Communism Crashcourse - HELP NEEDED!

[La Resistance]

Alright, I have this presentation coming up next week. The presentation is part of a paper we had to write about what we thought would be the ideal form of government. I know I'm going to be fuuukd over by several pro-capitalist people (99%) of the class, but anyways, I would really appreciate if someone could come up with a list of common anti-communist ideas, and then provide empirical/factual/hypothetical data to counter it.

thx in advance comrades!

[vox]

1. Communism goes against human nature.

I'd be willing to bet that this is the first objection you hear. However, remember that humans have been around for a long time, but capitalism has not. In fact, human behavior, both historically and cross-culturally, is so varied that one is hard pressed to come up with any sort of human "nature" at all.

2. The fall of the Soviet Union proves that Marxism can't work.

Well, no. What it does prove is that authoritarian collectivism is flawed, and that democratic centralism produces dictators, and that Stalinism is for the birds. All of this really has more to do with Marxist praxis than with Marxian theory, and as anyone who has read various Marxist literature knows, there are a lot of competing ideas out there about just how a communist society should be structured.

3. Communists want to be given everything for free without having to work for it.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a communist society, unlike capitalist society, would have full employment. Everyone would work. The real question is what shape that work would take. Capitalism suffers from a crisis of overproduction, and all that production leads to long hours of alienated labor that directly degrades the quality of a worker's life. So not only would everyone work, but they would also work less, and the surplus value created by labor would not by appropriated, stolen, really, by the capitalists.

4. Communism is undemocratic.

No, democratic centralism, like in the old Soviet Union, is undemocratic. Communism is very democratic. In capitalist countries, the government exists to protect the privileged, who are the true ruling elite. This can be seen in the open hostility the government shows to unions and in the regressive ideas of sales taxes and "free" trade laws. In communism, the workers own the means of production and would not be forced to labor under corporate totalitarianism.

5. Without a profit incentive, there would be no progress

As Marx pointed out, capitalism has to continuously revolutionize the means of production, which seems to be what people mean when they mention progress. However, it's rather naive to say that there would be no technological advancement. Indeed, the government funds most of the research that leads to technological advancement in the first place! The question isn't whether there would be technological advancement, but what form this advancement takes.

It would not be, as it is now, given over to the few to profit from at the expense of the many. Rather, the advancements would be focused on the needs of the citizenry, things like renewable energy and resource conservation would be concentrated on instead of improving miniature electronic day planners or creating designer drugs for social, rather than medical, problems.

So, there's five. I hope they help.

vox

[peaccenicked]

The ussr was never democratic centralist that is an anarchist bluff. The CPSU can be correctly classified
as bureaucratic centralism. There was no democracy merely a climate of fear which extended to the whole of society.

[vox]

Peacenicked,

Enough with the accusations, okay?

Please explain exactly how the USSR broke with Lenin's concept of Democratic Centralism, for it was Lenin's idea and he started the USSR.

What happened to cause this "bureaucratic centralism" of which you speak? Are you talking about a New Class? And if you are, is this New Class structurally depenpent upon Democratic Centralism?

Thanks for the answers.

vox

[peaccenicked]

There was no climate of fear in the bolsheviks.
Huge disagreements were the norm and the political culture was one of thrashing out disagreements.
Stalin murdered the bolsheviks and established a climate of fear.
That is diametrically opposed difference.

[vox]

peacenicked,

Umm, okay. I'm not sure at all that anything you said answered my questions. At all.

So, if you could please answer my objections to your original post here, that would be great. :)

You might wanna talk about the USSR and Lenin, but that's just a friendly suggestion.

Okay, then.

vox (whadidhesay?)

[peaccenicked]

The proletariat does not recognise unity of action without freedom to discuss and criticise...There can be no mass party, no party of a class, without full clarity of essential shadings, without an open struggle between various tendencies, without informing the masses as to which leaders and which organisations of the party are pursuing this or that line. Without this, a party worthy of the name cannot be built.-- Lenin

[vox]

Great ideology, peacenicked. Sadly, nothing to do with reality.

If you're kind want to set up a political structure, then you've to be accountable to that structure, yes?

I, on the other hand, appreciate the Marxist "vanguard" for what it is: a CRITICAL MASS of WORKERS, which the academics, likes peacenicked, wish to erase.

He talks a good talk, but walks a foul walk. The fact is, people like peacenicked seek, through structural constraints, to control the many in the aid of the few.

Capitalist, Leninist?

Show me the difference to the worker.

vox

[peaccenicked]

Sadly you are saying that democratic centralism
necessarily leads to bureaucratic centralism.
When did you jump over to the capi's side.

[peaccenicked]

"I, on the other hand, appreciate the Marxist "vanguard" for what it is: a CRITICAL MASS of WORKERS, which the academics, likes peacenicked, wish to erase. "
This is sheer bloody minded arrogance and fraud.
This leaves the critical mass as subjects only and does not try to convert this critical mass into a fighting revolutionary organisation something that canot exist without a critical mass.
Vox is a complete and utter bullshiter trying to smear Leninists(that includes Che) as stalinists. He offers only his own inverted intellectual elitism, which is about slander and bastardisation of a tradition that has been misrepresented by that slander and who has had many stalwarts who have been murdered by Stalinists and imperialists alike.
This is an insult to the workers movement.



(Edited by peaccenicked at 3:28 pm on Feb. 28, 2002)

[vox]

"This leaves the critical mass as subjects only and does not try to convert this critical mass into a fighting revolutionary organisation something that canot exist without a critical mass."

EXACTLY!!!!

You finally understood something I said. Bully for you.

As for Che, what did he think about the USSR, peacenicked? Tell the class. When Castro decided to throw his lot with the USSR, what did Che do? I dare ya to answer.

Also, you err in thinking that there is any sort of "worker's" movement. There isn't. There are many worker's movements, of course, but not a single, monolithic worker's movement. Soundin' kinda like a leader there, peacenicked.

"Sadly you are saying that democratic centralism
necessarily leads to bureaucratic centralism.
When did you jump over to the capi's side. (sic)"

I haven't. However, the dogmatic Marxism of Lenin leads, without a doubt, to the deteterminism of the Soviet Union. Lenin started it, Stalin simply refined it.

It's this very determinism that I've been talking about the whole time, and this very determinism that all the Leninist/Stalinists here seem to avoid. It's no wonder why.

Indeed, this is our complaint. You embrace the idea of determinism and I do not. Never will we see eye to eye on this, I think.

vox

[TheDerminator]

La Resistance,
Er um... Sounds more like a thesis for a doctorate than a high school presentation.

The problem you have is that you have no real foundation on which to base your presentation, other than that supplied by vox. It is pretty much orthodox Marxist stuff, and I must admit, I have many disagreements with the orthodoxy, but I am afraid you are on a hiding to nothing, because you have a very limited time, to answer an engrained mindset, and you cannot really go around converting the bastards on your own to socialism.
The best thing you can do, is just take the piss out of their mindset, and give scant attention to the socialist alternative, because they are just going to laugh at your "utopianism" and why give them that satisfaction.
Let the joke be on those bastards, and ram the joke in their faces!
Freedom of speech!
The voice of Rupert Murdoch versus the voice of outraged taxpayer from North Dakota!

Freedom of choice?

The choice of billionaires in luxury, against the choice of person described as a bum of the so-called fucking underclass!
You go to the bank autoteller and find out how much fucking freedom, you have in your bank account, if you are lucky enough to have a bank account, and I for one owe too fucking much to a bank to go near the bastards!
Freedom! That is the fucking joke!
Free World! Planet fucking Grime!
All bad fucking jokes, and that is how I would begin the presentation.

"I always like to begin with a joke to lighten up the atmosphere, and to make everyone relax! But don't relax too much. Do you know the biggest fucking joke in the world the whole fucking so-called "Free World"!
Then your ram the shit joke down the bastards throats, but I am not as nice a person as you eh?
Sorry if I scare you (honest).

Resistance is Futile!

May the Force with U!

Be afraid, be very afraid...
derminated

(Edited by TheDerminator at 1:38 pm on Mar. 3, 2002)

[TovarishAlexandrov]

Peace vs. Vox, Communism *****-fight. fight, fight, fight, fight!

[Michael De Panama]

The main thing capitalists use to refute communist theory is to envision it in bourgeois ideology. The idea that "people are lazy" and that "without a wage, people wouldn't work" is a great mistake. The truth of the matter is that CAPITALISTS are lazy. Without a wage, the bourgeoisie wouldn't work! Do you think the workers in a fucking Indonesian Nike sweatshop really look forward to buying a new S.U.V.? NO!

What capitalists do not understand is that communism eliminates the bourgeoisie, so the already existing proletariat isn't treated like shit. There is already a working class. Communism only gives the workers the position in society that they deserve.

It is very very easy for a bourgeois capitalist to argue that "people are greedy". This argument is not based on any facts, simply a desperate hypothesis that merely reflects the only lifestyle they know of: the bourgeois lifestyle of greed.

(Edited by Michael De Panama at 4:50 am on Mar. 6, 2002)

[vox]

It's really ashame that my post wasn't answered.

Perhaps it's just easier to call me a bully?

vox