Attempts at establishing Communism:

[Yazman]

This is just a thought, but I've been thinking a lot about it recently.

In all the cases we all know of, whether you consider them communist or not (USSR, for example. I personally do not consider it a communist nation in the Stalin-era and years after it.), most of them rely on capitalism too much.

Instead of establishing communist ideals, they try to "improve the economy" somehow. They worry about economic problems, rather than social ones.

The question I am asking, is WHY?

I've been thinking recently that the abolition of currency/money needs to be one of the first steps taken in order to work towards a communist region. Otherwise the party and nation itself is doomed to revisionism.

This is just a thought I've been thinking about recently, that they all focus on "building the economy" rather than making actual change. This leaves the motives of many apparently communist governments past up in the air for questioning.

What do you people think of this?

[@[email protected]@]

:rolleyes: Said to a great nation that, in the economical stability and the sustainable growth is count for much. Speaking of the social welfare, establishes to safeguard each person's system is not easy. All must depend on we living on ones own labor. I thought your tentative plan is good, but does not conform to the reality. We have attempted, was defeated. Should not violate the similar dislocation. The socialism and the capitalism essence distinguishes lies in us is truly for the majority person.

[Saint-Just]

I see what you are saying and you are right that the motives of some socialist economies has been to first strengthen the economy. However, a strong economy is essential to creating a communist society and in a competitive capitalist world it is integral to have a strong economy to be able to defend your country and maintain people's material contentment.

The abolition of money is desirable, but it can only come at a later stage, if you abolish money immediately there will be great economic problems. What many socialist countries have pursued is a strong transition from capitalism to socialism which involves various stages that mix capitalist and socialist economic policies. Ultimatelty the countries have tried to remove capitalism, to destroy capitalism was the idea that led to the development of socialism. Similarly the idea that leads to the revolution is the idea to create a socialist society, following the revolution that is what a socialist country will pursue. However, it is necessary to have mixed economic policies to eventually create a communist society.

[crazy comie]

You should develope the econemy whilst developing social securaty.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Economics takes priority, because, it is basically the subject of the core principles of communism. The social change would come from, the overhaul of a ruling class. Post-revolution there will always be social problems, and it takes a strong government to rectify this. This however often infringes civil liberties, at least in the short term. To take a more revisionisst stance you could of course vote a revolution through, but being realistic, it is often the institutions of change, that change those that are in them.

Social change would happen best through the creation of good media. This is possibly the largest agent of socialisation, or at least has the largest impacts on the other agents. Social change will come through agents such as; media, family, school etc. The one that will have the best effects, as above, is media. It is also one that we have the most control over. Of course this HAS been realised, Germany, Russia, Britain, Americ, everyone uses it, the sollution is for us to use it better.

Then an economic change would not be of as much significance, merely a question of efficiency and common sense. However for anything like this there would first have to be an agreed ethics code.....A Long way off.

[Hate Is Art]

but as each country trys to build up its econmy it eventually leads back into capitilism so surely by removing money then its will make back tracking impossible and progessing forward inevitable

[crazy comie]

There may only be one socialist state. and the transsion to a money less society may only take place when the economy and society is ready.

[blackemma]

If communists 'deal with the economy' by promoting a mixed-economy and a state that crushes civil liberties, how will it remain different from other capitalist countries like Sweden? Further, what's to ensure that the leaders of these 'socialist' countries do not merely become some kind of 'red capitalists'? (Borrowing a term from Bruce Dickson.) I think the most practical way for communism to succeed is for it to be built up from the bottom-up as was attempted by the Maknovists and the Spanish revolutionaries in 1936, who - although they had their faults - were on to the right idea.

[peaccenicked]

It must be remembered that comunism cannot be fully developed in a single country. the world market will hold it back and even twist its structure. Even twist the minds of the vanguard. I ll quote this at length,


4. The Higher Phase of Communist Society
Marx continues:

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

Only now can we fully appreciate the correctness of Engels' remarks mercilessly ridiculing the absurdity of combining the words "freedom" and "state". So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.

The economic basis for the complete withering away of the state is such a high state of development of communism at which the antithesis between mental and physical labor disappears, at which there consequently disappears one of the principal sources of modern social inequality--a source, moreover, which cannot on any account be removed immediately by the mere conversion of the means of production into public property, by the mere expropriation of the capitalists.

This expropriation will make it possible for the productive forces to develop to a tremendous extent. And when we see how incredibly capitalism is already retarding this development, when we see how much progress could be achieved on the basis of the level of technique already attained, we are entitled to say with the fullest confidence that the expropriation of the capitalists will inevitably result in an enormous development of the productive forces of human society. But how rapidly this development will proceed, how soon it will reach the point of breaking away from the division of labor, of doing away with the antithesis between mental and physical labor, of transforming labor into "life's prime want"--we do not and cannot know.

That is why we are entitled to speak only of the inevitable withering away of the state, emphasizing the protracted nature of this process and its dependence upon the rapidity of development of the higher phase of communism, and leaving the question of the time required for, or the concrete forms of, the withering away quite open, because there is no material for answering these questions.

The state will be able to wither away completely when society adopts the rule: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", i.e., when people have become so accustomed to observing the fundamental rules of social intercourse and when their labor has become so productive that they will voluntarily work according to their ability. "The narrow horizon of bourgeois law", which compels one to calculate with the heartlessness of a Shylock whether one has not worked half an hour more than anybody else--this narrow horizon will then be left behind. There will then be no need for society, in distributing the products, to regulate the quantity to be received by each; each will take freely "according to his needs". "

A stateless society has to be world wide.

[crazy comie]

i ment during the dictatorship of the prolitarian there couldn't be many socialist states just one.

[Mike Fakelastname]

Socialism within one country cannot exist, period. As for the economy thing, at the time when the Soviets came into power, Russia's economy was literally in ruin, along with their whole society due to prolonged war and power changes. Lenin made an economic plan called the NEP, which basically was a return to capitalism until they were stable.

My theory on this matter is that Socialism requires capitalism to phase itself out. That we should just let capitalism run it's track and then socialism will come in. If I were in Lenin's position at the time, the first thing I would do is immediately return to capitalism until the time was right. What I am saying is that you have to let capitalism finnish in full, then you can implement socialism, not before. The USSR was a failed attempt to create socialism when capitalism was not even close to being finished.

[monkeydust]

Personally I think that the reason why most past 'socialist' countries put so much emphasis on economic and industral development was not a product of ideology but rather a product of circumstances.

For example: Whether or not Stalin wanted the 'best' for his people he believed at the time he embarked upon his three five year plans that there would be a war in ffteen years, it came slightly earlier but the principle remained. To protect his nation he needed to industrialise in fifteen years, the same achievement that took almost all other powers previously nearly 100 years consequently his 'economy' needed great attention.


The same continued throughout the Cold war, the reason for their economic development lay in the fact that they were forced to 'compete' with the Western powers, this competion on a national scale is what I see as a major reason for why they tried to economically develop.

[crazy comie]

i wasn't sugesting socialism in one counntry i was sugesting the world to be one state during the dictatorship of the prolitarian.