Communism in the Western world

[Yr Arth Coch]

Paraphrasing a user on another thread, communism has been given a bad name over the last century. In school I was taught that communism is a poor system of government that, by all accounts, will never work. So my query is as follows:

For communism to become a viable and popular ideology throughout the Western world, will it have to be "re-branded" to distance itself from previous iterations? I just don't see how a movement could gain real momentum without the support of the layperson.

Regards. :lol:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What would that accomplish?

Suppose we "rename" communism or socialism (the two terms, as we use them, are synonymous) to "plannism", "progressism", "industrialism", whatever. What happens then? I mean, it would make sense if we were "selling" socialism, i.e. hoping that people fall for our marketing and buy our product or circle our name on election day or whatever. But what we want to is to engage workers intellectually; to create a militant vanguard of politically educated workers who are clearly aware of their class interest and will fight for it. That takes more than changing the name of the product - in fact anyone who seriously investigated what we were saying would realise it's, in fact, socialism, and we would look like we were trying to pull a fast one on them.

[The Idler]

The term 'socialism' is less associated with the dictatorship in Russia than the term 'communism'.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's also more associated with social-democracy and weird Third World military juntas.

[N. Senada]

The working class rise will not depend by communist parties rebranding.
What we first need are communists parties, with a revolutionary program.
There are not so much of 'em through the world.
Of course we need to gain the sympathy of the masses of the working class, but that is an issue that involve the program, the transitional claims and the simple ability of those parties.

[Yr Arth Coch]

What would that accomplish?

Suppose we "rename" communism or socialism (the two terms, as we use them, are synonymous) to "plannism", "progressism", "industrialism", whatever. What happens then? I mean, it would make sense if we were "selling" socialism, i.e. hoping that people fall for our marketing and buy our product or circle our name on election day or whatever. But what we want to is to engage workers intellectually; to create a militant vanguard of politically educated workers who are clearly aware of their class interest and will fight for it. That takes more than changing the name of the product - in fact anyone who seriously investigated what we were saying would realise it's, in fact, socialism, and we would look like we were trying to pull a fast one on them.


Are communist parties engaging with workers in an intellectual manner in the Western world? You didn't offer a solution to the state of the communist label. Reading and writing troves and troves of leftist literature is all well and good but what's the point unless it can actually be implemented in modern society? How will the movement progress with the weight of its colorful past? That's what I'm trying to ask.

[Synergy]

For communism to become a viable and popular ideology throughout the Western world, will it have to be "re-branded" to distance itself from previous iterations?

American friendly communism? How about Commufunism? It's communism, but fun for the whole family!

[willowtooth]

I'm a modern man. A man for the millenium.

RuP2MlGjFbE

[Ritzy Cat]

The ruling class will incite hatred in whatever we want to call ourselves. Renaming ourselves from "socialists" or "communists" will do nothing to shed a stigma calculatedly imposed by the ruling class due to the threat we pose to the capitalist order.

[Hatshepsut]

How will the movement progress with the weight of its colorful past? That's what I'm trying to ask.

I agree with the opinion that editing the term "communism" to something else is meaningless. As for its past, we can acknowledge it and learn its lessons. We're not afraid of the fact that Vladimir Lenin committed grievous wrongs, even crimes, in the course of his prosecuting the Russian October Revolution. Yet before the Ronald Reagan Fan Club in the USA starts jumping for joy at this admission, they ought to consider the thousands of frozen feet which had to be amputated from starving soldiers' legs at Valley Forge in 1777, courtesy of George Washington in what would evolve into a century-long invasion of North America bringing demise to most of the continent's original people. Lenin killed tens of thousands in his war communism but he certainly did not depopulate the former Russian Empire.

Of course we don't wish to simply repeat Lenin's exercise; for one thing the choice of Russia as venue without a simultaneous revolution in Germany may have been fatal to the movement. We now know that the revolutionary circumstances in Russia were unfavorable, with the Bolsheviks required to resort to extremely harsh measures which nonetheless barely secured their win. The elimination of personality factors is also a difficult, unsolved problem as we saw with the rise of Stalin after Lenin's tragic cerebral strokes.

So communism, more than re-branding, needs to devise the constitutional transformations of the revolution that will minimize the scope of, and hopefully shorten, the necessary dictatorship of the proletariat, by making the workers' soviets effective as quickly as possible. Communism believes in "limited government," too: The state is slated to wither away. Some form of state and money economy could have to operate up to 200 years since changing the fundamental consciousness of a culture takes a long time. However, we want this state to remain on track toward lesser penetration of society and a more consultative role as socialist relations progress. This was the thing that did not happen in the USSR.

[ComradeAllende]

I agree with the opinion that editing the term "communism" to something else is meaningless. As for its past, we can acknowledge it and learn its lessons. We're not afraid of the fact that Vladimir Lenin committed grievous wrongs, even crimes, in the course of his prosecuting the Russian October Revolution. Yet before the Ronald Reagan Fan Club in the USA starts jumping for joy at this admission, they ought to consider the thousands of frozen feet which had to be amputated from starving soldiers' legs at Valley Forge in 1777, courtesy of George Washington in what would evolve into a century-long invasion of North America bringing demise to most of the continent's original people. Lenin killed tens of thousands in his war communism but he certainly did not depopulate the former Russian Empire.

It is amusing to note how many bourgeois historians deeply emphasize the role of atrocities in left-wing revolutions (Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia, etc), yet neglect (or simply glance over) the multi-faceted nature of their own national origins. Many so-called "patriots" parrot around the talking-point of how Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions of people (never mind that most of those deaths were due to famines, not purges) and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of political dissidents in atrocious "re-education camps" (something we on the left cannot deny), yet they fail to remember that President Andrew Jackson ethnically cleansed the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Muscogee (Creek) peoples in the Southeastern states in the name of "Manifest Destiny", or that political officials from both modern parties created the conditions for Jim Crow by ending Reconstruction in 1876 to promote "national reconciliation" and "heal partisan divides." It seems that atrocities only matter when committed by left-wing radicals, as opposed to the "misguided" yet thoroughly-individualistic and freedom-loving American pioneers and trailblazers.


Of course we don't wish to simply repeat Lenin's exercise; for one thing the choice of Russia as venue without a simultaneous revolution in Germany may have been fatal to the movement. We now know that the revolutionary circumstances in Russia were unfavorable, with the Bolsheviks required to resort to extremely harsh measures which nonetheless barely secured their win. The elimination of personality factors is also a difficult, unsolved problem as we saw with the rise of Stalin after Lenin's tragic cerebral strokes.

This is why I am skeptical of socialist movements in Third World countries; to me, such programs are doomed to failure due to the absence of stable political institutions and major industry. It's just a repeat of the "socialization of poverty" that, time and time again, leads to authoritarianism as former revolutionaries struggle to industrialize and ward off powerful rivals. People tend to overlook how the development of "free markets" was neither free nor entirely dependent on the market; leading industrial centers like Western Europe and North America required a combination of expropriation, imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and violent suppression to develop economically, not to mention various violations of standard neoliberal economics (protectionism, state-directed industrial policy, slavery, etc).


So communism, more than re-branding, needs to devise the constitutional transformations of the revolution that will minimize the scope of, and hopefully shorten, the necessary dictatorship of the proletariat, by making the workers' soviets effective as quickly as possible. Communism believes in "limited government," too: The state is slated to wither away. Some form of state and money economy could have to operate up to 200 years since changing the fundamental consciousness of a culture takes a long time. However, we want this state to remain on track toward lesser penetration of society and a more consultative role as socialist relations progress. This was the thing that did not happen in the USSR.

In order to minimize the amount of "revolutionary terror" that inevitably accompanies mass change, I think we need to outline a set of principles (a constitution, if you will) that we will at least try to adhere to during the revolution and the transition. Bans on extortion, racketeering, suppression of free speech and assembly, and other limitations on the dictatorship of the proletariat are necessary if we are to "purge" the socialist name of its totalitarian associations. They may limit our tactics in fighting off reactionaries, but one must remember that these are integral to maintaining support from anti-authoritarian workers as well as avoiding another Stalinist degeneration. But all these efforts will fail if we do not establish a revolutionary foothold in at least one major industrial center (ideally Western Europe and/or North America).

[Comrade Jacob]

I disagree, we should be proud to call ourselves communists! We should not hide away from past revolutions (all of which can be criticised using the materialist perspective). We need to be constant in our defence of communist ideals or basically people will just go; "well, it an't worked, even the commies say so".

[WideAwake]

I think that for most humans of the whole world to love marxism, communism, socialism. There would have to be a rise of nations with socialist systems (worker's states/worker's dictatorships), that for example would convert Haiti, Honduras and poor countries into second world or first world nations where people live with relatively mental stability (Like Norway etc). But right now most socialist experiments have been able to lower poverty levels (In Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea etc). But since most humans are so skeptical, humans need a more powerful example of how can a socialism nation can be like a paradise on earth. Most people love luxuries and externalities a lot, and even though people in Cuba and in other state-capitalist left-neaning nations have great health, white teeths and a good life, (they lack luxuries, like shiny nice cars etc). And by lacking luxuries americans (who are very addicted to externailities like cars, big houses, nintendos tvs etc) think that socialism doesn't work because there are not lots of luxuries in Cuba and in North Korea







Paraphrasing a user on another thread, communism has been given a bad name over the last century. In school I was taught that communism is a poor system of government that, by all accounts, will never work. So my query is as follows:

For communism to become a viable and popular ideology throughout the Western world, will it have to be "re-branded" to distance itself from previous iterations? I just don't see how a movement could gain real momentum without the support of the layperson.

Regards. :lol:

[Antiochus]

There is no point in rebranding anything or changing our message. I mean, as communists we need to understand that the world won't accept/reject communism based on "feel-good" or "negative" feelings, that is ridiculous. What was more "rejectable" or "hated" than an atheist in the 18th century? Did that stop the French Revolution? What was more detestable than "heresy" and religious "sedition" in the 16th century? Did that stop the Protestant reformation?

That isn't to say that pseudo-communists like Stalin and such can't be rejected or at least, criticized. When push comes to shove, workers will choose communism, because it is in their best interests to do so, not because we have a gimmicky slogan that will make everyone cum in their pants.

[WideAwake]

Comrade: I think that most americans and many people in other countries do not realize that social sciences, politics is an immoral imperfect science. Revolutions are immoral, reality is immoral. And I think that one of the main reasons of why many americans despise marxism and communism is because revolutions require the left-wing overthrowers and destroyers of right-wing overthrown governments, to kill right-wing overthrown people. And because most americans are ultra-moralists, ultra-legalists, and many are too religious. They hate socialism. They want socialists to destroy capitalism without killing a single person, without using weapons (americans think that weapons like tanks only belong in the control of official Armed Forces) and many other causes, caused by that extreme moralist mentality of americans that are impediments for americans beating the bullets to support radical extremists left-wing parties that would even advocate for a war of left-wingers against right-wingers inside USA. And for americans a revolutionary internal war of poor left-wingers against rich right-wingers is a satanic crime. Americans prefer to be looted, sacked, oppressed and repressed by blue dog democrats and by neocons republicans as long as there are no internal war inside USA of left-wingers against right-wingers rich oppressors. As a result of the deeply ingrained moralist education that most americans have recieved since early life



It is amusing to note how many bourgeois historians deeply emphasize the role of atrocities in left-wing revolutions (Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia, etc), yet neglect (or simply glance over) the multi-faceted nature of their own national origins. Many so-called "patriots" parrot around the talking-point of how Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions of people (never mind that most of those deaths were due to famines, not purges) and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of political dissidents in atrocious "re-education camps" (something we on the left cannot deny), yet they fail to remember that President Andrew Jackson ethnically cleansed the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Muscogee (Creek) peoples in the Southeastern states in the name of "Manifest Destiny", or that political officials from both modern parties created the conditions for Jim Crow by ending Reconstruction in 1876 to promote "national reconciliation" and "heal partisan divides." It seems that atrocities only matter when committed by left-wing radicals, as opposed to the "misguided" yet thoroughly-individualistic and freedom-loving American pioneers and trailblazers.



This is why I am skeptical of socialist movements in Third World countries; to me, such programs are doomed to failure due to the absence of stable political institutions and major industry. It's just a repeat of the "socialization of poverty" that, time and time again, leads to authoritarianism as former revolutionaries struggle to industrialize and ward off powerful rivals. People tend to overlook how the development of "free markets" was neither free nor entirely dependent on the market; leading industrial centers like Western Europe and North America required a combination of expropriation, imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and violent suppression to develop economically, not to mention various violations of standard neoliberal economics (protectionism, state-directed industrial policy, slavery, etc).



In order to minimize the amount of "revolutionary terror" that inevitably accompanies mass change, I think we need to outline a set of principles (a constitution, if you will) that we will at least try to adhere to during the revolution and the transition. Bans on extortion, racketeering, suppression of free speech and assembly, and other limitations on the dictatorship of the proletariat are necessary if we are to "purge" the socialist name of its totalitarian associations. They may limit our tactics in fighting off reactionaries, but one must remember that these are integral to maintaining support from anti-authoritarian workers as well as avoiding another Stalinist degeneration. But all these efforts will fail if we do not establish a revolutionary foothold in at least one major industrial center (ideally Western Europe and/or North America).

[ComradeAllende]

Comrade: I think that most americans and many people in other countries do not realize that social sciences, politics is an immoral imperfect science. Revolutions are immoral, reality is immoral. And I think that one of the main reasons of why many americans despise marxism and communism is because revolutions require the left-wing overthrowers and destroyers of right-wing overthrown governments, to kill right-wing overthrown people.

To be fair, I think American conservatives have a better grasp of social science than, say, the liberal/social democratic element. Conservatives have constructed a quasi-virtual reality that reinforces reactionary stereotypes and attitudes towards minorities (see Fox reporting on the "knockout" game, for example). Liberals are still fiddling with their technocratic delusions; they think that politics can be argued on the plane of empiricism and rational argument, as opposed to individual/collective interests and power struggles. Americans are more alienated by the dismantling of the so-called "American Dream" (more like its refutation) and the concept of facing their "complex" history than murder in a revolution; they are willing to support murderous death squads and genocidal dictators if it suits their interests. They don't respond to the frustrations of wage-labor through labor agitation and class consciousness but by aspiring to "be their own boss"; unlike the Europeans informed by their feudal past, Americans still perceive reality as if it was the 1840s, when it was (relatively) cheap to set up an independent homestead out in the West.