What did your school books say about communism?

[R_P_A_S]

So I was looking at my college book from my business class. and It has been a good 3 years since I last opened it.. I couldn't help it but to wonder that they said about communism. I wasn't disappointed... what do you guys think abotu this comments?

Communism, which still exist in such countries like North Korea and Cuba.(keep in mind that even though communism and socialism are discussed here as economic systems, they can also be political and social systems as well.) The degree to which communism is practice actually varies. In its purest form almost all resources are under tight government control. Private ownership is restricted to personal and household items. Resources allocation is handled through rigid centralized planning by a handful of government officials who decided what goods to produce, how to produce them, and to whom they should be distributed. Although pure communism still has its supporters, the future of communism is dismal. As economist Lester Thurow and Robert Heilbroner put it,
“It’s a great deal easier to design and assemble the skeleton of a mighty economic system than to run it.”

[which doctor]

Some actual quotes from my us history book...

"Dictator Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist"

"Why were Americans' fears of communism during the cold war justified?"

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

Basicly: its evil and doesn't exist anymore in any real countries. The Czar was wrongly deposed, Lenin eats babies.

[Static]

Some actual quotes from my us history book...

"Dictator Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist"

"Why were Americans' fears of communism during the cold war justified?"


Because their president said it was.


Although pure communism still has its supporters, the future of communism is dismal. As economist Lester Thurow and Robert Heilbroner put it,
“It’s a great deal easier to design and assemble the skeleton of a mighty economic system than to run it.”

Haha, they had to stick the bias in there somewhere.

[Lead Headache]

We have 2 textbooks.

The first is quite indifferent about communism and does not have any bias.

The other is strongly biased against communism and rather blunt in exposing the bad things that happened in the Soviet Union.

[thescarface1989]

My book defined Communism as a stateless, classless society but on the next page I noticed the words Communist State being used a lot, and thought is this not a contradiction?

[#FF0000]

Two books. One isn't biased so much as it's just uninformed. Talk about governments in Communism and all that.

The new one I've seen in my high school impresses the fuck out of me with how it presents communism/socialism. It explains the ideas and systems accurately, and even went into detail so far as to being explaining the difference between some of the flavors of communism (Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Left Communism...etc).

[BIG BROTHER]

my economic book just talks about socialism, and says stuff like its a type of comand economy, where goverment owns most resources. and they also talk a little about karl marx and his theory of labor value.

in overall i think they don't give socialism much coverage but at least they aren't very biased.

[Winter]

Authoritarian dictatorship where everyone is forced to be the same. O noes.

[Dimentio]

"Good (morally speaking) idea in theory, but contradict basic human nature", according to my books.

[Maybe-not]

My book defined Communism as a stateless, classless society but on the next page I noticed the words Communist State being used a lot, and thought is this not a contradiction?

This is one of the better, less anti-Communist I've heard of so far.


Authoritarian dictatorship where everyone is forced to be the same. O noes.

Basicly: its evil and doesn't exist anymore in any real countries. The Czar was wrongly deposed, Lenin eats babies.

This is pretty much how Danish History books go. Even if they somehow give Stalin more credit that Lenin. :confused: I guess it's related to the fact the USSR Liberated Denmark after the War.

[Bandito]

Nothing good.
I learned about communism through different media than school system.

[Raúl Duke]

I get mixed definitions mostly wrong...except in my AP Comparative class I got a packet about Russia (actually the title was "Communist States and Post-Communist States" that doesn't go as wrong (actually it sounds slightly about right) yet omits much (However, the 1st "general politics overview" packet in class got it ALL wrong, both socialism {which it equated with social democracy} and communism).

However, my last recent history classes we barely discussed communism (my last ones I can remember in high school were: World History {I don't think we discussed Russia}, Puerto Rican History, and American History {when I got to the US}.)

[Module]

Something a textbook says about anarchism... This textbook is generally quite objective when it comes to the others, including Marxism, but...

"- Anarchists believe in no laws and no authority.
- Anarchists advocate the use of violence to gain political power.
- Anarchism has never been very powerful or popular.
- Famous anarchist Peter Kropotkin spent most of his life in exile."
And that's it.

My teacher has been slandering communism all year... but I'm too shy to stop her :(
I remember once she said "Communism in reality is not all that different from fascism."
I put my hand up once.. to correct her, when describing communism, and she goes "Yes, well that's Marxism, not communism," and immediately continues talking. :(
I'm new to the school and generally don't feel very confident in that sort of thing anyway, so I didn't try to have my say again after that.

[Red October]

My textbooks said the usual junk about "communism means the government owns everything" and "no one has any freedom", as well as the "communism died with the fall of the USSR" crap. There was virtually no mention of Anarchism at all except in a few parts about the Spanish Civil War, but it generally gave the "sketchy bomb throwing people who hate society" impression.

[RedAnarchist]

I can't really remember, but I presume it was the usual rubbish.

[Gitfiddle Jim]

We were taught something along the lines that all Communists are Stalinist, and that it is a failing ideology that died along with the fall of the USSR. Typical liberal bullshit, and there was no mention of Cuba either. With regards to anarchism, the term was never even used in the whole syllabus.

[Awful Reality]

"Marx was a good person who believed in freedom, but he didn't know very much about human nature..."

"People like Kerensky were more important in the Russian Revolution than Lenin, who was just an idealist..."

"Lenin was a bad person, but Stalin was evil. He killed millions of people and hated democracy."

These are direct quotes from my one of my old history textbooks, written for gullible toddlers.

They also assert that the death and false trials under stalin are the fault of Marxist theory, but things like the HUAAC and McCarthyist America were just the fault of "concerned people."

[F9]

Simply NOTHING.They are afraid that if they write for communism stalin will kill them!:laugh:

Fuserg9:star:

[Black Cross]

Our school books said as little as possible about communism (in retrospect it was all wrong) and the teachers said even less (also complete tripe, like "it's impossible to earn a living wage"... wtf). I wish I was smarter back then and challenged their idiocy, but i wasn't as deeply entrenched in socialism as i am now.


They also assert that the death and false trials under stalin are the fault of Marxist theory, but things like the HUAAC and McCarthyist America were just the fault of "concerned people."

that's quite a stretch. I bet they would teach the children the truth if they didn't have anything to hide...

EDIT: And as far as anarchism goes, the only thing we were told was that it, verbatim, meant chaos. What pricks. Ignoring the fact that it has actually existed. How can history teachers deny history...

[Awful Reality]

And as far as anarchism goes, the only thing we were told was that it, verbatim, meant chaos. What pricks. Ignoring the fact that it has actually existed. How can history teachers deny history...

They didn't tell us anything about anarchism, and the only thing we learned about the Spanish civil war was that a person named Franco existed. I'm completely serious.

[Gitfiddle Jim]

They didn't tell us anything about anarchism, and the only thing we learned about the Spanish civil war was that a person named Franco existed. I'm completely serious.

The only time we came across the Spanish Civil War was in art with Guernica by Picasso, and even then only the Luftwaffe were mentioned.

[Awful Reality]

The only time we came across the Spanish Civil War was in art with Guernica by Picasso, and even then only the Luftwaffe were mentioned.

That should be fucking illegal.

What the hell do they have to hide?

[RHIZOMES]

I remember reading about the "fall of communism" as a sidenote in a textbook about Vietnam after the war, and it said Gorbachev initiated reforms because he "saw the suffering of the Russian people".

...

......

:laugh:

[Raúl Duke]

Interestingly my comparative government book also mentions anarchism and Kropotkin but we skipped that part dammit (because I would have took control right than and there and lecture the class and the teacher on it. lol).

[Bright Banana Beard]

In my government book about economic of communism, it said no country did the practice of communism as Karl Marx laid out however it did include five year plan because of central planning & accused Lenin & Stalin of being communist dictatorship that controlled all aspects of life.

[Coffee Mug]

A few weeks ago we had a Powerpoint Presentation displayed in my American Citizenship class (Honors/Freshman/High School) on the different types of economies.

It was sort of an 'Evolution of the Economy'; starting with Capitalism and how everyones free to do things which it went into way too much unnecessary detail...never mentioning those who couldn't use the freedom to their advantage.

Then it went on about Traditional Economies and how they were for Indians, Quakers, Primitive Cultures and such.

Then for Command Economy- which was immediately used as a synonym for Communism. Everyone lived in the same boring houses, no one had any work ethic, and everyone starved to death.

That's about it.

[canopykid]

My textbook didn't say anything about communism. I asked my teacher why and she says "Because the president didn't want to admit that he was bored. Because he was bored, he chose the communists to pick on."

[Red_or_Dead]

My textbook didnt mention anything about the theory behind communism, but it did a very good job of presenting the conditions, in which the proletariat lived prior to WW1. I just went through it again yesterday, and I was pretty suprised (in a positive way) that it didnt even compare the rise of communism with the rise of nazism and fascism (as is very popular these days). It is a couple of years old, tho, and since we had a right wing government from 2004, a lot of things were edited. I dont know how or what (never seen any of the new ones), but from the stance that our government has on communism, I expect it has to be very anti- commie biased.

[More Fire for the People]

It's very contradictory: in the same book you get "Karl Marx's ideal stateless, classless society was a hope for many working people in the 19th century, but incompatible with human nature" or "communism is the state-ownership of all property which is administered by bureaucrats".
:drool:

[Lenin II]

Me and my brother actually whipped out my old book and took a look when he learned I was a communist. They said that “communism” was a system developed by Karl Marx. His Communist Manifesto “had ten planks, one of which sought to abolish the right of inheritance.” Notice how they didn’t mention the one that provided free public school for all children, since most countries have that now, including the anti-communist US! God forbid they should communicate the godless commies had any good ideas!

The article on Stalin was pretty much what the Trots on this site say.

They also mentioned that Castro "has disagreed with US policies for 50 years" and "ruled his people with an iron fist.” They also mentioned he overthrew the “brutal Batista” regime that was oppressive, “but had been long-time allay of the United States!”

[bezdomni]

My economics teacher in high school said (more or less exact quote):

"When Gorbachev and Reagan began to make the iron curtain fall, people in the Soviet Union were finally able to see Americans with their blue jeans and rock music and decided that they didn't want communism anymore and thought that democracy would be better."

So, it turns out all the imperialists needed to do to defeat communism was show blue jeans to people in the USSR. Hence my user name.

[Everyday Anarchy]

On a chapter about World War II, there was a sidenote that said: "Although Communists and Fascists claim to be enemies, their political systems are still very similar."

[Schrödinger's Cat]

On a chapter about World War II, there was a sidenote that said: "Although Communists and Fascists claim to be enemies, their political systems are still very similar."

I had similar experiences. The topic actually brought up a lively debate in my senior-year history class. One student verbally announced his confusion with the conflict between "communist" Russia and "Nazi" Germany when textbooks promote both as being essentially the same. Another student brought up the point that theoretically the two theories are completely different: one is egalitarian, democratic, and stateless. The other is hierarchical, meritocratic, and state-oriented. I abstained from the conversation just to hear the other students debate between themselves over the merit of real communism, since, according to the teacher, capitalism was still relatively premature in czarist Russia. Ironically in the next chapter we came across a line of text that pointed out "communism" only occurred in pre-/early-capitalistic regions of the world - this probably got a few people thinking.

Friends tell me in economics 101 Germany is called "socialist" and Cuba is "communist."

[Die Neue Zeit]

Thankfully I was spared the misery of taking up history in the last year of my high school studies (history TV shows being better, anyways). :)

Up until that point, my history lessons went up to the 19th century. :)

[RainingSkies]

Well the definition of Marxism and communism in our Sociology textbooks were accurate I must say, though the book focused more on Marxism than communism.