Different types of communism?

[ponymaruni]

Can you all clarify the differences between left communism, leninism, maoism, stalinism, anarcho-communism and etc... i personally just consider myself a communist.

[pax et aequalitas]

The main difference between them is in the road to communism. For example unlike the other ones, anarcho-communists do not believe a socialist state is required before communism. The ones who do often have different views on how this socialist state should be like.

The end goal, communism itself, is usually more or less the same.

[o well this is ok I guess]

The main difference between them is in the road to communism. For example unlike the other ones, anarcho-communists do not believe a socialist state is required before communism. The ones who do often have different views on how this socialist state should be like.

The end goal, communism itself, is usually more or less the same. Not necessarily. There are, after all, numerous ways one can imagine classless, stateless society.
Of course, I think this is mostly discussed within tendencies rather than between tendencies, so it might not be all that relevant.

[Q]

... i personally just consider myself a communist.

Good. My tip would to be to stick at that and remain open minded about all types of ideas concerning working class revolution. Even if you disagree with them, engage with them and try to clarify your position in contrast to that of your opponent. This will undoubtedly be most educational.

[Agent Equality]

well all are pretty much considered "leftist"(not sure about stalinism however), its just they vary extremely on the up and down scale. Up being more authoritarian and down being more libertarian (not in the capitalist sense of the word).

Some are also more left than others, etc. etc.
Its a big clusterfuck of communism

[ponymaruni]

Personally, i prefer a communist system that completely destroys the banking system and maybe even currency as well but i still support the use of a dictator and government to enforce the policies.

[Q]

Personally, i prefer a communist system that completely destroys the banking system and maybe even currency as well but i still support the use of a dictator and government to enforce the policies.

This leads to several problems. To point to just two:

- Who will guarantee this dictator (or party) - ruling in the name of the working class, over the working class, for "their own good" - will not end up primarily being concerned with enriching themselves? Power corrupts and only few resist the temptation.

- But even if we do find an uncorruptable leader, enforcing policies that benefit us all, what emancipatory potential lies into that? Communism is the negation of class society because the working class, as a class-collective for its own, takes power and then uses its political hegemony to socialise all economical assets: means of production, skill sets, knowledge. This in turn will mean that all other classes end their existence (the bourgeoisie) or get absorbed into the working class (the petit-bourgeoisie and the middle classes), which then negates the working class' own existence and thus class society.

How does a dictator, even if it is an uncorruptable one, manage to achieve this?

[ponymaruni]

Personally i believe Fidel Castro is a prime example of a non corruptable dictator that has done nothing but benefit the country as a whole. I just really doubt communism can survive without a strong head to lead the movement.

[Q]

Personally i believe Fidel Castro is a prime example of a non corruptable dictator that has done nothing but benefit the country as a whole. I just really doubt communism can survive without a strong head to lead the movement.

You haven't addressed my more fundamental second point and I don't think you can. You see, communism isn't about strong uncorruptable leaders, top-down policies, a strong state, and all that.

I think you need to read some basics about what it is all about. Principles of Communism (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm) is a good start. Some excerpts:


— 13 —
What follows from these periodic commercial crises?
[...]
Second: That big industry, and the limitless expansion of production which it makes possible, bring within the range of feasibility a social order in which so much is produced that every member of society will be in a position to exercise and develop all his powers and faculties in complete freedom.

It thus appears that the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and these catastrophic depressions.

[...]

— 14 —
What will this new social order have to be like?

Above all, it will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society.

It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association.

Moreover, since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.

In fact, the abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.

— 15 —
Was not the abolition of private property possible at an earlier time?

No. Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary consequence of the creation of new forces of production which no longer fit into the old property relations.

Private property has not always existed.

When, towards the end of the Middle Ages, there arose a new mode of production which could not be carried on under the then existing feudal and guild forms of property, this manufacture, which had outgrown the old property relations, created a new property form, private property. And for manufacture and the earliest stage of development of big industry, private property was the only possible property form; the social order based on it was the only possible social order.

So long as it is not possible to produce so much that there is enough for all, with more left over for expanding the social capital and extending the forces of production – so long as this is not possible, there must always be a ruling class directing the use of society’s productive forces, and a poor, oppressed class. How these classes are constituted depends on the stage of development.

The agrarian Middle Ages give us the baron and the serf; the cities of the later Middle Ages show us the guildmaster and the journeyman and the day laborer; the 17th century has its manufacturing workers; the 19th has big factory owners and proletarians.

It is clear that, up to now, the forces of production have never been developed to the point where enough could be developed for all, and that private property has become a fetter and a barrier in relation to the further development of the forces of production.

Now, however, the development of big industry has ushered in a new period. Capital and the forces of production have been expanded to an unprecedented extent, and the means are at hand to multiply them without limit in the near future. Moreover, the forces of production have been concentrated in the hands of a few bourgeois, while the great mass of the people are more and more falling into the proletariat, their situation becoming more wretched and intolerable in proportion to the increase of wealth of the bourgeoisie. And finally, these mighty and easily extended forces of production have so far outgrown private property and the bourgeoisie, that they threaten at any moment to unleash the most violent disturbances of the social order. Now, under these conditions, the abolition of private property has become not only possible but absolutely necessary.

Communism is "the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat", as the document puts it. The proletariat, for the first time in class society, is an exploited class that has the potential of being a revolutionary class. That is, a class that can bring the level of social development of society on a higher plane. For the first time ever we have the productive forces to produce for the needs of all, which provides the material basis for the free development of all. By taking over power, as a class-collective for its own, the working class will negate itself and class society as a whole. This new, higher, stage of human development is what we call communism.

Fidel, or any other uncorruptable dictator, could never substitute for the working class revolutionary self-emancipation.

[ponymaruni]

Yeah those excerpts really clarified things for me and emphasized the importance of abolishing competition and using association and common plan. But how exactly will the means of production be controlled by society as a whole if a society has disagreements or different views on how to produce?

[redtex]

Personally, i prefer a communist system that completely destroys the banking system and maybe even currency as well but i still support the use of a dictator and government to enforce the policies.

I agree with you on completely destroying the banking system, but having a dictator is not communism.

Under communism there is no government and there is no need for a government.

A Q quoted from the Principals of Communism, communism "is the liberation of the proletariat" and we aren't liberated is we are living under a dictator.

[Q]

But how exactly will the means of production be controlled by society as a whole if a society has disagreements or different views on how to produce?

By democracy. See my blogposts here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=6350) and here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=6359) on the subject.