Communism has failed at every attempt

[Diirez]

How do you respond to someone who states that they understand communism has never been instituted but every attempt at communism has failed?

[motion denied]

Communism has never been instituted, nor could it. Because communism is not a policy, but a mode of production (or, well, the movement that abolishes the present state of things).

Yes it has failed. One more reason to understand why it has failed, so that next time we succeed.

[Q]

What is "every attempt" though? So far we have had one shot at a worldrevolution and it got isolated in a backward society. The fact that it survived in its own way was the basis of much of the rest of 20th century 'socialism', a period we're only now leaving completely behind us.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Attempts at communism have been met with constant military threats, or have been hijacked by those with an interest in presenting themselves as socialists while making attempts actually aimed at solidifying their privilege or authority rather than establishing socialism (whether one believes those to be Leninists, Stalinists, Khrushchevites, Pol Pot, etc.). The former is not really avoidable, but the latter is.

[tuwix]

How do you respond to someone who states that they understand communism has never been instituted but every attempt at communism has failed?

Communism is natural economic system of humanity. Human civilization started without private property and money as primitive communism.

[Mr. Piccolo]

Most people will disagree with me, but I think it is good to defend some of the positive aspects of the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. I know a lot of people don't consider these states to be socialist much less communist, but I find it useful to fight Western myths about the USSR because it is useful in showing that alternative forms of economic organization are possible.

Stephen Gowans has written a nice piece entitled "Seven Myths about the USSR" that is a good starting point for understanding some of the myths propagated about the Soviet Union.

See: https://gowans.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/seven-myths-about-the-ussr/

Gowans also wrote an interesting piece defending economic planning here: https://gowans.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/do-publicly-owned-planned-economies-work/

This is just a starting point in debating reactionaries. You can still criticize the downsides of the Soviet system and argue for alternative forms of socialism. But the point is to argue against the "there is no alternative" argument that capitalists often employ.

[Tim Cornelis]

There's an answer on marxistpedia's faq, but it's not currently available.

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I don't see why it's useful to vindicate a Soviet-type system that way. It has proven itself a comparatively ineffective system for the management of capital on a consistent basis, so yes, that has failed every time it has tried. What good will it do to defend it? 'An alternative capitalism is possible', great.

And many of those myths 'refutations' are also pretty bad.

1. The preservation of the USSR does not necessarily concern the preservation of its political and economic system. It's more likely that the Soviet population wanted to change the economic and political system but have the territories remain in a union to preserve Russia's position in the international hierarchy of states. This belief also underpins a lot of contemporary Russian nationalism, including National Bolshevism.

2. This is not a myth, because it's widely known.

3. It didn't work. Soviet capitalism fell into a crisis of the absolute over-accumulation of capital, never recovered,

4. Would include some data on other countries as well, which differ. In Czech Republic and Romania views are more favourable of state-capitalism, in Poland, not so much.

5. Don't really think that that is a myth either. Also see point 1.

6.

7. Can't be bothered.

[Armchair Partisan]

"So what?"

Everything you can possibly try is consistently unsuccessful, until it succeeds for a first time. This is one of those arguments which the capitalists thinks is a refutation of, or an argument for anything, when it actually isn't. It's a red herring.

[Blake's Baby]

How do you respond to someone who states that they understand communism has never been instituted but every attempt at communism has failed?

Agree with them.

Then say, just like every attempt to build an aeroplane failed, before the one that worked.

[Cliff Paul]

Has there ever been a 'successful' capitalist system? Every capitalist society I see is wrought with alienation, exploitation, crises, etc.

[Blake's Baby]

Bad argument. You may as well say, 'hey buddy, communism works, but it's fucking shit'.

In which case, why bother fighting for it?

[Cliff Paul]

Bad argument. You may as well say, 'hey buddy, communism works, but it's fucking shit'.

No my argument would be that I think the struggle for libertarian socialism is worth it because we have nothing to lose. It's not like any of the previously existing M-L states were any worse than their capitalist counterparts. So even if the naysayers are right and any attempt we make will ultimately degenerate into Stalinist shit - is that really any worse than 'liberal' capitalism?

[consuming negativity]

No my argument would be that I think the struggle for libertarian socialism is worth it because we have nothing to lose. It's not like any of the previously existing M-L states were any worse than their capitalist counterparts. So even if the naysayers are right and any attempt we make will ultimately degenerate into Stalinist shit - is that really any worse than 'liberal' capitalism?

but why would i want to die just to have something equally as bad pop up to replace it?

to answer the OP: no system exists in a vacuum, and groups are defined by their outliers. communism didn't destroy itself: capitalism recuperated it. it won the war in the same way that the roman government beat down spartacus' slave revolt. that doesn't make us wrong, it means we need to try harder and smarter. the idea that the winners are always right is completely antithetical to what we believe, but it's the only way to explain why someone would say "well the communists lost so they're wrong". morality is not relative.

[Cliff Paul]

but why would i want to die just to have something equally as bad pop up to replace it?

well I believe that libertarian communism is possible so... all I'm saying is that the failures of communism in the 20th century are no worse than the successes of capitalism, so even if I only had the tiniest of hopes that libertarian communism was possible, the struggle would be worth it

[RedWorker]

http://marxistpedia.mwzip.com/wiki/A_Marxist_FAQ#Why_has_communism_always_failed_ever ywhere.3F

[RedMaterialist]

How do you respond to someone who states that they understand communism has never been instituted but every attempt at communism has failed?

War communism or "barracks socialism" has succeeded many times in the 20th century. Lenin and Trotsky won the Russian Civil War, Stalin defeated Hitler, Mao defeated MacArthur in Korea, Vietnam with the help of the Soviet Union and China defeated the United States. Even tiny Cuba defeated the US. These countries were forced to remain in a war economy to defend themselves against capitalism. If a person has been waterboarded for 20 yrs you can't complain that they are not a success because they are barely breathing.

What the 20th century has shown is that communism is not something which can be "instituted." It is a process of superceding or replacing capitalism and then socialism. Socialism of the type described in The Gotha Programme will be replaced by communism, which then will evolve into the next stage of human development.

Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts:


"Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society.|XI||[34]


Lenin said:


'There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.'

For one and a half centuries the racism of the Confederate Flag could be denied; in one week that denial is no longer possible. How many centuries have gay people been denied legal equality? In one week they have marriage equality. A form of national health insurance is now permanent in the US after a century of political struggle and a one day utterance of the US Supreme Court.

It may take a long time, but once capital is defeated the world will


''...leap from its seat and exultantly exclaim: Well grubbed, old mole!''

The old mole of history works slowly underground. I would say history is by no means closed on communism.

[mushroompizza]

The zapatista territory has been a Communist (truly communist like no government Karl Marx stuff) commune since the 90s and its worked out.

[Mr. Piccolo]

The zapatista territory has been a Communist (truly communist like no government Karl Marx stuff) commune since the 90s and its worked out.

When will the Zapatistas put people into space and build an industrial society out of a backwards agricultural one? I know people here hate the Soviets but they accomplished more than any Left-Coms or anarchists ever have.

The Soviet system was deeply flawed but we shouldn't dismiss it completely. Communists are then left with the "unknown ideal" argument, the same one that anarcho-capitalists and other right-libertarians use when trying to avoid dealing with real-world capitalist systems.

[mushroompizza]

I mean soviet history truly is no worse than american history.

[A Psychological Symphony]

When will the Zapatistas put people into space and build an industrial society out of a backwards agricultural one? I know people here hate the Soviets but they accomplished more than any Left-Coms or anarchists ever have.

The Soviet system was deeply flawed but we shouldn't dismiss it completely. Communists are then left with the "unknown ideal" argument, the same one that anarcho-capitalists and other right-libertarians use when trying to avoid dealing with real-world capitalist systems.

The USSR is far larger and had plenty more resources than the anarchist counterparts so thats a rather unfair comparison. The Zapatistas (Who I'm not so sure I would even use as an example of successful communism) do not have the means by any stretch to be sending people into space or leading any technological race

[Rafiq]

1. The preservation of the USSR does not necessarily concern the preservation of its political and economic system. It's more likely that the Soviet population wanted to change the economic and political system but have the territories remain in a union to preserve Russia's position in the international hierarchy of states. This belief also underpins a lot of contemporary Russian nationalism, including National Bolshevism.

This is simply unforgivably wrong, in that it fails to actually conceive the underlying essence of Fascism: People do not care about some abstract reality of a 'international hierarchy of states' but the practical implications this has with regard to their everyday lives. The obsession over national pride, and geopolitical dominance is not a cause of - but a product of the underlying strife faced by Russian working people. Similarly, it is not "humiliation" derived from losing the first world war which strengthened Nazism, for no such humiliation existed following the defeat of the Germans during the second world war. It was the fact that this - ideological platitude - encapsulated the sufferings of German working people in such a way that it projected them onto national, rather than social considerations.

Likewise, it is absolutely nonsensical to think that Soviet citizens would have been fine with the disastrous reforms had only the Soviet Union retained its position on a geopolitical level. The fact of the matter is that perestroika was hardly overwhelmingly popular, and to this day it carries almost exclusively negative connotations. That is because despite the irredeemable nature of the system, the "market friendly reforms" and privatization was even more disastrous. The reality is that like most nostaligcs in Easter Europe, the practical Russian (i.e. the Russian who is not a nationalist) will look fondly on the USSR but recognize the inevitability of its collapse, that it was fine while it lasted. Soviet citizens had no intristic demand for the introduction of private property and "market" reforms, rather, their demands were practical: They wanted to keep the extensive social benefits, job security, absence of stratification (crime, etc.), grandoise feelings of solidarity with at the same time a more abundance, and effective means of distributing consumer goods, less state intervention in their lives, and so on.

Obviously unrealistic demands within the context of the system, but the idea that Gorbachev and Yelstin are the most despised figures in Russia today has nothing to do with some kind of abstract national chauvinism, and everything to do with the fact that hey bared the responsibility for all the misery, hell and sufferings faced by Russians. Such scummy piece of shit scoundrels like Yeltsin are responsible for the emergence of Russian fascism, today, for it was the disastrous implementation of neoliberalism to Russians that today makes it a forefront against globalization, and all of the political, "cultural" ramifications that entails, including several political and cultural victories won from the counter-culture, creating a national disparity between the working classes of Europe, the US and Russia.

[Comrade Jacob]

No it hasn't. Revisionism has failed at every attempt. Marxism-Leninism has always made great advancements wherever implemented.

[Alet]

What do they mean exactly? Do we have to define communism as a society grown out of a socialist revolution in this case? They are obviously saying that such a society could not work, but there have been so many examples of functioning, solidary, nearly communist societies, there is no reason to think communism is doomed to fail. Just think of Punjabi 1849-51, Spain 1933-36, Paris 1871 etc. etc. None of these societies did collapse from within, they were destroyed from the outside.