A Little Help and Understanding.

[Ownthink]

Well, I'm new here. To both Communism and The board. But anyway, I sort of am looking for help from a few of you, just on basic understanding of Communism and it's roots and variations and whatnot, so if I sound ignorant, it's because I am, so I apologize. Well, I've always been VERY liberal and a extreme leftist, but am new to Communism. Like most here, I have been around so much pro-captilaist, anti-Communist propaganda from the Western world, and that Communism= bad, so I am wondering about it all now. I've also always been anti-Fascist, and I, like many other young people, have been constantly taught that USSR=Communism and USSR=Kind of like Fascism and me being a Liberal, I thought I opposed it. Well, being an exteme liberal, I am just asking for your help on learning about Communism, and if it suits my way of thinking, since I'm a leftie. Any help is greatly appreciated.


-Ownthink.

[KC]

Have you read anything yet ?

[Ownthink]

I've not read anything yet, but I plan on reading The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, asI have heard they are both good books to read on Communism.

[Donnie]

If you don't know this already Communism is a classless stateless society. But I would definitely read them too books up above.

Also I also suggest you read some books on Anarchism as well. ;) Anything by Errico Maletesta, Peter Kropotkin, Micheal ( or Mikel) Bakunin, Alexander Berkman or Emma Goldman.

[KC]

I wouldn't suggest reading Das Kapital unless you're really set on reading it. Otherwise you're going to end up putting it down halfway through. It's long!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2005, 08:06 PM
I wouldn't suggest reading Das Kapital unless you're really set on reading it. Otherwise you're going to end up putting it down halfway through. It's long!
If you want to wrap yr head around the functionings of Capital rather quickly and simply without having to slog through Capital, I strongly recomend picking up a copy of "Wage Labour and Capital" - it's a simple, straightforward introduction to "Labour Theory Of Value".

The best understandings of communism come from understanding the functionings of society and history in general.


USSR=Communism and USSR=Kind of like Fascism

If anything, the cold-war USSR was kinda like cold-war America!
In fact, if we really look at how it functioned, beyond the rhetoric of both sides, the USSR really functioned as a sort of state-monopoly capitalism. Better than the Tsar? Sure! But there's no way a backward semi-feudal society can turn into a socialist one overnight (at least not without help) - the Russian revolution really had a lot in common with the French and other bourgeois revolutions . . . but, I'm wandering off on tangents. Hang around the board for a bit, and you'll probably get a handel on alot of this stuff . . . yr own handel, of course - there are probably as many people who'd disagree as agree with me on . . . everything I say, haha.




Oh, if you can take the wordyness, seek out a copy of Guy Debord's Society Of The Spectacle. Really.