Is Communism Totalitarian?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

A friend of mine showed me his political science textbook. It had political spectrums for various things, and it had a spectrum for freedom. Anarchism was on the right, and communism/totalitarianism was on the left.

I tried ot explain that communism was not totalitarian, at least in the traditional sense, and I said the textbook had a right-wing bias. He said I was mad that the right-wing end of freedoms is anarchism, and I tried to explain that communist society ends in anarchy.

Totalitarianism, if existent in communist society, would be enforced democratically by all people anyway - which seems unlikely. Anyway, a bit confused here.

Thoughts?

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

I think that you are totally right, the theory is that a communist society would be totally democratic. I think that text book is probably, incorrectly, referring to the USSR, North Korea and such, when it refers to communism. Or at least what the authors of the text book desire to make you think communism is...

Anarchism & communism should indeed be very close on the table, in a theoretical sense anyway.

[Lamanov]

There could be no "democratic enforcement" of totalitarianism becuse there is no separate power in communist society.

Communism (scientific) and (social) anarchism as social systems (social goal of both movements) are one and the same thing.

Their original ideological difference cannot deny this fact.

[STABD]

Where does your friend go to school, it just blows my mind how badly they distort the truth.

[Janus]

Totalitarianism is mainly defined as the domination of the state in nearly every aspect of the citizens' lives. Communism is a stateless, classless society so there is no domination of a central authority as you can plainly see. The main reason why people have these misconceptions of communism is that certain dictators such as Stalin have stated communism as their ideology. Communism and anarchism both agree on the same end result which is a stateless, classless, and cooperative society.

[Comrade Martin]

STABD, every American textbook that I've ever seen basically says Communism = Totalitarianism = Nazism, and compares Nazis to Communists, etc., etc., and, even if some claims are true, grossly distort the reality of the U.S.S.R. and other nations following its model of the time, such as saying Stalin killed anywhere from 20-60 million people.

Trust me, American textbooks are horribly horribly biased.

[kaaos_af]

"Totalitarianism, if existent in communist society, would be enforced democratically by all people anyway - which seems unlikely."

Totalitarianism is not the correct term. Something more along the lines of 'dictatorship of the proletariat' or 'class war' is, though.

It is quite simple. In a classless society, there is no need for oppression, and nor is there anyone to do the oppressing, as the means by which people could exercise oppression would have been done away with (for example; the simple concept of the entire working class being armed to defend itself against such counter-revolutionaries).

However, this classless society has to come from somewhere; namely, a worker's and peasant's revolution. The act of revolution is the act of the people liberating themselves from the oppressors, who exercise a dictatorship over the masses (using the police, bureaucracy and army to enforce their rule). Once the oppressors have been overthrown, there are always remainders of the old state who try and defeat the revolution (and often they have succeeded, like in the Soviet Union, China and so on). They may do so in a variety of ways- through armed struggle against the new worker's state, through subversion, sabotage or any other number of ways.

These people must thus be stopped if the revolution doesn't want to lose people and resources and be faced with the possibility of defeat. Thus, the workers must exercise their collective power and defend the revolution through force, if the counter-revolutionaries refuse to give up. We did this at Kronstadt, when the peasants there threatened to link up with the whites and destroy Petrograd.

[red_orchestra]

You have to look at politics on a multi-dimensional playing field. Communism is a broad term for anyone who sits on the far left. There are those who support a dicatatorship and those who are more for a traditional form of peoples' Government with a decentralised form.

http://www.politicalcompass.org

[LA GUERRA OLVIDADA]

The USSR and North Korea were/are totalitarian.. If you consider the USSR and the DPRK Marxist-Leninist governments then I guess Communism is totalitarian.

And yes everyone knows that a true communist society would have no leaders and no state, I got it. I know you guys will jump on every opportunity to spew your extreme knowledge of M-L if I gave you the chance.

[Storming Heaven]

:lol: :D :lol: :D :lol: :D :lol:

What an amusing book! Did it come from the 'humour' shelf? Communism is a stateless, classless society - it is in other words a variety of anarchism!

[LA GUERRA OLVIDADA]

Originally posted by Storming [email protected] 24 2006, 06:18 AM
:lol: :D :lol: :D :lol: :D :lol:

What an amusing book! Did it come from the 'humour' shelf? Communism is a stateless, classless society - it is in other words a variety of anarchism!
So what is Socialism? That's what we're talking about you technical little *****.

[Abood]

Yeh, most books and basically the media make communism sound like totalitarianism. ironically, i was convinced into communism by my history text book :lol:
well, that book, thankfully, didnt mention any opinions, just stated what happened in the USSR. and well, during lenin's reign, which i believe is the closest to marxism, it was pretty great, but Stalin came and messed up his work..
even i used to think it's totalitarian, but i kept going to wikipedia and reading the stuff about communism again and again and again, cuz i never got it.. then finally, after reading about Che's accomplishments and motivations, i read Wikipedia again, and i got completely convinced :lol: and before that, i used to think "why the hell did Che fight to have more government control" then i realized he wasnt...
anyway, u get where i'm blabberin about, hopefully.. lol

[Zeruzo]

yeah, you think wikipedia and your history book were unbiased! (As an answer to your question: 'anyway, u get where i'm blabberin about, hopefully.. lol'.)

[Abood]

yeah, you think wikipedia and your history book were unbiased!
lol, guess i emphasized on the wrong points. my point was that the media make communism seem like totalitarianism so that they hate it and support capitalism.
and well, another "side point" is, read Wikipedia since it's a peoples encyclopedia and any1 can edit it... so if theres sumthing wrong, someone else will come and fix it.

[Abood]

and well, my history text book is unbiased...

Communist Russia (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0719574889/ref=br_lf_b_15/202-1975879-6263052) click there to check it out. we also use this text book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0719573432/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2_cp/202-1975879-6263052) and through it i realized how hitler is soo stupid and contradicted himself and was racist and stuff like that... Well, actually, i knew he was racist, i just wanted to make sure its not just the media's image of him.

[Storming Heaven]

So what is Socialism? That's what we're talking about you technical little *****.

You are an amusing lot. I believe the original post referred to Communism. Let me provide a quote to substantiate this claim:


... Anarchism was on the right, and communism/totalitarianism was on the left.

I wasn't actually aiming to be overly technical, just to make an amusing observation. But if you want a technical definition of socialism, I would say that the meaning of the word 'socialism' is not always easy to pin down. Different people use it in different ways:

1) It refers to the aim of the leftist movement in general - a society based on 'human need' (whatever that means) rather than profit. Social Democrats, Marxists and anarchists are in this sense, all socialists.

2) In Marxist theory (and some related ideologies) it refers to the post-revolutionary state of society after the downfall of capitalism but before a Communist society is realised. It would be a transitionary society, containing elements of both capitalism and Communism. Production and ownership might be collectivised, but things such as classes, states and currency might still exist.

If you want to be over-pedantic, the socialism of the first definition should not be spelt with a capital 's' (unless it is at the beginning of a sentence of course), and the Socialism of the second should. The same applies to the word 'communism'.

[rebelworker]

I think that alot of your confusion comes from the fact that most Marxist are serriously in denial.
They have their heads so far up their own asses they think that lennin was a good guy who freed the workers.

Unfortunatly communism(small "c") has been mistaken for Communism(big "C").

One is an economic and political model where the power of capitalsit rule over people has been replaced by the free federation of the economy run democraically by everyone who participates in it."c"

The other is the horrible bastardisation of this concept by a class of petty burgeoise intellectuals, who equate revolutionary change as the majority of the working class being subordinated to their will, who built up a worldwide network of Parties bearing that name. "C"

communism has been equated with Bolshevism, which is a very anti working class ideology. History has been quite clear on this, but due to real confusion on the matter and the fact that this misrepresentation suits the needs of the capitalsit rulling class(why would workers want to work for communism if they will end up with a horrible dictatorship like under lennin or mao) it continues to be discussed like this to this day.

This confusion also suited the needs of this new Bolshevik ruling class so they also taught this equation of their form of totalitarianism as a very liberatory ideology.

This is why you have poeple saying such assanine things as "kronstat needed to be crushed in order to defeat the white army", in stead of what really happened, "we better kill these revolutionary soldiers and workers or they will blow our cover and the working class might assert its power and build communism instead of letting us build this self serving totalitarian bureaucracy".

Tell your friend that Bolsevism should be on the scale with fascism, and communism should be down at the "left" end with anarchism.

Dont forget to tell him that capitalism as it functions today is a plutocracy "the rule of the wealthy" and beongs on the "right" end of the scale about half way to fascism.

https://www.nefac.net
https://www.anarkismo.net

[nickdlc]

Originally posted by Storming [email protected] 25 2006, 03:48 AM
2) In Marxist theory (and some related ideologies) it refers to the post-revolutionary state of society after the downfall of capitalism but before a Communist society is realised. It would be a transitionary society, containing elements of both capitalism and Communism. Production and ownership might be collectivised, but things such as classes, states and currency might still exist.
That's not what socialism means at all, and from what i've read marx uses socialism and communism synonymously unless stated other wise (i.e. bourgeois socialism or vulgar socialism but he is seperating these "socialisms" from real marxian socialism/communism). In critique of the gotha programme marx says "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

Unless marx used socialism and dictatorship of the proletariat synonymously (he didn't) socialism can't be the post revolutionary society in the sense marx used the word.

[JKP]

Originally posted by nickdlc+Jan 27 2006, 12:48 PM--> (nickdlc @ Jan 27 2006, 12:48 PM)
Storming [email protected] 25 2006, 03:48 AM
2) In Marxist theory (and some related ideologies) it refers to the post-revolutionary state of society after the downfall of capitalism but before a Communist society is realised. It would be a transitionary society, containing elements of both capitalism and Communism. Production and ownership might be collectivised, but things such as classes, states and currency might still exist.
That's not what socialism means at all, and from what i've read marx uses socialism and communism synonymously unless stated other wise (i.e. bourgeois socialism or vulgar socialism but he is seperating these "socialisms" from real marxian socialism/communism). In critique of the gotha programme marx says "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

Unless marx used socialism and dictatorship of the proletariat synonymously (he didn't) socialism can't be the post revolutionary society in the sense marx used the word. [/b]
So the question is, what is the DOP?

"Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once again been filled with wholesale terror at the words 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'. Well, good gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship will look like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" -Engels

And if ComradeOm reads this, I use the quote because it highlights the fact that Leninism has nothing to with Marxism.

[Ol' Dirty]

Communism is the governmental philosophy of sharing the economic, informational, cultural, and social wealth of a people. Without Democracy, Communism, well, really isn't Communism. Without Democracy, all governments are dictatorships and oligarchies.

Now, for the left/right wing thing...

I measure the political spectrum by how authoritarian a government is. Really, the U.S.S.R. would be on the right, and the U.S. would be on the left. But I don't consider the Soviet Union Comunist. Bush, now, would be on the right, being he is more authoritarian.

Facists, Capitalists and Nazi's: rightist. Communists and Anarchists: leftist.

No, Communism is not on the right.

Peace.