Deaths of communism?

[NorwegianCommunist]

Everytime when I have a debate with capitalists or right wing people, they always mention the deaths of communism.
How can I outdebate them?

They usually mention all the deaths during: Josef Stalin, Castro, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.
What can I use as a argument to not blame it on communism?


Please help me with some answars =)

[Blake's Baby]

Do you think that Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot and the Kims were communists? If you do, then you don't really have an argument except 'yeah well Hitler and the Japanese were pretty bad too, and capitalism kills millions every year'.

If you don't think all those people were communists, you just lay the deaths associated with them at capitalism's door.

Lenin was responsible for comparatively few deaths, ditto Castro I think. Compared to WWI (many millions) and the Cold War in general, both Lenin and Castro can be seen as relatively benign (though for very different reasons in my opinion).

[daft punk]

Stalin and Castro weren't communists. Stalin was an anti-communist. Castro wanted Cuba to be like America. Mao thought he was a communist, but he certainly didn't do things the same way Marx described. In fact at the end of WW2 Mao's intention was for China to be capitalist for several decades.

Lenin was a communist. In the October revolution 2 people died, and in the first 6 months of 1918, 22 people were executed. The civil war was started by White generals who supported the Tsar (who abdicated in February 1917) and capitalism. Also various capitalist countries like Britain sent armies to help the Whites. The capitalists also organised a trade embargo. Plus of course, Russia was trying to put a stop to fighting with Germany (the October revolution happened in the middle of WW2.)

So, Russian deaths caused by capitalism - 3 million in WW1, quite a few in the civil war, and then a lot more in the famine. Part of the food shortage was due to the Bolshevik's forced requisitioning, but they only did that because of the civil war.

Ok I realised I have probably raised more questions than answers so feel free to ask.

So, I make that communists 24, capitalists several million.

In fact the Bolsheviks had abolished the death penalty initially, but let me give an example. Trotsky had an admiral Shchastny executed. This guy was going round telling lies, undermining the leadership and so on while they were still fighting the Germans. He was a real danger. I suppose they could have just jailed him, but his crimes were treacherous and could cost many lives, even endanger the revolution, so maybe he was used as an example to others.

[NorwegianCommunist]

Stalin and Castro weren't communists. Stalin was an anti-communist.


Why are you saying that Stalin was a anti-communist?
He was a General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

[DarkPast]

One of the most common examples pushed by anti-communists is the "40 million victims of the Great Leap forward". I'm in a bit of a rush right now, but for starters I can recommend you these articles:

http://chinastudygroup.net/2003/09/on-measuring-famine-deaths-different-criteria-for-socialism-and-capitalism/

http://chinastudygroup.net/2011/03/o-grada-review-of-dikotter/

You can also search Revleft for Amartya Sen. He was an Indian economist who was very critical of Mao, but also mentioned that capitalist India had in fact more famine deaths than China in the same time period.

[Ostrinski]

As long as the working class exists and has direct interests, communism is not dead.

[Arilou Lalee'lay]

Capitalism is the reason the third world lives in chains that keep it from feeding itself. That's a Stalin every few years.

[Prometeo liberado]

Do you think that Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot and the Kims were communists? If you do, then you don't really have an argument except 'yeah well Hitler and the Japanese were pretty bad too, and capitalism kills millions every year'.

If you don't think all those people were communists, you just lay the deaths associated with them at capitalism's door.

Lenin was responsible for comparatively few deaths, ditto Castro I think. Compared to WWI (many millions) and the Cold War in general, both Lenin and Castro can be seen as relatively benign (though for very different reasons in my opinion).

To put Castro and Pol Pot in the same sentence not only plays into the very problem that this thread is trying to deal with but incredibly callous and self serving. In another thread I wrote that the most convenient way to dismiss communism was to claim that there never was a communist country. I meant it tongue in cheek, some on the left apparently don't. The right never have this debate. True capitalism doesn't exist, but we never argue that against them.
Picking and choosing which door to lay deaths on in relation to the argument at hand does not become a revolutionary for the people. It's callous and cynical.
You want to counter the idiotic argument that communism is dead? Ask them why millions of people every day organize, agitate, revolt under the red banner? Why many countries still outlaw communist parties? Because the mechanisms of capitalism dictates to the working class that the only way out of their suffering is to seize power.
Simple answers to complex questions are often counter productive, and opportunistic answers to red baiting questions is just stupid.

[Arilou Lalee'lay]

The right never have this debate. True capitalism doesn't exist, but we never argue that against them.
But there has never been a capitalism that was actually socialism.

[Q]

Everytime when I have a debate with capitalists or right wing people, they always mention the deaths of communism.
How can I outdebate them?

They usually mention all the deaths during: Josef Stalin, Castro, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.
What can I use as a argument to not blame it on communism?


Please help me with some answars =)

We first need to establish that capitalism reigns supreme across the planet: There is virtually no economy left that is not about private ownership of the means of production and universal commodity production. All for the sole sake of profit.

This is an important point to make first. Why? You'll see.

According to UNICEF, about 30 000 children die across the globe every single day due to malnutrition, diseases and poverty. This amounts to about 10 million children every year.

So, say the Black Book of Communism isn't a bunch of crap and is correct in claiming that "communism" killed 100 million people in the 20th century. That is still childsplay (excuse the pun) compared to capitalism, that kills 100 million children, just about every decade. So, that is excluding all wars, sanctions, crime and adult poverty.

"Oh", the argument then rolls, "but those kids don't really live in capitalism". And here we see why establishing the fact that capitalism is globally hegemonous first was needed, as the liberals are now dumbfounded.

Have fun.

[daft punk]

Trouble with that is it doesn't work on American Tea party types, they just deny that any country is capitalist.

[Bostana]

The "fall" of Communism mainly started with the fall of the Soviet Union.
And The Soviet Union fell when they separated from Marxism-Lenism.

Khrushchev was instituting rightist economic policies inspired by Bukharin's later years, and replacing the idea of the multinational Soviet Motherland with Russian Nationalism and treating allied nations like colonies. And of course his demonetization of Stalin also included with it a demonetization of Marxism-Leninsim.

Khrushchev went a lot further than merely being critical of his mistakes. He routinely attacked Stalin as a person and some of the most disgusting suggestions about Stalin came from Khrushchev.
And within this narrative, he also attacked many of Stalin's positive Socialist policies, and justified his reversal away from Marxism-Leninism as getting away from the Stalin "Nightmare."

The day they started separating from the Marxism-Leninism s the day it started going down.

His policies reintroduced an emphasis on markets and steered the USSR towards state capitalism. He was a disciple of what is called the Right Opposition Group. These were people who believed in market Capitalism.
Khrushchev also allowed the illegal private economy o flourish. This became the main problem during the Brezhnev years, which saw basically total stagnation to flourish, and a huge growth in corruption. Meanwhile the party itself did nothing to combat this. Brezhnev himself was an open Russian Nationalist and led the USSR into and imperialistic was in Afghanistan and other Imperialistic meddling in trying to assert influence in non-socialist countries.
But obviously there is more to it than "Stalin did this, and Khrushchev did that" History is a story of materialist conditions, not of Great Men.
Things became so bad in the Brezhnev years because of the '77 recession, the illegal private sector controlled a huge part of the economy, especially in places like Kazakhstan. These mobsters and other Capitalists bribed Party officials to look the other way, and corruption reached to the very top.

It was an inability to accurtley respond to both internal and external problems and threats.

Post-1956 Party policies only aggravated these threats.

However Communism will never die.
As long as there is a Proletariat the Hear of Communism cannot be broken.

[Arilou Lalee'lay]

lmao at the number of people that read the title totally wrong.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Thanks, HugeWeltanshaung. Isn't there another thread having to do with the body count under Stalin and Mao. Just briefly, IMO the large numbers of death referred to have little to do with Marxian Communism and much to do with the policies of Stalin, Mao and other dictators who twisted Marx and Engels' notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the Party. To my mind, we must utterly repudiate this model since the masses of the working class are literate and understand that Party dictatorships in their name are a fraud, and a fraud that cost millions there lives.

[Blake's Baby]

... there never was a communist country...

There was never a communist country.

Communism is a classless communal society that is established worldwide. You show when that happened, I'll admit you're right.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Everytime when I have a debate with capitalists or right wing people, they always mention the deaths of communism.
How can I outdebate them?
Even accepting for the sake of argument that Stalin, Mao, etc., were communists, how many millions have died because of capitalism?

[RedSonRising]

Stalin and Castro weren't communists. Stalin was an anti-communist. Castro wanted Cuba to be like America.

I'm sorry, what?

[Blake's Baby]

Fidel Castro wasn't a communist. From 1959-61 he tried to get America to support the new regime in Cuba. It was only after '61 he turned to the USSR when he got nowhere with the USA - this is just after the era when John Foster Dulles was the main man of American foreign policy, and both the Republicans and Democrats were firecly opposed to the spreading of 'Soviet influence'. Only a couple of years after the Arbenz government was overthrown and whatnot. In fact, here's the JFD wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles - he's really quite important in terms of American foreign policy in the mid-20th century.

Of course Che Guevara and Raul Castro considered themselves communists. But not Fidel.

[Zulu]

Everytime when I have a debate with capitalists or right wing people, they always mention the deaths of communism.
How can I outdebate them?

They usually mention all the deaths during: Josef Stalin, Castro, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.
What can I use as a argument to not blame it on communism?


Please help me with some answars =)

Mention the deaths of capitalism. The genocide of the American Indians, slavery, British Gulag in Australia and concentration camps for Boer non-combatants, Opium wars, Vietnam War, Saddam's WMDs, etc.

Say that capitalism is just institutionalized robbery. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro and others were just fighting it, and real communism would not be like that. If the capitalists stopped robbing people, there wouldn't be any deaths. But they won't stop, so it will have to repeat probably.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Stalin and Castro weren't communists. Stalin was an anti-communist. Castro wanted Cuba to be like America.

What makes you think Castro wanted Cuba to be like America?


Plus of course, Russia was trying to put a stop to fighting with Germany (the October revolution happened in the middle of WW2.)

You mean WW1?


So, Russian deaths caused by capitalism - 3 million in WW1, quite a few in the civil war, and then a lot more in the famine. Part of the food shortage was due to the Bolshevik's forced requisitioning, but they only did that because of the civil war.

Actually, the death count on the Russian side during WW1 is estimated to be at between 7.3 en 8.5 million. between 1917 is is estimated to be somewhere around the 10 million deaths. After 1921, several famines and epidemies struck the land, which (along with the feverish pace of the industrialisation) caused several millions more. Another few millions (especially highly educated citizens ) emigrated. Source: Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia; Robert W. Thurston.

[Zukunftsmusik]

At OP: You might find this useful: http://www.revleft.com/vb/high-school-commie-t22370/index.html

[daft punk]

The "fall" of Communism mainly started with the fall of the Soviet Union.
And The Soviet Union fell when they separated from Marxism-Lenism.

Khrushchev was instituting rightist economic policies inspired by Bukharin's later years, and replacing the idea of the multinational Soviet Motherland with Russian Nationalism and treating allied nations like colonies. And of course his demonetization of Stalin also included with it a demonetization of Marxism-Leninsim.

Khrushchev went a lot further than merely being critical of his mistakes. He routinely attacked Stalin as a person and some of the most disgusting suggestions about Stalin came from Khrushchev.
And within this narrative, he also attacked many of Stalin's positive Socialist policies, and justified his reversal away from Marxism-Leninism as getting away from the Stalin "Nightmare."

The day they started separating from the Marxism-Leninism s the day it started going down.

His policies reintroduced an emphasis on markets and steered the USSR towards state capitalism. He was a disciple of what is called the Right Opposition Group. These were people who believed in market Capitalism.
Khrushchev also allowed the illegal private economy o flourish. This became the main problem during the Brezhnev years, which saw basically total stagnation to flourish, and a huge growth in corruption. Meanwhile the party itself did nothing to combat this. Brezhnev himself was an open Russian Nationalist and led the USSR into and imperialistic was in Afghanistan and other Imperialistic meddling in trying to assert influence in non-socialist countries.
But obviously there is more to it than "Stalin did this, and Khrushchev did that" History is a story of materialist conditions, not of Great Men.
Things became so bad in the Brezhnev years because of the '77 recession, the illegal private sector controlled a huge part of the economy, especially in places like Kazakhstan. These mobsters and other Capitalists bribed Party officials to look the other way, and corruption reached to the very top.

It was an inability to accurtley respond to both internal and external problems and threats.

Post-1956 Party policies only aggravated these threats.

However Communism will never die.
As long as there is a Proletariat the Hear of Communism cannot be broken.

well, I'm no fan of Krushchev, and you are famously off topic, but didnt the Russian economy have it's main boom years in his era? Anyway, nothing fundamentally changed. It was still fake-communism and untenable in the long term.

[RedSonRising]

Fidel Castro wasn't a communist. From 1959-61 he tried to get America to support the new regime in Cuba. It was only after '61 he turned to the USSR when he got nowhere with the USA - this is just after the era when John Foster Dulles was the main man of American foreign policy, and both the Republicans and Democrats were firecly opposed to the spreading of 'Soviet influence'. Only a couple of years after the Arbenz government was overthrown and whatnot. In fact, here's the JFD wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles - he's really quite important in terms of American foreign policy in the mid-20th century.

Of course Che Guevara and Raul Castro considered themselves communists. But not Fidel.

Fidel had been reading Marx since before the attack on the Moncada barracks, and had issues of social justice on his agenda since his days as a lawyer. The reason he approached the United States was to make sure that the major purchaser of their national export, sugar cane, wouldn't suddenly cut them off if it didn't have to be that way. It was strategic to try and make peace with the US, especially considering Fidel's proximity. When Dulles and the administration become more intolerant of progressively more radical talks from the new Cuban government and they refused to work a compensation deal with Castro for nationalized businesses, that's when aligning with the USSR became the more salient option.

Buying time and hoping to establish peace overseas with the most powerful nation on the Earth does not change the fact that he expropriated the capitalist class and brought about tremendous gains for the working class. Castro never wanted Cuba to be like the US; if he did, he would have kept the casinos, the prostitution rings, the segregation, and would have been overthrown in no time by the popular constituents and allied coalitions that backed him in hopes for a more progressive system.

[The Young Pioneer]

Dunno, but "The Deaths of Communism" would be a great name for a band.

;)

In all seriousness, though, people kill people. Communist ideology has genuine and beneficial roots that are often misinterpreted through human action and thus mass murder results.

(Though, the same cannot be argued for capitalism's or Nazism's origins; please don't misunderstand me.)

[NYAnarchist222]

When arguing this you have to realize that as a state, Communism has killed no one because there has never been a communist state. They were fascists... Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, any of the number of other so-called "Communists" who ruled with iron fists, killed millions and ruled until they died... That's not communism.. when someone says bullshit, tell them to read the absolute basics of communism and then compare it to say the USSR... They won't match. Alas there have been many tries at a Communist or Anarchist society/nation... but so far, all attempts have been frustrated by fascists..... Calling Stalin a Communist is like calling America a democracy...

[GoddessCleoLover]

Perhaps substituting the dictatorship of a single so-called vanguard party in place of the dictatorship of the proletariat was one of those human actions?

[daft punk]

Fidel had been reading Marx since before the attack on the Moncada barracks, and had issues of social justice on his agenda since his days as a lawyer. The reason he approached the United States was to make sure that the major purchaser of their national export, sugar cane, wouldn't suddenly cut them off if it didn't have to be that way. It was strategic to try and make peace with the US, especially considering Fidel's proximity. When Dulles and the administration become more intolerant of progressively more radical talks from the new Cuban government and they refused to work a compensation deal with Castro for nationalized businesses, that's when aligning with the USSR became the more salient option.

Buying time and hoping to establish peace overseas with the most powerful nation on the Earth does not change the fact that he expropriated the capitalist class and brought about tremendous gains for the working class. Castro never wanted Cuba to be like the US; if he did, he would have kept the casinos, the prostitution rings, the segregation, and would have been overthrown in no time by the popular constituents and allied coalitions that backed him in hopes for a more progressive system.

Fidel read all sorts of stuff. He didnt want that stuff you mentioned probably, but he did want Cuba to be basically capitalist. There was no contact with the Russians either so he didnt plan on it becoming a Stalinist dictatorship, as per how it actually ended up.

[Ismail]

They were fascists... Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, any of the number of other so-called "Communists" who ruled with iron fists, killed millions and ruled until they died...Millions died under Hoxha? Really? When he came to power in 1944 the country had a population of 1 million people. By the time of his death in 1985 it was 2 million, and that was because Albania had one of the world's highest birthrates. The deathtoll of those who died under Hoxha is calculated at around 5,000, or 0.25% of 2 million.

But yeah, none of them were fascist. They fought fascism and fascists. Even Ceaușescu was an active anti-fascist in his youth.

[CommunityBeliever]

Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, any of the number of other so-called "Communists" who ruled with iron fists, killed millions and ruled until they died... I think someone has been reading too much capitalist propaganda. Comrades Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha did not kill "millions." All of these comrades made mistakes, but the idea that they killed millions of people is a a ludicrous slander. Why would communists kill millions of people when we are trying to free the majority of the world's people from capitalism and imperialism?

[Ismail]

Most of the deaths under Stalin and Mao were due to famines. According to Churchill in The Hinge of Fate, for instance, Stalin said that 10 million alone perished from the famines in the USSR during the collectivization campaign. Stalin said to Churchill that, "It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary for Russia, if we were to avoid periodic famines, to plough the land with tractors."

That doesn't sound like someone who decided "I'm evil, let's go kill people today."

Likewise Mao's "Great Leap Forward" was clearly carried out in good faith concerning economic growth. It's pretty obvious that the intention wasn't to cause severe food shortages and, from that, famine.

The only country that systematically carried out mass executions solely on the basis that an individual had a bad family history or a less-than-stellar record was "Democratic Kampuchea" under the Khmer Rouge. The same Khmer Rouge the USA backed in exile after Vietnam invaded the country to oust them, the same Khmer Rouge which abandoned communism in the 80's and the same Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot who near the end of his life said that communism had failed and that it was his hope that Cambodia would belong to the West.

[daft punk]

But Stalin also killed millions, including all the socialists.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

The thing is quiete simple. To make the ideology of communism responssible for deaths, you just count in most people who died in any state that claimed itself to be socialist. Or the victims of any war/revolution where there was a 'red' side, regadless of they died from being executed for homocide, falling of a bike, or drownd during theire swimming lessons. The fact that right now, during capitalis, there are millions starving to death when we actually have enought food and that things like human trafficking and wars is a natural resulte of this system is just seen as natural.

Simply speaking is just a way relative perspective with the intention of labeling youre opponent debatter.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Ismail is a skilled advocate for his position, but IMO that argument in many respects is an admission to negligent homicide. Stalin's admission to Churchill begs the real question since the tractors to which Stalin refers did not exist at the outset of the forced collectivization program. Stalin also failed to mention in his conversation with Churchill certain salient facts, such as the seizure of the peasants' emergency food supplies (including seed corn).

With respect to the Chinese famine that followed the Three Red Banners/GreatLeap Forward campaign, at best Mao became enthralled with Lysenko-istic nonsense regarding methods of grain production enhancement. If we are going to regain the trust and confidence of the working class we would be well-advised to quit condoning the tragically erroneous policies of Stalin, Mao etcetera. We ought to frankly admit that the single, dictatorial vanguard party model is part of the failed past. Workers will only begin to have confidence again in revolutionaries if we advocate a revolution based on workers' democracy and workers' power, not a dictatorship of the party. Advocacy of the dictatorship of the party will only prolong the status quo of multiple sectarian grouplets isolated from the masses debating the issues of the past while failing to meet the political aspirations of the working class.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Double post.

[Ocean Seal]

Communism killed like 400 billion people you know. Stalin purposely starved the Ukraine cuz he had mad beef with them, and then Mao just went into the fields and drank the blood of peasants. Then they got in a spaceship and started what we call the evil empire in Star Wars. And when they return we will have to fight them using the strength of freedom, Ronald Regan, and MERICA.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Communism killed like 400 billion people you know. Stalin purposely starved the Ukraine cuz he had mad beef with them, and then Mao just went into the fields and drank the blood of peasants. Then they got in a spaceship and started what we call the evil empire in Star Wars. And when they return we will have to fight them using the strength of freedom, Ronald Regan, and MERICA.



I know! and then dont forget Rosa Luxemburgs drive by on a orphanat. Glad that Glenn Beck filled me in with that.

[NYAnarchist222]

hostile much. capitalist propaganda? there is too much documentation that stalin and mao killed millions, just as much as there is to prove the holocaust... but proof be damned right?

[Tavarisch_Mike]

hostile much. capitalist propaganda? there is too much documentation that stalin and mao killed millions, just as much as there is to prove the holocaust... but proof be damned right?



Wait what? no body is denying that a shit load of people died in the USSR and PRC (i hope :mellow:). Its the way they are reconized, for example one guy once counted in all the 27 million soviet citizens, who died in ww2, in the crimes that the USSR had commited and said that the whole Ideology of communism was responsibble for that. Just so he could label a comrade who tried to convince other co workers in why they should join the union, that if they did that they would reconize socialism and frome there they will be counted in as part of the failurs. This is what this debates are about.

[RedSonRising]

Fidel read all sorts of stuff. He didnt want that stuff you mentioned probably, but he did want Cuba to be basically capitalist. There was no contact with the Russians either so he didnt plan on it becoming a Stalinist dictatorship, as per how it actually ended up.

He read Marx early on and Raul was a sympathizer with the Soviet Union since even before Moncada; I can't see what evidence there is to believe Fidel wanted Cuba to remain capitalist, and a Stalinist Dictatorship is a broad generalization that wrongly dismisses the complexities of the Cuban system, which while not undeserving of its own criticisms, is not run by anything resembling a capitalist class.