Ruined credibility?

[TheRed]

As many of you may know the problems of "communism" throughout history where at the very least appalling. State violence, starvation and social unrest ran rampant across several major communist nations throughout the 20th century. As I have heard the argument any examples from history cannot be taken into account because for true communism to exist it must be world wide and therefore thease countries where not truely communist. The problem with that argument is for communism to work in this day and age it's going to need people backing it and the problem with that is simply the word "communism" is forever stained by it's history of bad people causeing it to fail horribly. The point of this thread is this:

A.How can we expect for the world to listen to our cause if it's built around a "stained" idea?

B. What percautions are there to stop a corrupt ruined shadow of communism from happening again? There's no way all nations and all people will suddenly form together under "true communism" so it would have to start somewhere right?

Thank you for any opinions

[Franz Fanonipants]

As many of you may know the death toll of "communism" is very high. An estimated 20,000,000 died under Stalin's regime alone as part of the world wide problem that was known as "red terror".

AMAZING

please tell me more

[tir1944]

An estimated 20,000,000 died under Stalin's regime alone as part of the world wide problem that was known as "red terror"According to the documentary "Stalin, Portrait of a Monster in Blood" at least 60 million died...

Comrade,you should start first and realize that the capitalist propaganda machine is very powerful and has been spewing lies about communism,the USSR (and other states) and communists for decades know...Falsifications of history and ongoing even today,20 years since the fall of the USSR and 50+ years since the death of Stalin.

[TheRed]

AMAZING

please tell me more

I don't mean to insult your intelligence with basic history I just want to present a statistic I found I apologize if it's off but it seemed to of come from a credible source.

[Franz Fanonipants]

200,000,000,000 died under "Red Terror" I have documentation thus

[Franz Fanonipants]

I don't mean to insult your intelligence with basic history I just want to present a statistic I found I apologize if it's off but it seemed to of come from a credible source.

comrade nothing is "basic history"

[TheRed]

comrade nothing is "basic history"

Well look the point is to learn from this and the goal of making this was to awnser my questions not pick apart my apparently incompetent source selection.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Well look the point is to learn from this and the goal of making this was to awnser my questions not pick apart my apparently incompetent source selection.

source criticism is necessary. if the "mistake" you are presenting is incorrect, how can we credibly argue for a solution comrade?

[TheRed]

source criticism is necessary. if the "mistake" you are presenting is incorrect, how can we credibly argue for a solution comrade?

Point taken, I clearly have much to learn here.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Point taken, I clearly have much to learn here.

i won't say that the Soviet Union didn't have problems. but i will say capitalist societies have made it their business to tar every single success of communism with a hilarious "EVIL AND OMINOUS" brush. so much so that a lot of comrades on this site will go to the goddamn mats over it.

[tir1944]

The further towards socialism a country goes,the worse capitalist propaganda against it gets.That's why the West didn't seriously criticize Gorbachov and his "reforms",quite the countrary...

[TheRed]

i won't say that the Soviet Union didn't have problems. but i will say capitalist societies have made it their business to tar every single success of communism with a hilarious "EVIL AND OMINOUS" brush. so much so that a lot of comrades on this site will go to the goddamn mats over it.

I can understand that I doubt there's a person on this site not effected by that In one way or another. As for this topic since the false stat throws out the rest of it I believe this is where we trash can the whole thing, or do I edit and revise?

[Franz Fanonipants]

I can understand that I doubt there's a person on this site not effected by that In one way or another. As for this topic since the false stat throws out the rest of it I believe this is where we trash can the whole thing, or do I edit and revise?

edit it to talk about state violence or something.

[TheRed]

edit it to talk about state violence or something.

Revised, I think this should get my
Noob questions awnsered thank you for the criticism comrade.

[Franz Fanonipants]

well, like i said. i feel a lot of that shit is overreported or just straight up lied about. the key is to educate, not necessarily educate people to love comrade s., but to work to tell people "Communism works like this" or "Marxism is not about distribution of wealth or whatever popular shit you wanna bust out."

i'd advocate being an open, friendly, and approachable marxist. that's going to be the biggest hurdle. its not just that most people think that comrade s. was a blood-drooling beast crushing babies skulls tantamount to hitler, but its also that there's no left discourse in american society. you being a friendly, "sane" leftist is vital to that.

[StalinFanboy]

As many of you may know the problems of "communism" throughout history where at the very least appalling. State violence, starvation and social unrest ran rampant across several major communist nations throughout the 20th century. As I have heard the argument any examples from history cannot be taken into account because for true communism to exist it must be world wide and therefore thease countries where not truely communist. The problem with that argument is for communism to work in this day and age it's going to need people backing it and the problem with that is simply the word "communism" is forever stained by it's history of bad people causeing it to fail horribly. The point of this thread is this:

A.How can we expect for the world to listen to our cause if it's built around a "stained" idea?

B. What percautions are there to stop a corrupt ruined shadow of communism from happening again? There's no way all nations and all people will suddenly form together under "true communism" so it would have to start somewhere right?

Thank you for any opinions
communism won't come about by convincing people to convert. its a material process that is caused by inherent contradictions within capital.

of course this isn't to say that communism is inevitable. but merely that the proletariat will be moved by the material conditions they are thrust into by capital. its absolutely possible that we will lose, or that we have already lost.

[Franz Fanonipants]

communism won't come about by convincing people to convert. its a material process that is caused by inherent contradictions within capital.

of course this isn't to say that communism is inevitable. but merely that the proletariat will be moved by the material conditions they are thrust into by capital. its absolutely possible that we will lose, or that we have already lost.

this is a particular take on communism's position.

tho i agree w/the mat'l conditions part, i do believe that there will be an organizational component that comes from mat'l conditions.

[StalinFanboy]

this is a particular take on communism's position.

tho i agree w/the mat'l conditions part, i do believe that there will be an organizational component that comes from mat'l conditions.
well of course people will organize themselves. though i really doubt that if a revolution were to occur in today's world that it would take on the traditional Party form of the leninists.

[Q]

A.How can we expect for the world to listen to our cause if it's built around a "stained" idea?

B. What percautions are there to stop a corrupt ruined shadow of communism from happening again? There's no way all nations and all people will suddenly form together under "true communism" so it would have to start somewhere right?

A. We won't get anywhere by adopting a new name for our project of universal human liberation, communism. As soon as we explain our politics, people will automatically equate them as that. For good reason, as it is communist politics.

Instead, we need to explain why the USSR was a dismal, counter-revolutionary failure that eventually collapsed back into capitalism. We also need to take the lessons of the period 1918-1921 (a period where the Bolsheviks necessarily made concessions regarding democracy in order to await the German revolution, which would save the Russian one) and beyond and try a different strategy.

But radical democracy and a global alternative to capitalism by transforming the working class from a slave class into a class for its own are still the core of communist politics.

B. We cannot guarantee that the next revolution will go as expected. What we can say, is the the film of history will not run in the same way. The Russian failure was a specific failure, due the the Russian circumstances. It does not follow that if we have a revolution in the UK, Germany, the US or even Russia today, the same result would develop.

The core problem of the historic task of the revolution remains though and this is that the revolution needs to have a global scope in order to offer a positive starting point away from capitalism. This is because capitalism is a global system itself. For European communists, for example, this must mean arguing for a European Democratic Republic: Fighting for democratic political rights on an EU level and, in the process, form the European working class as a class on a continental scale.

[Franz Fanonipants]

well of course people will organize themselves. though i really doubt that if a revolution were to occur in today's world that it would take on the traditional Party form of the leninists.

never can tell comrade. its why i generally kinda disdain predictive tendencies. i'm an m-l because i know organization will be needed no matter what form the revolution takes.