Stalinism/Communist Dictatorship VS Marxism/REAL Communism

[Pandeeria]

It barely had time to exist before being crushed by the rest of the French Empire and invading Prussians. What they did manage to achieve showed great promise. Both the Communes in Spain during the Civil War and the Free Ukrainian Territory each were longer lived (though definitely not by much) and showed great promise when considering what their respective situations were.

Showing great promise on a small scale on an even smaller time-frame is not definitive proof though. If one were to just look at Germany between 1933 and say 1937, you could definitely say the National Socialist model was far superior to its contemporaries. Why would not be known, however, is how the economy was on the edge by 1938/1939 and unlikely to be sustained past 1940 in its current form.

So we should never attempt it again even though it showed extraordinary promise for how it did, only after it was crushed from outside influences?

[The Alma Mater]

Showing great promise on a small scale on an even smaller time-frame is not definitive proof though. If one were to just look at Germany between 1933 and say 1937, you could definitely say the National Socialist model was far superior to its contemporaries. Why would not be known, however, is how the economy was on the edge by 1938/1939 and unlikely to be sustained past 1940 in its current form.

So we should never attempt it again even though it showed extraordinary promise for how it did, only after it was crushed from outside influences?

Which outside influences do you refer to ?

[Oil exporting People]

So we should never attempt it again even though it showed extraordinary promise for how it did, only after it was crushed from outside influences?

I just realized know one has even provided proof yet, at least according to a cursory run through of this thread, of whether they showed any promise or not. Every other example of Communism expanded onto a national stage with time has rather dramatically failed as well, for context.

[Engleberg]

Showing great promise on a small scale on an even smaller time-frame is not definitive proof though. If one were to just look at Germany between 1933 and say 1937, you could definitely say the National Socialist model was far superior to its contemporaries. Why would not be known, however, is how the economy was on the edge by 1938/1939 and unlikely to be sustained past 1940 in its current form.

So we should never attempt it again even though it showed extraordinary promise for how it did, only after it was crushed from outside influences?

Not at all, because those attempts were for the incorrect causes.

[Kubra]

So we should never attempt it again even though it showed extraordinary promise for how it did, only after it was crushed from outside influences?

I just realized know one has even provided proof yet, at least according to a cursory run through of this thread, of whether they showed any promise or not. Every other example of Communism expanded onto a national stage with time has rather dramatically failed as well, for context.

Only two of those examples matter tho: the USSR and China. And China really only counts for half, dunnit?

[Risottia]

Explain how Dubček, Togliatti, Marchand and Berlinguer were "dictators".

THEY weren't, but all of the others were.

Calling Gorby a dictator seems a bit weird, as the definition of dictator goes. Whatever floats your boat anyway. Still all of them were Marxists.

Back to the main point: you defined Communism as the quasi-anarchical society (with the retention of a government only for economic programming, basically) and Stalinism as the totalitarian variant of socialism. Of course a totalitarian system works with heavy intervention of the State - that's pretty much the definition of totalitarianism. Duh!

Anyway a state system is bound to create classes, because humans tend to retain positions of power for themselves and their closer in-group. So, even a working and well-intentioned totalitarian socialist system will degenerate eventually into the usual, non-working, not-well-intentioned dictatorship - which ultimately leads to economic and social collapse.

[Kubra]

THEY weren't, but all of the others were.

Calling Gorby a dictator seems a bit weird, as the definition of dictator goes. Whatever floats your boat anyway. Still all of them were Marxists.

Back to the main point: you defined Communism as the quasi-anarchical society (with the retention of a government only for economic programming, basically) and Stalinism as the totalitarian variant of socialism. Of course a totalitarian system works with heavy intervention of the State - that's pretty much the definition of totalitarianism. Duh!

Anyway a state system is bound to create classes, because humans tend to retain positions of power for themselves and their closer in-group. So, even a working and well-intentioned totalitarian socialist system will degenerate eventually into the usual, non-working, not-well-intentioned dictatorship - which ultimately leads to economic and social collapse.

Class in the soviet union is a finnicky thing. The number of members in the politburo, central committee, and supreme soviet was a fixed number, the factory managers and other positions for which party membership was generally necessary was a constantly expanding number, party membership peaking at the close of the soviet union. But ironically, what wasn't rising was availability of consumer goods. There's new factories and factory managers, but they're still not producing anything either useful or at all.
So we've got all these new members to the party and these new positions, but these positions confer less and less, as stagnant commodity production is now meant to cater to a larger crowd of consumers. It's an economic crisis fit for anywhere with an enlarged bureaucracy. The traditional soviet marker of class all of sudden wasn't worth much, it was the equivalent of noble rank without the stipend that comes with it.
Not that there was no solid economic crisis in the making, agricultural imports were still fucking with soviet finances, and had the soviet union not fallen in 1992 it would have probably fallen a lot more violently later on as people actually starved during a very real economic crisis.

[Kubra]

Er, yes, the HRE was not around when France lost. I suppose I now understand why folks use the ":-)" face for these sorts of things.

So wait, was their crime going against the government of Bonaparte, or the government of Thiers?

Daily Reminder: HRE was true successors to Rome :^)

DELETE THIS

[Community Values]

Neither of them work, do I don't see any reason to differentiate.

[United Marxist Nations]

>muh betrayal

Stalinism represents a valid continuation of Marxist thought and theory. Stalin was indeed a Marxist, and a very intelligent and loyal one at that. The representation of Stalin as being some great traitor who wanted to establish himself as a dictator of a regular dictatorship is frankly Trotskyite propaganda that has been picked up by Western anti-communists and used against the Soviet Union has a bashing stick.

Stalin really represented the bulk of the communists in Russia in that he was encouraging caution in their actions, and his modernization of the Russian economy turned Russia into a superpower. By comparison, Trotsky was an extremist who would have launched a massive war of conquest.

[Discretospia]

Sigh. The more I look at these forums topics discussing communism, the more anti-communist ignorance I see of the entire issue. This is unfortunate.

Well, on the bright side, at least the first line in my signature is holding up well so far. I'm glad I went with this, this really cheers me up.

[United Marxist Nations]

Sigh. The more I look at these forums topics discussing communism, the more anti-communist ignorance I see of the entire issue. This is unfortunate.

Well, on the bright side, at least the first line in my signature is holding up well so far. I'm glad I went with this, this really cheers me up.

Or maybe you have a very narrow view of communist thought because you have only studied it from a rose-tinted perspective. The Bolsheviks are demonized because they got their hands dirty and put theory into action.

[Oil exporting People]

Only two of those examples matter tho: the USSR and China. And China really only counts for half, dunnit?

No, and you full well realize that.

[Oil exporting People]

Calling Gorby a dictator seems a bit weird, as the definition of dictator goes.

His actions in the Baltic states in 1990 certainly make him a tyrant, and he ran a State with repressions of freedoms as well as maintained a secret police with extra-judicial authority.

[Kubra]

Only two of those examples matter tho: the USSR and China. And China really only counts for half, dunnit?

No, and you full well realize that.

Do I? Why should I? Do we consider, say, the cisalpine republic to be an earnest example of revolutionary republicanism in italy?

[Nekoyama]

There were numerous faults with Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism in general, the first being their tendency to devolve into charismatic dictatorships with fascist characteristics, but there's a rather asinine tendency, usually by anarchists and libertarian Marxists, to blame Stalin and his faction for most of the defeats and setbacks faced by the Left during the 20th century.

Er, yes, the HRE was not around when France lost. I suppose I now understand why folks use the ":-)" face for these sorts of things.

So wait, was their crime going against the government of Bonaparte, or the government of Thiers?

Daily Reminder: HRE was true successors to Rome :^)

For it to be that, it would need to be holy, Roman, or an empire. Which it was not.

[Aimdar-Goomdar]

There were numerous faults with Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism in general, the first being their tendency to devolve into charismatic dictatorships with fascist characteristics, but there's a rather asinine tendency, usually by anarchists and libertarian Marxists, to blame Stalin and his faction for most of the defeats and setbacks faced by the Left during the 20th century.

Daily Reminder: HRE was true successors to Rome :^)

For it to be that, it would need to be holy, Roman, or an empire. Which it was not.

Stalin technically IS to blame for many of the defeats and setbacks faced by the Socialists in the 20th Century; his dictatorial rule and authoritarian government became what many recognized as "Communism," which it is absolutely not, and the strong bias developed against this "Communism," especially in calling it "Communist Dictatorship," is something that is completely false and needs to be relearned. Communism is the opposite of Dictatorship and fights against it; instead, many people identify the two ideologies as synonyms of each other... which they are not.

[San Marlindo]

Every time an ideology goes belly up, a decade or two passes for the dust to settle and a new generation to come of age, then somebody will say, "wait! We just didn't do it right the first time!"

And history repeats itself.

I met someone when I was in Santiago one year on vacation. We were discussing an authoritarian government which had existed decades earlier. I asked him how he could defend this government, it's brutal ideology, and internment camps. He said the internment camps were Western propaganda. The ideology was perfect, it just wasn't being implemented in a more practical, benevolent manner. It did preside over great fears of engineering and industrialization after all. And besides, the people involved had fantastic military parades. And they went to war against an ideological enemy who were a far greater threat to Europe in the long run than themselves.

I was speaking to an eleven-year old Chilean boy about the Nazis.

But switch "Nazi Germany" for "Soviet Union" or "PRC" and I could be talking to an eleven year-old boy somewhere else today, having the same conversation.

From that day on it occurred to me just how fickle history is. As the mistakes we made in the past fade further and further away from our collective memories, the more tempting it is to repeat them.

Here's another scenario.

You can also look at it like the grass is always greener on the other side.

Most self-identifying Marxists I met lived in developed Western countries that never had communist governments. They were all too happy to look up to the old Soviet Union as the icon of anti-fascism, given its instrumental role in World War II. Because that's what they associate with the Soviets, not the Holodomor.

On the other hand most virulent anti-communists I've met have always been from former Warsaw Pact countries, or places like Cuba, Ukraine, and Vietnam. "Communism" to them meant walls to keep them in, a heavy-handed bureaucracy, ration stamps, shortages, or reeducation camps.

While some people in the West were disillusioned with the consumerist, unequal, and increasingly corrupt corporate culture surrounding them, dreaming of a communist utopia...some other people in the East were disillusioned with the paranoid, overly bureaucratic, and increasingly repressive state machine they were all expected to serve in the name of equality, dreaming of escaping to the West.

I once heard someone ask one of the oldest, wisest men I knew about this very phenomenon. He just smiled and said some people everywhere will always be dissatisfied with their lot. Everywhere you go, you'll always meet those who can't stand it and are trying to get out.

As for myself, I will add that I don't particularly care whether orthodox communism - or Stalinism for that matter - is a valid philosophy or not. However, I am fascinated by the way it has shaped public perceptions, and will continue to do so - much like any ideology that has left an indelible footprint on the history of the world - for years to come. One day, when my hair is grey and I walk with a cane, I will be pleased to be telling an eleven year-old urchin in Santiago about what communism and capitalism meant in my time, and why all these opinionated, lovely little people got so worked up about something like that.

It'll be a real blast.

[FutureAmerica]

North Korea = Stalinism
Venezuela = Marxism

Where do you want to live?

[Kalinin K-7]

North Korea = Stalinism
Venezuela = Marxism

Where do you want to live?

Venezuela isn't Marxist, it's a failing capitalist state.

[Atomic Utopia]

North Korea = Stalinism
Venezuela = Marxism

Where do you want to live?

Venezuela isn't Marxist, it's a failing capitalist state.

Actually it is a more mixed market economy, admittedly one leaning towards the left by a wide margin. Pure capitalism, like matter at absolute zero and communism, has yet to be observed.

[Conscentia]

Venezuela isn't Marxist, it's a failing capitalist state.

Actually it is a more mixed market economy, admittedly one leaning towards the left by a wide margin. Pure capitalism, like matter at absolute zero and communism, has yet to be observed.

A capitalist mixed economy is no less pure than a laissez-faire market. "Capitalism" as a political term was coined by it's critics to describing actually existing economic conditions. To say it's less "pure" because it doesn't correspond to some idealised, ahistorical form is ridiculous.

[Nekoyama]

There were numerous faults with Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism in general, the first being their tendency to devolve into charismatic dictatorships with fascist characteristics, but there's a rather asinine tendency, usually by anarchists and libertarian Marxists, to blame Stalin and his faction for most of the defeats and setbacks faced by the Left during the 20th century.



For it to be that, it would need to be holy, Roman, or an empire. Which it was not.

Stalin technically IS to blame for many of the defeats and setbacks faced by the Socialists in the 20th Century; his dictatorial rule and authoritarian government became what many recognized as "Communism," which it is absolutely not, and the strong bias developed against this "Communism," especially in calling it "Communist Dictatorship," is something that is completely false and needs to be relearned. Communism is the opposite of Dictatorship and fights against it; instead, many people identify the two ideologies as synonyms of each other... which they are not.

Do you know anything about Marxist-Leninism or dialectical materialism in general?

[Hexgard]

>muh betrayal

Stalinism represents a valid continuation of Marxist thought and theory. Stalin was indeed a Marxist, and a very intelligent and loyal one at that. The representation of Stalin as being some great traitor who wanted to establish himself as a dictator of a regular dictatorship is frankly Trotskyite propaganda that has been picked up by Western anti-communists and used against the Soviet Union has a bashing stick.

Stalin really represented the bulk of the communists in Russia in that he was encouraging caution in their actions, and his modernization of the Russian economy turned Russia into a superpower. By comparison, Trotsky was an extremist who would have launched a massive war of conquest.

I'd disagree. Stalin went closer toward a hybrid of fascism and communist doctrine.
I am no fan of Stalin, nor much of his actions, but it is still better than the marxist nonsense about a classless society and so on. Even tho he was a bit vile and brutal, in my view he is still better than Lenin or Trotsky.

Stalin added autocratic and militarist notions to it, and without the inspiring patriotism, the USSR would have had a harder time dealing with Germany.

[Lady Scylla]

Many, many, MANY people consistently mistake Classical Communism, or just plain Communism, with Stalinism, which is pretty much an Authoritarian ideology - unless you can manage it.

Stalinism is the ideology based on the authoritarian regime by Joseph Stalin during his rule in the USSR. It was marked with pure authoritarianism: defectors were killed, the state was all-important, and the State controlled you. It was no different from any other dictatorship, with the exception that defunct Communist organizations within the government still existed, and that the government was, in practice, supposed to support the people and the USSR in helping the country reach or maintain Communism - with a dictatorial state that did many actions simply "in the name of Communism." Examples are ALL current so-called "Communist" countries; they aren't Communist. They're Stalinist. If the state listened (a LOT) to the people, however, and acted upon their will, the USSR may have been a lot more Socialist... but not quite Communist.

Marxism, or what I call Classical Communism, is the actual theory of Communism. Communism is a classless society, often portrayed with the withering away of the state, where the means of production, or the way you get your daily everyday items, is controlled by the working class, with the working class directly controlling the government through direct democracy and the government controlling the economy, thus eliminating Capitalism and allowing for all workers in the working class to be able to control their own lives. Professionals, such as researchers, engineers, doctors, pharmacists, and professors still participate in this classless society, though they are also part of the working class. However, all jobs follow the slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," where everyone's needs are compensated. Doctors don't necessarily get the same salary as a taxi driver.

My question to you is: how does Stalinism and Marxism compare, and could they both work?

My Opinion: Personally, I believe that Marxism works just fine, and would function perfectly in any society. Stalinism could work, but only with the strict guidance of the state by the working class.

They can't work. On a small, local level, communes can have success but when applied to a large and nationally diverse region, it fails horrendously. Furthermore, the Russian Revolution -- and Communism by extension -- died with Lenin's rise to power. Stalin simply issued the final blow, but Lenin's democratic centralism and upset over the Bolsheviks losing soviet elections (the public often thought the Bolsheviks to be too radical) is largely what fuelled the war between the Reds and Whites. Communism itself, while it comes with good intentions, hinder human development by isolating and decentralising the social power structure that maintains large regions, and the public is just not capable of acting within good faith of such a system.