Why is there a ¨fear¨ of communism?

[reort]

Why are people so afraid of it?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Several complex reasons exist for this but mostly it has to do with how the capitalists portray socialist states via their immense propaganda machine. This is effective as they never stop rattling on about the crimes committed by Stalin, Mao. etc.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Several complex reasons exist for this but mostly it has to do with how the capitalists portray socialist states via their immense propaganda machine. This is effective as they never stop rattling on about the crimes committed by Stalin, Mao. etc.

This. I also think, from the rich / capitalist / conservative perspective, there's a fear of losing power and wealth. Even the lowest of 'lower middle class' bracket earners are very jealous of losing any of their assets or posessions for any reason (some act like their world is collapsing if the value of their two bed semi-detached goes down 5%).

[KingoftheSwing]

Lots of people don't know what communism really is. They simply link communism with dictatorship (Mao, Stalin, Kim-Jong Il,...) and censorship etc etc.
Also lots of people really believe in the (false) concept of the american dream. They dream of becoming rich and succesfull. Of course these ideas are fed through the mainstream media, education both at home and at school and through rightwing propaganda. The last decades capitalist countries made being rich as attractive as possible and being poor as unattractive possible. For example what we saw in the video on Obama's legislature by FOX news, they litteraly said he is making poverty "comfortable" (with food stamps and health care and such). And what they also did is pread the idea that every individual is responsible for its own succes. And as we all know, when you repeat a lie a thousand times it becomes, in this case, an interiorisated thruth.

[Q]

Several complex reasons exist for this but mostly it has to do with how the capitalists portray socialist states via their immense propaganda machine. This is effective as they never stop rattling on about the crimes committed by Stalin, Mao. etc.

Besides the obvious propaganda, it's also the case that no one wants to go back to a society like that of the USSR.

[Goblin]

Because most people associate communism with Stalin.

[jookyle]

Because most people associate communism with Stalin.

This is probably the biggest factor. Plus believing in the propaganda one is filled with during their public schooling years. In a country like America where education is thrown to the wayside, the socialization process goes pretty god damn far.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Several complex reasons exist for this but mostly it has to do with how the capitalists portray socialist states via their immense propaganda machine. This is effective as they never stop rattling on about the crimes committed by Stalin, Mao. etc.

Things are more complex than this. Cultural hegemony is a natural phenomenon within all hierarchical societies. In pre-industrial society it was maintained through violence, coercion, and keeping literature and art out of the hands of the majority. In industrial capitalism cultural hegemony is maintained through the private ownership of media by the bourgeoisie, their control of our education system through their state, and to a lesser degree propaganda. By these means the proletariat is artificially conditioned into the political and cultural sensibilities of their exploiters. This is why blacks on a certain level hate the color of their skin. This is why many homosexuals try and conform to the conventional family dynamic. This is why the majority of our class don't recognize our common enemy, and worst of all don't recognize each other as natural allies.
As for "rattling on about the crimes committed by Stalin, Mao, etc.", the bourgeoisie doesn't really need to spread propaganda about that stuff to scare off workers. Stalinists have already done more than enough of that themselves.
Part of the reason why most working people are distrusting of the far-left is because the far-left has fucked them over so many times. Their fear is understandable.

[Comrade Hill]

Besides the obvious propaganda, it's also the case that no one wants to go back to a society like that of the USSR.

You clearly just demonstrated this "obvious propaganda." When people look at the history of the USSR through the sunglasses of idealism, then this is what people are going to think. How can you bring back the Soviet Union? What's going to happen, are people going to use their magical Stalin powers to turn people into peasants? Could it also be, that Stalin was not a 20 foot tall man who stomped on people with his steel boots, killing a gazillion people? The fact of the matter is that people are not reading enough history books.

Historical idealism is a big factor in the fear of communism as well. Many members of the proletariat in the United States also, do not view themselves as the proletariat, but future members of the bourgeoisie.

All the crap about the make-believe ideology called Stalinism also doesn't help the left. Nobody believes in Stalinism except for Stalin's enemies.

[Q]

You clearly just demonstrated this "obvious propaganda." When people look at the history of the USSR through the sunglasses of idealism, then this is what people are going to think. How can you bring back the Soviet Union? What's going to happen, are people going to use their magical Stalin powers to turn people into peasants? Could it also be, that Stalin was not a 20 foot tall man who stomped on people with his steel boots, killing a gazillion people? The fact of the matter is that people are not reading enough history books.

Historical idealism is a big factor in the fear of communism as well. Many members of the proletariat in the United States also, do not view themselves as the proletariat, but future members of the bourgeoisie.

Yawn.

Let me word it differently: Communism is going to have zero appeal as an alternative if people equate it with what the USSR was.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

@ Q and ComradeHill: Just a reminder: Keep it civil guys (so good so far)

[Zav]

This bastard has something to do with it.


Are we sure he isn't Glenn Beck's dad?

[RadioRaheem84]

Many members of the proletariat in the United States also, do not view themselves as the proletariat, but future members of the bourgeoisie.

This is the undeniable truth in the United States. There is almost no worker class consciousness in the States. Every worker or at least every young worker does not see themselves as workers but future members of the upper middle class.

Young workers just see themselves in a transition stage, which is why they don't care about workers rights or higher pay to the extent of making their current employment their permanent livelihood.

Socialism seems like a burnt out old ideal to them.

Also, the lack of historical perspective on the development of the ML nations also skews the picture of socialism.

The US has spun the story so much to their favor that it would be inconceivable for people to fathom that in terms of foreign policy during the Cold War, the USSR was the lesser of two evils.

Whenever I tell non-communists about the historical development off the USSR and the other ML states, they say that doesn't matter because Stalin was evil at heart and he would've killed anyway regardless of the procession of historical events because his intent was "power".

If the American Revolution, the American Civil War, WWI and WWII happened in the span of twenty years and not to mention was surrounded by enemies bent on it's destruction, would not the US likewise look a bit different today? Would the suspension of Habeus Corpus by Lincoln be seen as simply an "evil person's" lust for power?

[Comrade Hill]

Yawn.

Let me word it differently: Communism is going to have zero appeal as an alternative if people equate it with what the USSR was.

I don't think wording it differently made any difference. It's going to have zero appeal, if people continue to believe in the historical fairytales told by capitalists and revisionists.

Whether you agree with it or not, when people mention "Communism," they are going to think of Lenin and Stalin, because the USSR is the most heard about country where "communism" has been tried. Your attempt to avoid this and brush the entire history off as a "life of misery" and "without any appeal" is not only factually incorrect, but it hurts the communist movement. It simply reinforces the fear of "communism" and it continues to blind people with historical inaccuracy.

[RadioRaheem84]

Let me word it differently: Communism is going to have zero appeal as an alternative if people equate it with what the USSR was.

As much as you try. You will never erase the USSR from the historical record about communism.

The best we can do is tell people about why it became the country it was. For all it's faults it also had a lot more positive attributes about it. Those positives are what the people of those formers countries now only dream about while living in their capitalist "democracies".

It would be shocking and life turning for Americans to find out that their nation was the real bad guy during the Cold War. That because of US and Western imperialist counter revolution, the ML states became enclosed bureaucratic paranoid bunker states mostly concerned with survival instead of continuing the road to socialism. Those states were in a constant state of war and I do not mean having their kids hide under schools desks during an atom bomb drill, but an actual constant state of war like ten times as constant as US during WWII.

How would a tiny nation in the third world, freeing itself of an imperialist choke hold, survive the constant terror attacks, the CIA, the economic embargoes, the political isolation, political assassinations, etc.? Not to mention full imperial onslaught if none of the things listed above deterred the people from socialism?

[Q]

Just for the record: I'm not avoiding the subject of the USSR. I'm just clear in such discussions that it was a counter-revolutionary regime that was the complete opposite of communism (as is often the case with counter-revolutions, they try to take up the mantle of the revolution) and indeed explain why the counter-revolution was victorious.

But since this is going too much off topic, I'll leave it there.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

+ YouTube Video

[Zealot]

Oh, I don't know, bourgeois propaganda may have something to do with it.

[Comrade Samuel]

I think that it is obvious that the time of heavy capitalist propaganda directed towards communists is over and that the damage has been done. Today it is because most if not all people living the west belive all communists are...

A) old nostalgic Russians (nationalists)

B) whiney hipsters who hang out a Starbucks all day (revleft )

At this point we can either sit around and talking about how "evil dictators ruined the good name of communism" then allowing everybody else with an opinion on the matter tell you how stupid you are all day or we could put aside petty bullshit and focus on the fact that nobody even knows what communism is anymore not entirely because of the history but because capitalists have their own definition that they have pushed onto everybody else.

Keeping your own opinion on history is alright, letting it interfere with problems we face today is why the left is in the state it is. Is it really so bad to educate people on the core tenants of Marxism before we force them into our often impolite historical debates? It's probably what drives so many away from this site.

[DiaperGrandpa]

May I ask where you're from? Or provide a bit more info. on the nature of the fear you're referring to? It sometimes makes a difference in identifying the type of and reasons for fear of communism.

Otherwise, I think what others have already stated re: propaganda to definitely be a relevant factor.