Definition of Communism - My history book defines communism

[ReduntilDead]

The definition of Communism in my history book is: Official ideology of the Soviet Union, characterized there by complete government ownership of land and property, single party control of the government, the lack of individual rights, and the call for world wide revolution.

My question to you, the reader, is that are we fighting for a lack of individual rights? Or perhaps this just propaganda in the history book? Does the ideal communist society have limitless individual freedom?

What are your thoughts?

[Vladimir]

You live in America? Thats the typical anti communist version, trying to call the Soviet Imperialist Union actually communist!

Mine defines it as:

The basis of Marxism is explained by KArl Marx, in his two great books, The Commy Manifesto and Das Kapital. Marx believed that economic factors explained all changes that occurred in the history of the world. He predicted that the working class (proletariat) would overthrow the capitalist systemo of private ownweship. Communism developed from the marxist philosophy. It aimed at the abolition of private property and the creation of a truly classless society.

Socialism is the theory that advocates that the means of production, distribution and exchange should be owned and controlled by the state etc.

Its not biased or anything, although our history teaches maintains that the Soviet Union was communist.......

Prometheus/IrishGuevara

[ComradeJunichi]

How can you be fighting for something, but ask again what we are fighting for? If you are fighting for something, it means you believe in it. You can't fight anything half-assed.

As the definition of communism, it can be interpreted in different ways.

[ComradeJunichi]

Prometheus, comrade :)

In the US, we spent 5 minutes on Karl Marx and Adam Smith - and ofcourse I had to correct my teacher many times and embarass her in class.

They pretty much describe communism very briefly, and it's not too biased. Just the old "good on paper, not in real life" statement, haha.

[mentalbunny]

The thing is, is unlimited freedom actually a good thing? Or do we have unlimited freedom in whatever circumstances, it's only in our mind as to whether we think we are free (this is all in another thread ("Freedom" in this forum) pretty much).

[GuErRrIlLa]

I have a history teacher who attacks me in class just because I bieleve in communism. He is the biggest asshole in the world. He keeps saying that people like Mao, and Lennin, where evil people. And I always half to correct him in front of the class.

[Som]

Communism is a classless therefore stateless society.

Simple as that.

The definition of communism in your book is a warped definition adapted by the west because of simplism and demonizing the term. The communists were in control, so they called the country communist and the term became associated with the soviet union.

[Charlie]

ComradeJunichi and GuErRrIlLa, could you give some examples of how you corrected your teachers in class? It sounds rather amusing. :)

[ReduntilDead]

Quote: from ComradeJunichi on 7:20 pm on Mar. 16, 2003
How can you be fighting for something, but ask again what we are fighting for? If you are fighting for something, it means you believe in it. You can't fight anything half-assed.


I periodicly check my actions and ideals with my values, this came up.... i do advocate complete freedom for the individual but not for corporations etc. besides a priest may not know the bible by heart, yet he does teach that its the best book in the world. This argument might be faulty, do to the fact that religion itself is faulty but its a good excuse :)

[ComradeJunichi]

When speaking of communism, specifically marxism, they twist words. Communism is where everything is owned by the government (putting a stress on everything), and everything is done for the state. It's the usual misconceptions, I think most of us know what those are.


@ReduntilDead: Complete individual freedom?

[Political Suicide]

Dictionary.com's synonyms for Communist is:

antipathetic, averse, biased, bigoted, chauvinistic, communist, conservative, contemptuous, dictatorial, disdainful, dogmatic, fanatical, fractious, hateful, illiberal, indignant, individualistic, inflexible, irate, irritable, jaundiced, narrow, narrow-minded, obdurate, one-sided, outraged, racialist, racist, red-neck, short fuse, small-minded, small-minded, snappy, stuffy, stupid, tilted, uncharitable, unfair, unforbearing, unindulgent, unsympathetic, unwilling, upset, waspish, worked up


Fucking halarious.

[chamo]

LOL, thats truly laughable PS.

[ReduntilDead]

I guess when you say "complete individual freedom" it sounds like you have the right to kill your neighbor if hes too loud... Thats not what i meant... I meant basically what the bill of rights gives us plus freedom of tyrany, etc etc... None of this bullshit like political prisoners...and other nonesense

[GuErRrIlLa]

Quote: from Charlie on 9:00 pm on Mar. 16, 2003
ComradeJunichi and GuErRrIlLa, could you give some examples of how you corrected your teachers in class? It sounds rather amusing. :)

Like, when I came into class, he looked at my che shirt and says, "hey look its osma on your shirt" of course the people that hate me in my class start to laugh. So I said "his name is Che not osama, and second he faught for the people of cuba, unlike Osama who was traind by CIA, Whants everybody to bieleve in only one religon, and whants anybody who stands in his way dead."
The kids stop laughing, and the teacher shuts up, then I sit back in my desk.

[Palmares]

I corrected my teacher about spelling Freidrich Engels. He told me to explain to the class what communism is, but he stopped me after only saying the basics. But he stressed the Stalinist crap. I can't wait till we do The Russain Revolution, I'll have hepas of things to correct him on.

Personally, I don't care too much about the definition of communism (though correcting misconceptions is something I HAVE to do). I'm a revisionist.

[Ian]

Communism is where everything is owned by the government (putting a stress on everything), and everything is done for the state (Originally Posted by Junichi)

Communism, in the marxist and anarchist sense (and they are the same) does not have a state, if you read State and Revolution you will see that in the socialist stage it withers away.

[ComradeJunichi]

Dude, reread my post.

Iannieeeee, you've known me long enough - you should know that I know more than that. And stop saying I'm turning into a stalninist!

Anyway, I was referring to what the teachers were saying about communism.

[Pete]

I gave 2 of my classes period long lectures on what communism really is...teach them to call china communist or use those synynoms PS recorded

[Larissa]

Quote: from GuErRrIlLa on 5:21 pm on Mar. 16, 2003
I have a history teacher who attacks me in class just because I bieleve in communism. He is the biggest asshole in the world. He keeps saying that people like Mao, and Lennin, where evil people. And I always half to correct him in front of the class.
More than an asshole, he is a huge ignorant.

[Latin America]

Quote: from GuErRrIlLa on 5:21 pm on Mar. 16, 2003
I have a history teacher who attacks me in class just because I bieleve in communism. He is the biggest asshole in the world. He keeps saying that people like Mao, and Lennin, where evil people. And I always half to correct him in front of the class.



Fuck this guy ( the teacher)!!! Where is he from? Where are you from?

[GuErRrIlLa]

Im from cali, I dont know where the hell he is from, and I dont whant to know.

[Palmares]

Your teacher sounds like a nincompoop.

Let me guess, he graduated from the University of Ignorance, in Dubya's ranch.

[GuErRrIlLa]

you guessed right!.......no, he got a degree in buisness, from USC.

[DisruptiveBehaviour]

What an asshole, maybe you should graff his car or house.
Those are the people that make me want to get off of my computer walk to their house and kick em in the teeth.

Here's dictionary.com's synonyms & antonyms for anarchism (anarchy was too long):


Synonyms: agitation, disorder, anarchy, brawl, bustle, chaos, clamor, commotion, commotion, complication, convultion, discombobulation, discord, disorganization, distemper, disturbance, dither, entanglement, fight, flap, fracas, fuss, hubbub, hullabaloo, imbroglio, insurrection, lawlessness, mayhem, misrule, misrule, mob rule, quarrel, rebellion, revolution, riot, rioting, ruckus, rumpus, static, strike, terrorism, tizzy, trouble, tumult, turbulence, turmoil, unrest, unruliness, uproar

Antonyms: peace, calm, tranquility, order

Concept: confusion

Bloody brilliant isn't it?

[Rage298]

WARNING: Do not read history books for the definition of Communism. The definitions are crappy, not to mention biased.

[ComradeJunichi]

Surprising that he doesn't know who Che is.

You guys make fun of these teachers, can you defend your 'beliefs' against these teachers? I'm just wondering.

How many of you know the definition of communism?

[YerbaMateJ]

Quote: from GuErRrIlLa on 2:08 am on Mar. 17, 2003
[quote]Quote: Like, when I came into class, he looked at my che shirt and says, "hey look its osma on your shirt" of course the people that hate me in my class start to laugh. So I said "his name is Che not osama, and second he faught for the people of cuba, unlike Osama who was traind by CIA, Whants everybody to bieleve in only one religon, and whants anybody who stands in his way dead."
The kids stop laughing, and the teacher shuts up, then I sit back in my desk.


KICK ASS GuErRilLa!!! Keep that shit up! :)

[sc4r]

Quote: from ReduntilDead on 11:11 pm on Mar. 16, 2003
I guess when you say "complete individual freedom" it sounds like you have the right to kill your neighbor if hes too loud... Thats not what i meant... I meant basically what the bill of rights gives us plus freedom of tyrany, etc etc... None of this bullshit like political prisoners...and other nonesense


It is a complete fallacy that complete individual freedom is ever possible. Idealist capitalists love to put that one about beause since they never remotely have to show how such a thing could work in practise (and when asked to explain it in theory just dodge) they can just rely on it sounding attractive.

All of us no matter what system we live under (even a complete animalistic one) have our freedoms curtailed by the actions of others, this is unavoidable, its a fact of the universe. God has complete freedom, nobody else does.

Communism / Socialism seek to maximise the true freedom of as many people as possible. To do this you have to curtail freedom to act in certain agreed ways.

The only achievable goal for any ideology is to maximise freedom not to make it complete.

In cuba for example there are laws which limit the freedom of people to campaign for capitalism. Why ? because without this particular freedom being curtailed the people of Cuba know full well that sooner or later the freedom of everyone to live without having an imperialist power own everything will itself end. Its a pragmatic acknowlegement that nobody can have everything that we would want while ignorance and deceit and greed exist in the world; which is going to be true for a long time yet.

[DisruptiveBehaviour]

Although I'm an anarchist, I can still give you the definition of communism if you want Joon.

[ComradeJunichi]

I wasn't asking the definition of communism because I didn't know what it was.

I am asking to see how well any of you, or me, can explain it. It is difficult to explain and thousands of pages and years of study cannot be simplified into a simple sentence. That was my point.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I've got a history teacher like that. At first he thought I was great because my grades were good and I seem to know alot about politics. He is a libertarian, by the way. I've worn my Che shirt to school several times and he never said anything, probably doesn't know who it is. Once it got out that I'm a commie, he started asking me stuff, eventualy he figured that I knew what I was talking about and said, "I see what your saying, I don't agree with it, but I see what your saying." The bell rang and we never touched the subject again.

I corrected him once, we were learning about the middle ages and he mentions how the word bourgeoisie was first coined in France, then he went on to say how it later became used to mean the lower class in Marxism, I corrected him, of course.

[apathy maybe]

my definition of Communism is that there is no or limmited government, and that people look after everything/body for philanthropist reasons.

socialism is - there is a Gov, that looks after people who need help, owns & controls the companies, but there is still money and jobs. free press but Gov owns some papers & radio & tv (like BBC & AusBC).

So I'm a communist who would like to see even proper socialism in this country (Australia) and others.

The Government has the responsibility to look after its citizians.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Quote: from Charlie on 9:00 pm on Mar. 16, 2003
ComradeJunichi and GuErRrIlLa, could you give some examples of how you corrected your teachers in class? It sounds rather amusing. :)


It has become a hobby of me, correcting my history teacher.

Lately we had a chapter about the cold war and he was talking about the Cuba missle crisis. So funny,

Q"The Russians..
M"Sir, it's soviets..
Q: They planted nuclear weapons near the US, nuclear weapons had never been so near to one of those country's.
M The USA had a few missle bases in Turkey, Krutjsev responded to it by placing missles on Cuba. The Soviets removed their missles, but the Americans didn't and their missles are still there aimed at former USSR.
Q hmmm, let me think.... [painfull silence]...... [/painfull silcene] :biggrin:

[Monks Aflame]

Quote: from DisruptiveBehaviour on 11:57 pm on Mar. 18, 2003
Here's dictionary.com's synonyms & antonyms for anarchism (anarchy was too long):


Synonyms: agitation, disorder, anarchy, brawl, bustle, chaos, clamor, commotion, commotion, complication, convultion, discombobulation, discord, disorganization, distemper, disturbance, dither, entanglement, fight, flap, fracas, fuss, hubbub, hullabaloo, imbroglio, insurrection, lawlessness, mayhem, misrule, misrule, mob rule, quarrel, rebellion, revolution, riot, rioting, ruckus, rumpus, static, strike, terrorism, tizzy, trouble, tumult, turbulence, turmoil, unrest, unruliness, uproar

Antonyms: peace, calm, tranquility, order

Concept: confusion

Bloody brilliant isn't it?well, there's two definitions of anarchy is there not? One is the political/social system, the other is the more widely used definition of general lawlessness. The two are sometimes interchangeable, apparently.

[sypher]

speaking of warped teachers. I have now that refuses to believe that W. Wilson was racist (lies my teacher told me)

In my opinion (most) U. S.history teachers are the most pathetic people ever born.

[Monks Aflame]

Mine's a world history teacher, and he's pretty damn intelligent. He's a bit to the left as well, but he's catholic also. Odd, odd combination.

[Larissa]

Quote: from Monks Aflame on 10:58 pm on Mar. 24, 2003
Mine's a world history teacher, and he's pretty damn intelligent. He's a bit to the left as well, but he's catholic also. Odd, odd combination.Well, actually Albino Luciani, (Pope Jhon Paul the First) was both catholic and leftist. His father was a commie and his mother was catholic. He was a pope for only 33 days. He was killed when he tried to disclose the crooked financial-mob system of the Vatican.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

He's a bit to the left as well, but he's catholic also. Odd, odd combination.


Not an odd combination at all. If you ever meet Brazilians, you will see that even the religious families (mostly Catholics) are leftist. Most college-educated Brazilians are leftist. My fathers side is very catholic, one's a nun, and they're all very leftist.

Regardless of what Americans say, Catholicism is not synonymous with narrow-mindedness and strict laws, just the opposite in fact.

(Edited by Victorcommie at 8:35 am on Mar. 25, 2003)

[apathy maybe]

Edit.

[Rage298]

Quote: from ComradeJunichi on 8:19 pm on Mar. 20, 2003
I wasn't asking the definition of communism because I didn't know what it was.

I am asking to see how well any of you, or me, can explain it. It is difficult to explain and thousands of pages and years of study cannot be simplified into a simple sentence. That was my point.


Though there will forever be many variations in the definition of communism - the fundamentals remain the same, and from those fundamentals we can make a very simple conclusion:
Communism is the belief in equality for -all- human beings, which includes equal opportunity for all.

Of course, this can be narrowed down, and, as I've said, people have their own definitions - that is what causes the 'pages' of complexity.

[Klondike]

the one thing that I could never understand about the definition of any political system in a text book or any dictionary is that when you read the definition it tells you slim to nothing about the system. You never know anything more about the system than before you read it. That always just got under my skin.