Some questions from new comer

[AMercifulRelease]

New to the forums and would like to ask some questions. While I'm still perusing other sources to help with these questions, I wanted to ask them here in hopes someone will help me answer them when I debate anti-Leftists on the Internet. Frequently I come across these "arguments" from right-wingers / neo-liberals, critics of the Left, etc.

Communist states have existed (USSR / N Korea / China, etc.)

Communism has resulted in millions of deaths during the 20th Century

What happened in the 20th Century is all Communism will ever amount to / Communism has failed

Theoretical communism will never become reality (this often comes from the same persons that advocate the previous argument. Seems a contradiction, but perhaps I'm mistaken here)

I'm also curious as to what "types" of leftist leaders Castro and Hugo Chavez are in a political sense, as well as Che

I'll continue to look into this, but if anyone cares to answer them or direct me to a resource I would be grateful. Thanks.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:53 pm
1.Communist states have existed (USSR / N Korea / China, etc.)

2.Communism has resulted in millions of deaths during the 20th Century

3.What happened in the 20th Century is all Communism will ever amount to / Communism has failed

4.Theoretical communism will never become reality (this often comes from the same persons that advocate the previous argument. Seems a contradiction, but perhaps I'm mistaken here)

5.I'm also curious as to what "types" of leftist leaders Castro and Hugo Chavez are in a political sense, as well as Che

.
1. These states never reached a classles statless society. The reasons of this are heavily debated within the left so I'll leave that for now.

2. How many have died as a result of the class system over the year? Billions. Died in capitalist wars, in poverty etc.

3. Again this is debated. Anarchist blame the Leninist aproach for this.

4. See above

5. Castro calls himself a Marxist-Lenninst...however Cuba is currently state capitalist. Che was a Maoist i believe. Chavez is rather confusing...he claims to be Marxist Lenninist, but seems set upon seeking a bouguoise democratic way of acheiving marxism... 21st century socialism he calls it

[Tatarin]

Welcome to the forums.


Communist states have existed (USSR / N Korea / China, etc.)

Firstly, there have never been any "communists states". That would be trying imagening a square circle. Communism is a system in where there is no state, and no corporations - a class free society.

However, socialism has a state, but that state is controlled by the people, and functions as an "in-between"-stage between capitalism and communism.

What the USSR, China, North Korea and all the other "communist" states has been, is considered state capitalist.


Communism has resulted in millions of deaths during the 20th Century

Communism has not. Those "millions of dead" is probably taken from the book "Black Book of Communism", written by right-wingers, and proven to have highly overestimated how many died, let alone during what time (like plauges, dry periods, bad seasons, war etc).

So yes, people did die, some cases were probably avoidable, but to underline "communism" as the sole cause - not to mention that communism had nothing to do with it - is something the media loves to brainwash our young with.


What happened in the 20th Century is all Communism will ever amount to / Communism has failed

It has not, because communism has not been tried. I don't know about others, but I see people all around the world people being attached to "leftism" rather than right-wing and nazi thought. For example, we have Venezuela, the recent worries about globalization, the increasing hate against the United States, and so on.

Yes, Europe has started to twist the story about immigration and islamophobia, but that still doesn't mean they're nazis (in fact, most are not even "aryans").


Theoretical communism will never become reality (this often comes from the same persons that advocate the previous argument. Seems a contradiction, but perhaps I'm mistaken here)

Well, if they mean that all humans will be living in perfect utopia, then that's another matter. There will probably always be one or the other problem, but that does not mean that we shouldn't strive for a better world from where all humans feel community and their lives actually means something.

[RNK]

Theoretical communism will never become reality (this often comes from the same persons that advocate the previous argument. Seems a contradiction, but perhaps I'm mistaken here)


This inparticular is the defeatists' arguement, usually given after you've proven that Communism is beneficial to all and not the horror stories they've been read at night. Rather than argue the moral, social or economic aspects of it, they rely upon "well, whatever, it'll never happen". The best arguement to that is that, currently, there are millions of socialist and communist revolutionaries, activists and theoreticians who are actively involved in revolutionary politics and that day-by-day they are breaking ground and making progress both in social and economic matters. And there are hundreds of thousands of armed freedom fighters who have given up their lives to fight for their freedom from capitalism. And, to end it all off, revolutionary change is inevitable; society is at a fork in the road now. We can either go down the path of socioeconomic totalitarianism, as we are; or fundamentalist religion; or revolutionary progressive upheavel that will allow humanity to improve the lives of all and usher in a new epoch of unrivalled equality. Then ask them which they'd prefer. If its option 1 or 2, shoot them right there.

[mikelepore]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:53 pm
I'll continue to look into this, but if anyone cares to answer them or direct me to a resource I would be grateful. .
I say this in all seriousness -- the resource I would point to here is Shakespeare's "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet."

I say that because the specific type of error being committed by those people is the error of thinking that things can be understood by looking at the names that have been assigned to them.

I'm a Marxist. I advocate management by the workers' democratically elected representatives. If someone has an example of a social system, and that system doesn't have management by workers' democratically elected representatives, then I don't want it. I don't care what they call it -- they may call the people's free democratic utopian paradise -- and I still don't want it.

[kromando33]

Chavez isn't a socialist, he's closer to a welfare capitalist.

[manic expression]

1.) They were/are not "communist states", but socialist states. Socialism is when the working class controls the state.

On this point, you'll want to read the histories of each socialist state and, if you think it appropriate, see how to defend them. The more specific stuff you know, the more effective your arguments will be. However, you should talk about how living standards, education, etc improved under socialism and how the collapse of the USSR brought unemployment, homelessness, poverty, hunger and worse. Socialism, at its worse, is far better than capitalism.

2.) Press the argument and look for specifics. What is your opponent talking about? Sure, the USSR caused millions of Nazi casualties in WWII, but is that a bad thing?

Again, the more you know the history, the more these claims will clearly be shown to be full of crap. The lies you have to look out for: "Lenin's Hanging Order", dekulakization (some reactionaries call it "Holomodor" or the Ukrainian Genocide, which is BS), the purges, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, executions after the Cuban Revolution and the ongoing situation in North Korea. Read up on this forum and you'll see argument for and against.

The basics: the capitalists lie about these statistics, they are false. Read about each of those things (and others that you'll encounter) from reliable sources (or leftists) and you'll be able to refute them.

3.) This is an illogical point. Why does it mean communism is done? Marx did not state, "if the revolution doesn't come by 2008, forget everything I said"; capitalism is still steadily reaching its final point. There are more proletarians than ever before (fact).

4.) Communist theory is about a few things, none of them idealistic. Carrying out a revolution, post-revolutionary society and the move toward communism is what most communist theory amounts to. Most of this has already been accomplished, the challenge is pushing it further.

Good luck, comrade.

[Asoka89]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 09:10 am
Chavez isn't a socialist, he's closer to a welfare capitalist.
Chavez is a Socialist, or he has been openly for a few years now, he is engaged in a revolutionary process empowering the working-class in Venezuela and usurping power from the Capitalist one.

Read more into it, Chavez is very much so on a path towards a Worker's State, he has a lot to confront first though.

Read some articles on pslweb.org theactivist.org socialistworker.org

[Kitskits]

Communist states have existed (USSR / N Korea / China, etc.)

Classic right-wing crap.

Communism and state is mutually exclusive. Just explain to them this very simple thing: Communism can only be achieved globally, these states didn't even claim to be communist.


Communism has resulted in millions of deaths during the 20th Century

1)How many deaths has capitalism resulted in the 20th? If you think in a marxist way about how many people the bourgeois killed through starvation, repression, imperialist wars, illness in the third world etc etc comparison is quite funny.

2)A big proportion of these statistics could be bogus (and some comrades present evidence that it is bogus)

3)The right-wing accuses crimes of communism to non-communists claiming to be communists (Pol Pot etc).


What happened in the 20th Century is all Communism will ever amount to / Communism has failed

No, capitalism is destined to fail because for the profit it must drive the proletariat to extreme poverty hence causing revolution. Of course it cannot stand economically but that's classic marxian Political Economy than I am no expert in this subject but the answers are there, study wage labor and capital and Capital Vol. 1 by Marx.

And after capitalism will follow socialism.

But what am I saying? These right-wing idiots don't even know the difference between communism and socialism will they understand this? this argument is not even an argument, I regret for trying to answer to it.


Theoretical communism will never become reality (this often comes from the same persons that advocate the previous argument. Seems a contradiction, but perhaps I'm mistaken here)

This is not an argument, this is a dogma. Like saying "Capitalism inevitably leads to suicide so you must become a communist".

If I calm down and try to see it like some primitive-man wanna-be argument I would say that capitalism is more utopian than socialism just for the reason that it's idiotic to think that the bourgeois can suppress the proletariat for an eternity. The huge companies end up suppressing the petty-bourgeois to make even more profit. And once the petty-bourgeois idiots join the proletarian/peasantry communist cause, bourgeoisie is determined to lose. They are simply outnumbered.

If these right-wing dogs think that socialism doesn't work they should present some normal arguments. But it is clear when someone speaks with them that they do not WANT socialism to work, not that they know what socialism actually is.


I'm also curious as to what "types" of leftist leaders Castro and Hugo Chavez are in a political sense, as well as Che

Castro says he is a Marxist-Leninist but I think he is slightly revisionist. Hugo is something between a reformist and a democratic socialist. I dunno about Che, someone here said he was a maoist and I think I also heard that from elsewhere.