overthrow the government -- it's too strong.

The government is powerful, but the masses of working people are even more powerful. Workers produce everything civilization needs to function. Thus, the future of history is in our hands. If workers decided to assert their collective power and build a new world, there would be no force powerful enough to stop them.

I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.

Unless you are very rich and powerful, you have nothing to lose by overthrowing capitalism. And you have everything to gain. We are encouraged to resign ourself to capitalism and accept the world the way it is. We are told that there are more important things to worry about, but what could possible be more important than fighting for one's humanity?

Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.

Marxists look at everything in context, and this includes greed. Capitalism is a system where survival means putting one's self above all else and ignoring the needs of others. It is built on competition between individuals and thus fosters greed. It imposes greed as a means to survival upon workers and capitalists alike. But in a society based on free cooperation, greed would become superfluous. Humans are social creatures; without each other, we are nothing. So in an environment based on cooperation towards common goals instead of cutthroat competition, we would be free to realize our humanity -- hurting other people and refusing to acknowledge the needs of others would only mean isolating one's self from one's community and thus hurting one's self.

Besides, communism entails rethinking what it means to do work. Capitalism divides work into small, meaningless tasks for the sake of economic efficiency, but a society based on human needs would allow work to become a fulfilling, creative endeavor. People do not naturally want to stay still and do nothing; we realize ourselves by making things and exercising our creativity. In a society where work became human-oriented instead of purely profit-based, there would be no reason to choose laziness, inactivity, and isolation.

[mikelepore]

8. It is not the Marxist program to overthrow the government. It is the Marxist program to use the political process to take control of the government.

[Nolan]

8. It is not the Marxist program to overthrow the government. It is the Marxist program to use the political process to take control of the government.

This is misleading. It sounds like you're saying we can be elected (through the "political process") and implement socialism.

...that isnt what you mean, is it?

[Nolan]

1. What IS Marxism?

Marxism is a collection of theories that explain how human society functions and how it progresses. It sees class as the most important division in human society, and sees class conflict throughout history as the main driver of social change. As a political movement, Marxism advocates the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a system controlled by the people that are the producers of society (i.e., workers, labor) in its place. Together, this is called scientific socialism. It is called Marxism because it started with the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Others made important contributions down the line, and sometimes you'll see their names by themselves or beside Marxism with a hyphen as another "-ism." While we agree on topics such as capitalism, fascism, imperialism, and others, many of these schools disagree over some aspect of Marxism such as theory, action, history, etc. Together they form a family of connected ideologies that is the modern revolutionary left along with anarchism.



I'll write more later.

[ContrarianLemming]

I win

[Zanthorus]

What IS Marxism?

Marxism is the theory of the social and historical conditions necessary for the emancipation of the wage-labour working-class (Which consists of all those whose livelihood is dependent upon the wage-labour fund), and the real historical movement to achieve this emancipation. Within contemporary capitalist society the interests of the wage-labouring class and the interests of the capital-owning class stand diametrically opposed, yet at the same time one cannot co-exist without the other. Capital only exists by virtue of a continual supply of wage-labourers to produce the profits necessary for it to keep expanding, and wage-labour only exists by virtue of the capital which employs it. In order to emancipate themselves then, the wage-labourers must abolish themselves as wage-labourers and, since no other class stands below the wage-labourers for them to exploit, as a class, and with this act all classes and class antagonisms will be extuinguished. The movement to emancipate the wage-labour working-class is hopeless without the support of the immense majority of this class, and hence this movement must cross barriers such as gender and race. In the process of emancipating itself therefore, the wage-labourers will be forced to emancipate also those opressed by such boundaries, as without this emancipation the support of these other supressed sections is little besides a fantasy. In this fight of the wage-labourers against the capital-owners, Marxism provides the analytical tools of the materialist conception of history and the critique of (capitalist) political economy to aid the working-class in it's theoretical understanding of history and the workings of contemporary capitalist society, in order that it may make history itself and impose the political economy of the labouring class.

Marxism was first developed by Karl Marx in collaboration with his best friend and writing partner Friedrich Engels. After the death of Engels the work of expanding and elaborating on Marxist theory was carried out by the theoreticians of the Second Workingmens' International such as August Bebel, Karl Kautsky and Georgi Plekhanov. In 1914 the individual parties of the international each supported their own respective countries in the First World War, and the international unity of the Marxist movement collapsed. Since then, the elaboration of Marxism has been carried on by various disparate groups, providing a rich array of perspectives which make Marxism a living and breathing body of theory into the first decade of the 21st century.


Aren't revolutions unnecessary in a democratic society?

The modern state with it's vast unnacountable executive beuracracy has historically proven itself to be a form of political administration unsuitable for the emancipation of the working-class. The political sphere in capitalist society operates much like the capitalist marketplace – while in theory anyone can make it with enough votes, in practice two or three parties with policies favourable to the capitalist class have an ogliopolistic strangle hold thanks to the social weight given to them by media institutions. Parties which are nominally in favour of the working-class, such as the labour and social-democratic parties of europe, can fight it out in this contest, but these parties usually have highly undemocratic internal mechanisms which make them unnacountable to the broader membership. In practice the social base which determines these parties policy lines tends to be a privileged strata of the trade union beuracracy. The most important step in the emancipation of the wage-labourers will therefore be the replacement of the old state apparatus by a new form of political administration, directly accountable to them and designed to impose their particular interests as the general interest of society. When the current market economy has given way to democratic social control over production by the whole of society, and when the political-administrative apparatus has been converted into an apparatus for the administration of societies common interests by society itself, only in such an order of society, where classes and class antagonisms have ceased, will social evolutions cease to be political revolutions.


Don't revolutions always result in excessive bloodshed and atrocity?

We can see from examining history more closely that the bloodshed and atrocity associated with revolutions is rarely, if ever, initiatied by the opressed classes. The 'storming of the winter palace' during the October 25th seizure of power in Petrograd by the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee is entirely mythical. The real violence began three days later on October the 28th with a rising of officer-cadets in Petrograd in tandem with an attack on the southern skirt of the city by a small cossack detachment led by General Krasnov. No serious Marxist would glorify bloodshed, and we would very much prefer the revolution to occur by peaceful means and methods. Nonetheless, if the opresssor class act as they have done historically and attempt the organisation of the remaining reactionary elements of society in areas controlled by the working-class into armed bands to destroy the foundations of working-class power, or attempt the crushing of working-class power through an Imperialist onslaught by those nations still under the political thumb of the capitalist class, then Marxists will indeed defend the working-class with deeds as they do currently with words. This violence will however, far from being excessive, be entirely justified.


Doesn't Marxism always result in a repressive, corrupt society just as bad as the old one?

Some Marxists make the case that the Soviet Union and it's allies were not, in fact, repressive or corrupt societies, but real historical examples of what can be achieved through working-class power (See, for example Ludo Martens Another View of Stalin). Other Marxists disagree, and have developed many arguments as to what went wrong with previous revolutions, as well ideas of what to do to prevent such occurences in future. The most famous attempt to do this was by Leon Trotsky in his work The Revolution Betrayed. Trotsky's follower Max Schactman developed the theory of beuracratic collectivism. Other attempts were made by the German 'Council Communist' movement in the early 20's, the left-faction of the Communist Party of Italy in the 30's and 40's, the Marxist-Humanists C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskyaya and the Trotskyist Tony Cliff who all developed theories of the Soviet Union as a 'capitalist' or 'state-capitalist' society. And more recently by Hillel Ticktin and his journal of Marxist theory Critique have developed a theory of the USSR as a 'non-mode of production'. With such a myriad of possible explanations and solutions, it is fascile to merely write Marxism off because of apparent mistakes by it's past followers.


Marxist governments have killed millions of innocent people just for their ideals.

From Cromwell's protectorate to Pinochet's Chile via Robespierre and Napoleon, colonialism, imperialism and the millions of people who starved to death during the 19th century industrial revolutions and everyday in modern third-world countries, for every death caused by someone calling themselves a Marxist, you can count on it that there has been ten times more caused by capitalists, with no ideal besides that of increasing human misery for the expansion of their profit margins.


Doesn't Communism mean having to give up your individual rights
and freedoms?

Which individual rights and freedoms? If you mean the universal individual right to freedom of trade, then this in reality is merely the right of capital to free movement and exploitation of labour. Further, it has more and more become nothing but a bitter joke for those forced to alienate their own labour to a capitalist in exchange for their upkeep and the upkeep of their families. Nothing will be lost by the section of society condemned to wage-labour with the abolition of freedom of trade, on the contrary, this will open up access for them to the mass of wealth accumulated by society but currently lying dormant in the service of some capital-owner.


Isn't it true that in Communism nobody's allowed to own anything?

Marxist Communists in no way desire to prevent individuals from appropriating the products of society for their own individual use. What we intend to prevent is the use of these appropriated products for exploiting the labour of others. The total abolition of individual ownership was indeed a feature of some crude pre-Marxist forms of Communism, but Marxists duely denounced this vision of barrack-room communism as an ideal seperate from and indeed hostile to the ideal of Communism as the real transcendence of human alienation and the resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man.


People can't just overthrow the government, it's too strong.

In our current state of society the state is indeed a force strong enough to oppose any serious threat to it's rule. However historically situations where the movement of the opressed has been advancing at a rapid rate a crisis of government has been engendered. Not only lacking consent by the majority of the population, but actively opposed by samesaid majority, the state is forced to fall back on it's armed military and police wings. However, the use of arms by the state is by no means set in stone. Near to the end of the May 1968 general strike in France, the government was ready to flee the country and leave power in the hands fo the workers' and students without a trace of armed conflict. The obedience of the armed wings of the state is also by no means gauranteed. During the October revolution in Russia the soldiers came out on the side of the revolutionary working-class in large numbers. Although armed force may be necessary for the final overthrow of the ruling class, and Marxists generally acknowledge this and advocate the arming of the working-class and organising ourselves into workers' militias', in general the maxim to be kept in mind here is: “The great are only great because we are on our knees, let us rise!”


I don't like how things are, but I have too much to lose.

Depending on your position in society, what you have to lose by becoming a Marxist and fighting for a future Communist society is almost certainly outweighed by the benefits of living in a society of associated producers where the free development of each is the precondition for the free development of all.


Communism would be nice, but people are too greedy for everyone to do their part.

In capitalism, there is already a section of society which doesn't pull it's own weight - the capital-owners whose living consists of marhsalling dead labour to exploit living labour. Communism does not mean the abolition of individual incentives. Indeed, in a society where production was carried out by society according to a common plan, it would be possible more than in any other social formation to harmonise the wants of each individual with the wants of society as a whole.

[Robocommie]

I win

But you got banned.

[Amphictyonis]

But you got banned.
Why did she/he get banned?

[Manic Impressive]

This is misleading. It sounds like you're saying we can be elected (through the "political process") and implement socialism.

...that isnt what you mean, is it?

What about Chavez and Venezuela is he not working towards socialism?

There is always more than one way to have a revolution and infact every revolution will come across it's own unique way based on the pre-exsisting conditions. Violence is not always the answer.

[LeninBalls]

Violence is not always the answer.

It's not, but reformism is never the answer. Non-violent revolutions can and have occurred.

Chavez is a reformist. I don't see how cozying up to Obama and calling him a "friend" whilst cozying up to Russian imperialism is the correct path towards socialism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Why did she/he get banned?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1901341&postcount=120

[Manic Impressive]

It's not, but reformism is never the answer. Non-violent revolutions can and have occurred.

Chavez is a reformist. I don't see how cozying up to Obama and calling him a "friend" whilst cozying up to Russian imperialism is the correct path towards socialism.

So Venezuela is guaranteed to fail then?

[Nolan]

So Venezuela is guaranteed to fail then?

Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" can only go as far as reformism allows. Venezuela is not "moving to socialism." It's not that it's doomed to fail. It's that you're seeing way too much in some social democratic reform because the leader is calling it "socialism."

[Robocommie]

Guys, if you don't like what someone wrote, then write a better FAQ. Don't turn this into a debate thread. ;)