Has there ever been a communist country?

[Ezekiel101]

I'm probably a little late to the punch on this question, but has there ever been a "true" communist country?

[GoddessCleoLover]

I don't believe in Communism in a single country.

[Q]

No.

Humanity did at one point knew a communist society - we even lived in it about 90% of the existence of our species Homo Sapiens - but this was before the neolithic revolution about 10 000 years ago.

But no, there has never been a single communist country on the planet. The notion is by itself a statement that one does not understand what communism is. So, let me quote myself in a recent thread on "socialism in one country":



To understand why "socialism in one country" is so problematic, one does not have to resort to quotes of Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, Engels or any other in a haliographic manner. One has to start from the point of where capitalism is at: A global social system of states that are competing to eachother much like companies are. As a result, we have a state hierarchy and a global division of labour. As a result also, the working class is a global class.

Now, as socialists we want to overcome this capitalist system, in a positive manner. As such we need to tackle the question of this global division of labour and work internationally by trying to unite the working class, thus forming it as a class distinct from capital.

The socialist revolution means that the working class seizes political power over society and such a regime can only bear fruit if it happens with a global focus. At the very least a significant part of the capitalist core (the top in the hierarchy of states) must be involved and the most prospective region for this, given its long history of working class struggle, is Europe. A European Democratic Republic would indeed be able to start ascending from the laws of capital.

Now, Russia at 1917 was very big, but also very much undeveloped. Only about 15% of the population were proletarian and after the civil war it was all but liquidated as a class. For that reason it was also very much low on the global state hierarchy and would today have been ranked a third world country.

As such, there was no material basis of rising up towards a society based on human need. The soviets had no access to the global division of labour to make this possible. The only solution to this dire situation (and indeed the primary strategic goal at the outset of 1917) was a successful revolution in Germany. But this failed and counterrevolution set in, setting up a fundamentally unstable bureaucratic regime that was, for a time, capable of developing the country but inevitably got stuck in its own contradictions.

So, "pulling out the joker" and claim that there was no "socialism in one country" as the Tsarist Empire got divided up into a "union" is completely missing the point. Likewise, claiming that "communism" got exported to Eastern Europe is also a fallacy as at this point the Stalinist bureaucracy was already firmly in place. Not revolution was exported (which I believe is a problematic notion as well), but counterrevolution.

So, if we are to build a communist society once more, a modern one this time around, and have a genuine human society again, we need to start where capitalism ends: At a global level, as a global class, reaching out to a global vision. Our project is not to have a "workers paradise" or any such workerist nonsense, but instead to achieve universal human liberation.

That is what communism is about. Has any country ever achieved that? No.

[Blake's Baby]

No, there hasn't. I don't think it's got anything to do with 'belief', communism is a classless communal society. States can't exist without classes (the state is, in essence, an organisation of a class) so there can be no classless state, no 'classless' class organisation, ie no 'communist state'.

Unless the 'belief' comes from 'believing that's what communism is'.

So yeah, any 'state' could be 'communist' if you redifine what 'communist' means. Or 'state' for that matter.

EG: "this thing that was formally a chicken sandwich is now a communist state, because 'communist' means 'having chicken in it' and a 'state' is an ebile layer surrounded by two pieces of bread-product'."

[Caj]

A "communist country" is a contadiction in terms, as communism is by its very nature global and internationalist. Nonetheless, there have been experiments on the scales of countries and even cities that could be described as socialistic. Among these are the Paris Commune of 1871, the Bavarian Republic of 1918, the Russian Soviets of 1917-1918, the Ukrainian Free Territory of 1918-1921, The anarchist regions of Spain in the mid-1930s, and numerous other small communes and collectives that have sprung up throughout history.

[MajorGeneralPineapple]

Socialism on a small scale has been practiced for thousands of years, intermittently, among different groups. Communism is necessarily universal or, at least, must be dominant and pervasive in whatever "closed" system it finds itself in. We are a global civilization and therefore communism in one country is a contradiction.

[Zulu]

USSR, China and others were communist countries in the sense that they were advocating and struggling to advance communism. But communism isn't something you can institute by a decree, so there was (and is) a long way to go, before one can say "we have communism here".

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

There was once a communist world, tens of thousands of years ago.

It existed before the first jackass came along, saw a piece of land, claimed it as his, and everyone else around him was stupid enough to believe him.

[Franz Fanonipants]

no because people love playing semantics games

[gorillafuck]

there have been severely flawed socialist countries.

[Ostrinski]

There have been Communist countries, but no communist countries.

The political structure of the nation-state is perpetuated by the global market and capitalist mode of production. Once those are neutralized, there is nothing to prop up this construct.

[Rafiq]

It depends. Communists never put forward a model of what communism would look like.

There wasn't a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the countries did operate within the constraint of capital.

To be brief, I don't think they were worth supporting.

[Tovarisch]

No, unless you count Paris and a couple of utopian societies that rise from the ground here and there. Never been done on a countrywide basis

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Capitalism is over here<-----------> Revolution is over here <-----------> New Democracy (if you are a Maoist) is over here <------------> Dictatorship of the Proletariat is over here <------------> Pure Socialism is over here <------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Stateless Communism is over here.

There has never been a communist country and there never will be because communism cannot have nations. THE END.

[Caj]

Capitalism is over here<-----------> Revolution is over here <-----------> New Democracy (if you are a Maoist) is over here <------------> Dictatorship of the Proletariat is over here <------------> Pure Socialism is over here <------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Stateless Communism is over here.

Wasn't New Democracy only considered necessary in China because capitalism hadn't developed yet? And what is the difference between "pure socialism" and "pure communism"? Marx considered the terms synonymous. I suppose if one were a Leninist, one could argue that there is a distinction, but then what is the difference between socialism and the DotP?

Frankly I think all of these "steps" and the constant addition of new ones is pointless and utopian. We should aim for pure communism initally after the revolution. If conditions render that impractical, then implement some transitory phase. And let's not pretend that these transitory stages will all be identical independent of region. They will differ in accorance with the unique conditions of each region.

[Ostrinski]

Frankly I think all of these "steps" and the constant addition of new ones is pointless and utopian. We should aim for pure communism initally after the revolution. If conditions render that impractical, then implement some transitory phase. And let's not pretend that these transitory stages will all be identical independent of region. They will differ in accorance with the unique conditions of each region.I have to agree with you here, at least somewhat. Tendency hard-liners are dogmatic in that (many of them, at least) suggest a one-size fits all to the question of organization. The answers to the questions of organization and the overall political strategy will be dependent upon the balance of forces as well as other material factors. Bolshevism was legitimate for the material conditions of early 20th century Russia, but not all of it is legitimate for today, at least not in the more industrially developed areas.