What do you think of Communism

[Sordhau]

Sympathy in terms of whether or not a decision made sense within the political framework each country was working within and whether or not that decision panned out. Appeasement is a much more nonsensical proposition in the 1930's than the idea of buying time to prepare for an inevitable invasion.

Considering Stalin refused to believe any and all reports that the Germans were going to invade even when Germans were crossing the border I doubt this line of apologetics.

In fact Stalin can be credited for a lot of early German success in the East by refusing to prepare for it.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't set to expire until 1949 and with Hitler still fighting Britain in the West it shouldn't be a surprise that he was blindsided by how soon the Nazis broke it and their willingness to open a second front. He likely presumed they were smarter than that.

[Alexiandra]

Considering Stalin refused to believe any and all reports that the Germans were going to invade even when Germans were crossing the border I doubt this line of apologetics.

In fact Stalin can be credited for a lot of early German success in the East by refusing to prepare for it.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't set to expire until 1949 and with Hitler still fighting Britain in the West it shouldn't be a surprise that he was blindsided by how soon the Nazis broke it and their willingness to open a second front. He likely presumed they were smarter than that.

Wait - you think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a ploy to buy time so that Stalin could plot Nazi Germany's destruction, right? This suggests that he knew Hitler was planning to invade, hence felt the need to stall. So why was he so surprised when the Nazis did invade? Was he really credulous enough to believe that Hitler of all people would stick to his word? More likely that he genuinely hoped to work with the Germans and was crushed by their betrayal.

[Adirondack Commonwealth]

Considering Stalin refused to believe any and all reports that the Germans were going to invade even when Germans were crossing the border I doubt this line of apologetics.

In fact Stalin can be credited for a lot of early German success in the East by refusing to prepare for it.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't set to expire until 1949 and with Hitler still fighting Britain in the West it shouldn't be a surprise that he was blindsided by how soon the Nazis broke it and their willingness to open a second front. He likely presumed they were smarter than that.

Literally every intelligence agency of his plus German deserters gave him the exact dates for the invasion and he refused to believe them. Refused utterly.

In fact Soviet and German officers were even still fraternizing in Poland prior to the invasion.

[Picairn]

Wait - you think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a ploy to buy time so that Stalin could plot Nazi Germany's destruction, right? This suggests that he knew Hitler was planning to invade, hence felt the need to stall. So why was he so surprised when the Nazis did invade? Was he really credulous enough to believe that Hitler of all people would stick to his word? More likely that he genuinely hoped to work with the Germans and was crushed by their betrayal.

Did he? Stalin by all accounts was quite aware that Germany and the USSR would go to war eventually. I thought he was just a dumbass who thought he could stall forever by appeasing Germany at every turn and convincing himself that Germany wouldn't invade without finishing Britain first, which may explain his idiotic skepticism of intelligence reports.

[Sordhau]

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't set to expire until 1949 and with Hitler still fighting Britain in the West it shouldn't be a surprise that he was blindsided by how soon the Nazis broke it and their willingness to open a second front. He likely presumed they were smarter than that.

Wait - you think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a ploy to buy time so that Stalin could plot Nazi Germany's destruction, right? This suggests that he knew Hitler was planning to invade, hence felt the need to stall. So why was he so surprised when the Nazis did invade? Was he really credulous enough to believe that Hitler of all people would stick to his word? More likely that he genuinely hoped to work with the Germans and was crushed by their betrayal.

It's not about trustworthiness, it's about finishing your dinner before you eat your dessert. Opening a second front when you haven't even finished the first is generally a bad idea. Stalin thought he had more time than he did.

[Torrocca]

Wait - you think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a ploy to buy time so that Stalin could plot Nazi Germany's destruction, right? This suggests that he knew Hitler was planning to invade, hence felt the need to stall. So why was he so surprised when the Nazis did invade? Was he really credulous enough to believe that Hitler of all people would stick to his word? More likely that he genuinely hoped to work with the Germans and was crushed by their betrayal.

Did he? Stalin by all accounts was quite aware that Germany and the USSR would go to war eventually. I thought he was just a dumbass who thought he could stall forever by appeasing Germany at every turn and convincing himself that Germany wouldn't invade without finishing Britain first, which may explain his idiotic skepticism of intelligence reports.

In hindsight, it was definitely dumb not to listen to repeated warnings of that.

That said (and this is without me knowing what Stalin's actual mindset here was) he could've maybe assumed his intelligence agencies were picking up bad info, and the deserters sending the same information weren't actually deserters per se (as it might've not been unreasonable to assume the Axis were fucking with him and the Soviet government in general to play into the known inevitability that was war between the Soviets and the Nazis), which might've been coupled with a general idea that there was no way the Axis were gonna open up a second front and smack themselves directly into conflict with multiple superpowers simultaneously like they did. Even with all the lies the Nazis put out, for most people in 1939-1941 it just doesn't seem like it's reasonable to genuinely believe they'd basically seal their fate like that and guarantee their eventual defeat doing something that batshit.

I mean, without hindsight, if you or I were in the same position, trying to build up for an invasion of your country, would you reasonably expect it to happen before or after they finished their war with an empire controlling ~25% of the globe?

At least for me, I feel like I'd make the wrong play too, in that case, maybe.

[Southeast Iraq]

I think communism, unlike socialism is mostly horrible. The one I hate the most is Stalinist Communism where they ban religion, also Stalin was horrible.

[Alexiandra]

Wait - you think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a ploy to buy time so that Stalin could plot Nazi Germany's destruction, right? This suggests that he knew Hitler was planning to invade, hence felt the need to stall. So why was he so surprised when the Nazis did invade? Was he really credulous enough to believe that Hitler of all people would stick to his word? More likely that he genuinely hoped to work with the Germans and was crushed by their betrayal.

Did he? Stalin by all accounts was quite aware that Germany and the USSR would go to war eventually. I thought he was just a dumbass who thought he could stall forever by appeasing Germany at every turn and convincing himself that Germany wouldn't invade without finishing Britain first, which may explain his idiotic skepticism of intelligence reports.

As late as 1940 he was earnestly trying to join the Axis, so I don't think it was incompetence so much as self-delusion. Which, I suppose, is a form of incompetence in itself.

Wait - you think the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a ploy to buy time so that Stalin could plot Nazi Germany's destruction, right? This suggests that he knew Hitler was planning to invade, hence felt the need to stall. So why was he so surprised when the Nazis did invade? Was he really credulous enough to believe that Hitler of all people would stick to his word? More likely that he genuinely hoped to work with the Germans and was crushed by their betrayal.

It's not about trustworthiness, it's about finishing your dinner before you eat your dessert. Opening a second front when you haven't even finished the first is generally a bad idea. Stalin thought he had more time than he did.

You are just asserting things here, not bothering to provide even circumstantial evidence in favour of this view. He himself made Germany's war effort possible by providing millions of reichsmarks' worth of raw materials, signed a non-aggression pact with a militantly fascist power and tried to join the Axis - yet you're convinced it was all part of some master strategy to delay the inevitable. The far more likely explanation, Occam's Razor tells us, is that Stalin simply wanted to cooperate with Germany when France and Britain rebuffed him and was unable or unwilling to comprehend the repeated warnings he received of an impending invasion. He certainly wasn’t on some crusade to prepare for war with Germany, that’s for sure. The Soviet Union was woefully unprepared in 1941, despite the two years of ‘stalling’ the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact bought it.

[Torrocca]

Did he? Stalin by all accounts was quite aware that Germany and the USSR would go to war eventually. I thought he was just a dumbass who thought he could stall forever by appeasing Germany at every turn and convincing himself that Germany wouldn't invade without finishing Britain first, which may explain his idiotic skepticism of intelligence reports.

As late as 1940 he was earnestly trying to join the Axis, so I don't think it was incompetence so much as self-delusion. Which, I suppose, is a form of incompetence in itself.

I doubt it was earnest. Soviet leadership was well aware of Nazi intent by 1940; they weren't oblivious, especially not when such was explicitly laid out in Mein Kampf. Stalin himself even claimed to be testing the Nazis a bit with that, and its not like Soviet preparations for an Axis invasion stopped, even if in 1941 they were still drastically unprepared - given they assumed a 1949 invasion.

[Genovini]

It sounds good on paper, but executed really badly.

[Bursken]

Not at all a fan of it. It never works, is nearly impossible to truly achieve, and has a real bad reputation among us Americans.

Among Us?!!?

[Sordhau]

As late as 1940 he was earnestly trying to join the Axis, so I don't think it was incompetence so much as self-delusion. Which, I suppose, is a form of incompetence in itself.

I doubt it was earnest. Soviet leadership was well aware of Nazi intent by 1940; they weren't oblivious, especially not when such was explicitly laid out in Mein Kampf. Stalin himself even claimed to be testing the Nazis a bit with that, and its not like Soviet preparations for an Axis invasion stopped, even if in 1941 they were still drastically unprepared - given they assumed a 1949 invasion.

It wasn't earnest at all. He made the same offer to NATO later. He was testing the waters to see if the Axis/NATO were friendly or not.

[Alexiandra]

I doubt it was earnest. Soviet leadership was well aware of Nazi intent by 1940; they weren't oblivious, especially not when such was explicitly laid out in Mein Kampf. Stalin himself even claimed to be testing the Nazis a bit with that, and its not like Soviet preparations for an Axis invasion stopped, even if in 1941 they were still drastically unprepared - given they assumed a 1949 invasion.

It wasn't earnest at all. He made the same offer to NATO later. He was testing the waters to see if the Axis/NATO were friendly or not.

But according to you, he already knew that Hitler was planning to invade, that war with Germany was inevitable. So he knew that the Axis wasn't friendly. Why then this need to 'test the waters'? If his 'test' had found Hitler receptive, what then? Would he have simply backed out? And why did the Soviet delegation spend time hashing out a detailed prospective agreement with the German delegation, with the Germans breaking off negotiations in the end?

None of this adds up. The claim that Stalin was 'testing' the Germans is one that was first propagated by Stalin himself years after the fact, for obvious reasons.

[Torrocca]

It wasn't earnest at all. He made the same offer to NATO later. He was testing the waters to see if the Axis/NATO were friendly or not.

But according to you, he already knew that Hitler was planning to invade, that war with Germany was inevitable. So he knew that the Axis wasn't friendly. Why then this need to 'test the waters'? If his 'test' had found Hitler receptive, what then? Would he have simply backed out? And why did the Soviet delegation spend time hashing out a detailed prospective agreement with the German delegation, with the Germans breaking off negotiations in the end?

None of this adds up. The claim that Stalin was 'testing' the Germans is one that was first propagated by Stalin himself years after the fact, for obvious reasons.

Never hurts to see where your enemy may be willing to compromise, and possibly see if the inevitable may just become evitable.

Besides that, it's also just possible Stalin could've been fucking with them too, given the increasing demands for "alliance" just pissed off the Nazi delegation more and more.

[Alexiandra]

But according to you, he already knew that Hitler was planning to invade, that war with Germany was inevitable. So he knew that the Axis wasn't friendly. Why then this need to 'test the waters'? If his 'test' had found Hitler receptive, what then? Would he have simply backed out? And why did the Soviet delegation spend time hashing out a detailed prospective agreement with the German delegation, with the Germans breaking off negotiations in the end?

None of this adds up. The claim that Stalin was 'testing' the Germans is one that was first propagated by Stalin himself years after the fact, for obvious reasons.

Never hurts to see where your enemy may be willing to compromise, and possibly see if the inevitable may just become evitable.

Besides that, it's also just possible Stalin could've been fucking with them too, given the increasing demands for "alliance" just pissed off the Nazi delegation more and more.

Even assuming this to be true (I'm not), it would mean that Stalin was willing to compromise with the fascist state on his doorstep and coexist with it - to avoid war, to make it 'evitable' as you put it. What further evidence could anyone need of the class character of the Soviet Union at this time?

I don't think that international diplomacy generally follows the principle of 'fucking with' the other side for the sake of it lol.

[Torrocca]

Never hurts to see where your enemy may be willing to compromise, and possibly see if the inevitable may just become evitable.

Besides that, it's also just possible Stalin could've been fucking with them too, given the increasing demands for "alliance" just pissed off the Nazi delegation more and more.

Even assuming this to be true (I'm not), it would mean that Stalin was willing to compromise with the fascist state on his doorstep and coexist with it - to avoid war, to make it 'evitable' as you put it. What further evidence could anyone need of the class character of the Soviet Union at this time?

It's not ideal, but when the choice is between millions of people you're leading being killed in a war that basically nobody wanted besides the Fascist themselves and a very uncomfortable peace with Fascists, I can understand why prying a bit for the latter might've seemed desirable, even if my own opinion is that there neither can nor should be peace with Fascists.

I don't think that international diplomacy generally follows the principle of 'fucking with' the other side for the sake of it lol.

Not generally, but it certainly can. Especially in this case when they saw the talks weren't gonna produce anything of value anyways; might as well piss off the fuckers who've sealed the deal on invading you in the future by chatting shit about having a larger and larger sphere of influence at that point.

[Picairn]

I went over the timeline from Molotov-Ribbentrop to Barbarossa again and the historical evidence suggests Stalin was quite happy with securing a military alliance (the Axis talks) with Germany (even going as far as toasting to Hitler's health and giving extra grain ahead of the talks) until the Germans broke off the talks and relations worsened, which prompted him to change the course in December 1940 by warning his generals for a war against Germany. Or not, since he continued to fuel the German war machine by signing the January 1941 German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement, and Molotov even reopened the question of the USSR joining the Axis several days later.

So Stalin was quite enamoured with the idea of joining the Axis, and continued to appease Germany until Barbarossa despite the ominous German silence on Soviet entry into the Axis and the procrastination of Germany from fulfilling its economic obligations to the USSR.

[Venting Paradise]

I had to make an account for this.

Most people hate communism because they don't know what it is, and also propagate capitalist lies. Other people hate it because they want a short-term in this life and reject effort, considering it would harm their egos.

Communism, as whole system with its doctrine to achieve it, isn't:

-Rigid state planning of some kind of political economy as pure dogma.
-When the gov. does stuff.
-When grandma gives a communal dinner.
-When everyone has equal uniforms.
-When everyone earns the same and there are free riders.
-When there's a state bureaucracy that can't be recalled or be held accountable.
-When everyone is starving.
-When there is cult of personality.
-When there isn't democracy.
-When crime and drugs.

What is the difference between marxism and utopian socialism?

Marxism means scientific socialism (as it was adopted by Marx, it was called that way, if other person discovered it... it would be other ism). In contrast to utopian socialism, it makes scientific analysis using dialectics, the classes in struggle are measured, there aren't rigid proposals of formulas and models that can't adapt to reality which is what was happening in utopian socialist proposals.

Marxism uses dialectics, we have to take into account the situation to act in a way or not, to the direction of the high stage (which is moneyless and stateless, this is when class struggle ceases, it is the precondition for the state to wither away). This use of dialectics implies there can be a temporal phase of state capitalism even, or special economic zones, according to the circumstances and needs of the socialist country; it can also imply a temporal alliance with the national bourgeoisie and also with the peasants (to combat fascists or the comprador bourgeoisie and advance further in slashing classes, achieving economic growth and serving proletarians).

Low stage communism->or socialism, to each according to his contribution.
High stage communism->to each according to their needs, overabundance.

The next step in scientific socialism->Leninism. He provided theory on how to organize the vanguard party, analysis of imperialism and updating to it (new phase of capitalism), other issues like self-determination as well.

So what next? Did it work in practice?

You can search indicators of the USSR. From tsarism they went from eleven and half hours to 8, the life expectancy raised dramatically after the civil war to a modern standard. The country was turned into a superpower from a country of plows. Same in Albania.

What about Stalin tho?

There are some books you can check against the bourgeois historiography. Attacks against Stalin come mostly from external capitalists, also trotskyists and leftcoms.
Trotsky wanted to allow factionalism in the party, forbidden by leninism. This factionalism would turn the party into a way of the infiltration of the bourgeoisie (the party would be deprived from its purge mechanism); this is in the founding text of the 4th International that Trotsky founded.
On leftcom deviations, they include among them rejecting popular fronts or united fronts that were effective to win against fascism, and rejecting antifascism "because it's an alliance with the bourgeoisie" (Bordiga); other leftcoms say there wasn't communism in the USSR because the state controlled the means of production and not workers themselves, but this is anti-marxist, undialectical; the withering away of the state is when class struggle ceases, and this struggle is intensified in the USSR as there are remnants of the bourgeoisie, also semi-feudal remnants and foreign armies attempting to invade.
Ribbentrop-Molotov was a dialectical move, as the USSR was backwards and needed to build a military, the crucial time to crush the nazis later was done in that period, and this after western countries rejected pacts with the USSR.

What about gulags tho?

Gulag is an acronym of the prison system. Back before in tsarism they had the katorga, which is a forced labour system. You can check statistics the mortal rate was far higher in tsarism, and this taking into account the period is one of civil war and then the Second World War.

What about democracy tho?

Soviet means council. The system of democracy in the USSR is soviet democracy. This means candidates can be proposed and recalled, and be delegated to the party, Congresses are public for people to see and there can be proletarian proposals. Then? If something this is the only way to have democracy, without participation and without hours free from work plus education there can't be democracy, as it happens in capitalist states. The decisions must be accessible as well for the people instead of an infinite electoral circus of clashing sections of the bourgeoisie.
The socialism is a requisite of democracy, while liberal democracy is a farce of competing bourgeois factions represented in parties; adding to this that the media propagates misinformation with business interests.

What about Mao tho?

Denounced by Hoxha of Albania, like Khruschev was denounced; he enacted state capitalism and then showed himself capitalist after the Albanian-Chinese split, when he sided with the Yugoslav invaders against Albania; then with his third world theory he even supported Pinochet against the revisionist (meaning not socialist but in words) USSR (post-1956). Still, the Chinese system was a lot more backwards before Mao, there were capitalist improvements coming from a non capitalist system. Today China has near 0% poverty rate; the US (you can check) has 17.80%.

And Cuba?

They're a trot publishing house, this means their ideological work isn't really marxist, they also sided with the revisionist USSR from 1956 with Khruschev, instead of China and Albania, so they denied building a national industry for their own independence which made them be affected further from the US embargo. They are with an embargo from decades ago by the US that was condemned by UN except US and Israel. Despite all this, there are some better indicators in healthcare and poverty in Cuba than in other American countries; definitely better than Haiti and Honduras in their Human Development Index.

[Alexiandra]

I went over the timeline from Molotov-Ribbentrop to Barbarossa again and the historical evidence suggests Stalin was quite happy with securing a military alliance (the Axis talks) with Germany (even going as far as toasting to Hitler's health and giving extra grain ahead of the talks) until the Germans broke off the talks and relations worsened, which prompted him to change the course in December 1940 by warning his generals for a war against Germany. Or not, since he continued to fuel the German war machine by signing the January 1941 German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement, and Molotov even reopened the question of the USSR joining the Axis several days later.

So Stalin was quite enamoured with the idea of joining the Axis, and continued to appease Germany until Barbarossa despite the ominous German silence on Soviet entry into the Axis and the procrastination of Germany from fulfilling its economic obligations to the USSR.

Correct.

[Torrocca]

I went over the timeline from Molotov-Ribbentrop to Barbarossa again and the historical evidence suggests Stalin was quite happy with securing a military alliance (the Axis talks) with Germany (even going as far as toasting to Hitler's health and giving extra grain ahead of the talks) until the Germans broke off the talks and relations worsened, which prompted him to change the course in December 1940 by warning his generals for a war against Germany. Or not, since he continued to fuel the German war machine by signing the January 1941 German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement, and Molotov even reopened the question of the USSR joining the Axis several days later.

So Stalin was quite enamoured with the idea of joining the Axis, and continued to appease Germany until Barbarossa despite the ominous German silence on Soviet entry into the Axis and the procrastination of Germany from fulfilling its economic obligations to the USSR.

Admittedly, I could always read more instead of speculate.

But speculating's way more fun for discussion.

[Republic Of Ludwigsburg]

Considering Stalin refused to believe any and all reports that the Germans were going to invade even when Germans were crossing the border I doubt this line of apologetics.

In fact Stalin can be credited for a lot of early German success in the East by refusing to prepare for it.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't set to expire until 1949 and with Hitler still fighting Britain in the West it shouldn't be a surprise that he was blindsided by how soon the Nazis broke it and their willingness to open a second front. He likely presumed they were smarter than that.

He actually didn't think it was a bad idea, because the Nazis crippled the USSR and killed 30 million + Soldiers and Civilians during the attack on the USSR. Stalin finally turned the tide after he stopped fucking shooting his good generals.

[Kalivyah]

Once again I see numerous bad takes here.

[Kalivyah]

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't set to expire until 1949 and with Hitler still fighting Britain in the West it shouldn't be a surprise that he was blindsided by how soon the Nazis broke it and their willingness to open a second front. He likely presumed they were smarter than that.

He actually didn't think it was a bad idea, because the Nazis crippled the USSR and killed 30 million + Soldiers and Civilians during the attack on the USSR. Stalin finally turned the tide after he stopped fucking shooting his good generals.

Crippled for around a year~ before the Soviets started kicking Nazi ass.

[Bewaffnete Krafte]

Once again I see numerous bad takes here.

Maybe there's a reason everyone disagrees with you.

[Bewaffnete Krafte]

He actually didn't think it was a bad idea, because the Nazis crippled the USSR and killed 30 million + Soldiers and Civilians during the attack on the USSR. Stalin finally turned the tide after he stopped fucking shooting his good generals.

Crippled for around a year~ before the Soviets started kicking Nazi ass.

Crippled for around a year - before the west started sending them shitloads of equipment that they couldn't produce themselves.